The Limey

The Limey
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Steven Soderbergh
Produced by	John Hardy Scott Kramer
Written by	Lem Dobbs
Starring	Terence Stamp Lesley Ann Warren Luis Guzmán Peter Fonda Barry Newman Nicky Katt
Music by	Cliff Martinez
Cinematography	Edward Lachman
Editing by	Sarah Flack
Distributed by	Artisan Entertainment
Release date(s)	October 8, 1999 (United States)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Gross revenue	$3,204,663 (Worldwide)[1]

The Limey (1999) is an American revenge neo-noir crime film, directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Lem Dobbs. The film features Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzmán, Peter Fonda, among others.^[2]

Terence Stamp stars as Wilson, an English parolee fresh out of prison, who travels to Los Angeles to investigate the suspicious death of his daughter who was killed in an auto accident. Filming locations were in Big Sur and Los Angeles, California.

Plot

Wilson (Stamp), recently released from British prison for armed robbery, travels to Los Angeles to investigate the death of his beloved daughter Jenny (George). It was reported that she died in a car accident. While adjusting to the very different America, he finds allies in Jenny's acting school friends Eduardo (Guzman) and Elaine (Warren) and also comes up with a suspect: Terry Valentine (Fonda), a record producer and Jenny's boyfriend. Valentine is soon revealed to have connections with drug trafficking, with the assistance of his lawyer/bodyguard Avery (Newman). Valentine becomes aware of Wilson after Wilson locates the warehouse of the drug importer with whom Avery had done business. Wilson puts up a fight but is overpowered and beaten by the drug trafficker's thugs and employees, who proceed to insult his daughter's name. After he is thrown out, Wilson retrieves a back-up pistol, goes back and kills all but one of the employees, shouting at the last to "Tell him I'm coming!" The employee relays this threat to Avery who reports it to Valentine.

Wilson reminisces with Elaine and Eduardo about his past and prior relationship with his daughter, who he only remembers as a child. As he recalls, Jenny always threatened to call the police when she found Wilson had committed crimes. He states she did not because she truly loved him. His criminal life put strain on his wife and child but they never left him, as he loved and provided for them. He ended up in prison after the gang of thieves he was associated with confessed to his involvement in their crimes.

Wilson and Eduardo infiltrate one of Valentine's parties. Eduardo mingles while Wilson searches for evidence of foul play. He finds and steals a picture of Jenny, and sees that Valentine's new girlfriend looks much like Jenny. After attracting Valentine's suspicion, Avery has a guard try to escort Wilson outside. Wilson throws the guard over a ledge, killing him. No one saw Wilson do it and everyone thinks the guard must have fallen, although Valentine and Avery are even more suspicious. As Wilson and Eduardo depart, they are chased by Avery who attacks them with a shotgun. Wilson rams Avery's car into a ditch and Wilson and Eduardo escape. Eduardo makes the mistake of calling out Wilson's name within Avery's hearing. After this Avery hires an hitman named Stacy (Katt) and his partner to kill Wilson. They manage to track down Wilson and Elaine but are attacked by DEA agents who escort Wilson and Elaine to meet a world-weary DEA agent (Duke) who is investigating Valentine. Wilson speculates that the DEA agent must have been cheated out of money by Valentine in a drug deal. After the meeting it is clear the agent won't interfere with Wilson. Stacy and his partner were not taken into custody, but blame Valentine and plot revenge.

Fearing danger, Avery moves Valentine and his girlfriend to an ocean-side safe house. At night Wilson attacks, leaving one guard tied up and ducttaped. A noise is heard outside and Avery and Valentine's guards set up a perimeter. The men shoot down an intruder, who is revealed to be Stacy. Avery and the remaining guards are engaged in a shootout with Stacy's partner, resulting in the partner and the guards' deaths and Avery's fatal wound. Valentine flees with Wilson in pursuit. After breaking his ankle on the beach rocks, Valentine gives up. Wilson only demands that he tell him the truth about Jenny. Valentine reveals that Jenny found out about his criminal business and threatened to call the police, he tried to restrain her and accidentally broke her neck while shoving her against a wall. Avery quickly staged her death as a car accident to clear Valentine of suspicion. Wilson is haunted, knowing that Jenny really loved Valentine and that she would not have given him up. Wilson decides to return to London, saying goodbye to Elaine and Eduardo. On the plane he sits next to a woman and contemplates events in the film.

The narrative structure of the film is staged in flashbacks by Wilson during the plane trip home; due to the vagueness of Wilson's memory, the story is presented in disjointed and out of sequence scenes.

Cast

• Terence Stamp as Wilson
• Lesley Ann Warren as Elaine
• Luis Guzmán as Eduardo Roel
• Barry Newman as Jim Avery
• Joe Dallesandro as Uncle John
• Nicky Katt as Stacy, the Hitman
• Peter Fonda as Terry Valentine
• Amelia Heinle as Adhara
• Melissa George as Jennifer 'Jenny' Wilson
• William Lucking as Warehouse Foreman
• Steve Heinze as Larry (Valentine's Bodyguard)
• Nancy Lenehan as Lady on plane
• Bill Duke as DEA Commanding Officer

Background

Directing

Terence Stamp as Wilson.

Steven Soderbergh uses an atypical flashback sequence. It includes scenes from another Terence Stamp movie, Ken Loach's 1967 directorial debut Poor Cow. Soderbergh uses the scene to create a hazy back story.^[3] Also he has Ed, played by Luis Guzmán, wear t-shirts with famous historical political figures on them. At the beginning it is Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, in the middle of the film it is the Argentine Che Guevara (whom Soderbergh would later make a film about 10 years later), and towards the end it is the Chinese Mao Zedong. Wilson speaks in a Cockney rhyming slang, and in so doing is alternately comical and incomprehensible. The title refers to the American slang Limey, which refers to Britons.

Editing

Film editor Sarah Flack utilizes a variety of unorthodox editing techniques in The Limey. The film frequently features dialogue and background sound from previous or future scenes juxtaposed with a current scene. Dialogue from one conversation, for instance, may find itself dispersed throughout the film, articulated for the first time long after its chronological moment has passed, as a sort of narrative flashback superimposed over later conversation, to complete a character's thought or punctuate a character's emphasis. Background sound may be disjointed in the film and shifted to enhance another scene by suggesting continuation, similarity, or dissimilarity, For example, Wilson is in a hotel room, and turns on the shower, and Wilson is in a plane looking out the window, and the shower can be heard.

Critical reception

Edward Guthmann, film critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, praised the direction, and film's screenplay, and wrote, "The Limey...is a first-rate crime thriller and further proof that Soderbergh is one of our great contemporary film stylists. Taut, imaginative and complex, this is one of the best American films of the year and a wonderful antidote to the numbing sameness of [some] movies."^[4] Critic Janet Maslin wrote of Terence Stamp's work, "Stamp plays the title role furiously, with single-minded intensity, wild blue eyes and a stentorian roar shown off in the film's early moments...Glimpses of young, dreamily beautiful Stamp and his no less imposing latter-day presence are used by Soderbergh with touching efficacy."^[5]

The film critic for Variety magazine, Emanuel Levy, lauded the crime drama and liked the direction of the picture, the acting, and the screenplay, yet thought the film "lacks secondary characters and subplots." He wrote, "The Limey, Steven Soderbergh's new crime picture, continues the helmer's artistic renewal, evident last year in the superbly realized "Out of Sight." Pic's most interesting element is the positioning of two icons of 1960s cinema, the very British Terence Stamp and the very American Peter Fonda, as longtime enemies in what's basically a routine revenge thriller...[and] one has no problem praising the bravura acting of the entire ensemble and the pic's impressive technical aspects. Warren, Guzman and Barry Newman give maturely restrained performances in line with the film's dominant texture. A supporting turn by Joe Dallessandro, Andy Warhol's and Paul Morrissey's regular, accentuates pic's reflexive nature as a commentary on a bygone era of filmmaking."^[6]

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes claims 91% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on seventy-six reviews.^[7]

Distribution

The Limey was first presented at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival on May 15.^[8] It was also featured in various film festivals including: the Toronto Film Festival, the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema, and the Hong Kong International Film Festival. The film was released in the US on October 8, 1999 in a limited basis. The film did poorly at the box office. Its first week's gross was $187,122 (17 screens) and the total receipts for the run were $3,193,102. The film was in wide release for seventeen weeks (115 days). In its widest release the film was featured in 105 theaters across the country.^[9] It's grossing however paled in comparison to it's $10 million budget, thus making the film a financial flop.^[10]

Music

The first song heard in The Limey is "The Seeker", by the English rock group The Who. During the 1960s one of The Who's managers was Chris Stamp, Terence Stamp's brother.

Awards

Won

• Satellite Awards: Golden Satellite Award; Best Drama Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Terence Stamp; 2000.

References

External links

• The Limey at the Internet Movie Database
• The Limey at Allmovie
• The Limey essay comparing the film to The Third Man by Dan Schneider at Retort Magazine
• The Limey film review at At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert (video of television segment)