Soderbergh Marathon: Part 6

Intro

The Limey (1999)

I really appreciate that when you sit down and watch a Steven Soderbergh movie, you literally do not know what you're going to get.  You also know that whatever you're going to get is well-made and different.  I mentioned in my Side Effects post that it was a bad thriller made by people who knew what they were doing.  The Limey is a cliché crime drama by people who know what they're doing.

The first immediately noticeable thing about The Limey is the strange editing choices.  It will eventually become clear why exactly the movie is edited in that way, but I don't think it's completely successful.  It borders on distracting at times.  But I have to give him credit for trying something different here, because this is not edited in a way that I've ever seen before.  Basically, characters will be having a conversation, and the film will jump to a different scene, jump to a different scene, and go back to the original conversation all in about 10 seconds.  Meanwhile, we hear whatever conversation they're having the entire time, throughout all the cuts.

Terence Stamp plays a hard-assed criminal, who is recently released from prison.  And Stamp can play hardass like few other old guys can.  He's brought to Los Angeles thanks to the death of his daughter, who officially died in a car accident.  He doesn't buy it and seeks revenge.  He suspects it probably has something to do with Terry Valentine, who is played by Peter Fonda.  Valentine is a music producer who is filthy rich and who hangs around all the time with way too young for him girls.

This movie is basically a showcase for Stamp and Fonda, two old pros at the time.  And it works.  They're both very good.  As I said, Stamp is mean mugging the whole time, but he's also sort of funny.  The dialogue helps in that respect.  Hardly anyone in LA can seem to understand him, because he's from the UK, but also because he seems fond of weird phrases that he has to explain.  And Fonda seems like he can play Hollywood sleazeball in his sleep.  Other good performances include Luis Guzman and Lesley Ann Warren, who both played friends of the daughter, and try to help "the limey" find out what happened.  Amelia Heinle plays Fonda's latest young girlfriend, and at least based on this movie, seems sort of a shame she's wasted on soap operas for the last 20 years.

All in all, it's basically your average crime drama done well, shot in a different way than these movies are usually shot.  I'm giving credit to the movie for strange editing with a purpose, but it's distracting enough at times that I'm not giving it my full blown praise.  It also has exceptional acting, which certainly seems to be a theme with Soderbergh movies.

3/4 Stars