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| The Long Good Friday [Region 2] | ![The Long Good Friday [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HsHZaNFLL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: John Mackenzie
Actors: Paul Freeman, Leo Dolan, Kevin Mcnally, Patti Love, P.h. Moriarty
Category: DVD
Buy New: $29.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  (60 reviews)
Format: Pal
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5060020620508
ASIN: B000067NQM
Theatrical Release Date: April 2, 1982
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential video
Intricately plotted and smartly paced, this gangster saga clicks as whodunit, social satire, and explosive thriller. The piece is crowned by Bob Hoskins's career-making turn as a London mobster courting respectability and Helen Mirren's subtly detailed performance as his upper-crust mistress. Cockney wiseguy Harold Shand is a would-be burgher whose domination of the city's underworld stems from his shrewdness as a mediator and his skill at harnessing political and economic clout. As Easter approaches, he's poised to launch an aggressive real estate development scheme along the depressed Thames waterfront when all hell breaks loose: a trusted lieutenant is brutally murdered, Shand's mother is nearly killed in a car bombing, one of his pubs is blown apart, and the visiting American don crucial to the pending deal is quickly growing wary. Barrie Keeffe's original screenplay keeps the viewer a step ahead of Shand, providing us with a telling but teasingly incomplete glimpse of the misstep by his underlings that has set chaos loose. At the same time, Keeffe underlines the bourgeois pretensions of the rough-hewn, barrel-chested Shand, how the elegant Victoria (Mirren) helps serve those ambitions, and the myriad parallels between Shand's minions and the local politicians and police only too willing to join in his scheme. Tart, funny dialogue and alternately playful and pungent Eastertide imagery complete Keeffe's shrewd design--two key scenes, in a meat locker and a warehouse, invoke the Crucifixion itself. Even with lesser performances, the script and John Mackenzie's solid direction would make The Long Good Friday a keeper, but Hoskins's explosive portrait of Shand and his descent toward brutal revenge elevates the film into the very front rank, earning admiring comparisons to The Godfather, Scarface, GoodFellas, and other classics of that genre. On DVD, Criterion's new digital transfer restores more than just the widescreen aspect ratio--the film has never looked better, even if an occasionally muddy sound mix survives to make the thick Cockney accents a challenge to decipher. --Sam Sutherland
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| Customer Reviews: Read 55 more reviews...
 Important movie to see - but it does not live up to the hype November 18, 2008
The Long Good Friday, considered one of the best British gangster flicks, takes the classic story of hubristic downfall and sets it in late-seventies London. Bob Hoskins plays Harold Shand, a gangland kingpin trying to "go legit" by investing in some shorefront property which will one day host the Olympics. After a trip across the Atlantic to meet with his American gangster counterparts, he brings them back to East London where he hopes to convince them to invest with him in the shorefront property.
That's when things go wrong: his henchmen start dying and his local haunts get blown up, raising doubt in the Americans about the security of their potential investment. Harold Shand, in an interesting twist, turns from gangster to detective, and ruthlessly investigates all his known associates. Some unforgettable ultra-violence ensues, as he hangs his suspects on meat hooks, stabs his right-hand man in the throat with a broken Scotch bottle, and eventually discovers that it's all been a misunderstanding. But it's too late, and he's in over his head, against the law and against none other than the IRA. Drunk on power and a thirst for revenge, Harold Shand's arrogance finally proves to be his Achilles heel.
What's not to like about a gangster flick with a plot like this? It's also got a classic moll played by Helen Mirren, and a host of other actors who would later go on to become stars in their own right, most notably Pierce Brosnan in a non-speaking role as an IRA hitman. But the problem with The Long Good Friday is that it completely lacks style.
You can fault modern gangster movies for gratuitous stylized flourishes - most notably Ritchie's overwrought attempts - but here you have a movie that is completely lacking in any style at all. The lighting, the camerawork, and most annoyingly, an atrocious eighties synthesizer soundtrack, seem like they came straight out of an uninspired television movie. What saves The Long Good Friday are two things: Bob Hoskins' excellent incarnation of a pugnacious and racist gangster boss, saving every scene he is in, no matter how blandly directed. The other thing that saves this movie has to do with a fortuitous premonition.
This was made at the very beginning of the eighties when Margaret Thatcher came into power, ushering in, along with Reagan, the philosophy of unfettered free market liberalism. Harold Shand repeatedly refers to his gang as "The Corporation", and it's easy to see him as one step removed from a ruthless CEO in a legitimate corporation. Add to this the specter of terrorism, and you have a movie which resonates with anybody witnessing the 21st century. This universal quality, and some stand-out scenes make this a must-see gangster movie; but, in terms of quality filmmaking, it is nowhere near the best of the genre.
Any gangster movie will inevitably be compared to classics like Mean Streets and The Godfather, two classics from early 70s American cinema. Or perhaps British contenders from around the same time like Get Carter (which has a great soundtrack, by the way). The Long Good Friday can't hold a blowtorch to any of these. Even in terms of trashy appeal, DePalma's Scarface trounces The Long Good Friday. I could go on for days trying to pinpoint the exact point at which trashiness becomes aesthetically appealing, but I wouldn't be able to prove anything. It's just an intuition I have, which doesn't really have any logic to back it up. I can just say that close to 30 years after this movie was made, it looks and feels dated -- but it's still worth a watch, if not for Bob Hoskins' performance, than for what it portends.
 Boring September 22, 2008
The best thing about this film is the soundtrack. 79 Euro disco and hypnotic psyche prog rock. I give the sounds track 5 stars.
The movie itself. Not so good. Unless you like boring. none of the characters are sympathetic or fascinating. theres a lot of dead air where nothings is going on. the violence is sudden sadistic and revolting, and very rare. theres not much sense of impending doom or walls closing in. theres an obvious shakespear influence - but its no where close to that kind of quality. then tried to prop it up.
the lead gangsters rant against americans at the end seems sudden and not really fitting with the theme of the film. there is a xenophobic undertone to the film - the bad guys are black, irish, or american.
this one doesnt seem up to criterion quality. more like they licensed cheap back catalog. I could barely stay awake. My GF fell asleep in the first 20min. I held on hoping it was building to something... not really.
The world's your oyster... Until it isn't. August 10, 2008
Refusal to adapt, refusal to comprehend... This is the story of a 'big time' London crime-lord's fall -- at the hands of his own ignorance.
Hoskins and Mirren deliver the filmic goods, to their credit. *Pierce Brosnan* makes the scene with a signature feral gleam already a-twinkling in his eyes, and that's worth seeing. That gleam will still be in his eyes decades later while playing the leading man (with Davis and Kinnear) in The Matador.
On the other hand, the soundtrack is annoying, whether you like 70's nostalgia or not. This combined with more flab and distractions (intentional and otherwise) almost made me rate the film a mere two stars -- and I won't bother writing about a two star.
Then it hit me: The Long Good Friday is a nearly perfect allegory of the USA's Middle-Eastern foul-ups & follies. Examined in that light, I discerned the faint glimmering of a third star.
 Who Lit The Fuse That Tore Harold's World Apart? June 21, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"What I'm looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius. A little bit more than an 'ot dog, know what I mean?" Harold
Harold played by Bob Hoskins starts his Good Friday anticipating the day ahead of him. His plans include a large party on his yacht for a group of monied business men and a couple of men from New York. His plan is to tie up a massive real estate deal. The 1988 Olympics are coming to town and he plans to convert all the old docks into land for the Olympics.
Then the entire scheme comes apart when the 'bombings' start. First his chauffeur is bombed in his car, next his casino is blown apart and then one of his best men is killed at a gym. Harold has no enemies that he knows of. The London world of crime has been quiet for a couple of years. Who is his enemy?
Bob Hoskins keeps this film alive with his performance. Instead of retribution, Harold spends this day wondering and looking for clues. His men are spectacular. An interesting point is that real criminals worked on this set. Who knew that criminals would make good actors:-)?
Helen Mirren as Harold's class act wife is low key but she has an important role. Sexy and intelligent, she is the hostess with the mostest and charms those around her. She and Harold share a true love and they depend upon each other. I am viewing all of Helen Mirren's films and this is the start of her career as a leading lady.
When the adversaries become clear, the film shows a let-down. A true to form revenge mission is planned and the ending is not that surprising.
All in all this is a film about character and Bob Hoskins is the kind of boss one would want in the underworld.
"As long as it keeps up the mystery, the film sustains interest. This is due in no little part to Hoskins, just entering his film career after a decade of TV work but already in possession of an authoritative presence that was impossible to ignore." Chris Barsanti
A day and a night in the life of London underworld. A shrewd, intelligent film with some memorable performance by Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren.
Recommended. prisrob 06-21-08
Helen Mirren at the BBC
World War II - When Lions Roared
 Great Movie British Masterpiece June 18, 2008
This movie is excellent from the cast of actors through the plot and the realistic brutality that is far more shocking for it's realism than many of the movie scenes that almost glorify the act of killing and the crazed manner in which people die,that is all to frequently seen in movies of this ilk.
The stone cold realism of someone being stabbed in the swimming pool shower scene, in this movie carried out by a very young Pierce Brosnan is so much more disturbing for the cold quick and mechanical taking of a life watched draining away with a simple scene of blood swirling down a drain as the victim lies dead,with only this trace of his existence left,than the wild shoot outs and incredible fire and fist power which is empty and ridiculous in so many films.
The lack of airs and graces along with a lack of pretence as to who is who and who does what is also something that marks the movie as sitting in a category with very few other films of this genre.
Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren as the principles are a suitably cold couple.
Bob Hoskins especially seems to relish the role of being the top man,and the outtakes and follow up interviews from years later are of great interest to any film lover.
They are far more interesting and revealing than many of the two hour "lost scene,outtake" discs that are usually the drivel that did not make it past the cut,that is why they are "lost" for so long,they should never be seen,as they are terrible.
I am cynical in that i do believe these discs are deliberately held back for cash ins at a later stage,to ease the viewers money away from them to see a load of not much at a bloated price.
I have not layed out the plot or said to much about the movie,more about the atmosphere,however giving things away to first time viewers is very unkind.
I would suggest that you do get this movie and enjoy it for yourself,you will soon see how far the quick and simple efficiency of action is far more memorable and frightening than so many other movies action filled with guns,weapons,hundreds of deaths etc yet ultimately empty of any resounding memories or of wanting to watch the movie again or tell your friends about it.
Ian.
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