Review of The Limey (1999) by Tyler M — 04 Dec 2007

Tell me about Jenny.

Semi-stylish revenge saga to the slowest degree.

The Story: A man seeks revenge for the death of his daughter. That's pretty much it. The whole film is a guy looking for the man responsible for his daughters death. It's a little on the repetitive side the genre, as it falls into the generic revenge saga layout: ask a few questions, kill a few people, ask a few questions, kill a few people, rinse and repeat. As for style, sometimes it's a work of art, while other times it's just plain bland. The cinematography is pretty good, and shot selection strong, but it's not enough to make the film incredibly interesting. It's a little sluggish here and there, while the action is decent, the talking and character development is boring. You spend most of the time learning about Jenny, a character that you never see or hear... So it kind of boils down to a bunch of people talking about they knew a dead girl, how bright she was, how troubled she was, how boring she was. It's not to say that the entire film is boring, it's just that it's only 89 minutes and it feels like 120. If the action was better and the characters more interesting to hear about than maybe it could have won me over.

The Cast: Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzmán, Peter Fonda...

Terence Stamp is Wilson, the man looking for his daughters killer. He gives a good, cold, emotionless performance. It's all in the character to not show any signs of true remorse, and he actually gives a pretty strong performance, but sometimes it's just too stiff and just too rigid. Luis Guzman is Eduardo Roel, Wilson's information station, he knows where people are, who people are, and how to get them. He gives a good performance but probably not his best. Mediocre. Lesley Ann Warren is Elaine, one of Jenny's closest friends. She doesn't really have much of a part here, she's not too important, and doesn't give any kind of actual performance here. Sub-par and boring. Peter Fonda is Terry Valentine, Jenny's killer. A crime boss of weakest kind. First of all he's hardly a villain as he's always worried about what's going to happen next. The villain should be someone to be terrified of, not someone to laugh at. As for a performance, I don't know if you could call it that. One of the worst performances I've ever seen in a film, it's like he doesn't know what to say or how to act at any given point in the film. Painfully bad.

One to Five Scale: 2.

One of the most boring films I've watched in a long time. Characters meant to be deep just come off as feeling shallow... Bad acting, bad writing, or just a combination of the two. Just skip this one all together.

Tyler.