漫长美好的星期五

漫长美好的星期五是一部英国黑帮电影，讲述了伦敦的黑帮头目Harold在与美国人谈生意时受到接二连三的打击：车子被炸，饭店被炸，得力手下遇刺，赌场也差点被炸。美国人得知Harold诸事不顺后决定撤资。经过艰难的调查，种种线索指向了IRA爱尔兰人的组织，而这些接二连三的报复只是因为他手下犯下的“小错”。Harold气急败坏，杀死了爱尔兰组织的一个头目，却紧接着遭到了他们更强烈的报复。

这部影片的主线是悬疑和解密。不光是主角Harold在从始至终寻找是谁在找他麻烦，观众们也在不断拼凑他们获得的信息。影片的开头让人摸不到头绪。接二连三出场的角色们没有向观众直接表明他们的身份，甚至有些角色乍现之后很长时间都没有再出现。在很长一段时间内我们也并不知道这个故事的主角究竟是谁。直到游艇上的聚会，观众才大概理清了人物的身份，他们之间的关系。

这部影片让我印象最深的是红色的使用。在很多场景中人物的脸上都有着让人不安的红色，血的红色，女主角也穿过扎眼的红色衣服。这些颜色令人物显得冲动而危险，令观众感到不安

音乐的使用在本片中也很有意思，本片大量使用了合成的电子音乐。在很多场景中，声音响亮的背景音乐占据了观众很大的注意力，让人紧张。在赌场炸弹那场戏中，最后一个镜头给了未爆炸的炸弹，然后音乐骤然响起。当我们都以为炸弹要爆炸的时候，镜头却切到了下一个场景。

演员的表演大都无可挑剔，这当然跟导演深厚的功力有关。印象最深的表演段落当属男主角的两次独白，一次在船上，一次在美国人要走的时候。仰拍镜头紧紧地推到Harold的脸上，显得他那么自信，强壮，不可一世。

与大多数电影中描绘的自信，沉稳，玩弄敌人于股掌之间的黑帮不同，Harold虽然在伦敦有话语权，在这个故事中他却从来没有赢过：IRA接二连三的打击，美国商业伙伴的若即若离，找不到线索的焦急，甚至自己最得力的手下一直在瞒着他搞小动作。Harold的命运如同大多数电影中的黑社会一样，最终陨落。可与悍匪终于被绳之以法的故事不同，漫长美好的星期五讲述的故事更像是小人物失败的抗争。

讲了爱尔兰共和军和码头区的故事，展示了 20 世纪 70 年代后期、80 年代初期的伦敦，就是在二战被炸毁了的码头区取景的，你会看到那些被炸毁了的仓库，以及一个黑帮成员希望重建这个地方。这部电影会像你展示伦敦那个时候有多糟糕，以及和现在的强烈对比。伦敦现在的一切都是在那个被炸的稀巴烂的基础上建起来的。

This is de facto a very long Good Friday for London mobster boss Harold Shand (Hoskins) (and he might not be alive and kicking on Easter Monday),he must impress and convince the newly landed American mafia kingpin Charlie (Constantine) to a significant partnership of redeveloping his home turf, but is ambushed by a concatenation of foul plays from an unknown party, a car bomb aiming at his mother but kills the chauffeur, a luckily defused bomb found in his casino, his pub is blown up right in front of his face, but worst of the all, Collin (Freeman), one of his right-hand men and a chum who once saved his life, is cold-bloodedly murdered in a natatorium (whose bent predisposition subjects himself to a delectable but pestilant male bait, Brosnan in his screen debut).

When the shit hits the fan, Harold is bent on getting the bottom of it, even it requires to put his clueless cronies through the mangle (or more literally, hung topsy-turvy inside his abattoir) to extract any possible lead, meanwhile, he endeavors to keep a lid on the state of affairs from Charlie and relies on his girlfriend Victoria (Mirren) to mollify Charlie's suspicion of his own absence, which turns out to be futile, he is left 24 hours to sort things out, if not there will be no deal with the Yankees.

For sure, someone close to him must have an inkling of what is going on (the go-to design of a mole within), and audience is granted with a preface in Belfast where Collin clandestinely appropriates some cash from his consignment, and taking its milieu into account, it is quite a cinch that IRA is implicated in some point, and screenwriterBarrie Keeffe’s puzzle-solving script takes routinely dramatic turns to work up Harold’s retaliation, lends him great opportunities of vaunting and venting to establish him as the real deal, a forward-looking, ruthless yet compassionate padrone imbued with Corleone-esque complexity, and a dumpy Bob Hoskins magnificently holds sway in rendering Harold a flesh-and-blood persona that defies simple compartmentalization, he is a live-wire simmering with aspirant ambition and sharp-witted wiles, a patriotic boaster but inanely reckons that the best way to solve all his problems is by elimination, that is his feet of clay, too cocksure in his tried-and-tested methodology which leads him to step into the taxi without even noticing who is inside.

Helen Mirren also makes for a spectacular moll, not the usual ditzy bombshell sort, but Harold’s equal with acumen and a wonderful admixture of dignity and vulnerability. A square-jawedEddie Constantine exudes a flinty but suave sheen, which is always pleasing to watch, but it is up to the newcomer Derek Thompson, who plays Harold’s ill-fated consigliere Jeff, to supply emotional ammunition in the story by facing off Harold’s anger outburst, his childlike ambiguity between nonchalance and sophistication (and a touch of raffishness in the elevator scene with Mirren) leaves a delicate impression and outstrips many a more ostentatious player around him.

DirectorJohn Mackenzie proves himself an able journeyman behind the camera and his invention of Hoskins’ final shock-to-resignation long-take is a decisive coup-de-maître, sublimates a corny ending to something with a semblance of extraordinariness. But the movie’s blaring synth Muzak has taken its time to become a major pet peeve at that point, a sign-of-the-times short-changes this otherwise arresting, food-for-thought gangster iteration.

referential films: Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (1972, 8.4/10), THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974, 9.1/10).