THE LIMEY

1999

It was somewhat interesting watching these two icons of the '60s(Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda,) playing opposite one another, like dueling divas on an operatic stage. Wilson(Stamp) the cockney ex-con comes to L.A. to avenge his daughter's death; he's a one-man SWAT team. Valentine (Fonda) is the big-time rock promoter, who may have killed her. His bodyguards drop like flies. Steven Soderbergh, the director, uses a lot of time-jump trickery, as he did in "Out of Sight," but not as effectively here. For a story filled with drug deals gone bad, chases through Big Sur scenery, multiple murders, pretty girls in bath-tubs, bad DEA agents, the viewer should have been thoroughly engrossed...but I wasn't. Soderbergh keeps you an arms length away from the emotions of the film; I don't think that it was intentional.

3 Stars

NJB

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