The Limey (1999) Reviews

• A truly rewarding movie for the patient viewer.

  perper2000-11-24

  Low-key thriller/drama about an ex-con seeking revenge on the man that caused his daughters death. That's the surface of this very interesting and fascinating movie from director Soederbergh. There's more than meets the eye, and the patient viewer will be highly rewarded. This is, in my point of view, a film about all our efforts to review our own lives - i.e. trying to make memories of our past fit in with the reality of today. To try to understand all sides of an event between two people; how actions we take, and decisions we make, makes a difference in the long run in our lives. Wonderfully directed and edited, this movie is really alive, and shines with various tricks and treats of pure movie magic. The score is perfect, and the acting is great (Stamp in the lead is amazing). The way the film makers intertwine dialogue and voice over is fascinating, and reminds me of the films by French movie makers in the sixties (the French "New Wave"). Obviously not in everyone's taste since this movie is quite demanding in attention and pace, this is still one of the best films ever from director Soederbergh. Rating: 9/10.

• Russian Montage gets an upgrade

  Agent102002-04-29

  I always thought the Russian Montage Theory was too outdated for modern cinema, but Steven Soderbergh had other ideas. The Limey had one of the more interesting editing styles I have ever seen, which is why it probably threw so many people in a loop. Its too bad we will never see another film like this from Soderbergh, considering he's probably going to keep making films like Oceans 11. Terence Stamp was especially good in this film, and Luis Guzman provided one of the best screen roles by a Mexican-American. What I especially enjoyed about this movie wasn't just the unique editing style, it was how it affected the emotional standpoint within the movie. You felt distanced, unsure how to look at this film due to the range of images passing before your eye. One of the more unappreciated films of 1999, especially when one looks at the amazing body of work which came out that year.

• Artistic and simple

  FilmOtaku2004-07-21

  The `revenge story' is a pretty overdone plot device, so when a film comes along that employs this theme and still remains fresh and compelling, it is safe to say that is a truly good film. Steven Soderbergh's `The Limey' is able to do just that. In `The Limey', Terrence Stamp plays Wilson, a career criminal who, upon being released from prison in England, finds out that his estranged daughter has died (or perhaps been murdered) in Los Angeles. Wilson's mission is to find out what happened to her, and prescribe his own brand of justice on the man behind her death. Soderbergh's direction in `The Limey' is superb. While I enjoy and admire most of his filmography, I was so enamored with his second film, the barely-seen, highly acclaimed `Kafka' for its originality, its daring style and intellectual feel, that films like `Oceans Eleven' and `Erin Brockovich', while quite good, didn't reflect what I felt was to be his true maverick style. Seeing `The Limey', made before `Erin Brockovich' and shortly a couple of years after `Kafka', I was happy to see that he kind of held on to that spirit (for lack of a better expression) for one more film before producing more commercial fare. `The Limey' is told in a very non-linear style, and not even as clearly delineated as say, `Pulp Fiction' was; rather it is flashbacks and real-time events expressed by fluttering scenes and an almost wispy presentation. Soderbergh also employs scenes from one of Terrence Stamp's films from the 1960's for some flashbacks, a thoroughly brilliant and creative tactic. Terrence Stamp certainly deserves mention for his performance as Wilson. Whether seeing him as General Zod in `Superman II' or as the drag queen Bernadette in `The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert' he is a true badass. Watching him chase after Peter Fonda in `The Limey' was like watching a reincarnation of Yul Brunner in `Westworld'; he just never let up. Anyone who would get in his way were pretty much toast, but it was all so coldly done that it was almost clinical – just by the hard and distant expression on Wilson's face you know that all of these people were incidental and he wouldn't receive any pleasure until he comes face to face with his nemesis; and even then, it's possibly more of a duty than a pleasure. Check out this film – you won't regret it. However, if you're expecting a film with the same kind of commercial tone as say, `Oceans Eleven' you may be in for a surprise, albeit, in this viewer's opinion, a pleasant one. --Shelly

• Love in unexpected places

  bliss662003-04-12

  Somewhere between Out of Sight and the hype of the Erin Brockovich/Traffic double-punch, Soderbergh made this diamond of a film. Terence Stamp is the gem at the centre of it, his beautiful face, always a cinematic treasure, a virtual masterclass in film acting. How this performance went ignored is beyond me but maybe that punishment is fitting for the career criminal he plays. He is Wilson who after finishing a nine-year sentence "at her Majesty's leisure" goes to L.A. to discover how his daugher, Jenny, met her end while he was in the big house and to avenge her death. Peter Fonda plays her former lover, a wicked, soulless record producer who was big in the sixties and both actors trade on the ghosts of their cinematic pasts to striking effect; particularly Stamp, as footage from his 1967 film, Poor Cow (directed by Ken Loach), is repurposed and edited into the film's ever-shifting timescape. (It is a credit to Soderbergh that he would dare to use another filmmaker's footage and make it so central to his own, even using Loach's footage for his closing shots. In Soderbergh's hands it shows that he is first and foremost a storyteller instead of a shallow egotist and it plays like a grand, cinematic homage to his star.) Soderbergh shuffles time and Wilson's life like a deck of cards yet always keeps the story moving forward--the editing by Sarah Flak is a marvel. It's a lovely, startling effect; rather than weigh the narrative down with a number of plodding, onerous details, this style keeps the thing as light as a souffle yet full of implications as we imagine the ways and necessities of Wilson telling and retelling, hashing over his life, representing and misrepresenting his actions or inaction. These are the lies he tells himself, the truth he can live with. It's completely engaging and frees the viewer to imagine the surrounding details and circumstances however they like. He certainly couldn't have done it with anyone but Stamp, who is solid throughout; his stillness and his beautiful blue, crystalline eyes like placid pools of water that mask a depth of feeling and a lifetime of regret. That we empathise with an ignoble savage like Wilson at all is purely down to Stamp's controlled, unsentimental performance. Stamp's Wilson doesn't make apologies. Terence Stamp is iconic precisely because of the films he chose to make, particularly after Schlesinger's Far From The Madding Crowd when he could've done anything but went to work with Loach, Pasolini and Fellini instead. Like his co-star Fonda, who also spent many years in the wilderness, Stamp's performance in The Limey stands as a long-promised return to form, which he'd been hinting at for years. There's great support from Luis Guzman, Lesley Ann Warren (as an L.A. acting coach, who suggests in her few short scenes with Stamp a potentially epic romance), Barry Newman as Fonda's henchman and the startlingly fresh Amelia Henle who shows that, yes, there is an art to playing "the girlfriend." (Joe Dallesandro is in there somewhere as well in some capacity but is completely unrecognisable.) If the slight bit in the middle lacks the polish of the beginning and the end (it appears a large subplot about two hitmen must've been jettisoned in the editing room), the dialogue still crackles throughout, with Stamp--as a one-man amalgam of London's east end--throwing off Cockney rhyming slang ("China" "plates" thus "mates") and reminding us of what made London swing in the '60's. Very stylish, Soderbergh's control of the emotional depth of the story is impressive, as is the acting--as always in his films. Deserves a much wider audience.

• Proustian Out and Back

  tedg2001-02-17

  Spoilers herein. Soderbergh deserves respect, as much for his failures (`Brokovich,' `Traffic') as his successes (this, `Sight,' `Videotape'). When he experiments, it is with simultaneous layers of different kinds involving the eye, the mind, time, remembrance. Here he works on small, intimate layers, small visions of the future (and possible futures), persistent large memories from the past. All is handed with a shifting perspective -- the camera is nowhere because it is everywhere -- you are not eavesdropping, the limelight is on you. Unless you insist on driving, this editing is mind-expanding -- literally -- because he places you all around simultaneously. This is such a controlled little film, one wonders why Soderbergh is so irregular. I believe it is because he crafts his vision to the peculiar conditions of the narrative. He knows to replicate the last victory would be impossible (listen up Coppola!) so why try? Move on. He deserves as much respect, I believe, for the failures as well as solid gems like this.