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According to many, The Long Good Friday has been called the best British gangster film of all time as well as one of the best British films! Now after watching it, I am not surprised at all! Every single second was intense, dark and psychologically disturbing. I do have to say that it is a very underrated film that I feel should have earned more credit than it received (not so much the critics but the public worldwide). I do love these kinds of films where people are getting killed and there is a complex mystery going on in the aftermath of the incidents but with a revealed killer behind it all!
The Long Good Friday is set in modern day England and tells the story of Harold Shand, a successful London gangster whose world falls apart over the course of one weekend. Shand controls the London docks and is planning a big real estate deal, financed by money from the American mob and given the okay by the London organization. His world is sweet -- he lives in a fancy penthouse, he owns a yacht, and has a sensitive and intelligent mistress. But suddenly a bomb explodes inside his Rolls Royce, another bomb destroys a pub he owns, and a third is found inside his casino. Shand can't understand who would suddenly want him dead, particularly over the Easter weekend, when representatives from the American mafia are coming into town to discuss investing in Shand's real estate project. Bob Hoskins delivers a great performance in a genre that he works best in! Well, a lot better than Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Hook. Helen Mirren is now 65 years old but she was 35 years old in The Long Good Friday and bloody hell! She was stunning and so was her performance!
It was directed amazingly! I wouldn't be surprise if this film or any of the makers were inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy because I do think that The Long Good Friday was a lot like Frenzy but apart from Frenzy was a bit better. I think this as well as Frenzy was so realistic that it felt like a TV drama or soap opera. Plus, it was set in a very modern era of England (still very similar to what England looks like today). Also, like Frenzy, The Long Good Friday has a very powerful shocking ending. Different ending to Frenzy but still awesome!
Overall, The Long Good Friday is an absolutely awesome, intense and quite psychologically terrifying gangster film that I loved from start to finish and would call one of the greatest gangster films as well as one of the greatest of the Brits!
9/10
