The Limey

Steven Soderbergh follows up his criminally entertaining Out of Sight with this grittier, more stylistically audacious contemporary noir. Terrence Stamp is "absobloodylutely ace" as Wilson, a Cockney ex-con fresh out of prison and pounding the streets of L.A.--not to mention anyone who will not tell him what he wants to know about the mysterious death of his estranged daughter. Peter Fonda, like Stamp a '60s icon, co-stars as record promoter Terry Valentine, who can run but cannot hide from Wilson, despite the best efforts of his chief of security (veteran character actor Barry Newman) to hire lowlifes to dispose of him. While the film inexorably progresses to its inevitable showdown, this is more character study than action thriller, with Soderbergh's impressionistic editing fracturing time and putting us inside Wilson's head (in fact, to flesh out Wilson's past, he makes brilliant use of film clips from Ken Loach's 1967 Poor Cow, which starred Stamp as a character named Wilson!). Enthusiastically recommended. (K. Lee Benson)