Bob Hoskins gives what is inarguably his greatest performance in this gritty British crime classic; as gangster Harold Shand, he offers up a masterful portrait of a human being with flaws and foibles, strengths and weaknesses, hopes and dreams, whose existence is threatened when a deal with the mafia goes wrong. You don't like Harold, but you don't hate him, either; you respect his influence, but deride his stubbornness. You pity his wife, played by Helen Mirren. Yet it's hard not to feel sorry for the man as his empire crumbles and he's forced to reconsider and compromise everything he has built from the ground up, as the IRA - an organisation that Harold cannot understand - slowly close in to seek their revenge. This is a bold, gripping and influential film, made truly great because of its closing scene, in which Shand - captured and defeated - silently contemplates his fate in the back of an IRA vehicle, as Hoskins displays a truly masterful smorgasbord of emotions, one by one: shock, disbelief, bemusement and - finally - acceptance.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
