The Limey

Plot synopsis:
Wilson (Terence Stamp) snarls to a black screen "Tell me. Tell me. Tell me about Jenny." cuing the Who's song "The Seeker to play as we get our first look at Wilson, an aged but determined looking man, who makes his way from the airport to a hotel room. He looks at a newspaper clipping about a woman's death and at a California address for an "Ed Roel" written on an envelope. He quickly finds Ed Roel (Luis Guzman)We then see Wilson flashing between a car, an airplane, and his room, thinking about a little girl. We resume the scene meeting Ed Roel, and Wilson introduces himself reminding Ed that he had written to Wilson about his daughter. Ed realizes who Wilson is and invites him into the house. Ed makes some food, but Wilson isn't interested in small talk. He asks Ed, "Who done it then, snuffed her?" Ed tells him he never said anyone "snuffed her." just sent the newspaper clipping. He tells Wilson that there was an investigation into the accident and his daughter's neck was broken on impact "so she wouldn't have felt the effects of the fire." Ed drives Wilson around and rationalizes that an accident could happen to anybody. Wilson replies, "No. Not my girl. Self control she had. It was a point of pride." Wilson pushes Ed for information on where Jenny bought her "grass or whatever." Ed claims he doesn't know anything about that, and Wilson mentions his tattoos. Ed explains that he did five years in prison, but he's done with that. Wilson surprises him by saying "I just got out meself, didn't I." Wilson changes the conversation, asking "Terry Valentine, this bloke she was bunked up with, what's he got to say for himself?" Ed has no idea about Terry Valentine.We see Wilson buying a pistol from a couple of kids, the scene flashing back to previous scenes of the hotel, the airplane, driving, and talking at Ed's house. Ed recalls driving Jenny downtown to look for Terry Valentine. He assumed she was looking to catch him with another girl, but was surprised she didn't want to check hotels, but asked him to bring her to "some bad place." where there was shipping going on and men unloading trucks. Valentine wasn't there but Ed says "Jenny stood right in front of those guys, eyeballing them, checking them out. She made me feel like she was covering my ass." We see Wilson alone, finding the place Ed referred to. Wilson cuts through the wire fence (remarkably easily) enter the property, and walks into the building asking the first man he sees at a desk if he knows Terry Valentine. When the man doesn't tell him anything, Wilson starts beating the man, before several more men show up to pull him away. The man at the desk wants to know who Wilson is, and when he mentions Jennifer Wilson, one of the other men asks if she was the girl that came down there one time. The man admits that Terry Valentine is a personal friend, and says he doesn't discuss his friends with anybody. He tells Wilson that Jennifer had come by asking who he was and how he knew Terry and the nature of their business. He then whispers to Wilson what he would've liked to do to Jenny, Wilson can't contain himself and strikes the man in the groin, prompting quick retaliation as the other men ensure Wilson can't respond. They escort Wilson out of the office, taking turns kicking him and throwing him into things on the way out. They throw him onto the pavement and tell him if he comes back they'll kill him. Wilson gets up and pulls a gun tucked in the back of his pants. He walks right back into the building and there is yelling and several shots. One of the men runs away and Wilson yells after him "You tell him. You tell him I'm coming. Tell him I'm fucking coming!"At a huge Mansion overlooking the hills and ocean. Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), the owner, watches a 20-ish girl swimming and talks about her name, Adhara (Amelia Heinle) remembering that he had suggested using a constellation to her parents before they named her. He asks if she needs anything. She asks why he keeps "the scary man" in his house, to which he says "Gordon? He's been with me for years. He's not as tough as he looks."Jim Avery (Barry Newman) watches from overheard and yells to Terry that he has news. He tells Terry "Our friends downtown, someone took them out." They wonder if it was a gang killing but Avery says it was a lone gunman. They mention Jenny.Ed tells Wilson that Terry Valentine was a "money guy." and that Jenny had been with him for five years. He remarks that Jenny had introduced him to Terry, but Terry "didn't even see him." and that they lived in different social circles, and that he'd met Jenny in his acting class.Wilson finds Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren) a friend of Jenny's, who tells him "She was twenty one when she came to me, straight from leaving you." Elaine helped Jenny get rid of her English accent. She knows Wilson had been in jail and tells him Valentine is a rock concert promoter.Ed goes along as Wilson scopes out Terry's place with binoculars. They realize Terry's having a party when they see a lot of valets. The two go over to pretend being guests Wilson tells him "I'm gonna have a butcher's round the house." Ed seems concerned not realizing this is rhyming slang. He asks "Who you gonna butcher?" Wilson says "Butcher's hook, look." and then heads upstairs to look around. He sees a picture in the hall and remembers Jenny as a little girl. Terry joins the party and talks with guests as Wilson checks out his bedroom, hiding when Adhara has to get out of the master bathroom tub to get the phone. Wilson goes downstairs and finds Ed standing by the pool. Wilson realizes the pool is built to extend out into the air with a long drop outside the railing. He imagines shooting Terry at several different ranges, nearly walking right up to him before Ed pulls him back outside. Terry notices the way Wilson looked at him and Avery sends a man out to remove Wilson, who has sent Ed to grab the car. Wilson tosses the security man over the railing catching the party's attention. Everyone rushes to look over the side. Avery attempts to grab Ed who is waiting with the car, but Wilson throws him out of the way and they drive off. Ed tells Wilson he thought he was going to cap the guy, but Wilson insists that "he's gotta know why." Avery follows them, hitting their car and then firing a shotgun at them. Wilson forces Ed to hit Reverse and nearly hits Avery, knocking his car down a ravine.Avery returns to the house and meets with Terry, and scolds him for talking to the police without him. Terry told made up a story that a longtime employee with drug problems flipped out and committed suicide. Avery reveals that Jenny's father just got out of prison for armed robbery "again." which gets Terry flustered. Terry insists that he can't take care of Wilson using his own security as it could be connected to him. Avery assures him that he has "other resources."We then find some guys arguing over a break at a pool hall. One of the guys, Stacy (Nicky Katt) beats another guy with a cue as Avery walks in and calls him over. Avery asks "How would you like to kill someone for me." Stacy says "Ok." Stacy is upset that he's supposed to find actually Wilson, telling Avery. "I just do it. I don't organize it." Stacy tells a dimwitted friend he's getting paid $5000.00 for the hit. Stacy and his friend find Elaine at a film shoot and Wilson shows up to see her. They follow them to a hotel garage and just before Stacy moves in for the hit he is stopped by men in suits, who tells Wilson to go with them. They bring Wilson and Elaine to another location. Left alone for a moment, Wilson shows a DEA badge he pickpocketed and tells Elaine that he watched Jenny grow up "in increments." He remembers Jenny used to threaten him, "If you're naughty, Dad, I'll put the law on you. I promise. He recalls her in flashback as a little girl picking up the phone threatening to "shop him." Elaine says "She never would have turned you in, not in a million years."The lead DEA agent meets with him and Wilson tells him he doesn't care what Valentine's mixed up in. He then tells him a story about him wanting revenge on a prison guard then easing off when he had a chance. Wilson tells him that they're likely after the same thing for different reasons. He tells the agent he's not after money, but something else. The DEA man tells his own story of rich men getting involved in drug trade, they suspect heroin dealers are using Valentine to launder the money. The agent then "accidentally" drops a file, showing a Big Sur address for Valentine and releases Wilson.Terry Valentine is driving with Adhara to the other house. She realizes that the black SUV behind them has been following them and Terry says "I sure hope so." as Avery and two heavies are following. Ed, Elaine and Wilson drive to the other house as well. Back at the pool hall Stacy grumbles that he knows Avery is up at Big Sur, he wants to go there and the big stash of money or drugs.At the ocean side house Adhara complains that Terry hasn't told her anything about the situation. He tells her that she wouldn't know anything about having enemies. Elaine tells Wilson that Jenny "lived" at the beach and loved the ocean, causing him to remember her at the beach as a girl. He remarks "She was from an island."The security watches all around the property as Avery and Terry watch TV, Adhara showers upstairs. Everyone pays attention when a car alarm goes off and some guards go check for it. When it shuts off, Terry realizes that a guard who was on the porch is missing. We see Wilson tying the man up, gagged in the yard. Avery gets Adhara and moves everybody to the living room hiding behind the couch. Avery shoots at a figure in the window, and going to check he finds it was Stacy. Avery is then shot by Stacy's friend, who also shoots another guard before The wounded Avery shoots him while lying on the ground. Wilson then grabs Terry as he's going for the door and fights with him in the house. Adhara stabs Wilson with a skewer but is knocked out, Valentine escapes and grabs Avery's gun, leaving the injured man without a word. Wilson is slowed but follows Terry down the stairs to the rocky beach. Terry shoots at Wilson but misses. He then twists his ankle and falls and Wilson catches him. We hear Wilson snarl the lines from the opening. Tell me about Jenny. Tell me about Jenny!Terry admits Jenny found about his drug deal and had threatened to turn him in, the confrontation turned violent and Jenny was killed. Avery and his henchmen had helped cover it up with the fake car accident. Wilson leaves Valentine alone.Wilson is on the plane again. He chats with the woman in the next seat about his trip, and remembers singing a song that goes "Freedom is a word I rarely use without thinking of the time when I was loved, "Jenny's mother in the background telling him the song was good.

Tags: comedy, suspenseful, neo noir, murder, mystery, dramatic, violence, flashback, revenge, storytelling

Review:
Terence Stamp was especially good in this film, and Luis Guzman provided one of the best screen roles by a Mexican-American.
In `The Limey', Terrence Stamp plays Wilson, a career criminal who, upon being released from prison in England, finds out that his estranged daughter has died (or perhaps been murdered) in Los Angeles.
How this performance went ignored is beyond me but maybe that punishment is fitting for the career criminal he plays.He is Wilson who after finishing a nine-year sentence "at her Majesty's leisure" goes to L.A. to discover how his daugher, Jenny, met her end while he was in the big house and to avenge her death.
Peter Fonda plays her former lover, a wicked, soulless record producer who was big in the sixties and both actors trade on the ghosts of their cinematic pasts to striking effect; particularly Stamp, as footage from his 1967 film, Poor Cow (directed by Ken Loach), is repurposed and edited into the film's ever-shifting timescape.
In Soderbergh's hands it shows that he is first and foremost a storyteller instead of a shallow egotist and it plays like a grand, cinematic homage to his star.)Soderbergh shuffles time and Wilson's life like a deck of cards yet always keeps the story moving forward--the editing by Sarah Flak is a marvel.
Like his co-star Fonda, who also spent many years in the wilderness, Stamp's performance in The Limey stands as a long-promised return to form, which he'd been hinting at for years.There's great support from Luis Guzman, Lesley Ann Warren (as an L.A. acting coach, who suggests in her few short scenes with Stamp a potentially epic romance), Barry Newman as Fonda's henchman and the startlingly fresh Amelia Henle who shows that, yes, there is an art to playing "the girlfriend." (Joe Dallesandro is in there somewhere as well in some capacity but is completely unrecognisable.)  If the slight bit in the middle lacks the polish of the beginning and the end (it appears a large subplot about two hitmen must've been jettisoned in the editing room), the dialogue still crackles throughout, with Stamp--as a one-man amalgam of London's east end--throwing off Cockney rhyming slang ("China" "plates" thus "mates") and reminding us of what made London swing in the '60's.
For my money his strongest achievements to date have been  his overlooked noir-ish 'Underneath', and this, his involving revenge drama 'The Limey'.Terrence Stamp, a fine actor who has appeared in more than his fair share of bad movies, really takes this role and runs with it.
Both actors are supported by an impressive array of old and new faces - including a surprisingly effective Lesley Anne Warren (her best since 'Cop'), the always watchable Luis Guzman ('Boogie Nights', 'Carlito's Way', etc.), blasts from the pasts Barry Newman (cult classic 'Vanishing Point') and Joe Dallessandro (former Warhol superstar), and future star in the making Nicky Katt ('Strange Days', 'SubUrbia').Soderbergh cleverly uses footage from Ken Loach's kitchen sink drama 'Poor Cow' for flashbacks, and plays upon Stamp and Fonda's 60s screen personas, but the film is no exercise in mere nostalgia.
Peter Fonda, as the suave record producer Terry Valentine, is the perfect impersonation of a hippie growing old disgracefully and on Big Sur backdrop, reminds me of one of the Beach Boys (Brian Wilson possibly...who probably was a good mate of his in the good old days anyway) "the 60s were just like a dream with its own language and locations which didn't really exist, and then you woke up...
And finally, if you like thrillers like myself, this movie is that rare thing, an intelligent sophisticated one, which keeps you on the edge of your seat for a couple of hours, without feeling, like unfortunately happens with a lot of similar productions, that when the credits start to roll, you have been through 120 minutes of disposable entertainment...
This one is about a British criminal (Stamp) getting out of jail, finding out that something bad had happened to his daughter in Los Angeles, and going for the man (Peter Fonda) he feels is responsible for that.There is a bit too much flashback in here, so you have to be prepared to put up with that.
The Movie "Traffic" and "Out of Sight" Were Supposed to Be. Like its title and leading man (Terrance Stamp), "The Limey" surprises by what it is NOT.
However, director Steven Soderbergh ("Traffic," "Out of Sight," "Erin Brockavich"),skillfully intercuts scenes of past, present and future, nonsync dialogue, music, peripheral action and plotting to create an efficient, consistently surprising and highly effective movie.
Whatever the case may be director Steven Soderbergh, of the very sexy and stylish but much more superior "Out of Sight" with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, knows who to handle the crime drama/thriller with panache and style like no one else.Dave Wilson (the very good Terrence Stamp), a smart, intense criminal just released from prison heads to LA from London to look into the somewhat mysterious death of his daughter, who he barely knew.
He believes she died at the hands of her boyfriend, legendary and majorly rich record producer Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda) and will not stop until he tracks him down for answers.The plot here of avenging father seems pretty much lame and not that interesting or complicated at all, but maybe that is the point, not everything in life is extraordinary, in fact much of life is standard, simple and uneventful.
As the one hitman hired by Valentine's head security Avery (Barry Newman) says, "I embrace my lifestyle".While the acting is top notch, especially Stamp, Fonda and Newman, the real star of the film is director, Soderbergh and especially cinematographer Ed Lachman.
Instead Lachman has this scene in the far background while the main shot is of Valentine having a good time at his party feeling totally safe and relaxed in his multi-million dollar home.So the bottom-line, is "The Limey" a great film, I don't think so.
Valentine's right hand man Jim Avery (Barry Newman) hires Stacy (Nicky Katt) to kill Wilson.Soderbergh is trying his disjointed editing style and a bit of shaky camera work.
A year after Steven Soderbergh's The Limey was released, Stephen Kay unleashed upon us their remake of 1971 British thriller Get Carter; a film about a low level hoodlum travelling a relatively long distance to look into the death of a family member, before indeed uncovering sordid plots and such they always suspected were there.
But where The Limey's catalyst is the suspicious death of one of its anti-heroic lead's family on account of a driving accident, it does so well with the material anyway that it gets away with it – telling an engaging tale with a dynamic visual approach.The film is about a titular "limey" (American slang for an Englishman) in the sunny city of Los Angeles, a man omnipresent on account of doing some of his own investigations into a little driving incident wherein his daughter died.
Rough and often emotionless, although not without a degree of kindness revealed through the way he reminisces and speaks enthusiastically about his past and things such as the music he likes, there is something appealing about watching a tale about this carefree Londoner, who knows what it's like to kill, maim, thieve and serve time, plopped into a contemporary California dominated by the beating sun; houses up in the bluffs and punk African American hit men.Soderbergh doesn't hang around, he drops us headfirst into L.A. and Wilsons's universe.
Wilson is, by comparison, much more aggressive and hard bodied; a man not afraid of violence nor probably much into talking about the esoteric qualities of naming kids after star signs.The editing in the film is of particular interest, a film unfolded using stock footage from an old Ken Loach film doubling up as flashbacks of Stamp's character's past; an array of filters and the sort of manipulation of time that sees Wilson recount the same story twice to two different people whilst only ever presenting to us one instance of him telling it.
Aided by a couple of her friends, Wilson's trail leads to the last guy Jenny was dating, oily record producer Terry Valentine (Fonda), a guy with more than record producing on his CV.Steven Soderbergh picks up on a common film noir theme, that of a man seeking revenge for the death of a friend or loved one, and cloaks it in visual and aural artistry.
The director also splices in scenes from Wilson's memory banks to marry up the emotional discord, while also deftly using scenes from Stamp's performance in 1967 film Poor Cow (Ken Loach) to show the youthful Wilson from happier times.If this all sounds like style over substance?
Stamp, in full cockney spouting mode is having a great time, he has Wilson as a feral man of vengeance, but with a knowing sense of parody, he also exudes a sorrowful guilt at his inadequacies as a father.
One of the great scenes in the film sees Wilson launch into a cockney monologue as a stony faced DEA Agent (Bill Duke looking hard as always) listens without understanding a thing he says!
In a scene where Terence Stamp (as Wilson, the Limey) takes revenge on some big bruisers who worked him over, he kills two, one escapes.
Anyway, what really makes the movie are two fine performances, by Stamp and Peter Fonda, who is appropriately slick and genuinely charming as the record company exec.
As I sit here with my cigarette,  just finished watching this god-awful flick, I dip into my cherrios and wonder why on earth would an English actor like Terence Stamp would sign off on movie like this?
Quite simply the worst film I have ever seen.This film has made it my ambition to make a documentary called Tell them I'm Coming (the tag line of The Limey) where I recruit some real East End cockney geezers/gangsters, travel to LA and beat Steven Soderberg to death for making such a horrendously awful film.This film left me feeling violated.
especially the exerts that are taken from an early Terence Stamp film in some crazy attempt to add idiotic sympathy into the turgid mess.Another annoyance is the way every scene is cut up into shots from different angles and even locations.
(Directors or film theorists may well have their own name for it; I wouldn't know.)  It's a neat idea, and I'm surprised I've never seen it used in a film older than "True Lies" - it's certainly been used many times since, although never to better effect.Steven Soderbergh uses a fantasy flash forward in "The Limey", and it manages to be an outrageous cheat, and to fall flat, at the same time.
A bit too formulaic, and some scenes are washed out.Terence Stamp was great, and it was cool to see the 60's film clips.Luis Guzman was stellar.Leslie Ann Warren ( who I'm no fan of,) did good work here.Peter Fonda was spot-on as always..
This throwback in style is more than appropriate because Soderbergh's film is drenched in a '60's sensibility, from the use of many of the stars of the period in both major and minor roles to the actual employment of scenes from 1967's "Poor Cow" to function as memories for the main character played by the star of both films, Terrance Stamp.All the above elements make "The Limey" a quite unusual and, perhaps, even unique film of sorts.
Thus, despite Stamp's marvelous performance and the impressive style of much of the film, "The Limey" doesn't add up to much in the long run..
Watching this film i feel like apologising to our American friends across the water for one of the worst acting performances i have seen by a British actor for a very long time.
This time, I found the acting excellent across the board, the script far more interesting than I remembered, photography highly effective and economical, action sequences quite riveting, and director Steven Soderbergh to be in inspired form, even in his judicious use of flashbacks.Do not take me wrong, THE LIMEY is not a masterpiece - and never purports to be anything even close.
Like the scene where the one guy is talking to trash about all the actors and extras as he watches the movie set.But the scene with the DEA agent at the end accidentally slipping the file to Wilson was an interesting scene.
it is impossible to follow and terrance stamp makes william shatner appear to have an understated acting style......again this premise was excellent and could have been a great movie without the way it was shot--i cant describe the method--like stamp was having flashbacks--it was really annoying...and why stamp in a lead role?
There is nothing worse than a cockney in American films, especially the way that the actor, in this case Terence Stamp, is forced to speak more slowly and clearly than he usually would.
Terence Stamp is excellent and a case of choosing an artist rather than a movie star to play a character..
Terence Stamp is excellent and a case of choosing an artist rather than a movie star to play a character..
Stamp is a born and bred Londoner and his accent is exactly spot on for the age and place of that character (I should know, my Mum is a Cockney!) This film demands the viewer to think and watch and ponder the complexities of time, memory,perception and character.
The Limey or Wilson, played by Stamp, has good reason: his daughter Jenny got in the deadly web of a snobby and wealthy rock and roll music producer (I liked Fonda in this role), when he himself was still doing time in a British prison.
With a little help from one of his daughter's admirers, grill chef Ed Roal (Guzman) he begins his quest for revenge.This is Soderbergh's first film since Out Of Sight, another slick heist caper flick, and he uses some of the tricks he pulled there - mixed up time line, flashbacks, flash forwards and jump cuts enough to fill the enitre Royal Albert Hall.
As those who have seen Schizopolis or Sex, Lies will verify, linguistics and specific inter-dialogues between individuals seems to be something which he is interested in, the way people understand and response to certain words, phrases, sentences, etc.Stamp's use of slang was very deliberate, highlighting at all times when he is using this very different mode of English, yet still characters don't relate to him.I need to see it again, but this was just a quick comment anyways.So on the whole, great.
The film is about an English Gangster going to america to get revenge and in the process he kills loads of americans, sounds good.But then we see Terence Stamp(An Exellent Actor) produce one of his most bizarre performances ever.I couldnt work out whether or not this was his best performance or his worst.Through a lot of the movie he does fine except maybe whenever he speaks in an Cockney accent that an american could have done better.Then we have the scene where he cant even say his own name " Whats your name"  " My noaaames Wilsorrrrnnn" What the hell was the scene all about anyway.Then after his has killed the Americans at the start " Tell em im coming, Tell em im caoerrmmmhing" What the Hell was he thinking when he did those scenes!?But dispite Stamps Erratic performance this fim was still good, but it couldhave been so much better.I would have liked to have seen Michael Caine doing the killing next time though..
Cross-breeding the British gangster movie with revenge movies like Payback, Soderbergh put together a smart, almost intellectual movie with Terence Stamp as a newly-released con out to investigate, but not necessarily avenge, his daughter's mysterious death in L.A.Because he chose the route of a revenge or discovery plot with the gangster theme more as a background, Soderbergh used frequent intercutting across time to enforce the intentional, single-minded nature of Wilson's quest.
One very good touch is the use of extracts from the film "Poor Cow" which are used to show Stamp's memories of years gone.Wilson is played by Terrance Stamp and he perhaps makes him too Cockney for his own good - at first this grates because he sounds a little like Dick Van Dyke.
Terence Stamp shines as "The Limey," an epithet never uttered in Steven Soderbergh's movie, though it gleefully compares American and Cockney criminal slang to comic effect (I guess drug dealers in California don't watch PBS's gritty Brit mysteries to learn this stuff) with wonderful dialog (and warning--quite a bit of violence).Soderbergh continues to have fun with the film noir genre as he did in "Out of Sight," with flash backs and flash forwards and memories and coulda-woulda-shoulda's--here bleaching it all in the CA sun and having the femme fatale barely hinted at.Many other senior actors could have their careers revived with Soderbergh's technique of interweaving an old movie from their physically gorgeous prime, here a Ken Loach movie that looks practically like a home movie.
The plot is simple, yet the script is so well-written that it makes an extremely compelling story, together with top-notch acting by Terrence Stamp and Peter Fonda and masterful direction by Soderbergh.
So it was extremely rewarding for me to see Stamp take command on the screen.Peter Fonda is a good actor who often finds himself in movies that don't deserve him.
In the end, do yourself a favor and go spend the time to understand and hopefully enjoy films like 'The Limey'..
Well, it's got Terence Stamp in it, and he's usually good, and it's directed by Steven Soderbergh, and that's great because I thoroughly enjoyed "Out Of Sight".
Steven Soderbergh's triumph of a film, "The Limey," stars Terrence Stamp as a Brit convict out to revenge his daughter's mysterious death.