The Long Good Friday

Watched all of this earlier. First time in a long time.

Without stating the obvious, an absolute masterclass in acting from Bob Hoskins.

Still miss wee Bob, he was a sound geezer.👌

Oooo, a contentious assertion there Stu😄

Considering how much TLGF is rated by....well just about everyone really.

The central performance by wee Bob was stunning. To think 4 years earlier he was doing 'On the Move'.

Fair play to the writers for not going down the road of Harold Shand being some diminutive sub Krays  London villain type cliche.👍

Harold is quite likeable too but becomes more scary as the plot unravels. Considering, the amount of violence in it for 1979, it's no surprise that it was cut the first time it was on the telly.

Also, the fact that the protagonists turned out to be the IRA was a major departure for Brit gangster films with accusations of the film being sympathetic to Republicans. Even, though I find the portrayal of Republicans cartooney it did portray them as something other than 'Godfathers' and 'Criminal Warlords'.

Given that 1979 was the year that the IRA killed both Mountbatten and 18 members of the Parachute regiment on the same day, it was a pretty brave release made only possible by George Harrison and his Handmade Films company.

As for the music. There's no arguing about the theme. I'd definitely dance to it if I was pissed at a wedding.



Probably, this too come to think of it....