The Long Good Friday (1980)

Now I'm back at uni I can continue raiding the eclectic titles sitting on the library shelves at school. Not many new dvds have arrived so I must settle with films I've passed over many times. Eventually I will be forced to watch the abundance of Asian films featuring 20 year old gangsters in the year 3050 proposing to robots. I'm not there yet though. Anyhow, I was curious about this film starring Bob Hoskins as London's #1 crime boss. Keen to make some legitimate cash developing a future Olympic site, Hoskins' crew is rocked by explosions and murders frightening away potential investors. Who the hell would dare fuck with Bob Hoskins? Look at him!

Bad man 

This was a solid crime caper with some scenes that have seared my frayed memory glands (you have memory glands too). Hoskins commands the screen with charisma and menace; there's a great passage where he loses his shit and bottles a guy in the neck. Monstrous. His star understandably rose with this film, fuelling his prolific screen output. Helen Mirren, his partner in crime and love, is a sophisticated presence next to the thick headed bullying of her companion. Their attempts to straighten out the violent mess amongst the bloody twists leads to a conclusion I thought was very cool. 

I enjoyed watching this, although the thick accents and muddy sound made some details hard to follow. It was a suitable English counterpart to my recent American crime trip of a similar era, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973). I'm afraid old Eddie Coyle would have struggled in the tough streets of London. Hoskins wins!

3.5/5