WARNING - THIS REVIEW DISCUSSES THE ENDING OF THE FILM AT LENGTH.
Portraying Britain at the dawn of Thatcherism, The Long Good Friday presents its central character and itself like a spinning coin, looking towards the future but always about to slip back into the past, about to go one way or the other. Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) tells nostalgic and emotional stories about his National Service (which had been abolished for almost two decades when this film was made) and how he began his career as a street urchin An hour earlier, he had been proclaiming his glorious vision of 1980s Britain while in a rather unsubtle piece of direction framed by Tower Bridge. This world of opposites is expressed most clearly in Francis Monkman's zesty score, blending traditional classical instruments with Moroder-style synth-pop. It is ultimately hubris, the kind of overconfidence normally associated with '80s excess, that delivers Shand helplessly into the maw of a truly monstrous enemy that had existed for decades.
Not as complex as I've heard it made out (admittedly the DVD age means I can zip straight to the exposition scenes without effort, which helps), The Long Good Friday is still a breathtakingly audacious film and one that at times runs a real risk of alienating its audience while still retaining mass appeal. It blends together elements of various crime subgenres: it takes the criminal-turns-detective idea from Get Carter and marries it to the sickly, sleazy decadence that Scarface would portray so unflinchingly three years later, while the outlandish, ostentatious tactics Shand employs to intimidate his enemies come straight from The Godfather. Harold Shand is essentially a Tony Montana-style character: someone not very bright who has gone from poor to rich very quickly and doesn't know what to do with his loot, who thinks that money somehow equals invincibility. As his enemies continue to undermine his modern-man fantasy (he refers to himself as a businessman, not a criminal) he becomes steadily more delusional to the point where he eventually expresses an intent to wipe out the entire IRA. This is a self-evidently absurd statement that Shand takes totally seriously, immediately before slashing his most trusted lieutenant's jugular with a broken bottle, as Hoskins's incandescent performance charts the erosion of the character's veneer of sophistication. As the first two members of his gang are assassinated he asks himself who could make him and his associates a target: a legitimate question in the circumstances, but the emotional burst with which Hoskins delivers the sentiment suggests less a rational question and more a little child screaming that "IT'S NOT FAIR!".
Now, the IRA. Before September 11 2001 they were synonymous with terrorism in the UK and their omnipresent threat throughout the 1970s led to London becoming one of the most CCTV-heavy cities in the world. No wonder the film's original backers got cold feet, since while it doesn't in any way romanticise them it does portray them as the very essence of power. Against them Shand no small fry in his own right is nothing at all and even his ice-cold mistress (Helen Mirren) cracks under the threat against her despite being able to effortlessly parry the advances of Shand's lecherous thugs. But here's the twist: the whole thing's totally pointless.
This is what makes the film so daring. Virtually the entire film concerns the quest for Hichcock's MacGuffin, which in this case is defined by its absence: it is the answer to the mystery itself. The IRA are fingered fairly quickly, but the question is why. Keeping this question unanswered for so long rather than giving hints occasionally requires a predictably huge scene of exposition, which is totally subverted when it turns out that Shand hasn't actually done anything at all. The IRA mistakenly believe he is responsible for the murder of some of their agents and once fanatics get an idea in their heads that idea stays there. I can't think of another film that has its central premise turn to fairy-dust so spectacularly not even The Maltese Falcon. This I think is where it risks losing its audience, because everything turns out to be so pointless. Is that dramatically satisfying? In the event yes, because rather than going into hiding (like Michael Corleone in the first Godfather) Shand's feathers get ruffled even more and, the irony apparently lost on him, he kills two IRA agents for real and is tracked down and captured within minutes. As he's driven away, almost certainly to his death, we get an extended close-up of Hoskins's face. Among the despair and panic, there's the occasional flicker of an impression that he's finally got the joke.
With complex characters, great writing, scintillating performances and a brave, uncompromising attitude to storytelling conventions, The Long Good Friday is an essential piece of British cinema.
Portraying Britain at the dawn of Thatcherism, The Long Good Friday presents its central character and itself like a spinning coin, looking towards the future but always about to slip back into the past, about to go one way or the other. Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) tells nostalgic and emotional stories about his National Service (which had been abolished for almost two decades when this film was made) and how he began his career as a street urchin An hour earlier, he had been proclaiming his glorious vision of 1980s Britain while in a rather unsubtle piece of direction framed by Tower Bridge. This world of opposites is expressed most clearly in Francis Monkman's zesty score, blending traditional classical instruments with Moroder-style synth-pop. It is ultimately hubris, the kind of overconfidence normally associated with '80s excess, that delivers Shand helplessly into the maw of a truly monstrous enemy that had existed for decades.
Not as complex as I've heard it made out (admittedly the DVD age means I can zip straight to the exposition scenes without effort, which helps), The Long Good Friday is still a breathtakingly audacious film and one that at times runs a real risk of alienating its audience while still retaining mass appeal. It blends together elements of various crime subgenres: it takes the criminal-turns-detective idea from Get Carter and marries it to the sickly, sleazy decadence that Scarface would portray so unflinchingly three years later, while the outlandish, ostentatious tactics Shand employs to intimidate his enemies come straight from The Godfather. Harold Shand is essentially a Tony Montana-style character: someone not very bright who has gone from poor to rich very quickly and doesn't know what to do with his loot, who thinks that money somehow equals invincibility. As his enemies continue to undermine his modern-man fantasy (he refers to himself as a businessman, not a criminal) he becomes steadily more delusional to the point where he eventually expresses an intent to wipe out the entire IRA. This is a self-evidently absurd statement that Shand takes totally seriously, immediately before slashing his most trusted lieutenant's jugular with a broken bottle, as Hoskins's incandescent performance charts the erosion of the character's veneer of sophistication. As the first two members of his gang are assassinated he asks himself who could make him and his associates a target: a legitimate question in the circumstances, but the emotional burst with which Hoskins delivers the sentiment suggests less a rational question and more a little child screaming that "IT'S NOT FAIR!".
Now, the IRA. Before September 11 2001 they were synonymous with terrorism in the UK and their omnipresent threat throughout the 1970s led to London becoming one of the most CCTV-heavy cities in the world. No wonder the film's original backers got cold feet, since while it doesn't in any way romanticise them it does portray them as the very essence of power. Against them Shand no small fry in his own right is nothing at all and even his ice-cold mistress (Helen Mirren) cracks under the threat against her despite being able to effortlessly parry the advances of Shand's lecherous thugs. But here's the twist: the whole thing's totally pointless.
This is what makes the film so daring. Virtually the entire film concerns the quest for Hichcock's MacGuffin, which in this case is defined by its absence: it is the answer to the mystery itself. The IRA are fingered fairly quickly, but the question is why. Keeping this question unanswered for so long rather than giving hints occasionally requires a predictably huge scene of exposition, which is totally subverted when it turns out that Shand hasn't actually done anything at all. The IRA mistakenly believe he is responsible for the murder of some of their agents and once fanatics get an idea in their heads that idea stays there. I can't think of another film that has its central premise turn to fairy-dust so spectacularly not even The Maltese Falcon. This I think is where it risks losing its audience, because everything turns out to be so pointless. Is that dramatically satisfying? In the event yes, because rather than going into hiding (like Michael Corleone in the first Godfather) Shand's feathers get ruffled even more and, the irony apparently lost on him, he kills two IRA agents for real and is tracked down and captured within minutes. As he's driven away, almost certainly to his death, we get an extended close-up of Hoskins's face. Among the despair and panic, there's the occasional flicker of an impression that he's finally got the joke.
With complex characters, great writing, scintillating performances and a brave, uncompromising attitude to storytelling conventions, The Long Good Friday is an essential piece of British cinema.