Guy Ritchie Followed in This Hit ‘80s Gangster Movie’s Footsteps

The big picture

• The Long Good Friday
  an iconic 1980 British gangster film, it influenced Ritchie's gangster films in terms of style, spirit, dark humor, pacing and character writing.
• The Long Good Friday
  follows Harold Shand, a London gangster trying to go legit and find a life beyond crime. But things quickly go wrong for Shand, and the gangster is stuck with monumental bad luck throughout the film.
• Both of us
  The Long Good Friday
  and Ritchie's films feature authentic and authentic locations, chaotic and overwhelming storylines, commanding and intense main characters, and a lack of fear when facing powerful adversaries.

If you were to think about which films probably influenced the work of the famous English filmmaker Guy Ritchieit might be tempting to first look at the films of Quentin Tarantino. After all, Quentin Tarantino was very successful in the early and mid-1990s, thanks to thrillers, dark comedies and postmodern crime films such as Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994). Then, in the later 1990s and early 2000s, Guy Ritchie burst onto the international film scene with his first two feature films, both in the crime genre: 1998's. Lock, stock and two smoking barrels and the 2000s snatch. It's also worth noting how both directors made films that were largely their own, unconstrained by things like studio pressure and seemingly unaffected by producer notes or concerns. They also did all of this on low-to-moderate budgets, and even brought in big-name actors who were known for being in blockbusters (see Bruce Willis in Pulp Fictioni brad pitt in snatch for two of the most dramatic examples). But while Tarantino may have influenced Ritchie in some ways, the DNA of the formula that made Ritchie famous can be found much further back than the early 1990s, with The Long Good Fridayone of the best films of the 80s and also one of the most iconic British gangster films of all time.

It was a film that felt ahead of its time, to the point that watching it now can still give viewers an experience that feels dynamic, exciting, and extraordinary in all the right ways. In no way did Guy Ritchie plagiarize The Long Good Friday in any way with any of his films. Certainly the central premise of The Long Good Friday it's hard to compare to the true narratives found in the types of crime films that made Guy Ritchie famous. Its tale of a wily gangster who faces a series of unfortunate events is a far cry from the non-gangster blockbusters that Ritchie made after his success, such as the Sherlock Holmes starring films Robert Downey Jr. and the 2019 live-action version Aladdin. But it's the style, the spirit, the dark humor, the pacing and the writing of the characters present The Long Good Friday which can be seen as an influence on the gangster films that made Guy Ritchie so famous, making it an essential film to watch for any Ritchie fan who has yet to experience it.

So what is “The Long Good Friday” all about?

Although the narration of The Long Good Friday doesn't exactly align with a narrative found in any Guy Ritchie film, it's still worth unpacking what it's all about. To briefly return to Tarantino, this does mean that the influence this 1980 film had on Ritchie is a little less visible, especially given that Tarantino wears his influences more on his sleeve, to the point that the his first feature film: Reservoir Dogs – largely has the same premise as a 1987 Hong Kong film called city ​​on fire. Guy Ritchie, to his credit, isn't as direct, and therefore doesn't run the risk of offending certain viewers who may feel as if someone like Tarantino is borrowing from other films too liberally (see also the way in 2019). joker takes great influence from the themes and plot rhythms found in the Martin Scorsese movies taxi driver i The king of comedy).

The Long Good Friday revolves around a man named Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), a brash and well-connected London gangster who has ambitions beyond a life of crime. The film details their attempts to be legitimate, particularly with an ambitious project around the redevelopment of London's Docklands, potentially for the 1988 Olympics (Seoul, South Korea ended up hosting that year, but London did which hosted the 2012 Olympic Games). However, he is cursed before the audience has a chance to meet him, with the film opens with some tense sequences that build up to violence and murder, with news of these events reaching Shand shortly after bursting onto the screen. What follows is an intense, at times even anxiety-inducing film about one thing going wrong after another, with Shand's past catching up and making the possibility of a fruitful future is increasingly unlikely. The sense of almost cosmic bad luck that causes stress and chaos is explored through many of the hapless criminal characters in films like Lock, stock and two smoking barrels, i snatch(and it is also possible to see its influence on the modern crime classics of the Safdie BrothersI like Good weather i Uncut gems), but many plot details remain unique The Long Good Friday.

How the look, feel and pace of “The Long Good Friday” influenced Guy Ritchie

Going beyond the story, it's looking at the overall style, feel and flow The Long Good Friday where the influence of Guy Ritchie can be seen more clearly. The Long Good Friday combines its bleak and intense story with a level of rawness and authenticity with the locations where its various scenes are shot. Howard Shand has aspirations of transforming the less visually appealing parts of London into areas with more glitz and class, and as such the film takes place in and around these areas, obviously before any improvements can be made. It was a modestly budgeted film (£930,000 in 1980, which would be around £5 million today, or $6–7 million), which may have required much of the film to be shot on location . In terms of setting, Guy Ritchie's early films are similarly cheeky, down-to-earth and seem to be shot on location more often than not, with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels on a budget of $1.3 million in 1998 and snatch being slightly higher in 2000, at $10 million.

The Long Good Friday it also throws viewers into a chaotic world right from the start, thanks to the early murders and the way they set off more dramatic and unfortunate events. Ritchie's early films are similarly overwhelming, especially in the opening scenes, where viewers are introduced to what seems like an infinite number of characters who talk fast, are down on their luck, and can seemingly end up dead at any point in the story. . Even if the stories of this particular flavor of gangster film are sometimes hard to follow, this can be felt by design as they capture the chaotic world in which people who choose a life of crime live. It's a bit like a Martin Scorsese gangster film, in that way; these Brits are equally honest about the reality of being a criminal, to an extent, but they do so without making things too depressing or bleak in a way that hinders the ability to be entertained. Of couse, The Long Good Friday and Ritchie's gangster films are distinctly British in their settings, character accents and dark sense of humour, making them feel different enough from comparable American crime films such as Scorsese's .

Similarities between the dialogue and characters of “The Long Good Friday” and Ritchie's gangster films

What people are most likely to get excited about when it comes to The Long Good Friday it's Bob Hoskins' lead performance, which might be the best he's ever given. His character is brutal, cruel and sometimes arrogant, but he feels human enough to the point that he remains a compelling protagonist, with his lack of more traditional heroic qualities making him no less appealing as a main character. The level of intensity he delivers throughout the film has rarely been matched within the crime film genre since 1980 (although he is far from the film's only great actor, given Helen Mirren she also gives a memorable performance as Shand's partner Victoria). Guy Ritchie's gangster films are also dominated by, well, dominant characters who all have big personalities, big egos and a lack of fear when facing off against powerful adversaries. The occasions when Hoskins monologues or makes a speech, being aggressive and verbose at the same time, feels particularly Ritchie-esque, especially when compared to the character in Brick Top (Alan Fordwhich coincidentally also plays a small role The Long Good Friday) of snatch.

The stupidity or arrogance of the characters that are ultimately their undoing is something present in both The Long Good Friday and Ritchie's films, too, with the fate of somewhat tragic figures in those films tending to fall between the hilariously ironic and the stomach-churning. Beyond the behavior of the characters, the large amount of characters also seems comparable, because even though The Long Good Friday has a clear protagonist with Harold Shand, and Lock, stock and two smoking barrels i snatch They feel more like ensemble films, all having numerous supporting characters that are continually introduced, keeping things in suspense because of how many characters can do or say something terrible at any moment.

None of the three films cares too much about making their characters likable, and all succeed in keeping the viewer engaged, even without many of the figures in these stories being particularly likable. . It's a very fine line when making this kind of gangster film, but Ritchie has done it right, and it's probably in part thanks to iconic gangster genre classics like The Long Good Friday. Ritchie took things that worked from that film and made them feel modernized for turn-of-the-century audiences, showing how a filmmaker can take influences from an earlier film and make something both fresh and somewhat familiar with what he had to offer.

The Long Good Friday currently streaming on Max in the US

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