The Long Good Friday
Once Upon a Time in the Docklands
Directed by John Mackenzie
UK, 1980
You don’t go crucifying people outside of church – not on Good Friday!
These are the words of Harold Shand, East End gangland kingpin, trying (debatably) to go legit just before it dawns on him that his world is collapsing around him. On its release The Long Good Friday was seen as the British answer to The Godfather. And yes, it is probably one of the few successful films of the gangster genre to come from the UK – Get Carter, Performance? – but just like Francis Ford Coppola’s classic this film is more than a thriller. It’s a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
From a first draft script reportedly written in just three days, director John Mackenzie shot the film in 1979, the year that the United Kingdom was undergoing a profound change with the election of a new Prime Minister. That Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher and The Long Good Friday really is a blistering portrait of a country falling into her embrace.
Harold Shand has been at the top of the pile for over a decade. He’s knocked down all of his rivals, and now it’s time for him to become a legitimate businessman. His plan: to redevelop the abandoned wasteland of London’s Docklands. He has a corrupt councillor and a bent police officer on his payroll. What he needs now is money and the film opens with Shand sending his mother off to Mass on Good Friday as he waits for his new business partners to arrive from the States... the Mafia.
Supremely confident, he lays out his vision for the future on a yacht at St Katherine’s Dock. His speech would not have been out of place at the Conservative Party conference that year.
“Our country's not an island any more. This is the decade in which London will become Europe's capital, having cleared away the out-dated. We've got mile after mile or acre after acre of land for our future prosperity. No other city in the world has got, right at its centre, such an opportunity for profitable progress.”
But as his mother receives the sacrament, we cut to the stabbing to death of Shand’s oldest friend. Next, a car bomb explodes to undercut his speech and Harold’s grip on his empire no longer looks so secure. It will take him some time to realise that he is up against an enemy that has no limits.
The story plays out over the course of that long Good Friday and the following day. Thirty-six hours, and there isn’t an ounce of fat on this lean 114-minute running time (take note, Mr Scorsese). The pace is propelled by Francis Monkman’s dynamic sax and synth-laden score.
On one level The Long Good Friday is a gripping thriller, but it also feels like a deeply political film. Britain in 1979 was in a miserable state with soaring inflation, widespread strikes, a bombing campaign by the IRA and the National Front marching for the repatriation of immigrants. With Thatcher’s election the country was heading into a decade of mass unemployment and growing social division, yet there is something about Harold Shand’s charisma and bravado that draw you into rooting for him, despite his flaws – and there are many.
There’s something so likeable about Shand, particularly today … about seeing someone who is passionate and optimistic and sees some kind of good in the country … I mean today when we live in declining broken Britain - C
This of course is in large part due to an electrifying performance by Bob Hoskins – full of colour and action. Embodying a blend of Macbeth and Coriolanus, he is all swagger and barrel-chested ego. As Shand, Hoskins capably switches from ambitious but congenial businessman to charismatic visionary, predicting the rise of Canary Wharf, that priapic paean to capitalism. Yet, when the trouble starts, he readily transforms into a bowling ball of lethal fury:
I’ll have his carcass, dripping blood by midnight
Hoskins is ably served by a supporting cast of no small talent. Helen Mirren plays his stylish wife, Victoria – it had to be either Victoria or Britannia, who holds her own in a bubbling stew of testosterone. She provides a veneer of class to the business, chatting in French to the yacht’s chef, and airily name-dropping that she once played lacrosse with Princess Anne. That class comes to the fore when she has to convince the increasingly uneasy Americans that Shand has things under control, but when she finally realises the depths of their trouble the veneer shatters and her terrified expression is wholly convincing.
Shand’s trusted lieutenant, Jeff (Derek Thompson), carries a deceptively easy nonchalance in a role that combines Iago with Michael Corleone, and then we have Harold’s motley crew of hoods, who have a real air of authenticity about them. Not least Razors (P.H. Moriarty) who makes up for his wardrobe approach to acting with a genuine sense of menace. It turns out that quite a few of this gang were not actually actors, but local villains. A fair amount of casual racism is tossed around and it’s hard to see this being allowed on screen today. But it is a realistic reflection of the times and not without some nuance. When Harold ventures south of the river to Brixton, he looks at the run-down living conditions and comments, “…these people deserve better than this.”
The tight narrative and constant stream of Shand’s glorious wisecracks one-liners come from the pen of journalist and playwright Barrie Keeffe, with a dash of improv from Hoskins himself.
Pool Attendant : They kept it all incognito. They're gonna collect the body in an ice cream van.
Harold: There's a lot of dignity in that, isn't there? Going out like a raspberry ripple.
Phil Meheux’s cinematography captures the grit and grime of 70s London, with the garishly glitz of St Katherine’s Dock foreshadowing the arrival of new money. And we get some iconic views of the London skyline: as Shand makes his speech on the boat the frame opens up to reveal Tower Bridge behind him. Then a statue of Queen Anne gazes imperiously in the background as Jeff drives Victoria home one night, telling you that they are heading down Ludgate Hill and there you see it, the majesty of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Shand’s prophecy for London is eerily accurate. He even predicts the coming of the Olympic Games to the Docklands. Twenty-five years early but we can forgive him that as this film really does belong to Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand.
“Shut up, you long streak of paralysed piss … What I’m looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius. A little bit more than a hot dog, know what I mean?”
And that is why the drawn-out close-up of the final scene as he realises that his world is coming to an end is so affecting. Sitting in the backseat of his Jaguar, a gun pointed at him by a baby-faced Pierce Brosnan (25 years before his turn as James Bond), the camera fixes on Harold‘s face: disbelief, rage, despair, and finally… a smile?
Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves – Julius Caesar
The Long Good Friday is a stone-cold classic.
“One of the things I did rather well in this film, which often I don’t get right, is the ending.” - John Mackenzie
Reids’ Results (out of 100)
C - 79
T - 81
N - 75
S - 79
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Coming next… Inland Empire(2006)