Writer Neil Jordan directs Cathy Tyson and Bob Hoskins in this 1986 love story about a chauffeur to a high-class call girl. Simple, straightforward scenes between Tyson and Hoskins are touching and powerful—for example, when she buys him some good clothes, and he says “thank you.” You can’t quite figure why it works so well, then you realize: Acting.
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One of the only intentionally comic gangster films I’m aware of, this movie lays bare the ridiculousness of so many others in the genre. There’s grit amongst the hilarity, and the last scene is surprising and original in that way. But the highlight is Ray Winstone screaming through laughter during an escalating shoot-out: “Attach bayonets!” Jude Law also stars and is worth watching in case you forgot how he used to look before he went to seed.
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Young Ray Winstone stars as the daddy amongst a cast of boys at a reform school in the 1970s. The film was originally banned for screening by the BBC for supposedly being unrealistic, but survives as a work of art, a meditation on authority and honor in the harshest of conditions. Also, I’ve never watched a more harrowing rape scene, or been more taken in by its implications. Steel yourself first.
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Tim Roth made his on-screen debut in this 1982 film written and directed by Alan Clarke. Roth stars as Trevor, a 16-year-old hooligan determined to defy and antagonize authority wherever he finds it. The screenplay is didactic and occasionally feels like an Ibsen play, but it doesn’t take the easy road where it’s going. And it drags you there along with it.
