Film Review: The Long Good Friday – 7/10

‘What I’m looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius…’

The Long Good Friday movie review (1981) | Roger Ebert

Until today, my sole experience in the world of Bob Hoskins came from his avuncular detective in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and those British Gas adverts he did when I was a kid. None of which prepared me for his turn as a foul mouthed, violent gangster in The Long Good Friday. Just when I thought he was about to turn to camera to implore ‘it’s good to talk’, he would violently stab someone in the neck with broken glass or start making jokes about ‘nig nogs’. 1980 really was a different world…

Harold Shand (Hoskins) is an angry but ambitious East End London gangster who is attempting to forge a partnership with the crime lords of New York. Despite a stirring speech in which he promises to make London the capital of Europe, things start to go wrong for Harold when his mates start dying and his buildings are blown up by a series of bomb attacks. With his gangster’s moll Victoria (Helen Mirren) at his side, Harold must try to placate the Americans, whilst also finding out who is behind the attempts to destroy his empire.

As previously suggested, The Long Good Friday is very of its time. Racial slurs and general offensive stereotypes abound, but if you can look past that there is a lot to enjoy here. Hoskins is engaging throughout, managing to be both beleaguered, in control and menacing all at once. The thugs and hangers on that surround him are a little interchangeable, but then this is true of most British gangster flicks.

It is easy to see how The Long Good Friday acts as a precursor to the work of Guy Ritchie and Nick Love, and director John Mackenzie follows that long, British tradition of combining gallows humour with nasty, ultra violence. The result is a film that is entertaining, occasionally funny and always steeped in the darker side of London’s criminal underbelly.

A time capsule no doubt, but a valuable one.