The Limey

‘The Limey’ – American slang for an Englishman – is David Wilson, an ex-con-man who has just completed a nine-year jail term. When he gets a vague message about the death of his daughter Jenny in Los Angeles, he travels to America, determined to find out the true course of events and avenge her death. In Los Angeles he meets several of her friends, among them the producer Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), with whom she had an affair. Wilson’s mission becomes a real obsession. He becomes increasingly embroiled in the LA underworld. The world of modern crime is not for him: he no longer knows the laws and conventions and, as a result, he finds himself in lethal situations. The Limey is to a certain extent a genre piece, an action thriller made with great pace and craftsmanship. There are two factors that make the film transcend others of its kind: the presence of the sixties star Terence ‘Teorema’ Stamp, who plays a wonderful role as the revengeful Wilson. Secondly Soderbergh’s special style: he regularly puts the dialogue of one scene over the picture of another, an asynchronous approach that offers the viewer an insight into what is going on in Wilson’s head. For the flashbacks, Soderbergh uses pictures from the first film by Ken Loach, in which Stamp played a role more than thirty years ago. A striking approach that contributes to the intriguing layers in Wilson’s character.