Word: soderbergh
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...world of filmmaking has changed radically in the last decade, Egoyan notes. "When I made Family Viewing there was definitely a firm line between commercial and independent movies that seemed immutable. But today, that's all changed. I think it really began with Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape-a title I still wish I'd thought of first, incidentally-which proved that features which were artistically ambitious could still meet with commercial success...
...murderer. Nothing much, nothing new here, unless you care to study how the fingernails of time have raked across Terence Stamp's still handsome face, or see Peter Fonda playing the cool drug lord his Easy Rider character might have become. As he did in Out of Sight, Soderbergh slices, dices and Cuisinarts the script into flashbacks, scene shifts, stop motion and other distracting foolery. Is he working out a new form of visual storytelling, or has the ever-so-promising director of sex, lies, and videotape lost his chops and his marbles...
...Limey, director Stephen Soderbergh (sex, lies and videotape, Out of Sight) challenges genre by remolding the "revenge film" as a neo-noir. English ex-convict Wilson (Terence Stamp) flies to Los Angeles after his prison release to avenge his daughter Jenny's death. Starting with the facts and speculations offered by her friend Ed (Luis Guzman), Wilson stalks a string of criminals he believes are responsible for her mysterious and fatal car crash, eventually confronting high profile 60s record producer Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda). However, as the contrasts between the righteous Limey and slimy Valentine diminish with the film...
...Although thematically (and sometimes visually), The Limey owes much to film noir, in form it does something that perhaps no other film has done before. Not only does Soderbergh layer past, present and future through varied sequences of scenes, but he applies the same temporal distortion to sequences of individual shots. A shot of Wilson strolling past a building is replayed again and again, intercut with other shots of the avenging father contemplating his search. An uninterrupted conversation between Wilson and Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren), Jenny's former acting instructor and friend, is simultaneously played out over several disparate locations...
...While Soderbergh's technique brings such crucial themes into focus, it falters by sometimes scattering the scope of the film and jolting the audience from more traditional scenes. Otherwise, The Limey is entertaining as well as innovating. The casting of Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda, whose long and acclaimed careers have paralleled one another on either side of the Atlantic, complements the comparison and contrast of their characters in the film. Stamp's portrayal is at the same time brutal and pathetic. After being humiliated and beaten, Wilson retaliates against his attackers-however, his extreme violence reverberates as frustrated helplessness...