THE LIMEY A-
USA (89 mi) 1999 d: Steven Soderbergh
One of Soderbergh’s best films, if not the best, this is a taut thriller, a quirky character study that a decade later still dazzles with Soderbergh’s startlingly inventive edits and storytelling style, gorgeously shot by Edward Lachman, making some of the best uses of locations that exist on the west coast, including two of the most modern architecturally designed homes ever seen, one in Los Angeles, a glass home overlooking the city and the neighboring hills with a pool jutting out into thin air, and another wood chalet built on a cliff in a dense forest with giant windows and a deck overlooking the ocean at Big Sur. In the film, both are owned by the same man, Peter Fonda as Terry Valentine, a filthy rich Los Angeles record producer who struck it rich in the 60’s by riding the counterculture wave, though throughout this film he has a surprise in store for him. Given the fractured, somewhat experimental feel in the way this film unfolds, it remains modernistic even as it explores various genre styles, from a present day era take on Raymond Chandler’s dizzyingly corrupt portrait of the seedy underworld of Los Angeles, using a gem of a screenplay by Lem Dobbs, very concise and small scale at 89 minutes, to the brilliant casting, using two Oscar nominated actors whose characters play upon their earlier movie roles. This uncanny device adds humor and a cleverly intriguing storyline element that wouldn’t otherwise be there. Soderbergh interestingly acquired the rights to Ken Loach's 1967 film POOR COW starring Terrence Stamp as a young thief named Wilson, the same name used by his character in this film where he plays a thief some thirty years later. Using flashbacks interspersed throughout of his images from the earlier film, also snapshot recollections of his young daughter, the director builds an interior landscape of the character’s introspection. Apparently this same technique has been done earlier, using 1930’s movie clips of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962), also a brief montage of a much younger John Wayne to contrast his character’s dying thoughts as an aging gunfighter in THE SHOOTIST (1976), but never was this device put to more imaginative use than this film.
From the opening shot, an out of focus fade from black to a grizzled portrait of the hard-nosed face of the now aged Terrence Stamp, once a playboy from the 60’s notorious in the tabloids for having dated Brigitte Bardot, Julie Christie, and Jean Shrimpton, now playing a British ex-con recently released from prison arriving at the Los Angeles airport on a personal mission, as he’s searching for the truth behind his young daughter’s recent death from a tragic late night car crash. The first person he looks up is a surprised Luis Guzmán at his modest neighborhood home, who hooks up as his partner throughout the film, becoming his American source for information. The introductory set pieces are uncannily good, surprisingly so, as Stamp’s brazen actions are a match for Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood as DIRTY HARRY (1971), only with a thick British accent which is completely unrecognizable to the Los Angeles underworld, where thoughts are seamlessly interjected into Wilson’s psyche and spoken words often continue offscreen while the action jumps ahead, using a layered technique overlapping on top of what’s seen onscreen. This adds a degree of seriousness and intelligence to Stamp’s character, as it’s clear he’s thinking several moves ahead, like a chess player playing it all out in his head before he makes his move. Stamp clearly relishes this role, as he couldn’t be more relaxed and comfortable as a lone man taking on the mob or hired thugs, a world where everyone else around him is continually uptight, especially the ex-stoner, aging 60’s icon Peter Fonda who as a super rich capitalist with a creepy yearning for borderline underage teenage girls leans more towards the paranoid personification of the Dennis Hopper character in EASY RIDER (1969), always afraid the cops are closing in on him, hiring muscle, Barry Newman from the counterculture road flick VANISHING POINT (1971), to keep them away — yet another character doing a variation on an earlier role.
There’s an excellent soundtrack to this movie, including a classic scene set to the music of Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” where Fonda in his convertible makes his getaway up the Pacific coast highway with his perfect looking teen hottie in tow, Amelia Heinle, looking a bit like a very young Denise Richards, spending a good deal of time in bathtub scenes, where in a rambling scattered thought he tries to describe for her what the 60’s were like, never really quite spitting it out. Speaking of classic scenes, wiseass Nicky Kaat and his wacked out partner Joey Dellasandro, from the late 60’s Warhol films, are hired to take care of Wilson, whoever the hell he is, as he’s roaming the west coast like the second coming of the plague. These lowlife hitmen are intensely amusing, providing twisted commentary and comic relief throughout, including the utterly tasteless joke: “What is the smartest thing to come out of a woman's mouth?” Answer. “Einstein's cock.” In due fashion there are more plot twists than turns in the road. Leslie Ann Warren shows up as a friend of Wilson’s daughter, sharing recollections about the deceased, where they’re able to connect some of the missing pieces in his life, as he’s spent the last 8 years behind bars. But he’s a man driven by a motive, as he’s sure Terry Valentine will answer his questions if put to him the right way. Staking out a private residence in Big Sur, some of the most stunningly majestic land on earth, home of renowned meditative and psychological institutes, providing the expensive retreat for the stars, this is the unlikely scene for the final shootout. For a gritty yet near abstract film that’s glued into a kind of stream of consciousness of the underworld, featuring a man who’s traveled halfway around the world to settle a score, where Wilson is always a step or two ahead of the other guys, laying out incomprehensible cockney chatter when need be, there’s a surprising amount of poignancy in Stamp’s character, beautifully underscored by a hauntingly quiet piano score by Cliff Martinez. This is a small gem of a film that exists in a time capsule of cinema wonders.
