A small-time thug is released from prison and must find work. He looks up his former associate, now a big-time thug, and is given the job of driving for a black prostitute. Between the two of them an unusual relationship develops (gee, this is becoming a mandatory phrase in my synopses!).
The plot doesn't make a lot of sense, as is perceptively explained in the following two reviews I have lifted from IMDB (I do not agree with all they say, though).
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Effective film which gets away with its major flaws
Author: simon-118 from London
25 March 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I'm very fond of Mona Lisa. It's a story of innocence in a world dripping with sin, and Hoskins is perfection as the ex-con quite capable of dishing out a beating when he's up against it but childlike in his naivety to the horrors of child prostitution.
The two performances that really stand out for me though are Michael Caine and Clarke Peters who are both absolutely terrifying, Caine also very funny in places too.
The major problem with the film is that the plot is, frankly, rubbish! Why does Anderson spend years trying to find Simone when she's working for his colleague Caine as part of the same business? Why is Caine paying George to drive her around? If he is her pimp why doesn't Anderson know this? It's all rather odd. And also how come George just walks away from the climax scot-free? That, and also why the girl in the room who is from Ireland have a Birmingham accent...
But a haunting, touching and frightening film, although it's interesting that the film offers no sympathy to Tyson's character despite the fact that she clearly uses George because she by now only sees men as a means to an end.
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[quote]The two performances that really stand out for me though are Michael Caine and Clarke Peters who are both absolutely terrifying, Caine also very funny in places too.
The major problem with the film is that the plot is, frankly, rubbish! Why does Anderson spend years trying to find Simone when she's working for his colleague Caine as part of the same business? Why is Caine paying George to drive her around? If he is her pimp why doesn't Anderson know this? It's all rather odd. And also how come George just walks away from the climax scot-free? That, and also why the girl in the room who is from Ireland have a Birmingham accent...
But a haunting, touching and frightening film, although it's interesting that the film offers no sympathy to Tyson's character despite the fact that she clearly uses George because she by now only sees men as a means to an end.
[unquote]
2 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Author: writers_reign from London, England
20 October 2006
There Goes Mr. Jordan
Author: writers_reign from London, England
20 October 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Neil Jordan is a graduate of the Ken Loach I-Hate-England school of film-making which means that like Loach he spurns no opportunity to explore its worst aspects in loving detail. This time around it's the sex industry that sleazes its way into his spotlight. The story is improbable-to-ridiculous, one leave it out, guv, after another. Why, for example does Michael Caine's Mr Big wait til Bob Hoskins gets out of the slammer before hiring a driver for Cathy Tyson's hooker - what did she do before, take a bus? In turn why does Tyson wait until their initial antipathy has thawed before asking him to locate another hooker when 1) surely the world of London hookers is not that large, there's obviously some kind of network whereby one can locate another without charming a violent oak into doing the job and 2) for what she spent kitting out Hoskins with shirts, suit and topcoat in a trendy Men's Store she could have hired a private detective for a month but given how easy the hooker was to find he'd have taken about a day and a half tops. This leaves us with the acting; for Hoskins it's the mixture as before, all contained violence and effing and blinding, sure he was phoning it in by that stage, Robbie Coltrane is totally unconvincing and Mike Tyson could have done as well as Cathy. Okay, it's twenty years old - a freebie with a newspaper, just as well I didn't spend more than the price of a paper I buy anyway on this pap - and maybe at the time it looked better but it's way past its sell-by date.
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[unquote]
Well, back to little old me, the film is reasonably stylish and eventful; also, it benefits enormously from the male leading performance (the black girl is not so good though).
What really struck me was the social background to this story, expressed, for example, in the following exchange near the beginning of the movie, after he visits his ex-wife's house:
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A: So where'd they all come from? They live here? Since when?
B: Since you went inside.
A: Jesus!
[unquote]
He is referring to the black punks in the street. A little later, he tries to make contact with his daughter at her school, and we get to see the students' queue and its multiethnic composition.
All this, mind you, was back in 1986! In our days, the pope keeps exhorting rich nations to extend a helping hand to people living in less-favored ones who would want to immigrate. Way to go, Francis. Now that Europeans have wised up about the futility of religion, just call on the poor uneducated masses from the third and fourth worlds to replenish the churches' seats.
Rating: 54 (down from 63)
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