What with continuous development in filming technology, equipment and techniques, a film made almost 34 years ago is almost bound to suffer from comparison with modern productions, so it has to rely on it narrative strengths and its acting. Certainly, modern filmgoers might complain that the direction in The Long Good Friday is a little static, and what camera movement there is doesn't necessarily impress in itself. So that the film still stands as an intriguing, quite gripping and in parts quite funny piece is surely evidence of its quality.
In the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies British films were all too often small-scale imitations of Hollywood's work - not always, certainly, but all too often. For one thing British producers and directors simply didn't command the budgets available to their U.S. counterparts.
They were thus, rather like indy filmmakers today, obliged to rely more on their imagination and scriptwriting than simply to resort to some kind of manic car chase or violent shoot-out to achieve some kind of distinction, but with The Long Good Friday, they were beginning to hit their stride and gain ever more confidence. Certainly, the film does, in parts, look rather more threadbare than contemporary U.S. productions, but it doesn't matter anymore: the Brits had finally evolved their own style.
Central to the film in every way is (the now late) Bob Hoskins whose character, gang leader with ambitions Harold Shand, finds his well-ordered world and criminal empire unravel in just 48 hours. And in keeping with Shand's dry and ironic humour its all based on a horrible, though very tragic, misunderstanding. It's tragic because nine or ten people are murdered, sometimes quite horribly, yet the misunderstanding which sparks off the chain of events is in a macabre way almost comic. Shand himself, a man accustomed to calling all the shots and having his very whim acted on at a moment's notice, finds himself utterly helpless when he tries to find out who is trying to destroy him.
Hoskins, a true Londoner, carved a niche for himself playing this kind of London gangster, but then went on to play other, very different parts, to show what a truly versatile actor he was. And the role of Shand fits him like a glove, and his subtle performance makes this extremely violent and ruthless gang boss even oddly likable, and we catch glimpses of a quite vulnerable man underneath the hard as nails exterior.
He is aided by good performances throughout, from Helen Mirren as his upmarket squeeze who is bright enough to advise him well, to his various lieutenants, including the one who's fateful decision sets of the events which lead to Shand's downfall.
So, you won't be getting some slick piece of filmmaking with all the latest bells and whistles, but you will get a thoroughly entertaining account of one man's swift decline and fall from all-powerful gang boss to soon to be murdered gang boss, and in all if it he had not put a foot wrong. That's just one of the many delightful ironies.
In the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies British films were all too often small-scale imitations of Hollywood's work - not always, certainly, but all too often. For one thing British producers and directors simply didn't command the budgets available to their U.S. counterparts.
They were thus, rather like indy filmmakers today, obliged to rely more on their imagination and scriptwriting than simply to resort to some kind of manic car chase or violent shoot-out to achieve some kind of distinction, but with The Long Good Friday, they were beginning to hit their stride and gain ever more confidence. Certainly, the film does, in parts, look rather more threadbare than contemporary U.S. productions, but it doesn't matter anymore: the Brits had finally evolved their own style.
Central to the film in every way is (the now late) Bob Hoskins whose character, gang leader with ambitions Harold Shand, finds his well-ordered world and criminal empire unravel in just 48 hours. And in keeping with Shand's dry and ironic humour its all based on a horrible, though very tragic, misunderstanding. It's tragic because nine or ten people are murdered, sometimes quite horribly, yet the misunderstanding which sparks off the chain of events is in a macabre way almost comic. Shand himself, a man accustomed to calling all the shots and having his very whim acted on at a moment's notice, finds himself utterly helpless when he tries to find out who is trying to destroy him.
Hoskins, a true Londoner, carved a niche for himself playing this kind of London gangster, but then went on to play other, very different parts, to show what a truly versatile actor he was. And the role of Shand fits him like a glove, and his subtle performance makes this extremely violent and ruthless gang boss even oddly likable, and we catch glimpses of a quite vulnerable man underneath the hard as nails exterior.
He is aided by good performances throughout, from Helen Mirren as his upmarket squeeze who is bright enough to advise him well, to his various lieutenants, including the one who's fateful decision sets of the events which lead to Shand's downfall.
So, you won't be getting some slick piece of filmmaking with all the latest bells and whistles, but you will get a thoroughly entertaining account of one man's swift decline and fall from all-powerful gang boss to soon to be murdered gang boss, and in all if it he had not put a foot wrong. That's just one of the many delightful ironies.