London crime kingpin Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) faces a disastrous Easter weekend as he watches his criminal empire disintegrate.
By Paul Parcellin
‘The Long Good Friday’ (1980)
(Contains “spoilers”)
As Good Friday approaches it’s fitting that we look at one of the slender number of crime films set on the holiest of Christian holy days. In filmdom, the connection between religious rites and acts of criminal savagery can be jarring (think of the baptism scene in “The Godfather”) and, by some viewers’ standards, just this side of blasphemous. But the marriage of the odious and the sacred often underlines the hypocrisy of those who tread on both sides of the fence.
In “The Long Good Friday,” which saw its U.S. debut 43 years ago this month, London crime kingpin Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) faces a disastrous Easter weekend as he watches his criminal empire disintegrate. A stubby, barrel chested Tasmanian devil of a man, Harold is about to launch a multi-billion dollar redevelopment plan. The project is designed to revitalize London’s then desolate Docklands property and fill his pockets with more cash than an East End geezer such as he could dream of.
The idea is to remake himself into a legitimate businessman, more of less, with the help of some startup cash from the New York Mafia, a detail that casts doubt on his grand plans.
It’s 1979 and the Docklands and its surrounding area is depressed after the shipping industry moved on to larger, more suitable ports. With astonishing accuracy “The Long Good Friday” foretells the city’s future after the conservative government redeveloped the property into a sterile haven for the upper classes, a real-life outcome that would line up well with Harold’s planned cash grab.
We meet Harold after he touches down in a Concorde, returning from a secret mission in the States. He wastes no time getting down to business, entertaining guests on a cruise aboard his yacht on the Thames. Among the invited are corrupt cops and city officials as well as New York gangster Charlie (Eddie Constantine). With the zest, if not the eloquence, of an evangelical preacher, Harold pitches his scheme to rebuild part of the city in time for the upcoming Olympics (a London setting for the Olympic Games is purely fictional in this time frame). His goal, he says, is to make England a dominant European country again. As he speaks, he’s framed by the Tower Bridge which looms behind him, but as the craft glides onward the bridge recedes into the background and Harold stands alone, proclaiming his grand ideas and giving the impression that perhaps he’s grown too big for his britches.
Hoskins, as the blustery, violent and highly temperamental Harold, is the very embodiment of a gangland boss. But his inflated sense of self importance, his arrogance and overconfidence are among his greatest weaknesses and are instrumental in his ultimate downfall. He’s a character who can only be matched is sheer hutzpah by Edward G. Robinson’s Rico Bandello, another bullying fireplug who dominates the mob in “Little Caesar” (1931).
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| P.H. Moriarty, Helen Mirren, Bob Hoskins, Brian Hall |
Keeping Harold anchored to terra firma is his girlfriend, Victoria (Helen Mirren), who, unlike Harold, the plain spoken ruffian, is educated and comes from a good middle class family. The role of Victoria was originally written as Harold’s bubble headed slice of arm candy, but Mirren fought with director John Mackenzie, insisting that the character take on a more consequential role in the story, and it’s a good thing that she did. Victoria is Harold’s guiding light, and later when she begins to lose her composure as Harold’s world crashes down around him, we know that things are bad. A side note: The world of mobsters is one that the actress knew first hand. In the scene aboard the yacht, some real gangsters were brought on as extras, and they were all familiar with Mirren’s uncle, who was himself a member of the London underworld.
Once Harold’s luck takes a turn for the worse, things come apart in rapid order. He hopes to dazzle the visiting money men, but inexplicably, bodies begin to drop and bombs detonate as he and Victoria try to make nice with the visiting Mafioso, hoping in vain that they won’t notice that something’s terribly wrong. But a bomb in the pub where he and the New York contingent plan to dine is proof positive that Harold’s plans are being swept away like beach stones in a tsunami. The bombings are a clue to who’s behind the mayhem — the story was pitched to producers as “terrorism meets gangsterism.” Incidentally, the pub that’s leveled in a bomb attack was merely a set, but must have been a convincing one because passersby popped in from time to time expecting to be served drinks.
Understandably, Harold’s at wit’s end and means to find out who’s liquidating his close associates and trying to wipe him off of the map. “I’ll have his carcass dripping blood by midnight,” he growls.
In one of the film’s more visually arresting and grotesque scenes, he rounds up a band of his associates and dangles them upside down on hooks in an abattoir, hoping to scare the bejesus out of them and learn who’s betraying him (If these are his pals, we’d hate to see what he does with his enemies).
Conditions get worse still for one fellow who endures some stigmata body modifications on a warehouse floor, a scene reminiscent of a real-life incident perpetrated by notorious gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who lorded over London’s underworld in the 1960s. The film’s replication of that occurrence is a fitting if shocking development in this Easter tale beset by paranoia and blood letting.
Harold is continually one step behind his mysterious tormentors, but finally learns that, after a series of fumbled actions and misunderstandings, the IRA has put him in its crosshairs. Blinded by his arrogance, he opts to take an ill-advised path to sew up his problems, a drastic move that demonstrates Harold’s delusional thinking.
Although the film was completed in 1980 it wasn’t released in the U.K. until the following year and didn’t premiere in the U.S. until 1982. Britain’s ITC Entertainment originally backed the production, but got cold feet after seeing the final cut. The film’s political undertones and graphic violence prompted the firm to refuse the film a theatrical release. But Handmade Films, the company founded by former Beatle George Harrison, acquired the rights and agreed to distribute it. The delays, however, only served to build the public’s anticipation of its release and helped secure the film’s cult status.
For those curious about the real-life Docklands development project, which became Canary Wharf, the film predicted with surprising accuracy the project which didn’t begin until after “The Long Good Friday” was filmed. Unfortunately for many, much of the housing lost to the developer’s wrecking ball was replaced with high end living quarters and commercial buildings. Opinions on the project’s success are mixed, with some lauding the rejuvenation of the downtrodden docks, and many feeling that the working class was steamrolled over in this bid to create valuable properties and big profits.
While many of the Docklands denizens’ lives were adversely affected over time by the project, Harold’s world falls apart before his eyes, and in a most dramatic manner. As the film ends, he’s trapped in his fancy automobile, framed this time not by the magnificent Tower Bridge, but by the vehicle’s windshield, and he’s behind it, under glass, as it were. There’s no wiggle room for him to get away. Victoria is spirited away in another car and Harold, alone and vulnerable, is in the hands of one of his tormentors (Pierce Brosnan, in his first film role). There’s little else for him to do but ponder his past and try to work out how he ended up at this juncture. He’s been roused from his reverie and his dream may one day be realized, but by someone other than himself.
Source: life and death in l.a.: ‘The Long Good Friday’: A Gangster Noir That Saw the Future
