The Limey - DVD

Steven Soderbergh directed this excellent love letter to 60's/70's crime thriller with a British twist on top. Terence Stamp gives the performance of a lifetime as the titular englishman, an ex-con who visits Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Peter Fonda is his potential nemesis, a shady record producer who has gotten himself mixed up with a drug smuggling ring alongside Barry Newman (Kowalski from the classic chase film Vanishing Point). Alongside these main players are great performances from Luis Guzman, Lesley Ann Warren, Bill Duke and cult movie legend Joe Dallesandro as a hitman. The overall look and feel shows off Soderbergh's excellent directing skills with editing techniques very reminiscent of the John Boorman crime classic Point Blank (Soderbergh provided commentary for the DVD of that movie, BTW, also highly recommended especially for fans of this film) plus the film has a great soundtrack with music composed by now-Nicolas Refn frequent collaborator Cliff Martinez plus tunes from The Who, The Byrds, and The Hollies. This DVD was first released in 2000 soon after the film's theatrical release. The transfer I'm pleased to say has held up really well and doesn't have the noisy, compressed look some other Artisan DVDs suffer from that era. Fairly pristine anamorphic print alongside a strong 5.1 sound mix. The DVD has a decent amount of features with trailers, production notes, an isolated music score plus two very good commentary tracks. Overall, The Limey is another great chapter in the Noir/Crime film revival we saw back in the nineties. Soderbergh is a master filmmaker and Terence Stamp is a fairly undervalued talent compared to some of his peers but thankfully he was given a top-class role here. If you like slower paced, more existential crime films then this will feel right at home. As usual fabulous and highly recommended.