Slideshow
THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY
U.S., 1980
Directed by John Mackenzie
With Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren
Approx. 114 mins. DCP.
“Oh, Harold Shand and his best-laid plans. The East End gangster kingpin is a true spirit-of-the-blitz Little Englander, 'a businessman with a sense of history, and also a Londoner', seeking to shift his thriving criminal empire into legit — or semi-legit — business concerns. He’s dependent upon the New York mafia to help him corner the redevelopment of his own youthful stamping grounds, east London’s Docklands, with a view toward cashing in on a mooted 1988 London Olympics. In a single very bad day, however, he watches his precariously constructed empire come crashing down…” – The Guardian
Reviews
“Although THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY is firmly rooted in a very different era — early 1980s Britain is another country entirely — the film still feels fresh and uncompromisingly tough.”
– Wendy Ide, Times (UK)
“Hoskins' bullish, black-comic Napoleonism makes this movie: pugnacious, sentimental, a cockney Cagney.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“…a masterful and very tough piece of filmmaking.”
– Roger Ebert