[Film Review] The Limey (1999)

Shortly after rubbing elbows with mainstream taste with the slick criminal adventure OUT OF SIGHT (1998) and before hitting the jackpot with his one-two punch in 2000, ERIN BROCKOVICH and TRAFFIC, Steven Soderbergh knocks out a little gem called THE LIMEY, starring a stern Terence Stamp as the titular loner, Wilson, a British hardened criminal freshly out of the joint, who lends his feet in Los Angelos and beats the bushes about the sudden death of his daughter Jenny (George), presumably perished in a car accident, but a father, even an absent one, knows better.

After getting pally with Jenny’s friend Eduardo (Guzmán) and Elaine (Warren), with latter, a tangible romantic tinkling never really takes off, soon Wilson pins down the obvious suspect, Terry Valentine (Fonda), as Jenny’s much elder boyfriend, a high-flying record producer who also partakes in the drug trafficking goings-on, Terry is the sole target in Wilson’s revenge plan. Unconventionally, Soderbergh’s script goes against the grain to make Terry not a tough monster, but a feckless, narcissistic slouch, for one thing, audience has no illusion that he is the match of the hard-bitten Wilson, played by Fonda with a semblance of roué eccentricity and cravenness, which makes the final revelation and Wilson’s action more plausible and humane, pointing up a father’s ultimate guilt of obliquely but fatally damaging his daughter’s life with his irresponsible acts.

Footage of Ken Loach’s first feature film POOR COW (1967), starring Terence Stamp and Carol White, is seamlessly integrated as the flashback of Wilson’s recollections of his past. Stamp retains his usual coolness and can bite the bullet of taking a solid beating before running amok, but also effortlessly elicits levity in the face of the DEA officer (a cameo from an unruffled Bill Duke), by magnifying the mockney accent and running away with it in sheer alacrity.

That said, THE LIMEY, more than anything, shows up Soderbergh’s novel modality of tinkering its chronological narratology with asynchronous editing stratagem (courtesy to editor Sarah Flack), more often than not, the imagery lags behind the character’s line delivery, and rapid montage-shifting blurs the temporal designation, not to a confusing effect, but gives audience pause for a double take, for example, the repeated shots of Wilson sitting inside an airliner with a beam of sunshine tangentially bisecting his visage pose the question that is the flight inbound or outbound? All depends on whether his inscrutable expression suggests suppressed rage or stolid reconciliation.

For what it is worth, THE LIMEY is Soderbergh’s dry run of his experiment on gingering up the narrative with pyrotechnic editing flourishes, which will culminate in TRAFFIC’s trifurcated storylines one year later, a must-see for his votaries, or Mr. Stamp’s usual stanners.

referential entries: Soderbergh’s OUT OF SIGHT (1998, 7.1/10), TRAFFIC (2000, 8.3/10);Jonathan Glazer’s SEXY BEAST (2000, 7.4/10).