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Intricately plotted and smartly paced, this gangster saga clicks as whodunit, social satire, and explosive thriller. The piece is crowned by Bob Hoskins's career-making turn as a London mobster courting respectability and Helen Mirren's subtly detailed performance as his upper-crust mistress. Cockney wiseguy Harold Shand is a would-be burgher whose domination of the city's underworld stems from his shrewdness as a mediator and his skill at harnessing political and economic clout. As Easter approaches, he's poised to launch an aggressive real estate development scheme along the depressed Thames waterfront when all hell breaks loose: a trusted lieutenant is brutally murdered, Shand's mother is nearly killed in a car bombing, one of his pubs is blown apart, and the visiting American don crucial to the pending deal is quickly growing wary.

Barrie Keeffe's original screenplay keeps the viewer a step ahead of Shand, providing us with a telling but teasingly incomplete glimpse of the misstep by his underlings that has set chaos loose. At the same time, Keeffe underlines the bourgeois pretensions of the rough-hewn, barrel-chested Shand, how the elegant Victoria (Mirren) helps serve those ambitions, and the myriad parallels between Shand's minions and the local politicians and police only too willing to join in his scheme. Tart, funny dialogue and alternately playful and pungent Eastertide imagery complete Keeffe's shrewd design--two key scenes, in a meat locker and a warehouse, invoke the Crucifixion itself.

Even with lesser performances, the script and John Mackenzie's solid direction would make The Long Good Friday a keeper, but Hoskins's explosive portrait of Shand and his descent toward brutal revenge elevates the film into the very front rank, earning admiring comparisons to The Godfather, Scarface, GoodFellas, and other classics of that genre. On DVD, Criterion's new digital transfer restores more than just the widescreen aspect ratio--the film has never looked better, even if an occasionally muddy sound mix survives to make the thick Cockney accents a challenge to decipher. --Sam Sutherland ... Read more

Reviews (35)

brilliant
I first saw this film way back in 1981 and thought then that it was something special. Bob hoskins had just made a name for himself in the UK appearing in the TV series PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (worth checking out if you have never seen it), and was the perfect choice to play violent cockney gangster Harold Shand, although a nasty piece of work I found the character quite appealling and could not help but sympathise as his empire slowly crumbled around him. An excellent script by Barry Keeffe, and a superb supporting cast, in particular Derek Thompson,whose confrontation with Hoskins on his boat is both riveting and shocking. I must have seen this film at least a dozen times and it never fails to grip me. As a side note watch out for a young Pierce Brosnan as one of the IRA hitmen.

A Great Gangster Film
I second those who found this a clever, brilliantly performed film; one of the best gangster films ever made. With an intricate plot that shifts from social commentary to ironic and deadpan humor to sudden violence with ease and a clear focus. The cast is first rate in all departments, but this was the first big exposure for Bob Hoskins and the short man fills the screen as the tough, ambitious cockney hood trying to raise himself in his world and his complete bewilderment and fury as that world begins to crumble around him. So many things to enjoy in the movie, but absolutely unforgettable is the final haunting scene in closeup as an array of emotions play across Hoskin's face. A great, gritty, tough film.

The british answer to the Godfather
The clever script allows to build a sollid story. Bob Hoskins surpasses all his performances, past, present or even future. He gave the best performance of his monumental career.
The progressive tension around Hoskins literally overflows the screen and struggles us. That hopeless, that certainless of facing against an enemy of the IRA dimensions and the irreverent mood assumed by Hoskins in that unforgettable dialogue with his american partners lead to a smart and unexpecting ending.
Helen Mirren , combines her talent and amazing beuty and Pierce Brossnan has a little cameo in the end of the movie.
Under any circunstance you can avoid watching this brilliant and even underrated film of the eighties.
A true gem.

A Long Goodbye to Britain
After watching the extras interview with Hoskins and the director, Mackenzie, I finally realized that this film is intended to be an allegory of Britain's alleged decline under Thatcher. It's a sort of "Beggar's Opera", I suppose, where low-life represents high-life. But it really doesn't work: not for me at least. The dialogue isn't sharp enough, the slang is self-consciously laboured, the actors try hard but you can see they're acting. This must be down to the writing and the direction. There's a heap of machinery here, including even a reference to the crucifixion, but it's all very clunky, and unsubtly assembled, when it should be natural and organic. In retrospect, there are a lot of nudges and winks about the inner meaning of everything, and how the boss has lost the plot. Unfortunately, since there isn't a single sympathetic character anywhere, it doesn't engage the emotions and it's not intelligent enough to engage the mind. There isn't much that's less lovable than a lovable cockney criminal. Perhaps that's part of the plan. Perhaps the Hoskins character isn't even a criminal, merely a semi-successful seedy businessman in the property, catering and leisure industry. We all know that England is only a theme park for tourists these days. Tourists like to go slumming in a quaint old banana country with a lot of history. The music is annoying and obtrusive. The story doesn't work properly at the gangster level, because it isn't convincing, so it can't work at the allegorical level. For a really great political allegory, try High Noon.

a cool film with great music
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD version of the film.

This film is a bit different for me given that Bob Hoskins is in it. The first film with Bob Hoskins I saw was "Who framed roger rabbit" I had seen it countless times before seeing this and have thought of his faked American accent in that film to be his normal one. Seeing this film, where he does a Cockney British accent is more unusual than his regular British accent.

The film starts with the unexplained murder of several people. We later learn that they all are members of a Harold's (Bob hoskins) gang. He begins to have difficulty running his gang and trying to close a deal with another gang.

The film also has a short appearance by Pierce Brosnan in one of his very first film roles. 007 fans would know him best.

The DVD only has the British and American theatrical trailers as special features. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A tightly directed and acted thriller
QUICKSAND is a terrific action drama that wears a good script well acted by a strong cast headed by Michael Keaton and Michael Caine and well directed by fully in-control Director John Mackenzie. The topic of money laundering is particularly timely at this point in our history so gathering information about the ins and outs of this type of scam is apropos. Michael Keaton is an obsessive-compulsive American investigator sent to France in his role as investigator and ends up being setup as an accused assassin. He is forced into escape and into hiding until he uncovers the truth about the company under investigation (actually a porn industry) and with the help of a has-been actor (played superlatively by Michael Caine) finds a way out. The mechanisms for this good guy-bad guy chase and intrigue make for edge-of-the seat suspense. Not a great movie but certainly one of the better intrigue films greatly enhanced by a strong cast of supporting actors in excellent cameo roles. Recommended.

Nice Change Of Pace For Two Great Stars!
Thoroughly enjoyable film, great soundtrack, locations and story.
Miichael Keaton is well-cast as a mild-mannered excecutive whose life is sent into turmoil when he goes to investigate shady deals being made through his company. Michael Caine as always is superb and really has fun with his role as Movie Star Jake Mellows. The supporting cast is great and the plot is well written.
Note: Watch the featurette after you see the film. ... Read more

Description

The Mafia needed a patsy. The CIA needed a pawn. And the conspiracy needed a killer. They found it all in Jack Ruby, the Dallas strip club owner who murdered President Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on live television. Stars Danny Aiello. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

I am curious Rubenstein
since one-half of my lineage is undoubtedly related to Jack, I am curious about all things Rubenstein, and this just came on The Box so I'm cking it out...but I have a beef...why does Hollywood persist in casting non-Jewish actors as Jewish characters, esp. Danny Aiello (in this and at least one other, which title I dis-remember, it's about Jewish widows in Pittsburgh(?)) are there NO jewish actors available to do this schlock and who can bring to the role, at the very least, an authentic rendering of "schmuck" and "schlmiel"? Aw schucks, this whole thing schux! Aiello is just not believable when he says he says "I'm Jewish", zei gesundt, mit latkes, Shalom, Alex

muddled but fascinating
There are spoilers in this review, but you should already know the historical details anyway.

"Ruby" isn't a good movie, but it *almost* was, and long stretches of the movie show us glimpses of the great movie it could have been. These portions of the movie are good enough to be worth owning the DVD for (especially if you enjoyed Oliver Stone's "JFK" for the look and feel of it rather than factual analysis).

The story takes what little is known about Ruby's shady life - that he was a burlesque club owner who had connections to organized crime and the CIA - and riffs on this entertainingly. However, the idea that Ruby's motive for shooting Oswald was "to expose the whole thing" makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, especially knowing that he made no great revelations about the conspiracy after he thrust himself into the public eye. How do you expose a conspiracy by silencing a key conspirator?

For some reason, the director chose to portray the mobster Santos Trafficante under the transparent guise of a character named Alicante. The fictional character of Candy Cane is rather pointless, especially since she seems to be a total fabrication and not based on any of Ruby's actual strippers. The infamous Jada is nowhere to be seen in the film, which is one of the biggest disappointments for me.

The look and feel of the film is great, though. It's an enjoyable immersion in gangsters, burlesque, spies, and politics, in late-50s-early-60s surroundings. Their period portrayal of Cuba is extremely well done, but rather than recreate Las Vegas, they simply pillaged stock footage from Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas". This perfectly illustrates the film's uneven level of quality.

An addition to the intrigue
In "Ruby", veteran actor Danny Aiello does a superb job of portraying the man who will forever be remembered for silencing the accused assassin of President Kennedy.
Aiello almost makes a better Jack Ruby than Jack Ruby himself.
Aiello gives a memorable performance and gives valuable insight as to why Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Hint: It wasnt why the Warren Commission said he did. There were much more conspiratorial and sinister reasons.
This movie will certainly add to the intrigue of the JFK Assassination conspiracy.
It paints Ruby as somewhat of a patsy himself, like Lee Oswald was.
Sherilyn Fenn does a great job as "Candy Cane" one of Ruby's strippers.
You really feel for Ruby and Cane at the end of this movie.
This movie also has a very stunning scene of the JFK Assassination, and it was filmed in Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was killed.
If you are interested in the JFK assassination, the Mafia's vendetta against Castro, or the corruption of the Dallas Police at the time of the JFK murder, you will find this movie very interesting.
I hope you enjoy it.

good movie
this is a good movie for anybody interested in the JFK assassination or for just anybody who wants to watch a good movie.
this movie has very little to do with the actual facts, for instance, the girl, Candy Cane dosen't exist, but they put her in anyway.

the actual assassination is pretty good.
only 2 shooters though, but not a bad re-enactment.
Robert Groden also got involved in this movie, Groden is the author of several books and helped recreate the Dealey Plaza scene for JFK.

the saddest part of the movie is the assassination of JFK.
you see the motorcade come down Elm Street in front of the book depository and in the background you hear Amazing Grace.
kinda sad.

i like the theme song when he's going to kill Oswald, but the actual Oswald assassination scence is pretty corny. in the movie, Oswald sees Ruby coming at him and he prepares for the shot, in reality, that never happened, but this isn't a documentry, it's a movie.

so enjoy it.

Interesting speculation
Aiello gives a superb performance (in a fictionalized speculation) as Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner who is willing to exploit the mob but at the same time be connected to it, and later murders President JFK's assassin. Terrific score, top-knotch supporting cast, but a little too much plot. A must if your interests include the Kennedy murder conspiracy. ... Read more

Amazon.com

An unusual yet unexpectedly entertaining television mystery series, The Racing Game DVD collection includes all six episodes from a 1980 British production inspired by Dick Francis's novel Odds Against. Francis himself wrote an adapted scenario based on the story of Sid Halley (Mike Gwilym), a champion jockey whose hand--and career--are destroyed during a racing accident. Lost in a deep funk, Halley is eventually drawn out by a string of suspicious accidents at the track. Soon he's investigating criminal connections to a sadistic, wealthy couple and inventing himself anew as a private gumshoe.

The remaining five episodes are original tales, sketched out by Francis and set in the surprisingly cutthroat world of racing. "Trackdown" finds Sid and his comic-relief sidekick, Chico Barnes (Mick Ford), looking into evidence of race fixing, blackmail, and murder. In "Gambling Lady," the crime-fighting partners seek a link between a champion horse's road accident and a beautiful woman's sizable bets on a mediocre mare.

The Racing Game has a slippery, hurried look and feel, and its nominal star (Gwilym) is rather lifeless on screen. Yet these shows quickly develop an unmistakable, infectious swagger and humor. Certain motifs, such as Halley's wrecked hand and vise-like prosthetic, have a slightly surreal touch. Supporting actor Ford adds crucial energy, and the many exterior shots of the racing milieu can be fun to watch.This series may not be an unqualified winner, but it certainly does place in the mystery stakes. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Completely true to the feel of Dick Francis.
This series is, like a lot of '70s British television, short on technical glamor, and long on getting an adaptation absolutely true in spirit to the original, with an added fillip of its own. In this case, the performance of Mike Gwilym, who did such a good job that Francis was inspired to write a second Halley novel [Whip Hand] and dedicated it to Gwilym and the producer of this series. His tough-but-brilliant Sid is the best you'll ever see. If you're a Francis fan, you need this DVD.

The DVDs do the best they can with unrestored source material. You will see film grain, scratches, hairs, etc. But the digital translation has remained as faithful as possible, with the datarate peaking into the 9s frequently (there are three episodes per disc). The colors are bright, and artifacts are not present. The extras aren't. But each episode has 10 chapter stops in all the logical places, and, glory allelu, each episode intelligently inhabits a title (i.e., episode 1 is Title 1, episode 2 is Title 2, etc.) No frills, but no compromises, either.

Lacks a lot, technically
The quality of the sound is so bad that it often is difficult to follow the dialogue. Color often is quite faded in parts. The six mysteries are not bad. Of interest to Dick Francis fans, but still a disappointment. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The "fictionalized" version of the Veronica Guerin story
I am not alone in checking out "When the Sky Falls" after watching the Cate Blanchett film "Veronica Guerin" since the 2000 film is a "fictionalized" account of the same story of the Irish reporter who was assassinated by mobsters in 1996. The obvious question was why would director John Mackenzie turn the real Veronica Guerin into the fictional Sinead Hamilton (Joan Allen). I did not know the answer until I watched the featurette on the "When the Sky Falls" DVD.

Before her murder Veronica Guerin was collaborating with writing Michael Sheriden on early drafts of the screenplay. The idea was to tell a realistic story about the Dublin criminal underworld and at some point it became obvious that the story should be about a crime correspondent investigating the story; in other words, a character modeled on Guerin. However, the reporter insisted that her name not be used and even when she was murdered and the story of "When the Sky Falls" became her story, director John MacKenzie respected her wishes and kept the name change. The film was supposed to end with the reporter being honored for blowing the lid of the drug lords, but when Guerin was murdered the story by screenwriters Michael Sheridan and Ronan Gallagher changed to not only end with her death but explain why the mother of a young boy continued to investigate and write stories any being shot and repeatedly threatened.

The story is about a journalist doing writing exposés on the Dublin drug trade. One of her key sources, Mickey O'Fagan (Jimmy Smallhorne) is not to be trusted and Mackey (Patrick Bergin), the cop in charge of the investigation, is more than willing to break the rules to bring down the drug lord Dave Hackett (Gerard Flynn). However, what Mackey and the police think of Hamilton is not clear; it seems they run warm and cold on her. Then there is her husband, Tom (Kevin McNally), who knows it is pointless to try and stop her from doing her work, despite the danger, and the journalistic community that seems to be content to watch her from the sidelines.

The performances are also solid enough, not that we would ever expect anything less from Allen, who has a more sainted version of the character to play than Blanchett. That distinction emphasizes that the key difference between the two films is not the details of the story but the meaning ascribed to them. The bottom line is that this film was not as effective. Perhaps it is because I know the basics of the story and there are several key scenes in "When the Sky Falls" that we saw in "Veronica Guerin." Mackenzie made the neo-classic Brit mobster movie "The Long Good Friday" two decades earlier and this film has the appropriate look, but when you compare those scenes you find his approach is much quicker, the scenes more abbreviated, and the violence more subdued than in Joel Schumacher's 2003 film. There is a sense in which we are rushing through some of these scenes.

"Veronica Guerin" is a slicker film, which is not necessarily appropriate for the telling of this story, but "When the Sky Falls" fails to really take advantage of the grittier tack. You should check both of them out because you are not going to be able to go wrong with Allen or Blanchett in a leading role. Having seen both films my recommendation would be to watch "When the Sky Falls" first, not just because it came out first, but also because it is, to some degree, the fictional version and because I think it is the correct order for best appreciating the efforts of the two actresses.

Veronica Guerin by another name
2003 saw the extraordinary Cate Blanchett star in VERONICA GUERIN in the title role of the Irish investigative reporter for "The Sunday Independent" who ran afoul of Dublin's criminal underworld and was murdered on June 26, 1996. WHEN THE SKY FALLS, starring Joan Allen and released three years earlier, is a fictionalized version of the same story.

It would be difficult to choose between the two films. Allen and Blanchett are two of the best actresses in the business. The latter brought more effervescence - perhaps too much - to the role. The former ratchets the glamour of the Guerin persona down a notch to a more credible level. Indeed, for the purpose of the story, Allen takes on a fictional identity - Sinead Hamilton.

Key events in the efforts by Guerin/Hamilton to expose those behind Dublin's illegal drug traffic are common to both productions: the invasion of Guerin's home by a pistol wielding thug who shot her in the leg as a warning, her beating by the mobster John Gilligan - here named "Dave Hackett" (Gerard Flynn), and her fatal shooting by a couple of motorcycle riders while her cherry red sports car was stationary at a stoplight. WHEN THE SKY FALLS places greater emphasis on the emotional support provided by her husband, here played by Kevin McNally, while VERONICA GUERIN is a bit grittier in its depiction of heroin's effects on young addicts. Both movies provide an unsparing look at the violence employed by those controlling the drug trade, both show the importance of criminal informants to Guerin's/Hamilton's information gathering, and both portray the uneasy but ultimately symbiotic relationship the reporter had with local law enforcement.

If I was forced to pick my favorite of the two films, I guess I'd have to go with VERONICA GUERIN simply because I'm so smitten with Cate Blanchett. But both are eminently watchable, and both are a tribute to the quixotic bravery of the woman who paid the ultimate price.

It's About Time
The story is finally told. "When the Sky Falls" is a fact-based drama of the events surrounding the high profile murder of crime reporter Veronica Guerin in Ireland in 1996. In the movie, Joan Allen plays Sinead Hamilton, a reporter for a Dublin newspaper (the names are changed, probably because of strict Irish libel laws). Hamilton probes Dublin's underworld, writing stories about the city's growing drug epidemic and in particular about a powerful drug lord named Hackett. As one might expect, Hackett (whose real name is John Gilligan) and his cronies are not pleased with Hamilton's exposure of their criminal activities. Hamilton soon becomes the target of intimidation and violence. Unwilling to be silenced, she continues to speak out against Hackett despite the danger to herself. Ultimately, she puts her life on the line for her devotion to the truth. Who would have thought that this would happen in a "safe" European country like Ireland? "When the Sky Falls" is a gritty and unblinking study of Guerin, the people out to stop her, and Dublin's drug problem. Allen does a respectable job portraying Guerin alias Hamilton, a reporter, wife, and mother risking her life for a just cause. Patrick Bergin also appears in the movie. He plays an unorthodox Garda (Irish police) detective who helps Hamilton and is determined to put Hackett away. Again, another good performance. This movie is a must see for people who like crime dramas or those who want know the full story of Veronica Guerin and her sacrifice. ... Read more