The opening five minutes of this 1980 British gangster masterpiece are completely baffling. Shady types meet up and part. Communications are exchanged and deals are made. Cars are driven in opposite directions. But there's no rhyme or reason to the sequence. Who are these men? What are they planning? Why should we care?
And the whole time, there's this driving, pulsating early 80's saxophone music on the soundtrack (compliments of Francis Monkman). The overall effect is disorienting. We sense that we're missing something, that these are important events, the significance of which lies just beyond our grasp.
The film's anti-hero, crime lord Harold Shand (Hoskins) spends the entire film in this state. Hoskins' turn as the alternately charming and despicable Shand won him considerable acclaim back in 1980, and with good cause. Like James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, Hoskins invests Shand with confounding nuance and complexity, creating a man who is a violent criminal but not defined by violent criminality. Far from a gangland caricature, Shand's most commonly boastful about presiding over a decade of relative peace in the London Underworld, and always treats his mistress (a fierce Helen Mirren) with respect. Misanthropic and openly disdainful of his enemies, Shand longs for the kind of respect in the community that money can't buy.
On the most important weekend of his life, when he's right on the cusp of realizing his most outsized and grandiose ambition, Shand's entire world will fall apart. He and his girlfriend Victoria (Mirren) are entertaining some American Mafiosi, hoping that they will invest in a large gambling venture on the Central London waterfront. If the deal goes perfectly, it's a chance for Shand to come out of the shadows and finally go legit, to actually become the sophisticated businessman he has always just pretended to be.
And then, at the worst possible time, bombs start going off. First, his long-time chaffeur is killed while waiting for his mother at church. Then, his best friend and close associate (Paul Freeman) is stabbed to death in a locker room. (And by Pierce Brosnan, no less!) Once his favorite pub is destroyed and more undetonated bombs are found in his casino, it's quite clear that someone is out to destroy Shand.
The more desperate the situation becomes, the more Shand turns into a mad dog. In the film's most famous sequence, he rounds up all the local hoods he can find and hangs them upside-down in a meat locker, interrogating them all together. (It becomes clear soon enough that none of the men know anything anyway).
Like all the classics of the rags-to-riches crime genre - and I include films like Little Ceaser and both versions of Scarface - much is made of Shand's hubris, how the arrogance and excess of ambition that caused him to succeed will also bring about his downfall. More than once during The Long Good Friday, people will express to Shand the significant power of his enemy, how he's embarking on a larger battle that cannot be won. I was struck by the unviersal application of the film's closing message. The fearsomeness of Harold's foes are not their strength or cleverness, but their size and their commitment to his destruction. He will not succeed because his power is based on greed, while his enemies work off of passion and true belief.
As I said, Hoskins brings a lot of different shades to Harold Shand. Sure, he's evil and ceaselessly self-serving and cruel, but he probably wasn't always a monster. He's simply grown into the role a little too well. And director John Mackenzie's final shot is mesmerizing, a seemingly never-ending close-up on Hoskins face that really summarizes the entire story in a way no dialogue ever could. Brilliant.
There was already a Criterion disc of Long Good Friday available, but Anchor Bay has just put out a new version that's cheaper, looks better and has more special features (including a director commentary!) Just so you know.
Mrs. Henderson Presents
British comedies are obsessed with nudity (like in The Full Monty and Calendar Girls) and British comedies are obsesed with cute old people (like in Saving Grace and Waking Ned Devine and every British comedy). So I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to combine the two concepts. Which brings us to Mrs. Henderson Presents, in which an elderly widow circa WWII runs a topless revue in London.
Fortunately, director Stephen Frears manages to take what could have easily been a pedestrian trip to brain-dead High Concept Hell winds up as a fleet and entertaining comedy with a couple of dynamite lead performances.
Dame Judi Dench plays the titular Mrs. Henderson, a rich snob who discovers a love of the theater after her beloved husband dies. Still nursing the pain of losing a son to the First World War and bored with the idle life of a wealthy widow, she buys a West End theater and hires a respected producer (Hoskins) to manage the establishment for her.
At first, they have great success by running constant shows all day, one right after another. But soon, the crowds stop coming, and they have to resort to a topless act. In some of the film's most amusing passages, Mrs. Henderson must use the power of her status as well as her gifts for pursuasion to convince the uptight Lord Cromer (Christopher Guest, in a rare role outside one of his own movies) to allow her performers to remove their clothes.
And remove clothes they do. Unlike some other British comedies, that play suggestive nudity for laughs, almost all the leads in Mrs. Henderson really do get naked during the course of the film. (Well, with the exception of Mrs. Henderson herself...thank goodness...) It's nice to see that level of commitment from actors.
Martin Sherman's script does remarkably well in creating memorable personalities for Dench and Hoskins to inhabit. The characters of Mrs. Henderon and her colleague, Vivian van Damm, feel sketched in and tangible. We laugh at their sequences together less because they are filled with jokes, but because they are simply likable together.
But a lot of his transitions are awkward and he doesn't handle dramatic sequences nearly as well. The decision to turn the Windmill Theater from a music hall and into a burlesque house completely blindsides the audience. There's a montage showing the theater as a success, then a brief scene in which Hoskins explains that profits are down, and suddenly Dnech is stomping around demanding to see breasts. Another scene to set up this fairly significant change of course might have helped.
Eventually, World War II intrudes on life in the Windmill Theater, and it's here that the movie starts to go astray even further. A late sub-plot about a featured performance (Kathy Reilly) and her brief romance with a soldier feels rushed and inconsequential. And the resolution for her character is sudden, cruel and deeply unsatisfying. This whole segment of the film, honestly, feels surprisingly awkward coming from Frears, whose films are generally tight and well-calibrated throughout.
These problems notwithstanding, it's hard not to at least enjoy Mrs. Henderson Presents for for its considerable charms. Hoskins and Dench are simply great together, and when the film is focused on their relationship, it's a lot of fun.
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