Another of the films my old dad has been on at me to watch for years. His tips are normally accurate and I did indeed enjoy this gritty contemporary U. K.-made crime-drama.
Bob Hoskins' Harold Shand character is the London gangster who's comfortably presided over his patch of the capital for ten years. He's surrounded by an entourage of seemingly compliant henchmen and has local police inspectors and councillors on his payroll, as well a good-looking, intelligent girl-friend, played by Helen Mirren.
As we join the action, he's just about to climb into bed with the American Mafia, who have sent two representatives to check out Shand's operation and in particular the viability of sharing a lucrative property deal Shand has swung with his contacts. But then things start to go wrong for him. Firstly, there's a bombing attempt on his mother's life, then his top lieutenant, who has an eye for a pretty boy, is honey-trapped into a brutal murder at a swimming pool and when the restaurant where Shand is looking to seal the deal is blown up just as they're arriving, the Yanks, understandably spooked, give Shand a 24-hour deadline, which falls on Good Friday, to clean up his own backyard or the whole get-mega-rich-quick deal is off.
The realistic portrayal of characters and depictions of extreme violence set in authentic London locations are bolstered with topical references to matters like police corruption and the malign influence of the IRA. Shand is shown as a man out of time who's become complacent after years of easy success. He fights back the only way he knows how, with thuggish interrogations of suspects and instinctive over-reactions to events which are spiralling out of his control. It all leads up to a final reckoning for Shand in a well-conceived climax which will determine his final fate.
Hoskins is on good form with his foghorn-like Cockney accent calling the shots while coincidentally physically resembling Al Capone. The young Mirren shines too as his kittenish but savvy moll. The hit programme on TV at the time was the tough cop series "The Sweeney" and this is like that with X-rated blood and gore.
It's not perfect, there's mixed quality in some of the acting the further down the credits you go, the plot strains a little for credibility at times, some of the dialogue is a bit clunky and there's a rather obsolete-sounding synthesiser-driven soundtrack which dates it badly, but it's the set-piece scenes you tend to remember, like the abbatoir interrogation of Shand's local rivals, the torturing of a police informant and especially Shand's final, passive acceptance of his fate.
Okay dad, what's the next one...?
Bob Hoskins' Harold Shand character is the London gangster who's comfortably presided over his patch of the capital for ten years. He's surrounded by an entourage of seemingly compliant henchmen and has local police inspectors and councillors on his payroll, as well a good-looking, intelligent girl-friend, played by Helen Mirren.
As we join the action, he's just about to climb into bed with the American Mafia, who have sent two representatives to check out Shand's operation and in particular the viability of sharing a lucrative property deal Shand has swung with his contacts. But then things start to go wrong for him. Firstly, there's a bombing attempt on his mother's life, then his top lieutenant, who has an eye for a pretty boy, is honey-trapped into a brutal murder at a swimming pool and when the restaurant where Shand is looking to seal the deal is blown up just as they're arriving, the Yanks, understandably spooked, give Shand a 24-hour deadline, which falls on Good Friday, to clean up his own backyard or the whole get-mega-rich-quick deal is off.
The realistic portrayal of characters and depictions of extreme violence set in authentic London locations are bolstered with topical references to matters like police corruption and the malign influence of the IRA. Shand is shown as a man out of time who's become complacent after years of easy success. He fights back the only way he knows how, with thuggish interrogations of suspects and instinctive over-reactions to events which are spiralling out of his control. It all leads up to a final reckoning for Shand in a well-conceived climax which will determine his final fate.
Hoskins is on good form with his foghorn-like Cockney accent calling the shots while coincidentally physically resembling Al Capone. The young Mirren shines too as his kittenish but savvy moll. The hit programme on TV at the time was the tough cop series "The Sweeney" and this is like that with X-rated blood and gore.
It's not perfect, there's mixed quality in some of the acting the further down the credits you go, the plot strains a little for credibility at times, some of the dialogue is a bit clunky and there's a rather obsolete-sounding synthesiser-driven soundtrack which dates it badly, but it's the set-piece scenes you tend to remember, like the abbatoir interrogation of Shand's local rivals, the torturing of a police informant and especially Shand's final, passive acceptance of his fate.
Okay dad, what's the next one...?