Director: Steven Soderbergh Screenwriter: Lem Dobbs sequel to Poor Cow (Ken Loach, GB, 1967) Country: USA; Year: 1999 Rating (4 star system): ***
As a follow-up to what many viewed as Soderbergh's mainstream breakthrough (although nine years after the film that put him on the map-- sex, lies, and videotape), Out of Sight, he has chosen as a sequel. Of course it isn't a sequel to one of his films, but to a 32 year old British film many had never heard of. This seems to be the way Soderbergh works, doing just what he pleases-- if it happens to fall into what the public is, at the time, considering "mainstream," so be it, perhaps. I somehow doubt Mr. Soderbergh cares very much. He is quite willing to make cinema for himself, and this film is a sure example of that. I think it is, indeed, very important to identify this film as a follow-up to Out of Sight. If you'll remember, that film contained a love scene in which not one extraneous body part was shown. All the chemistry of the scene came from the cinema used to build it. In fact, the scene took place in two different places and times, but these spatial and temporal boundaries meant nothing to Soderbergh. He freely mixed the audio of one time and space with the visual of another. In this way, the scene took places in both settings at once-- I am doing a poor job of explaining it, no doubt, so suffice it to say that it was probably my favorite single cinematic moment of 1998. Well, why is that scene so important to The Limey? Simply put, that scene is this entire film. It's as if Soderbergh became so fascinated with that one stylistic decision, that he decided to expound upon it throughout an entire film. The result is an experiment that, while uneven due to its inherent nature as an experiment, is rather interesting to watch just to see the final results. So, the film is constantly shifting it's spatial and temporal viewpoint through both its audio and visual elements. How does this effect the other parts of the film? The story, for one, I believe, suffers quite a bit. There's just not really all that much to it, although what is there is strengthened to a considerable extent by the "experiment." It's a tale of revenge and redemption with a rather strong conclusion, but the journey to that end is not always entirely engaging. Perhaps the performances did not help all too much, either. Of course, the presence of Terrence Stamp is necessary, as he was the main character of the first film, but his performance is quite stiff and doesn't really help one to align with his character (that is left to the direction, I believe, and perhaps that was the intent, but it jut didn't work for me, I'm afraid). Peter Fonda plays the equivalent of an antagonist and his performance is a far cry from his magnificent turn in Ulee's Gold. Where Stamp is stiff, Fonda simply falters. He never once really seems like any sort of character, but instead seems like an actor trying to find a character. The other performances were all throw-aways, in my opinion. I barely remember anything about them other than the performance were either bad or pretty much ineffective. Still, Soderbergh was somehow to carry this film through with his direction and make it interesting to watch. While, I think he could have spent more time on characters and story, his experiment was worth witnessing and, therefore, the film is far from a loss or failure.
-- TyroneZero's Movies, etc. http://members.tripod.com/~TyroneZero/film.html
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