The Limey (1999)

October 27, 2014 9:52 PM

THE SPIRIT OF 99 VIEWING CLUB - An Ex-Con investigates his daughter's death and her involvement with a slick L.A mogul with ties to organized crime.

DID EBERT LIKE IT? Soderbergh's direction of the film takes the underlying story, which is basic Ross Macdonald, and uses the visuals to add an ironic amusement.

The Trailer

Lem Dobbs' shooting script which produced the best commentary track ever according to the A.V Club (You can hear it here)

Reverse Shot on the backwards/forwards melding of time using Stamp's old movies as memories.

THE BEST: Where to begin? The use of non-linear editing to create associations and looping backwards/forwards associations inside a pretty straightforward narrative? The deconstruction of the crime genre? Peter Fonda as the Most Boomer, Most evil embodiment of self-satisfied Hollywood Hills excess? The mix of the real world and the constructed world of movies both in the story and in the editing? Terrance Stamp at his most Stamp?

THE WORST: Not enough Lesley Ann Warren.

posted by The Whelk (12 comments total)

before anything I just want to say HOLY FUCK LESLEY ANN WARREN LOOKS LIKE MY MOM.

I was not expecting that on the re-watch, but like the hair, the clothes, the purse - My Mom was an L.A scenester in the late 60s early 70s and wow she pretty much ended up in suburban NJ sounding and looking like that.

We can talk about the amazing way the editing creates associations and links together things in non-linear time and the introduction of old movies blurs past/present like how imagined plans blur with real life in the film (and editing is the the only art-form unique to film so this is really an editor's movie) but upfront, I was mostly wondering why my Mom was wandering around with Terrance Stamp.

This movie is still, so very very L.A.

(and I thought Valentine's young girlfriend was Denise Richards for years until I bothered to get on IMDB)
posted by The Whelk at 10:06 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Loving this 99 theme. The Limey is not my favourite Soderbergh movie but I'd forgotten how good it was. And how LA. Luis Guzman is a criminally underrated actor.
posted by fshgrl at 2:44 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]

He works a lot tho, look at that IMDB profile! Guy is busy.
posted by The Whelk at 6:39 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Peter Fonda's simpering, totally not-villainous villain is one of my favorite things about this actor. It's actually one of the best film villains I have seen -- he's just a shitty human whose knee-jerk defense of his shittiness leads to tragedy. I think that's how most of the evil in this world happens.
posted by maxsparber at 10:00 AM on October 28, 2014 [8 favorites]

he's so vain and weasley and smug that he is 100% believable. of course he has a house like that
posted by The Whelk at 10:16 AM on October 28, 2014

best detail, he winces every time he takes a sip of water because he's constantly having his teeth bleached
posted by The Whelk at 10:22 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

When I first read that there were clips from Poor Cow in it, I thought that Wilson was supposed to be an older Dave Fuller. No.
posted by brujita at 4:49 AM on October 29, 2014

"There's one thing I don't understand. The thing I don't understand is every motherfucking word you're saying." is one of my favorite lines from any movie (full scene). Right up there with "C'mon Jake, it's Chinatown." and "Aw Eddie, whaddya gonna do in Budapest?"
posted by mcstayinskool at 1:24 PM on October 29, 2014

I love how the scenes of him on the airplane are peppered in to the movie to make you think it's his trip to L.A and then Revealed to be trip back to England, it's the kind of editing trick this movie loves in chopping up a simple story.
posted by The Whelk at 5:54 PM on October 29, 2014

The Limey is not my favourite Soderbergh movie but I'd forgotten how good it was.

It's the absolute, criminally-underrated best of that sub-genre of revenge films where a nasty piece of work goes after a bunch of other nasty pieces of work in order to get back something of personal significance. Terence Stamp is so weirdly intense in this movie, and it just works. I should own this movie. I don't know why I don't.
posted by gauche at 6:29 PM on November 2, 2014 [2 favorites]

I do own this movie, but have yet to watch it. Now I'm going to have to find the time, having read you all raving about it.
posted by pharm at 12:46 PM on November 3, 2014

Ooh, missed this last week. An absolute gem of a movie that I stumbled upon, in Paris, of all things, and wasn't entirely sure that it actually existed for years (partially because it was called L'Anglais or some such in France).

And I've compared other scenes to it here on FanFare, but this sequence is just brilliant in every way.
posted by Etrigan at 8:13 PM on November 7, 2014