Read Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, and you’ll quickly find that the language is more interesting that the action. It’s the method of storytelling that gets its hooks into you. Stanley Kubrick’s visual approach to The Shining is the big draw, more than the material itself. And what would Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction have been if not for their refreshing, non-linear storytelling style? Well, I suppose that in order to really appreciate The Limey, you must agree that it’s often not the story itself that can be so interesting, but the way in which it’s told.

The Limey is the grim tale of title character Wilson (Terence Stamp), a British thief who comes to Los Angeles to piece together the story behind his daughter Jenny’s death. I say "piece together," because that’s exactly what director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich and Traffic) forces us to do as well. More on that later. So, Wilson comes to L.A. and is guided along by Jenny’s friends, Ed (Luis Guzman), and later, Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren). After having found that Jenny was girlfriend to music producer Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), Wilson decides to try and find his answers through Valentine. More stuff happens, but those are the broad strokes.

If Soderbergh’s Out of Sight was a simpler yet effective (and ultimately fun) way to tell a non-linear story, then The Limey is more of a challenge to the viewer to purposefully ground him/herself and figure out which way the compass needle points (or more aptly, the clock hand).

The first sequence of the film is done as such: we see Wilson, small in the frame, walking along a sidewalk from left to right along a large, stark wall, approaching his confrontation. This is shot in slow-motion, broken up into pieces and scattered throughout the sequence, while recent flashbacks fill in the gaps with story and character development. As we see Wilson ominously approach his target, time slows as we get to know Wilson, and why he’s headed where he’s headed. And only when we know more about him, his daughter, and the place where he’s going, do we actually proceed with him into his confrontation at normal speed. What was a fragmented narrative now pushes forward on all cylinders, and the sequence finishes out in a linear, yet still impressively offbeat fashion. Remember Hitchcock’s Frenzy, when we were rendered helpless as the camera pulled away from the apartment door (through which the murderer just entered), pulled down the stairs, out the front door, and across the street to show only the facade of a peaceful apartment building? We knew full well what was happening inside that building, but we couldn’t see it.

This elegant, fragmented approach continues throughout the film, although sometimes the structure changes. Mr. Soderbergh likes to keep us disoriented. At one point, a single conversation between Wilson and Elaine unfolds in a linear fashion time-wise, yet it takes place in three different locations simultaneously. Seemingly an over-directed approach, Soderbergh justifies this pretty well in his audio commentary on the DVD. To paraphrase, he said that, often, two people may engage in an involved conversation over the course of one evening where it starts in the restaurant and ends in the park—and though they remember what was said, they might not remember exactly when and where they said it.

The point is, just when you think you’ve got a beat on how this story is told, you don’t. It changes, and then it changes again. Seemingly similar to the initial approach I described, another sequence surprises us by showing the climax to a scene (again, out of sequence, making us think we have seen where the scene is headed), only to reveal that the end moment was only a fantasy.

Elsewhere, we are treated to the introduction of the Terry Valentine character in another unique manner. As described in his commentary, Soderbergh aimed to make a "character trailer" of Valentine. He shows us this trailer, this collection of Valentine moments that happen throughout the film, before giving us any dialogue or scene. Because of this, we get a sense of what Valentine’s about before really meeting him. When we do meet him, we see a man who is a product of Hollywood in the 1960s, an outgrowth of the free love era, a now magnetic success in the biz, a man who, at a material level, has everything he could ever need.

Throughout the film, external moments of Wilson’s contemplation and of his memories of Jenny overlay the action. These bits serve to anchor us, to keep us tuned into what drives Wilson, and to offer insights into his motivations and his relationship with his daughter. Here is a man who, through a life of crime and imprisonment, has alienated his once-protective daughter. He drove her away to Los Angeles, a place where Wilson now feels alienated, unsure of his footing, yet still assuredly focused on finding out what happened to she whom he looks back on so fondly and with such regret.

Punctuating the idea of regret are the older flashbacks of Wilson and his wife back in England, way before Jenny was born—actually, they’re really clips of an early film in which Terence Stamp played, you guessed it, a thief. Moments from Poor Cow (1967) are fluidly assimilated into The Limey in such a way that it really feels like Soderbergh shot them. I suppose this was an experiment, yet it works. The visual style matches up well, and we get a sense that in looking back to Jenny’s mother, Wilson is pouring salt in his current wounds. In looking in the past, Wilson tries to make sense of today, yet at the same time, the overall fragmented approach of the film might imply that Wilson has a hard time dealing with the present, and would simply prefer to look back.

The Limey is a satisfying revenge tale. Intentionally shallow in its approach to other characters, the film focuses acutely only on Stamp’s Wilson. Always commanding, even here with his awkward gait and deliciously baffling Cockney accent, Stamp implores us to pull for Wilson, an unlikely hero with the determination and persistence of a weed. Cliff Martinez’s score is at once subtle, supportive, and at times exhilarating. Some great songs aptly pepper the soundtrack including "The Seeker" by The Who, "King Midas In Reverse" by The Hollies, and Steppenwolf’s "Magic Carpet Ride". Lem Dobbs’ (Dark City) dry yet engaging screenplay and Steven Soderbergh’s disorienting approach are sure to ward some people off, but if you’re up to the challenge, and don’t need everything handed to you on a silver platter, this film is quite a fun puzzle to work out. God bless a movie that doesn’t treat us like idiots!


The DVD

The DVD, like the movie, is puzzling. As some DVD menus are quite ho-hum, this one’s laid out elegantly. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital soundtrack is sumptuous and alive. There aren’t many sound effects to speak of, but Martinez’s enthralling score and the chosen songs are served radiantly here. The picture is pristine, beautifully eliciting the contrasts of light and dark inherent in Soderbergh’s approach of shooting this film in natural light.

One special audio option is the running commentary by director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs. First, they don’t even introduce themselves so that you know who’s voice is who; it’s as if they begin in the middle of a conversation. Though the commentary was somewhat interesting, it was less informative about the film than I had hoped. Throughout the commentary, Dobbs bitches and bitches about how Soderbergh cut this scene and cut that scene, and he really comes off as a bitter, whiny bastard. Get over yourself, Mr. Dobbs. Soderbergh defends himself with admirable restraint, and does offer some insight into his unusual storytelling approach. A weird thing happens at one point—the sound mixers decided to mess with the audio by mimicking that fragmented style, and it was just annoying. And weird.

You wanna hear something even weirder? This DVD is supposed to offer English subtitles, but it doesn’t. Sometimes I feel the need to turn them on if I’m viewing a film at night and didn’t understand what someone said (especially useful when the Cockney accent gets thick). According to IMDb.com and DVDPlanet.com, it does not have English subtitles. Normally, if a movie lacks subtitles, hitting the subtitle button on my remote will yield the message, "No subtitles have been recorded." Well, in this DVD, I don’t get that message. I get "Subtitle 1: English." Okay. But there’s nothing there! It’s blank, until, for no reason, correlating with nothing in the known universe, the names "Steven Soderbergh," "Terence Stamp," "Lem Dobbs," etc. appear by themselves at different times during the movie. Did Sony Pictures DVD Center, the DVD-authoring company, smoke a big fat spliff before burning The Limey?

Other options include a second audio commentary billed as the "Life in the 60s" docu-commentary which features most of the principal actors. I haven’t yet listened to this one, but I look forward to it. A third audio option is the isolated musical score. I really welcome this; there are some of Martinez’s passages that I plan on putting on a mix tape. More options include a nice little behind-the-scenes featurette, cast list, production notes, and get this—technical specifications. Yup, Larry Blake, the supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer on the film, was given space to provide, in painful detail, the entire process of encoding sound for a DVD. Dive right in!


Rating

On the 7-point scale that’s recommended by 4 out of 5 dentists (http://www.epinions.com/user-review-68ED-B482678-39E3C945-prod1), I give The Limey (movie) a 6, and the DVD a 5.




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age