“The Long Good Friday” is an absolute pinnacle classic gangster film in the U.K., place of my birth. Here in the States, not so much. It may not have glory and prestige of “The Godfather” or “Goodfellas,” but it belongs in the same esteemed crime family. This is a hard-scrapple bitchin’ bloody mafia flick about a common London mafia thug who has risen to the level of Godfather, and now he wants to go legit.
It’s 1979, and in several years’ time, the city is expected to play host to the Olympics. (It’s fictional, youz guys.) Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) wants to buy up London’s real estate abutting the Thames River for development, with promised riches beyond compare to come. His investors? The American Mob. Guy ain’t going legit, just thinks he is, or tells us he is. Oh, but the IRA is bugging about, as one of his men has double-crossed them, and ended up knifed in a gay bathhouse.
The title is on purpose. It’s a long and bloody Easter weekend when Shant’s mob life goes to a violent hell, with bombings, murders, and threats galore, and one man will end up nailed Jesus-style to a floor. Hopkins has never been better or scarier, or more volatile, you can smell the brimstone coming off the guy through the TV set. When he rips a man’s throat apart with a broken whiskey bottle, it’s still a shocker, even on a 10th viewing. (I love this film.)
Helen Mirren is just amazing as Shants’ girlfriend-slash-brutal brains of the mob operation; every equal smarts to Hopkins’ brutality. She has to be one of the greatest actresses ever, period, end of story. Royally good. I will not stoop to a “Queen” joke, err, damn. Sorry.
The film starts off a puzzle box, with seemingly random scenes of dealings and bar hook ups and body dumps, all coming together at the end, in a wordless climax that should have won Hopkins an Oscar and can stand aside any scene in the more well-known films made by Coppola or Scorsese. Scotsman John Mackenzie is the director. He never made a better film and he died without merely a blip in the news this past June. Criminal indeed. (I cannot say I have seen his other work.)
Oh, and bonus points for “Remington Steele” and James Bond fans, this is Piece Brosnan’s first film rule, and he plays a wordless assassin who goes from man-on-man bathhouse shower action, I mean the kind that would send GOP voters into shock, to killer in a flash. But, hey, he uses a gun, so GOP voters will dig that, eh? Seriously, if you dig crime film, watch this, then put it in your collection. A+
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