Directed by John Mackenzie (Blu-ray Review)
Director
John MackenzieRelease Date(s)
1980/1983/1987/1992 (March 25, 2026)Studio(s)
Various (Imprint Films/Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: See Below
- Video Grade: See Below
- Audio Grade: See Below
- Extras Grade: A
- Overall Grade: B+
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a Region-Free Australian Blu-ray import.]
Scottish filmmaker John Mackenzie made his bones being a competent workhorse of a director during the so-called golden age of British television, a twenty-year period covering from about ’64 to ’84. He was known for his ability to bring in projects on time and under budget—and those budgets tended to be tight. Before he became a filmmaker, he was a teacher, turned production assistant for the BBC, but eventually got his shot in the director’s chair in 1967 for an episode of Wednesday Play entitled Voices in the Park. Breaking away from exclusively working for The Corporation (BBC), he went freelance in 1969 and started working for other broadcasters and on independent films starting with One Brief Summer and Unman, Wittering and Zigo. Eventually he made his way to his masterpiece and, honestly, the reason he’ll remain on lists of notable filmmakers: The Long Good Friday.
He died on June 8, 2011, following health complication after suffering a stroke leaving behind a handful of highly watchable films across a myriad of genres. Imprint Films has recently brought four of his best theatrical projects together in a very lovely box set that I’ll review right now just for you, dear reader.
DISC ONE: THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1980 – SPINE #547)
As previously stated, The Long Good Friday, confidently written by journalist-turned-playwright Barrie Keefe, is a neo-gangster film masterwork and the first non-Python film distributed by George Harrison’s HandMade Films. A penetrating black comedy with a tight dramatic undercurrent, the story is set in London over an Easter weekend where a colorful cockney gangster named Harold Shand (played by a Bob Hoskins at his most Bob Hoskinsness) is trying to pull off the deal of a lifetime while also juggling the American mafia, the IRA, irate policemen and someone Shand suspects is out for him and serves in his own gang. Set during the early years of the rewriting of Capitalist politics under Reagan and Margaret Thatcher with a side of religious terrorism, The Long Good Friday should be on any discerning film fan’s must watch list and Bob Hoskins’ electric turn as a gangster should be up there with gangster icons like James Cagney, Edward G Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. Also, Helen Mirren’s memorable performance as his fiercely loyal “moll” Victoria is no slouch either.
If you’re looking for a deeper dive of The Long Good Friday, please check out our review of the superior edition of this film in the Criterion Spines Project #26—it’s a good read of the 4K edition of this film. This Imprint edition features a clean 1080p video (1.78:1 aspect) that looks great and presents well—probably the same as the original Arrow edition. The opening titles are a bit unstable and that worried me at first, but that seemed to be an anomaly and everything cleans up quickly after that. Sound is English LPCM 2.0 Stereo with English subs and supports the film quite well. Extras include the archival John Mackenzie commentary that was original to the Anchor Bay DVD release and is still a great listen. The original documentary Bloody Business: Making of The Long Good Friday from the same DVD set is also included—an old school “film school in a box” piece of added value content full of great behind the scenes material. New to this edition are a series of talking head interviews: London Casting, an interview with casting director Simone Reynolds; Gangster Style, an interview with costume designer Tudor George; One of the Gang, an interview with actor Rob Walker; and The Upside Down Side, an interview with stuntman Jim Dowdall—these are all well produced and informative. The best of the bunch is focused on the casting director Simon Reynolds who leveraged her experience in the London Theater scene to pack this film with colorful actors playing pitch perfect roles. Round it all out is the theatrical trailer.
THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): A+/A/B+/A
DISC TWO: THE HONORARY CONSOL (1983 – SPINE #548)
The Honorary Consul (released in the US as Beyond the Limit), was Mackenzie’s next theatrical feature and first American co-production (produced by the legendary Norma Heyman for Paramount) after a quick return to the BBC with the telefilm A Sense of Freedom. Written by playwright Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) and based on the Graham Greene novel, The Honorary Consol is an odd cookie of a film. It’s somewhat entertaining—featuring an at the top of his game Michael Caine as the eponymous honorary British consul, Bob Hoskins as an Argentinian police chief (it’s a bit of a no-no casting these days, but golly it works) and a weirdly miscast Richard Gere, fresh off his An Officer and a Gentleman success, as a doctor and the son of a British mother and Paraguayan father, whose father was arrested for political reasons and was “disappeared”. Gere’s sometimes on sometimes off British accent and phoned in performance sink the film, and it sucks because there are moments watching the film where you get sucked in. And to be fair, Gere actual comes alive at the end when he has some meaty work to play with—but it’s too little too late to save the film.
The story focuses on Gere’s Eduardo Plarr, a doctor who comes to a small town in Argentina to set up a humanitarian practice and quickly finds himself reacquainted with an old friend, a priest (a young Joaquim de Almeida) who left the cloth to lead a group of militant activists. He also finds himself new friends with Caine’s charming alcoholic Charley Fortnum, who one night calls Eduardo for a house call to attend to his new wife Clara (Predator’s Elpidia Carrillo)—a beautiful woman Eduardo recently admired at the local brothel. Clara and Eduardo have a whirlwind affair behind Charley’s back and that affair starts a series of unfortunate events culminating with a kidnapping that no good deed can repair. At times it’s a thoroughly engaging drama with one major weakness that is just so hard to shake off—Gere. I dare you to watch this and not be distracted by his performance for 3/4s of the film.
This Blu-ray presentation is fine and serves the film well. Video is a 1080p HD in 1:85:1—not going to make you think that there’s a 4K out there—but it looks like a period early 80s movie with nice grain and good tones and that’s fine. Audio is English LPCM 2.0 Stereo—easy to listen to but nothing to write home about, either. Extras include a new audio commentary featuring film critic Matthew Asprey Gear. Similar to The Long Good Friday, on board are a series of old school interviews that lend nice insight into the production, some of the behind-the-scenes and a few bits of gossip here and there. All end up being laudatory of Norma Heyman and her contribution to film and the steady hand of Mackenzie. There’s Final Cut, an interview with additional editor David de Wild who was brought in after Mackenzie walked from the film in frustration with the original editor. Blood and Smears, an interview with make-up artist Nick Dudman discusses this being his first film that he was key man (he went on to run the Harry Potter films’ creature effects, some of the seat of his pants effects he pulled off at the last minute. In Honorary Replacement, an interview with first assistant director Simon Hinkly, he shows us where he cameoed in the film. Last is Mexican Light, an interview with director of photography Phil Meheux who was a steady hand behind the camera and one of Mackenzie’s regular collaborators. There’s also an Image Gallery and the film’s US theatrical trailer.
THE HONORARY CONSOL (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): B-/B-/B-/A
DISC THREE: THE FOURTH PROTOCOL (1987 – SPINE #549)
Mackenzie’s next film was NOT The Fourth Protocol; it was a little seen 1985 melodrama entitled The Innocent with Liam Neeson and Miranda Richardson and Act of Vengeance (1986), an HBO TV movie (missing from DVD) starring a moustache-less Charles Bronson. But the movie after those actually in this collection—that one’s The Fourth Protocol based on the Frederick Forsyth novel of the same name.
The Fourth Protocol was something of a passion project for Michael Caine who stars as MI5 officer John Preston, a victim of government bureaucracy who uncovers a plot to set off an atomic bomb in the UK (to be blamed on the USA) and works against several barriers to save the day. Pierce Brosnan also stars as the Russian agent tasked with bringing the bomb into the UK in pieces to be assembled and set off with the help of Joanna Cassidy playing his make-believe wife and bomb expert. The Fourth Protocol isn’t a great espionage movie, but it’s watchable because of the actors involved and the steady hand of Mackenzie. It comes across as a light reworking of Forsyth’s own The Day of the Jackyl—down to a moment of gay subterfuge—although considering it involves Brosnan’s character, it could also be a reference to The Long Good Friday. It’s not a film that makes this set a must have, but it’s worth a watch.
Presented at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the 1080p transfer is not bad actually. Clearly not from the highest of hi-def transfers, but it gets the job done with nice detail, solid colors and a stable image. Sound presents well and offers an excellent Lalo Schifrin soundtrack which is a plus—a lean and clear English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround option is also supported by LPCM 2.0 Stereo. There are also optional English subs. Extras include a selection from the ITV Studios Region 2 DVD special features: an audio commentary by author Frederick Forsyth; the On Location featurette; a featurette entitled The Forsyth Protocol: The Career of Frederick Forsyth; the Filming the Novel featurette; archival interviews with actor Michael Caine, director John Mackenzie, and author Frederick Forsyth; and a stills gallery. New to this set are talking head interviews: Believe You Are Right, featuring an interview with actor Julian Glover; East and West, an interview with art director Tim Hutchinson; and The Protocol Second, an interview with second assistant director John Dodds.
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): B+/B/A/A
DISC FOUR: RUBY (1992 – SPINE #550)
Rounding out this set is the reason you might want to track this down: Ruby. After working on The Last of the Finest (1990) with Brian Dennehy, Joey Pants, Jeff Fahey and Bill Paxton, Mackenzie decided to take over the troubled production of this JFK conspiracy film. Originally meant to be David Fincher’s theatrical directing debut (Ruby was sent up at Propaganda Films, where Fincher was a creative partner focused on music videos and commercials) Ruby’s original development predates Oliver Stone’s JFK. But once Stone and Warner Bros. started work, they did everything in their power to keep Ruby from moving forward—from grabbing locations and character story rights to making sure their first choice for Ruby, Bob Hoskins, was conveniently under contract on something else. Written by Stephen Davis and based on his Blackbox theater production Love Field—even that title was a hurdle as it turned out to be blocked by Don Roos’ 1992 Michelle Pfeiffer-led JFK assassination adjacent melodrama of the same name that got there first.
But with all the issues it had, Ruby turned out to be the little movie that could in that it ended up even produced. It’s a somewhat make-believe showcase of the last year or so in the life of Jack Ruby, the assassin of JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a Dallas nightclub owner with purported ties to the mob. Through those ties, Ruby is sent to Cuba “to do a thing” which gets flipped, endearing him with the mob who pull him in to do a different “thing” but that gets called off. Within all that, the CIA comes a-calling asking him to keep an eye out when high-level folks make appearances. Feeling used by all sides, then Ruby sees JFK die on television, he puts 4 and 6 together and makes a decision forever altering American history. It’s an interesting film because you can see when “truth” is happening in the film—where things are played out that are absolutely things that happened in real life. But you can also theses wholly made-up things happening where Davis is, as a good storyteller should, filling in blanks and coming up with common sense things that had to have happened to the final truth of the story—Ruby in jail for killing Oswald live on TV for the world to see. Ruby refused to plea deal and insisted he needed to speak with Congress in Washington to tell them his truth, which he was never able to do. He died of cancer, locked up behind bars—with a conspiracy that forced injections gave him the disease.
Danny Aiello stars as Jack Ruby and he does a fine job as an Italian playing a Jewish man who played it up as an Italian caricature. Oh, what Hoskins would have done with this role. Better in her role is Sherilyn Fenn, as a former stripper turned abused housewife turned again to a stripper and Ruby confidant, and platonic love. She’s a composite character filling in for all the major female characters who would have been floating around during this period. Popping in and eating scenery are Saw’s Tobin Bell as David Ferrie (played memorably but cartoonishly by Joe Pesci in JFK), Arliss Howard as a shadowy government spook and David Duchovny as a cop who frequents Ruby’s club. All in all—Ruby is a watchable film. It’s obvious it was based on a play—and that’s okay. It’s a fun companion to JFK all these years later, even if the history between the two is somewhat a painful memory.
This Imprint release will be the only way you can see this movie at this point. It’s not on streaming, SVOD or disc here in Region A. Video is 1.78:1, 1080p—most likely an older transfer. I see no evidence this is from an upgraded source, but it presents the film fine with nice color, solid blacks with nice detail for a Blu-ray only title. Audio is an English LPCM 2.0 Stereo (with optional English subs) which is very nice clear and free of anything that would get in the way of enjoying the film. Extras include an audio commentary by film historian Kevin Lyons where he talks about all the difficulties in making the film that I touched on above. Obviously, he goes into more depth and he’s easy to listen to. There’s also the Imprint talking head interviews, one with Stephen Davis entitled Writing Ruby where he discusses the development of both the play and his screenplay for the film, and Shooting Ruby, an interview with legendary director of photography Phil Meheux who just seems like one of the nicest guys.
RUBY (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): B-/B+/B+/A
- Todd Doogan