The Limey, 1999.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Starring Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzmán, Barry Newman, and Peter Fonda.
SYNOPSIS:
Steven Soderbergh’s minor classic The Limey arrives on 4K courtesy of Lionsgate, which included the film on Blu-ray and tossed in a code for a digital copy too. The extras are sparse and were ported over from previous editions. Maybe someday the budget will be available to give this film the home video treatment it deserves.
Like a lot of people around my age, my introduction to Terence Stamp was his role as General Zod in the first two Superman movies. I later found out about his rich career, which had a full head of steam behind it in the early 1980s and continues to this day. He’s one of those actors who’s just perfect in whatever part he plays, which often involves tough men who say little through their mouths but speak volumes with their eyes and body movements.
I’ll confess that I have a lot of catching up to do to if I want to catch every character he’s ever played, but when I had a chance to revisit 1999’s The Limey, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Stamp in a meaty lead role, I jumped at the chance. In the film, he plays Wilson, a Brit who has traveled to Los Angeles to find out what really happened to his daughter Jenny in the final days of her life.
However, Wilson isn’t some mild-mannered man pushed over the edge: he’s a guy with his own seedy history, one that makes him well-suited to confront other seedy characters. However, it wasn’t lost on me that the way he raised his daughter could have contributed to the kinds of risks he took when she moved to LA, and I imagine that probably crossed his mind too. In his own way, he was not only seeking to avenge what he believed to be a murder, but he was performing some kind of penance for the poor influence he had on Jenny.
Rounding out the cast are Peter Fonda as high-and-mighty record producer Terry Valentine, who dated Wilson’s daughter; Lesley Ann Warren as Elaine, a friend of Jenny’s who tries to provide some information; Luis Guzman as Eduardo Roel, another friend of Jenny; and Barry Newman as Valentine’s main security guy, Jim Avery.
The film runs just 89 minutes and is a master class in how sometimes, less is more when it comes to making a movie. Soderbergh sticks strictly to the spine of the story, moving Wilson through his journey at a measured pace and keeping the focus only on his goal. There are no sub-plots, nor are there extended flashbacks (just short flashback moments); Wilson is not a complicated man, and thus he doesn’t need a complicated story.
Soderbergh also employs an interesting editing technique in which dialogue from certain scenes pops up at various moments throughout the story, and sometimes the next line or two of dialogue plays over a shot of the characters not talking before the scene catches up with them. It’s a bit jarring at times, but I assume the idea was to get across the fractured thought patterns of a man who is dealing with both grief and anger in a major way. It works.
Lionsgate has reissued The Limey in a nice Steelbook with a plastic slipcover. The front image is an evocative black-and-white photo of Stamp as Wilson, two tendrils of cigarette smoke wafting from his mouth. The film is available on both 4K and Blu-ray discs in the package, and there’s a paper insert with a code for a digital copy.
This film has long been light on bonus features on home video, and this edition is no exception. A pair of commentary tracks, along with an isolated score, are the only extras found on both platters.
The first commentary features Soderberg and writer Lem Dobbs. It opens with a fractured approach that I assume is meant to intentionally mimic the editing style of The Limey before launching into a discussion between the two. One interesting aspect of the chat is Dobbs’ willingness to challenge some of Soderbergh’s directorial decisions. The disagreements aren’t contentious, though, and both of them end up agreeing to disagree on multiple occasions.
The other track has Soderbergh and Dobbs joined by Fonda, Stamp, Newman, and Warren, and it’s a more conventional commentary. Thankfully, it doesn’t go off track much, as group commentaries sometimes do.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
Originally published October 10, 2022. Updated December 10, 2022.
