Film

The Long Good Friday (1979)

Director: John MacKenzie

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Overrated thriller, often ludicrously compared to the only superficially similar Performance. About an East End gangland leader, with plans to develop the Docklands with the help of organised crime from overseas, who sees his empire threatened with extinction after a number of disasters are inflicted on him by mysterious rivals, it certainly manages to create a more convincing and contemporarily relevant London underworld than is usually seen in movies; and there's no denying the charismatic quality of Hoskins' slightly mannerised and stereotypical characterisation of yer typical Cockney 'ood. But the gangsters' connections with Mafia, IRA, big business and so on, are paraded like the latest fashions rather than examined, and the admittedly well-constructed set pieces are all too often diminished in effect by the uninspired camera-work.

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