Made in 1979 this prescient film contained a number of themes that would define the decade to follow: docklands redevelopment, bad money made good, ambition and greed… all very appropriate for a film made during Margaret Thatcher’s election year. The times they were indeed a-changing and The Long Good Friday is clearly not convinced that this will be for the better.
London’s docklands were falling to ruin and clearly there
was an opportunity to develop this vast area and there is even a bid being
discussed for the 1988 Olympics… 30-odd years’ later we’ve had the enormous success
of 2012 and the docklands are like a new city within a city from Canary Wharf
to the Olympic Village and over to Excel: mile after mile of new buildings… I
wonder who paid for them all?
 |
| Bob Hoskins |
Here, Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) sees his opportunity to
invest the ill-gottens of his criminal firm in legitimate business and espouses
plenty of Thatcherite rhetoric in support of this. He’s keen to bring in some
heavy American friends, Charlie (Eddie Constantine), to help fund ambitious
building plans and even has a “friendly” council man, Harris (Bryan Marshall)
to help grease the wheels of planning permission. It seems that nothing can
stop him as he strides like the cock of the walk after landing from New York on
Concorde (perhaps the ultimate symbol of go-ahead and get-on Britain?).
  |
| St Katharine Docks and Harold's boat |
Harold runs a large swathe of London’s gangland and has his
own peculiar set of principles: he believes in free enterprise, opportunity and
being able to decide the limits of your own personal liberty. He lives on a
flash yacht moored just off St Katherine Docks – one of the first to be
gentrified – and all around you can see the spaces he wants to fill with yuppie
flats, office high-rises, restaurants and gym clubs.
 |
| Helen Mirren |
Harold’s partner is Victoria (Helen Mirren) a well
brought-up woman possibly attracted to Harold’s no-nonsense application of the
kind of power she was born to… She smooths his rough edges and provides the
social polish crucial to the legitimisation of Harold. Before the great and the
not-so-good are to arrive for their project launch party, she speaks to their
French chef and ensures that everything has that suitable veneer of class.
She’s aided by Harold’s smart number two, Jeff (Derek
Thompson), like Victoria, a cut above Harold’s more usual associates, a thinker
not a fighter.
The party starts and the guests are treated to a rousing
speech from Harold as the boat passes under Tower Bridge: this is the land of
opportunity and London is destined to be the capital of Europe!
  |
| Harold talks and everyone listens... |
But… it’s not to be so simple. The film opens with a
confusing series of shots: a man taking a handful of notes from a suitcase, men
waiting in a remotes farmhouse, a gay pick-up in a pub and the bodies of two
men being dumped at the side of a country lane as the men in the farm are
machine-gunned down: something’s very wrong and we’ll spend most of the film
trying to work out what.
Harold seems a world away from all this but he’s about to
get sucked into a situation he can’t understand: the car that was taking his
mother to church is blown up and then he learns that his oldest confederate
Colin (Paul Freeman) has been murdered in a swimming baths (by a young Pierce
Brosnan no less: sent to lure the gay man to his doom).
Harold is outraged: it’s a “diabolical liberty” his words failing
to give full vent to the full depth of his shock. These are personal attacks on
his family and closest friends, not to mention his business interests (an
unexploded bomb is found in his casino). He cannot think of anyone who would or
could do this and sends his men off to find the culprits… he must keep a lid on
this for fear of scaring off his investors.
But his unseen enemy is resourceful and remorseless planting
a bomb in his favourite pub that explodes just seconds before he arrives with
his American guests for lunch.
He gathers his lieutenants and sends them to round up all of
the gang leaders in London: someone must know something. The men are herded
into a cold-storage for the film’s iconic scene of upside-down hoods hanging
alongside bloody carcasses in cold-storage units.
But there’s worse news as Harold’s pet CID officer, Parky
(Dave King) reveals that the bombs are of Irish construction. Things are
getting out of control and Special Branch is going to have to take over… but
Harold views the IRA as just another gang trying to muscle into his action and
sets out to deal with them appropriately.
 |
| Granite-faced Charlie dines with Victoria |
Meanwhile Victoria wines and dines the Americans (in
Quaglinos?) and is forced to reveal the actuality as Harris gets blotto and
reveals something about a most unexpected character… This runs far deeper and
closer to home than Harold could ever guess and as the tension mounts the
violence increases to an almost unbearable degree…
John Mackenzie directs with aplomb and creates a genuine
modern classic British gangster film that did for the 80s what Get Carter did for the previous decade:
it’s believable and stylish.
Mirren and Hoskins tag team to great effect showcasing two
differing schools of acting that feed very well of each other. Bob’s raw power
and instinct is matched by Helen’s more polished technique as she responds to
his prompting to create some memorable improvisations: slapping him back to
focus after yet another death and collapsing into tears after finally being
pushed too hard by his bulldog spirit.
Mirren persuaded the Director to re-write her part on the
fly, arguing that the original “bimbo” role wasn’t realistic for a man of
Harold’s immense native intelligence. The results are superb and add balance
and humanity to Harold’s role: in spite of all the brutality we do care in the
end and even if we don’t want to live in this world, they make the visit a more
valuable one than it could have been.
Special mention should also go to the superb soundtrack from
Francis Monkman which perfectly matches the brutal modernism with driving
synthesisers and stabbing, percussive aggression rarely seen in his time with
Sky and more akin to the glory days of Curved Air his first band. Curved Air always
had more of an edge than most progressive bands and Monkman’s classical
training was accompanied by his ability to write memorable tunes and also to
rock. The soundtrack is rightly collectable and one of the gems of the era.
Dusty verdict: A
genuine classic that I have immediately purchased from Amazon in a two disc
version with added soundtrack CD: how could I have lived without it for so
long?
The Long Good Friday
was recently ranked 21st in the BFI’s list of greatest British
films. So many of the ingredients are so well balanced yet perhaps we also keep
on returning to its powerful reminder of Britain’s time on the cusp: when the
fading dreams of post-war continuous improvement were overtaken by the
brutalities of market economics, social engineering and the growth of our greed
culture.
This is nowhere more exemplified than Harold’s closing rant
to his American friends… all the British myths are shouted forth and yet all
sound increasingly hollow: the times had already changed.
