This week I plan on completing a Steven Soderbergh Marathon, which I will call The Soderbergh Series, of watching and reviewing six of his films that I’ve always wanted to see but never have.  This is an effort for me to increase my already lacking knowledge of film and also to possibly introduce others to some films that Soderbergh may have done that does start with the word Ocean in the title.  Today’s Soderbergh Series has me watch me watching The Limey.

After nine years in prison Wilson [Terence Stamp] is released only to find out that his daughter is dead and he suspects foul play.  Eduardo Roel [Luis Guzman], a friend of Wilson’s daughter, helps of Wilson by pointing him in the right direction and that direction happens to be facing Terry Valentine [Peter Fonda] and a lot of dead bodies are to follow.

Here is Soderbergh trying his hand at a noir crime thriller with great cinematography and editing that would serve as a great example to the film community that I think should be showed in all film classes across the world.  I’ve seen a few films which try to utilize editing techniques similar to this film where you will hear dialogue throughout the scene but for most of the scene you’re not watching the actor speak the dialogue however performing some other action.  I find this technique very useful in speeding up the pace of a generally slow film.  Most directors would give us both parts of the scene – the talking and the doing – separately and not only waste your time but only be treating you, the viewer, like a moron.  What that director is basically saying is that you don’t have the brain power to understand that this dialogue that you’re hearing is him still on the phone and him walking out to the car happened after the phone call and anything that may or may not have happened in-between is pretty inconsequential to the story that we are watching unveil in front of us.

The one question I had while watching this movie was if it was an unofficial sequel to a movie from the 70s that I’ve never heard of because of all the back-story that we were getting from the movie felt pretty odd whenever we saw scenes of Terence Stamp at age 25.  After doing a little research after the fact Soderbergh decided to use some footage from a previous film that Stamp had done, which has no story relation to this one, called Poor Cow.  However what this has done is not only added a sense of realism to the film but also added another movie to my ever so long to watch list.  We’ve seen numerous movies over the years where flashbacks are employed and we have to see our lead as a younger version of themselves and most directors would just cast a young actor who may or may not look like the main actor at his current age and sometimes it will pull me out of the experience by sitting there and asking myself which person thought that he ever looked like this – my most recent example is 17 Again with Matthew Perry looking like Zach Ephron at age 17, I don’t buy that one.  The use of this previous film just added a special touch to the look and feel of the movie that makes it so special for me to watch and enjoy.

In this film they are dreamlike moments which I think are to be applauded.  This is not new at all, there are been surreal moments in films forever, however I felt like these moments were displayed wonderfully in the screen for us all to enjoy.  It was clear that these were re-imaginings of moments and what they made me feel was that it wasn’t so much as a flashback but rather us going into Wilson’s head as he tries to imagine what it looked like to have been in the moment.  This was used not only for when Wilson spoke of his own past but when others told him about their past and that is what made is special.  Many may call them flashbacks but I would prefer to see them as these surreal re-imaginations of the moments being described to us.

If you love thrillers and noir, then definitely take a look at this film without a doubt you’re going to have a blast.

IMDB says 7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 91%

I say 9.0/10