The Long Good Friday (1980)

• Year: 1980
• Released: 02 Apr 1982
• Country: United Kingdom
• Adwords: Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award2 wins & 2 nominations total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081070/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/The_Long_Good_Friday
• Available in: 1080p,
• Language: English, French
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
• Runtime: 114 min
• Writer: Barrie Keeffe
• Director: John Mackenzie
• Cast: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Paul Freeman
• Keywords: london, england, cult film, gangster, neo-noir, england,

	7.6/10
	97% – Critics
	89% – Audience

The Long Good Friday Storyline

Mobster Harold Shand (Hoskins) is the all powerful boss of the London underworld, who beneath a gentrified veneer is all snarl and menace. On one fateful Good Friday, the day Harold is to close a crucial deal with an American organised crime group, Shand finds his empire suddenly under attack. Somebody has killed two of his henchman, tried to murder his mother and blown his favourite pub to smithereens. And somebody’s going to pay.

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The Long Good Friday Movie Reviews

It’s not about safety, it’s about honour.

It’s the early 1980s, it’s Good Friday, and Harold Shand is waiting to entertain some powerful American muscle. He hopes to get them to help fund his dockside development, but someone is murdering his men, and although Harold has a good idea who is responsible, he isn’t quite prepared for the events that follow.

Plot wise, The Long Good Friday is a lesson in under taxing the audience, simplicity in structure and forgoing thunder in the name of telling a solid story. The Long Good Friday is a British gangster picture that owes more to the Paul Muni and Edward G Robinson pictures from the golden age than something like “The Godfather”. Where the characters are men of the street, working class villains who literally could be living around the corner from us, their respective antics giving them a reputation as infamous stars to be feared – and grudgingly admired.

What many modern day film lovers may not be aware of is that “The Long Good Friday” had its release delayed, held back a year as Margaret Thatcher and her merry men frothed at the mouth due to the film’s portrayal of the Irish Rebublican Army. This was at a time when the Irish troubles were reaching new and terrifying heights, and here in this film, the government sensed a fall out that could have sent wrong message shock waves across the British Isles. This is one of the chief reasons that lifts the pic high above many of its contemporaries, it may be a simple story, but it’s not merely about two gangs striving for power on one manor!.

Barrie Keeffe’s script positively bristles with a hard bastard edge, some of the set pieces play out as true Brirtish greats, once viewed they are not to be forgotten. Some of the dialogue has an air of timeless bravado about it, delivered with cockney brashness from Bob Hoskins’ Harold Shand. Hoskins is on fire, seemingly revelling in the role and fusing menace with a genuine sense of earthiness, one moment Harold is the bloke you want to have a pint of beer with, the next he’s one step from rage induced retribution. Helen Mirren is fabulous as Harold’s wife, Victoria, loyal and unerringly calm in the face of the madness unfolding, while the supporting cast are also highly effective, with a cameo from Pierce Brosnan that is icy cold in making a point.

Perhaps now it feels like it’s only of its time, and it may well be that it’s only British viewers of a certain age that can readily embrace the all encompassing thread of gangland London at risk from insurgents? But I will be damned should I ever choose to love this film less with each passing year, for to me it only just stops shy of being a British masterpiece, bristling with realism at a troubled time, and cheesing off Margaret Thatcher in the process, hell it works for me, always. 9/10

Breathtaking British Gangland Thriller

The Gangster film is certainly a genre that has brought forth more than a few great films, and John MacKenzie’s breathtaking British Gangland Thriller “The Long Good Friday” (1980) must be one of the grittiest, exciting, most outstandingly acted and greatest specimen of all-time. In one of the most charismatic criminal performances ever, the great Bob Hoskins plays Harold Shand, a rich and powerful London crime boss, who is about to make a lucrative deal with the American mafia, when he and his associates are suddenly victims to brutal attacks by phantom enemies starting on Good Friday. Harold is desperate to find out who is behind the mysterious and bloody attacks and take action, without scaring away his new business partners.

“The Long Good Friday” has everything one might wish for in a Gangland thriller, and more. Bob Hoskins delivers one of the most charismatic performances I have ever seen in the role of gangster Harold Shand. Harold isn’t the typical, laid back mob boss à la Don Corleone, but a former poor Cockney kid, who fought his way to the top; an irascible bulldog always ready to explode into uncontrolled violent outbursts. And while he is certainly a very dark protagonist, one can’t help but have some sympathy for the tough guy with the mean Cockney accent. Equally great is Helen Mirren, in the role of Harold’s smart and efficient wife Victoria. Mirren’s Victoria is more than your usual gun moll; ravishing and sexy, cunning and utterly supportive of her husband’s businesses, Victoria is both Harold’s lover and dearest associate. There is no doubt that Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren are two of Britain’s finest actors, and their performances here are utterly brilliant. In spite of the fact that Hoskins’ Harold Shand must be one of the most charismatic Gangster characters in motion picture history, the film (unlike many mafia/gangster films) does never glorify gangsterism. On the contrary, it shows gangland life at its ugliest.

The film is extremely violent, at times, and the violent outbursts are always unrestrained and ugly, uncompromising and sometimes painful to look at. The entire film is uncompromising from start to finish, an incredibly gritty and (probably) very realistic experience, which simply cannot be missed by a lover of cult cinema. Hoskins and Mirren alone are pure brilliance, and the cast includes many other notable appearances. P.H. Moriarty shines as Harold’s scary-looking right-hand man ‘Razors’, Eddie Constantine plays an American mob boss, and the young Pierce Brosnan appears as a silent Irish hit-man. The film is greatly photographed in London locations, and Francis Monkman’s brilliant score is incredibly imposing and unforgettable.

The film has been advertised as ‘the toughest gangster movie ever made’ (quote on the German DVD cover), which I cannot say it is (this title would doubtlessly go to either one of the many Italian 70s gangster flicks, or to one of the countless brutal Japanese Yakuza films). However, “The Long Good Friday” is a truly gritty and tough-minded one, and one of the best there is. “The Long Good Friday” is a Gangster film as they should be: gritty, violent and uncompromising, incredibly stylish without being glorifying, brutal and sometimes disturbing; a masterpiece. At the moment, they are making an American re-make, which of course is going to be total crap. This original British classic is nothing short of brilliance and has to be seen by everyone interested in gritty cinema.

great Bob Hoskins

Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) is a successful London gangster aspiring to be a legitimate owner of the abandoned Docklands for a casino and other developments with American mafia money. Victoria (Helen Mirren) is his smarter better half. While he sips champagne with corrupt cops and American mobster Charlie, IRA hit-man (Pierce Brosnan) is killing his right hand man. His other guy Eric is blown up in a car bomb outside of church on Good Friday. Harold tries to uncover the cause and finds that a minor deal unknown to him connected to IRA had gone terribly wrong. The IRA holds Harold personally responsible.

This is a great staring performance from Bob Hoskins. He infuses this movie with great energy. Without him, the movie does struggle a little. The plot doesn’t have much tension. It also has a great young Pierce Brosnan prominently as a nameless IRA hit-man.