or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
57 used & new from $8.91

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

or

Get a $2.25 Amazon.com Gift Card
 
   
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
Sorry!
The Long Good Friday - Criterion Collection
 
See larger image
 

The Long Good Friday - Criterion Collection (1982)

Starring: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren Director: John Mackenzie Rating: R (Restricted) Format: DVD
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)

List Price: $29.95
Price: $26.99 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $2.96 (10%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

29 new from $13.75 28 used from $8.91
Amazon Video On Demand
Amazon Video On Demand Special Offer
Purchase any DVD or Blu-ray and receive $5 towards select TV shows at Amazon Video On Demand. Here's how (restrictions apply).

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this DVD with Mona Lisa DVD ~ Bob Hoskins

The Long Good Friday - Criterion Collection + Mona Lisa
  • This item: The Long Good Friday - Criterion Collection DVD ~ Bob Hoskins

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

  • Mona Lisa DVD ~ Bob Hoskins

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details


Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • Indie Films as Low as $6.49 Shop now.

  • Documentary DVDs as Low as $8.49 Stock up on Documentary DVDs, over 300 Documentaries as low as $8.49. Hurry, sale ends November 10th. Shop now.


What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?


Product Details

  • Actors: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Paul Freeman, Leo Dolan, Kevin McNally
  • Directors: John Mackenzie
  • Writers: Barrie Keeffe
  • Producers: Barry Hanson, Chris Griffin, Denis O'Brien, George Harrison
  • Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0)
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rating: R (Restricted)
  • Studio: Criterion
  • DVD Release Date: November 24, 1998
  • Run Time: 114 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: 6305174091
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #56,599 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
  • For more information about "The Long Good Friday - Criterion Collection" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

Intricately plotted and smartly paced, this gangster saga clicks as whodunit, social satire, and explosive thriller. The piece is crowned by Bob Hoskins's career-making turn as a London mobster courting respectability and Helen Mirren's subtly detailed performance as his upper-crust mistress. Cockney wiseguy Harold Shand is a would-be burgher whose domination of the city's underworld stems from his shrewdness as a mediator and his skill at harnessing political and economic clout. As Easter approaches, he's poised to launch an aggressive real estate development scheme along the depressed Thames waterfront when all hell breaks loose: a trusted lieutenant is brutally murdered, Shand's mother is nearly killed in a car bombing, one of his pubs is blown apart, and the visiting American don crucial to the pending deal is quickly growing wary.

Barrie Keeffe's original screenplay keeps the viewer a step ahead of Shand, providing us with a telling but teasingly incomplete glimpse of the misstep by his underlings that has set chaos loose. At the same time, Keeffe underlines the bourgeois pretensions of the rough-hewn, barrel-chested Shand, how the elegant Victoria (Mirren) helps serve those ambitions, and the myriad parallels between Shand's minions and the local politicians and police only too willing to join in his scheme. Tart, funny dialogue and alternately playful and pungent Eastertide imagery complete Keeffe's shrewd design--two key scenes, in a meat locker and a warehouse, invoke the Crucifixion itself.

Even with lesser performances, the script and John Mackenzie's solid direction would make The Long Good Friday a keeper, but Hoskins's explosive portrait of Shand and his descent toward brutal revenge elevates the film into the very front rank, earning admiring comparisons to The Godfather, Scarface, GoodFellas, and other classics of that genre. On DVD, Criterion's new digital transfer restores more than just the widescreen aspect ratio--the film has never looked better, even if an occasionally muddy sound mix survives to make the thick Cockney accents a challenge to decipher. --Sam Sutherland



Product Description

Bob Hoskins, in his breakthrough film role, stars as a London racketeer fast losing control of his gangland empire; Helen Mirren shines as his classy moll. John Mackenzie's stylish thriller is a marriage of gangster flicks from both sides of the Atlantic. Criterion presents The Long Good Friday in an exclusive widescreen transfer.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Get Carter

Get Carter

DVD ~ Michael Caine
4.5 out of 5 stars (71)  $15.99
Sexy Beast

Sexy Beast

DVD ~ Ray Winstone
3.9 out of 5 stars (166)  $10.99
The Limey

The Limey

DVD ~ Terence Stamp
4.0 out of 5 stars (134)  $9.98
Essex Boys

Essex Boys

DVD ~ Charlie Creed-Miles
4.1 out of 5 stars (16)  $13.49
Gangster No. 1

Gangster No. 1

DVD ~ Malcolm McDowell
3.3 out of 5 stars (26)  $9.98
Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(2)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

 

Customer Reviews

63 Reviews
5 star:
 (38)
4 star:
 (15)
3 star:
 (8)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (63 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Must see high powered and provacative British gangster epic, December 6, 2000
By P. Ferrigno "firehouse444" (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Talented English director John MacKenzie knew that the English gangster genre needed a good shot in the arm...and he delivered the goods with this tightly scripted and brilliantly acted crime drama.

Bob Hoskins is outstanding as London mob boss, Harold Shand...masterminding a major construction development along the river Thames that will nett him, and his American backers, millions of pounds. Shand has everyone on his payroll...politicians, police and enforcers...but then suddenly everything starts to unravel, and Harolds world turns upside down in the space of a day. MacKenzie's film moves with intent and purpose and Barrie O'Keeffe's screenplay keeps the suspense at a finely tuned pitch. A terrific support cast headed by the sulrty Helen Mirren as Harold's wife, Victoria....Derek Thompson as the cowardly, opportunist Jeff....P.H. Moriarty as the aptly named bodyguard "Razors"....and Bryan Marshall as the drunken councillor, Harris, further contribute to the success of this challenging film.

Clever use of authentic London locations and creative cinematography lend a further hand to enhance the claustraphobic atmoshpere closing in upon Harold Shand and his crew...the viewer really feels through Hoskins emotional range, the unnerving pressure that is causing him to come apart at the seams. Excellent transfer to DVD...sound and color both superb...it's a pity that Criterion didn't add a few extra goodies that they usually package with their fine presentations.

A solidly crafted, gripping film with A grade performances by a splendid English cast...and keep your eyes open for a very youthful Pierce Brosnan in a minor role.

FOOTNOTE : MacKenzie also made another powerful movie three years prior in 1979 called "A Sense of Freedom"...based on the true story of Glasgow gangster, Jimmy Boyle, and his life in jail and out. It's a harrowing, gritty prison film that doesn't pull it's punches...unfortunately it's not on video or DVD at present...but hopefully it will return. Another A class crime film !!

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars STILL "EXPLOSIVE" AFTER 24 YEARS!, March 19, 2004
The second best ever Brit gangster movie is a brilliant energy-filled piece. Ritchie's "Lock, Stock..." is fine if you want a jokey gangster film bailed out by lucky coincidences, but this is the real thing, believable and intelligent.

What really raises this movie into the stratosphere is the bravura performance by Bob 'Oskins. The much-praised ending is riveting. Surely it's the most dazzling display of an actor's craft to hold in close facial shot for a prolonged time showing a variety of emotions cross the features? Hoskins does this to perfection, showing (at least) disbelief, anger, realization, fear, grim amusement and acceptance over a 90 second period, all the while set to pounding soundtrack and flickering lighting from passing streetlamps.

If you haven't seen this, do yourself a favor and buy the excellent DVD which also has some neat features.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great film, shame about the dubbing., December 11, 2004
Am i the only person to notice the shameless dubbing of a great film. I originally purchased the Region 2 version.Special Edition! I naturally expected the full uncut, un-edited, and certainly ud-dubbed version to be there.When the Criterion version came out i expected more but unfortunately it was the same. The worst part is that in the extras in an interview with Bob Hoskins and Barrie O'Keefe,Hoskins tells of how horrified he was on first seeing the original version released by the American studio and how they had dubbed his own voice to make him sound like 'a Geordie'(thats someone from Newcastle for any Americans who may be reading ).He was so outraged he threatened to sue the company.Eventually he managed to persuade Hand Made Films to buy the rights from the original owners.The only way to see the film as it was supposed to be seen is on VHS
Comment Comments (2) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars good movie, good atmosphere, british accent difficult to understand
I appreciate this movie, a good script, a great story, well acting but the language....wow, very difficult to understand the subtility. Too hard for me
Published 9 days ago by Rene Theberge

3.0 out of 5 stars Clean up on lane 10
Pierce Brosnan is a young bit player in this film as an IRA hit-man.
The bombs start going off in London and the bodies start piling up
in what at first appears to be... Read more
Published 8 months ago by R. Bagula

4.0 out of 5 stars Top Brit-gangster movie
Before this movie was released, with the exception of Michael Caine`s Get Carter, British gangster movies were little known around the world and even at home, they were little... Read more
Published 9 months ago by John Peter O'connor

3.0 out of 5 stars Important movie to see - but it does not live up to the hype
The Long Good Friday, considered one of the best British gangster flicks, takes the classic story of hubristic downfall and sets it in late-seventies London. Read more
Published 11 months ago by the kid

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring
The best thing about this film is the soundtrack. 79 Euro disco and hypnotic psyche prog rock. I give the sounds track 5 stars.

The movie itself. Read more
Published 13 months ago by ginsu

3.0 out of 5 stars The world's your oyster... Until it isn't.
Refusal to adapt, refusal to comprehend... This is the story of a 'big time' London crime-lord's fall -- at the hands of his own ignorance. Read more
Published 15 months ago by D. J. Bowler

4.0 out of 5 stars Who Lit The Fuse That Tore Harold's World Apart?
"What I'm looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius. A little bit more than an 'ot dog, know what I mean? Read more
Published 16 months ago by prisrob

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Movie British Masterpiece
This movie is excellent from the cast of actors through the plot and the realistic brutality that is far more shocking for it's realism than many of the movie scenes that almost... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Ian

3.0 out of 5 stars great but problematic film
This is a film is that is nearly great. Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren turn great performances as a gangster couple in the London of the early 1970s. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Mark bennett

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for any fan of the gangster/organized crime genre
This flick shows us why people say "they don't make movies like they used to." The acting by Hoskins and Mirren in this film is superb, as well as the plot line. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Paul S. Henriques

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
109 minutes vs. 114 minutes 1 May 2008
See all discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
   




Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject

 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.