A movie like The Limey is the type of movie an actor makes later in their career that comes after a previous flick causes a career resurgence. Terence Stamp, who recently died, had been working in the movies since the early 1960s when he was young and full of promise.
Yet, there were a few highs and too many lows and he remained on the fringe of Hollywood stardom. Stamp had appeared as General Zod in the opening of Superman in 1978 then as one of the main villains in the sequel. But the 1980s only brought a few big pictures. And he wasn’t the star of Wall Street, Young Guns or Legal Eagles and high-concept movies like Alien Nation failed.
Then, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert became a success during the 1990s indie filmmaking movement and Stamp was back on his game. Also, The Limey features Peter Fonda, who had career lows that coincided with Stamp’s, was also popular again after appearing in Ulee’s Gold. So, it’s only natural that a director like Steven Soderbergh would cast the two in a crime thriller that’s more about the people wrapped up in the the story than the crime itself if there was even a crime.
This is a nice companion piece to Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown which was also about L.A. lowlies approaching their autumn years. Even the casting of Stamp, Fonda and Barry Newman (most famous for Vanishing Point), is the type of thing Tarantino would do. Yet, Soderbergh doesn’t bog this movie down with too many scenes that go on longer just because they can.
Stamp plays an English criminal who only goes by Wilson who has arrived in L.A. to investigate the death of his estranged daughter, Jenny (Melissa George), who reportedly died in a car accident. Wilson believes it was murder and that Jenny’s older boyfriend, Terry Valentine (Fonda) is responsible. At one time, Valentine was involved in drug trafficking through his main security bodyguard, Jim Avery (Newman).
Wilson questions people who knew Jenny such as Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren), and there’s a spark between the two but it seems more platonic. There’s also Eduardo Roel (Luis Guzman) who notified Wilson and becomes his assistant/guide through the L.A. crime world. To make Valentine look more suspicious, he’s moved on to another young 20-something woman, Adhara (Amelie Heinle), who’s found the sugar daddy where she can live in a nice place in the Hollywood Hills and swim in a pool that extends out.
Valentine is a wealthy record producer with a nice tan and he’s stuck in the concept that he’s younger than he really is, which is why he bounces from young woman to young woman because he needs to feel young. And Adhara knows this is her way of getting into the business even if it means being Valentine’s show candy as his buff henchmen (one of which played by legendary stuntman Allan Graf) catch a quick glimpse of her in a swimsuit. She’ll listen to Valentine retell the same stories just as long as it means they get to spend the weekend in a cabin in Big Sur.
As for Wilson, he’s a hardened criminal and he’s just been released from the prison for another time. It’s never specified how long he’s been in prison. Even Wilson has gotten confused as he wonders aloud if he had to deal with a rough guard was on his second or third time. All Wilson has is his memories of a young life. Soderbergh edited in snippets of Stamp’s 1967 movie Poor Cow to give Wilson a past that seemed full of promise before he turned to a life of crime.
Like his previous movie Out of Sight, Soderbergh never tells the story in a linear plotline. I think this goes along with how we never remember moments of our life in linear fashion. In one minute alone, you can remember something from your teens, then from your preschool days and then from your 30s and then from your college years. It’s also an odd connection that Wilson is seen in his youth as a musician as Valentine is a recorder producer.
Another fascinating connection is how Wilson remembers Jenny threatening to call the police on him. He later finds out this is something she did to Valentine during his drug trafficking period. The question lingers to Wilson if she went after someone like Valentine because she was seeking a father figure yet she discovered he was no different than her own father.
The script is written by Lem Dobbs, who also penned such critically acclaimed movies as Dark City and The Score. Both of those movies were about well-rounded characters in plots that don’t follow the same rules as other movies. During a scene where Wilson is roughed up by some low-level thugs for asking questions, another movie would’ve ended with him crawling away. But Wilson just stands back up and draws a revolver out and walks back into the building unafraid. Someone who’s been in prison many times knows you never show any signs of being weak.
There’s another subplot where Avery hires Stacy (Nicky Katt), a hitman who hangs out mostly in a bar playing pool. Katt is only in a few scenes but he gives a curious background to the character as he talks with another person about the hardships of making it in Hollywood and dirty jokes. It’s a shame Katt, who died earlier this year, didn’t get better roles himself. There’s also a hilarious scene of henchmen arguing incorrectly what a sliding scale is.
But this is Stamp’s movie even though Dobbs and Soderbergh know that every character onscreen is important. He commands every scene he’s on and even makes us laugh at his own bravado. And at the time, Soderbergh was known mostly as an indie filmmaker. There’s a run-in that Wilson has with the henchman played by Graf that happens out of focus in the background but it speaks volumes about the world Valentine is in and the world in which Wilson came from.
Stamp’s Wilson is a lot like Zod. He doesn’t have anything keeping him from going except revenge. Yet when he learns what really happened to Jenny, he has to make a choice. And I think he makes the choice based on how he views Valentine as a man who made a mistake but also his own criminal life led Jenny to date Valentine.
The Limey wasn’t as a hit at the box office. Made for $10 million, it only made about $3.5 million. But it’s rave reviews helped open a new generation to Stamp. This same year, he appeared in both Bowfinger alongside Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
He died on Aug. 17 at the age of 87.
What was your favorite role of his? Please comment.
Zane Says 