Popular reviews

• 

  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★

  they should bring back Bob Hoskins.

• 

  Review by David Sims ★★★★ 9

  ah, early 80s london, the most ghastly aesthetics imaginable

• 

  Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 7

  fantastic little gangster/conspiracy neo-noir about a violent, manic bulldog who fancies himself a "legitimate" businessman. hoskins is incredible in all his barrel-chested, receding-hairline glory, screaming and snarling various cockney obscenities and gruesomely torturing people (those POV shots of dudes strung up like meat!! the squibs and explosions!!) while fatalistically wandering this ruthless london he rose from the gutter to help build in his own image. mackenzie gives it a tough, workman quality; the style forms an almost perfect venn diagram with the 70s grit/grime and 80s pulsing synth existentialism (the weird sometimes jazzy, sometimes electronic prog-rock score is so sick) and the 24-hour timeframe structure of it really helps crank up the minute stresses of the character decision-making, which distracts just long enough for you to not realize the doomed fate of this film's truly sublime ending was probably sealed about an hour back.

  full discussion on ep 198 of my podcast SLEAZOIDS.

• 

  Review by 𝑀𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠 ★★★★★ 2

  Featuring a Bob Hoskins shower porn montage and one of my favourite scores.

• 

  Review by CJ Probst ★★★★½ 52

  Quasi-Spoliers

  I feel like this is a film you can watch and easily miss how awesome it is. From a filmmaking perspective there isn’t much that stands out to me which isn’t a bad thing. The scenes are constructed to let the acting do the heavy-lifting and there is not bravado or explicit editing. Not noticing anything in that department is usually a sign that something was put together properly, this just flows, relying on the tension of the drama and the power of the performances to carry it through without all the bells and whistles that can sometimes be distracting. I expect it to be labeled mediocre or draggy by many.

  The film follows Harold(Hoskins) through a day in…

• 

  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★ 23

  “The Long Good Friday” is brass knuckles-solid gangster movie making. 

  The late cinematic breakout for stars Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins; “Friday” feels like a flick that would look right down the muzzle of a loaded gun, and still keep its cool. 

  “Friday” follows Hoskins as a combination mobster-real estate investor. His brand of unyielding brutalism thrives in the time and place that created it; late 70s London. 

  Like a face only a mother could love, Hoskins - hairy, gruff, greedy to his last bead of sweat - is a figure that could only be so embraced by his own particular profession and choice of city.

  He feeds on the teat of unending desire for more.

  Director John MacKenzie’s film…

• 

  Review by WraithApe ★★★★½ 6

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Sitting in the back of a car, evil eyes on him in the rear view mirror, Harold Shand practically goes through the five stages of grief in a couple of minutes in the iconic final scene of The Long Good Friday. It's a masterful bit of silent acting, and you can't take your eyes off that face; the face of someone who's just been checkmated and never saw it coming. Initially still in fight or flight mode, frantically searching for his next move, before realizing there are no more moves left to be made. Then regret - agonizing over the ways it could have played out differently - and finally, acceptance; resigning himself to his fate. Like the viewer, an…

• 

  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 19

  Another great film I found thanks to you guys here on LB, this time it was Michael over in the UK who reviewed it a while back and everything about it sounded intriguing.

  I mean, you have Helen Mirren cracking jokes and demonstrating her skills as an actress, along with her there is Bob Hoskins as one of the coolest and smoothest gangsters in movie history. Add to that the fact apparently what we’ve been labelling as “Guy Ritchie” style already existed a whole decade before he blasted into the scene, even though Ritchie's dialogue tends to be more cheeky and his movies more stylish.

  With its many twists and turns, the story has the potential to become somewhat convoluted,…

• 

  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★½

  "I'm not a politician. I'm a businessman with a sense of history."

  Very brutish crime film that remains in constant tension with its respectable surface. It shifts between its blatant political commentary with its cracked surfaces and the bouts of gangster violence delivered with sadistic relish. It very much need all the scenes with Eddie Constantine as the American power broker who Hoskins and Mirren must court and those upside down pov shots of guys hooked going to what looks like sudden death. Mackenzie is a very blunt filmmaker, regardless if he is dealing with a respectable political subject like A Sense of Freedom or an obvious potboiler like The Last of the Finest and he makes the best of…

• 

  Review by Michael501 📺 ★★★★★ 3

  1980 In Review - November 

  In the late 1970s, Cockney crime boss Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), a gangster trying to become a legitimate property mogul, has big plans to get the American Mafia to bankroll his transformation of a derelict area of London into the possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of bombings targets his empire on the very weekend the Americans are in town. Shand is convinced there is a traitor in his organization, and sets out to eliminate the rat in typically ruthless fashion.

  A British crime masterpiece and one of the best ever British films made in my opinion. The Long Good Friday was Bob Hoskins breakthrough role, and he is outstanding here,…

• 

  Review by Jordan Horowitz ★★★★½ 4

  Can someone pls explain to me how it took me this long to get to this? A masterwork, this one. Good lord man. Muscular and heady and so, so good looking. And the last sequence is sensational.

• 

  Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★★★★½ 2

  This was my second viewing of The Long Good Friday and I'm still undecided as to whether Harold Shand was a naive hoodlum who lucked upon the big time or a visionary who wanted to be a part of the regeneration of London on his terms.

  At the beginning of a decade which would prove to be a wasteland of under-funding and cinematic neglect for the UK, Shand would have emerged as one of the country's most memorable film characters of the decade anyway. A fascinating and flawed man portrayed as pretty much only Bob Hoskins could have done at that time, his ambition and passion for an improved London is actually admirable despite his nefarious ways and means. Not…