The Long Good Friday (1980)

Nora's Nite

Neil Young's Film Lounge:

Shand is a gang-boss of the old school, perhaps even a direct successor to the Kray twins - he refuses to have anything to do with drugs, and retains some smatterings of a social conscience. Harold sees himself as the bridge between the old (London's seedy criminal past) and the future: he has his eye on docklands development and has pieced together an ambitious deal reliant on funding from the American mafia - represented, in a nice casting coup, by veteran film noir star Eddie Constantine.

The film begins with Shand, a pugnacious, strutting little bantam of a man, at the crest of a wave - he has his glamorous, classy girlfriend Victoria (Mirren) on one arm, and the world, so it seems, on a string. But, over the course of one Easter weekend (the film, despite the title, spills over from Friday into Saturday) Harold's world falls apart. Close associates are killed, the showcase pub he owns is blown up, another bomb is found in his casino. As the mafia grow increasingly jittery about these high-profile attacks, Harold is spurred into increasingly desperate courses of action...
Largely due to Hoskins, Harold's problems take on increasingly epic dimensions as the film unfolds. London is his city, and he sees himself as the king of his turf, a theme subtly emphasised by the names of both his girlfriend (who, we are told, once knew Princess Anne) and his pub, the 'Lion and Unicorn.' But Barrie Keefe's script keeps on adding layers - though he's basically an East End boy made good, Harold's vivid, heightened vocabulary has distinct echoes of Shakespeare ("I'll have his carcase dripping blood by midnight"), and this enriches the tale of his downfall with tragic elements of self-defeat and inevitability. The film also hints at an ever grander aspect of Harold's self-image - his references to blood, Judas and crucifixion suggests he sees his persecutions and troubles, if only at some subconscious level, as an echo of Christ's - why else set the film on this particular weekend?
Hoskins' intensely physical performance brings out every nuance of the script, and goes beyond it to engage directly with the camera - there's tension in the way the flat planes of his face slope backwards from the camera, even when his body seems to be leaning into it. Like Harold, Hoskins bridges the old and the new - he's a direct descendant of Jimmy Cagney and Edward G Robinson, while foreshadowing Robert De Niro's strutting Al Capone from The Untouchables. It's a fantastic role for any actor, but Hoskins makes it his own - he carries out a shocking attack with a broken bottle that's as hardcore as the hammer scene in The Honeymoon Killers, while the film's final close-up of Hoskins' face (marred only by a couple of cutaways) surpasses its closest predecessor, Garbo in Queen Christina.

Michael Sragow via Criterion:

Harold Shand, the London crime boss at the center of The Long Good Friday, is more than an antihero. He’s the Antichrist, uniting bourgeoisie and barbarians in a simultaneous Pax and Pox Brittanica. With the “legitimate” help of cops and city councilors, Shand controls a criminal empire built on every vice except narcotics. His gun moll is a vision of class, aptly named Victoria; you can’t tell whether she’s joking or for real when she says she played lacrosse with Princess Anne. In this feverish 1979 thriller, Shand plans to buy up moribund London dockyards and redevelop them for the 1988 Olympics. His call for a “new London” wickedly echoes the Christian call for a “new Jerusalem.” Yet on the very Good Friday that Shand meets with an American Mafia chief to seal a financial partnership, somebody kills two of his right-hand men, attempts to murder his mother, and blows a favorite pub to smithereens.
Directed by John Mackenzie and written by Barrie Keeffe, The Long Good Friday is a rabidly engaging, complex melodrama, brimming over with moxie. Unlike classic gangster heroes like Little Caesar, who fought their way out of the faceless mob and were punished for brutality and ambition, Harold Shand struggles to control his animal urges and to act like a civic-minded businessman. He detests anarchy and tries to use violence only as a tool. If he’s doomed, it’s because his left-handed brand of capitalism can’t defend itself against the terrorism of the IRA. Harold Shand becomes a sacrificial lamb for all our Western sins. After Shand—the apocalypse!

A student's blog entry on a Q & A with Barrie Keeffe (all spelling and punctuation hers!):

‘Kind of luck sometimes” he said when referring to how he was able to write “Long Good Friday’ in 3 days and get the right funding after a screening in Edinburgh festival and the right actor who came to the audition to keep a friend company and hearing the right bit of dialogue in a pub or a sign on the van leading to the ‘hotdog line’ in the last scene.

From there he segwayed into advice for the beginning screenwriter.
“It’s a collaboration so don’t write it like a novel. What it should do is give the smell of it.” He said with also noting we (the students) should get the script to our favorite film, read it bit by bit and watch the film as we go to see how much description is actually used.

“I’m an ease dropper. I sit at the pub with the Evening Standard but I’m really listening.” - BF

His passion for theater and the actor’s journey really came through when he spoke in our hour and a half session. He writes characters as parts he, as an actor, would want to play. (Hoping to be a young British James Dean back in his time) he was disappointed with the options for actors and began to really make sure that even if he wrote a small part it would be exciting and interesting, a real full person. He mixes in with people he has meet in real life or heard about to help round the characters out.

“I’m not afraid to be a voyeur and leech” BF

His antidotes of teasing reporters/critics and real people to tell a story or to get one were very amusing. When he first sat down I thought goodness that man looks tired. As we began he became alive, blunt, and funny with his stories in screen trade and theater.

“It’s a lonely job.” - BF

Along with witty antidotes about the business he also told us more then once how his passion for writing broke up his first marriage because he wouldn’t take a holiday, he would write from Friday to Sunday, selfishly he said. He repeated his mantra of ‘it’s a lonely job’ over and over. His drive for succeeding as a working writer was evident in his stories of his youth. He made mention of if you are a writer how everyone says they have an idea for you, or if you get something produced they say they could have done better then that, with the all talk and little action notion.

“I like to be judged on the work over my life time.” When asked about being a beginning writer he made it known that your first script won’t sell and that you will get many rejections. That it is a progression. When you finish one script start another so when you get those rejections it’s okay because you have another project you are excited about. “You have to be cocky.” He told us more then once with his… ‘It a lonely job.” But then with that came… “ Do you know the best two words in the English language are?” ‘The end.’

(I have to say we all went to the pub after and when introduced to him he asked)
BK: What part of America are you from?
Me: Well born and raised in South FL, went to school in Chicago,
then moved to LA, then NYC.
BK: Wow I’m surprised you remained sane after all that.
Me: Who says I did? It’s always the crazy ones that seem the most
sane.
I continued to hold my deadpan expression. Once again I made another memorable and idiotic first impression. He smiled politely, fiddled with some clothe on his jacket and hightailed it to several other students on the opposite end of the pub. I guess he doesn’t need any character research on crazy American’s.