The Limey

Somewhere in Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 subtle masterpiece, “The Limey”, the seemingly wealthy record producer, Terry Valentine, played by Peter Fonda, has a brief monolog about the 60’s – the decade where this Phil Spector-inspired character earned his wealth and fame; “Did you ever dream about a place you never really recall being to before? A place that maybe only exists in your imagination? Some place far away, half remembered when you wake up. When you were there, though, you knew the language. You knew your way around. *That* was the sixties.” ‘That’ is also what “The Limey” is all about.

The titular limey is a man named Wilson, played by Terence Stamp. Prior to seeing “The Limey” for the first time, I had never seen or heard of Stamp, but after viewing the film, I knew I wanted to be him. Stamp is James Bond if James Bond never gave a fuck about anything; both suave and cockney, and limitlessly engaging. As Wilson he plays a career criminal who has just been released from his longest stint in prison and arrives in America to investigate the shady death of his daughter.

“The Limey” is the hazy memory in the mind of a tired man, who after years of working off his sentence, only wants to rest. The murder mystery takes him through the decadence and corruption of Los Angeles, introducing the viewer to some of the most well rounded characters I’ve ever seen – even the throw-away hitmen are given their own unique and humorous personalities, - your typical black and white / good-guys versus bad-guys cookie cutter caper this ain’t. Peter Fonda, already a poster child of the ‘60’s himself, plays the corrupt Terry Valentine brilliantly, capturing the emotions of a man who knows his brand of music makes him a has-been, but refuses to give up the Hollywood dream.

Soderbergh cuts the film in a disjointed style, with almost every scene being shot in 3 different ways, often in 3 different locations, and then recklessly edited together in an almost lazy montage. It took a second viewing of the film for me to realize that this is due to the movie really being a flashback, memories of Wilson’s that he mulls over in his mind on the airplane back to England.

“The Limey” is fast becoming one of my favorite films, and upon each rewatching, I notice more details in both the screenplay and the acting that make me only love it more. For anyone who’s looking for a good crime-caper, or an interesting exercise in story telling, I highly suggest this film.