Michael Borshuk

The Long Good Friday (1980)

If I told you that there was a British gangster film that featured Bob Hoskins as a mob boss so tough he accidentally crushes glassware when he's stressed out and Pierce Brosnan as a mostly silent menace and Helen Mirren as the voice of reason amidst escalating violence and organized crime insanity, would you rent it? Would you be tempted more if I told you that the film also operates as a dramatization of British post-colonial anxiety, with once-mighty Britons watching the glorious might of their imperial power recede day by day as the twentieth century moves to a close? (There's a reason why Mirren's character is named Victoria, you know.)

Go on, go see this if you haven't. You know you want to now.