The Long Good Friday

    The Long Good Friday
    1980

    Synopsis

    In the late 1970s, Cockney crime boss Harold Shand, a gangster trying to become a legitimate property mogul, has big plans to get the American Mafia to bankroll his transformation of a derelict area of London into the possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of bombings targets his empire on the very weekend the Americans are in town. Shand is convinced there is a traitor in his organization, and sets out to eliminate the rat in typically ruthless fashion.

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    Cast

    • Bob HoskinsHarold Shand
    • Helen MirrenVictoria
    • Dave KingParky
    • Bryan MarshallHarris
    • Derek ThompsonJeff
    • Eddie ConstantineCharlie
    • Paul FreemanColin
    • P.H. MoriartyRazors
    • Alan FordJack
    • Stephen DaviesTony

    Recommendations

    • 100

      Chicago Sun-Times

      This movie is one amazing piece of work, not only for the Hoskins performance but also for the energy of the filmmaking, the power of the music, and, oddly enough, for the engaging quality of its sometimes very violent sense of humor.
    • 100

      Empire

      Brutal and brilliant.
    • 90

      IGN

      The Long Good Friday is arguably the best British gangster film ever made due to its politically-charged story and the performances of Bob Hoskins and Hellen Mirren.
    • 80

      BBC

      A touchstone for many of the sub-standard gangster films Britain mercilessly churns out today, The Long Good Friday is classy fare and superior viewing to its modern counterparts in every way.
    • 80

      The Guardian

      Hoskins’ bullish, black-comic Napoleonism makes this movie: pugnacious, sentimental, a cockney Cagney.
    • 80

      Time Out

      In style, the film’s ambition sometimes oversteps its ability, but it’s a rare London gangster film that has something to say about the city and says it with wit and little resort to bloodletting
    • 80

      Variety

      In many respects a conventional thriller set in London's underworld, The Long Good Friday is much more densely plotted and intelligently scripted than most such yarns.
    • 80

      Little White Lies

      Hoskins performance shows a man who clearly believes that he’s on the right side of history, and once this big, good deal is done, he will have atoned for past sins. The film is brutal in the way it conclusively proves him wrong, right down to its iconic final shot in which Shand sits in the back of a car struggling to settle on the emotion that would amply capture his frazzled state.