|
The Limey
(***1/2)
To see Terence Stamp work is to see pure energy interact with its environment. The man simply radiates intensity and ferociousness when he wants to. But it's not the sense of a dangerous man that we see in him here. Rather, we see a man wounded by sadness over the mourning of his daughter. When one watched "The Limey", you know it's a movie. It's a film loaded with cinematic stylings. But watching Stamp move through is what keeps the audience from taking a distance from the material; it's him who keeps us immersed in the story.
The story opens with Wilson (Stamp) arriving in Los Angeles to meet Ed Rojo (Luis Guzman). Rojo sent Wilson a letter about the death of his daughter, Jennifer. Convinced that she was murdered by her boyfriend, ex-hippie record producer Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), Wilson embarks on a single minded hunt to kill Valentine and anyone who gets in his way. Indeed, Wilson first makes himself known to Valentine by standing out on his cantilever during a party, and throwing a guard off the edge when he gets too close.
Primarily, the story is about age. Not one of the primary characters is younger than 50, and all of them are clinging to a past when they once fit in. Valentine clings to the 60's ("actually, the 60's were just 1966, and the early part of 1967"), and his entire career is founded on a flower power basis. Wilson clings to a world where there are no good guys, and at one point even inaccurately pegs several valets at Valentine's party to be guards. Valentine is being guarded by a longtime associate, Avery (Barry Newman); a man who is as old, if not older than, Wilson and Valentine, and is also clinging to a world long gone. The entire film is filled with regrets of the road not travelled, and Soderbergh uses a great deal of foreshadowing and imaginary scenes to his advantage. If a viewer isn't paying careful attention, that viewer will soon get very, very lost. The whole film is a lesson in style. Stamp gives us an intensity of a lone wolf who may be old, but he still knows how to hunt. He gives us a harried intensity of a man who is avenging not only the death of his daughter, but also his mistakes in not being there when she needed him.
I think I've painted a pretty picture of how violent and wicked our characters are, and you'd be right in assuming that. The men have all been criminals all their lives, and they show us that, when you devote your life to crime, you end up an old man still dodging bullets for a living. Sure, there's more to the movie than just Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda, but none of it matters except in how it relates to Wilson. It's Wilson that the world revolves on; a man who aged, but while he aged he was cured into an Angel of Death. No matter what anyone does, there is no way his enemies can escape him.
One last note, I think I've painted "The Limey" into a fairly conscious film, and I would be correct in saying that. But it's something more than that. This is something you sit back and experience. I love it when that happens. It's like sitting in the front row of a crowded theatre while the images just stream across your mind. That kind of kinetic rush is something that can't be recreated; every movie that succeeds in this manner is just a little different than its predecessors.