The Long Good Friday

 Year:  1980

Director:  John Mackenzie

Screenplay:  Barrie Keeffe

Starring:  Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren

Running Time:  114 minutes

Genre:  Thriller

Harry Shand (Hoskins) is a powerful, ruthless gangster, who has plans to go legitimate with a scheme to redevelop the London Docklands with the aid of mafia investors from New York.  However, on the day of the mafiosi fly into London, Harry's empire is threatened by a series of bombings, and the stabbing of one of his closest associates.  Tasking his mistress, Victoria (Mirren) with handling the negotiations, Harry sets out on a violent quest to put a stop to the attacks.

This is one of the great, underrated classics of British gangster films.  The film mixes themes of political and police corruption, and the IRA, as well as an optimism about Britain becoming a European powerhouse, which in these days rings bitterly hollow.  Bob Hoskins had made a name as the star of the 1979 TV series Pennies from Heaven, but this was his first major film role.  He gives a fantastic performance as the brutal Harry Shand, mixing affability with menace, presenting himself as a legitimate, reasonable businessman but turning on friend or foe alike with brutal ferocity when crossed.  Helen Mirren is also memorable as the icy, intelligent Victoria, who serves almost as Shand's PA, and the acceptable face of his organisation.  The rest of the cast is full of now familiar faces from British TV and film, including Pierce Brosnan in his film debut as an IRA hitman.  The script is intelligent, with moments of dark humour, and the direction is slick, and the film maintains tension throughout, along with frequent, and often shocking moments of explosive violence.

Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday

Brighton Rock (2010)

Year: 2010
Director:  Rowan Joffe
Screenplay:  Rowan Joffe, based on the novel Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Starring:  Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, Helen Mirren, John Hurt, Andy Serkis
Running Time:  111 minutes
Genre:  Crime, drama, gangsters

This film is an adaptation of a novel by Graham Greene, which was previously made into a critically acclaimed film in 1947, directed by John Boulting and starring Richard Attenborough.  In this film the setting is updated from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Brighton, England, 1964.  Violent gangs of warring Mods and Rockers are tearing up the coastal town of Britain, and young gangster Pinkie Brown (Riley) murders rival Fred Hale (Sean Harris) against the express wishes of his gang.  Brown hastily seduces and marries young waitress Rose (Riseborough), who is the only person who can tie him to the murder.  However Rose's boss, Ida (Mirren), was a close friend of Hale's and suspects that Rose can tie Pinkie to the crime and is determined to make her testify.  With the threat of the police, and powerful and wealthy local crime boss Colleoni (Serkis), as well as his own gang increasingly turning against him, the already psychotic Pinkie becomes increasingly unhinged and it is only a matter of time before he decides to silence Rose permanently.

This is a powerful and intriguing gangster movie, which plays more like a doom-laden tragedy.  The main focus of the film is the corruption of the innocent waitress Rose by the sadistic gangster Pinkie.  Despite a memorable riot scene between the Mods and the Rockers, it is difficult to see what difference it made, updating the story to the 1960s.  Also the film suffers at times from being too heavily symbolic, with Catholic symbolism (well, it is an adaptation of a Graham Greene novel) and at times almost apocalyptic portents of doom being layered on with a trowel. 

However, despite the flaws, the film looks good and is stylishly made.  It memorably depicts a bleak and savage world where there is little light or hope.  In the process, it manages to make the seaside town of  Brighton make Dante's Inferno look like an ideal holiday destination.  Sam Riley, who previously made an impression as Joy Divison frontman Ian Curtis in musical misery-fest Control (2007), gives a great perfomance as the monsterous Pinkie Brown, and Andrea Riseborough gives a star-making perfomance as the tortured Rose.  

This is a slow-burning but endlessly fascinating film, which provides enough thrills and suspense to keep fans of gangster movies happy, but adds a bracing layer of darkness and grit to the genre. 

Oh, they do like to be beside the seaside: Sam Riley and Andrea Riseborough in Brighton Rock