BEFORE: I've got my BFF Andy staying over for a few days, and usually I would watch a film or two with him, let him in on my process - but that's difficult when the next film on my list is only on HBO Max, and not on HBO On Demand. Why can't it be in both places? And what's going on with HBO Max, why do films keep disappearing from that platform before I've had a chance to watch them? I'm starting to wonder if the giant conglomeration that is HBO/Time Warner/AOL/Warner Bros. really wants me to be able to see movies, or if they're just messing with me. For the life of me, I can't figure out why some films are available to stream at any given time, and others just aren't. With the technology we have, and let's assume infinite storage space, why isn't EVERY film available to me at ALL times, not just when it's convenient for the streaming services? I mean, I'm paying for several different streaming services each month AND premium cable, theoretically the world should be my oyster, and if the next film on my list is suddenly not available anywhere, well then somebody somewhere is losing money, because here I am, willing to pay for it, but where is it? Doesn't Big Streaming want my money, don't they want me to use their service? It's a very strange business model, making films available and then taking them away a few months later.
Bob Hoskins carries over from "Lassiter".
THE PLOT: A man recently released from prison manages to get a job driving a call girl from customer to customer.
AFTER: The whole genesis of this film is rooted in the concept that when someone gets out of prison, it might be very hard for them to find an honest job, because who wants to hire an ex-convict? Most employers might have qualms about this, or have company policies against it, but that former inmate still needs to make a living somehow. So they might take a job with a less-than-reputable employer, and from there it's a short step to breaking the law yet again. And we wonder why the prison system is overcrowded.
After seven years in the joint, George tries to make things right with his wife, and also meet the daughter who barley even knows him, but that's a no-go as well. So it's back to his underworld contacts, though the ones he knew before seem to have moved up the chain a bit, and are not hanging out at their old joints. George buys a white rabbit at a pet store, and delivers it to a bar frequented by his old boss Mortwell, and while the old boss has moved on, this does get him work as a driver for Simone, a woman who works as a high-class call girl. She's got a couple regular customers, but also works the circuit of some mid-range London hotels, and it's handy for her to have a driver who also offers a bit of protection. The problem is, George wears cheap suits and sticks out like a sore thumb in these fancy hotels. He couldn't look more like a pimp, and he's not even trying.
After some initial friction between the driver and his passenger, they learn to work together and form an uneasy alliance, and George starts to think that maybe there's something there between them. But then after a few fruitless trips to some bridge in London where the cheaper hookers ply their trade, Simone asks for his help in finding Cathy, a teen girl that's somewhere in the system of peep shows and bordellos, who she promised to come back for. So George starts visiting the seamier parts of London, acting like a client, looking for a blonde named Cathy - but the problem is, any working girl will claim to be named Cathy if that's what the client wants. And the hair color doesn't help either, since any girl can put on a wig. It's a service-based industry, after all.
George encounters a pimp named Smith, or so he says, but also finds a porn movie that Simone made that co-starred the same guy, only his name's not really Smith, go figure. But George trails him and learns that the real Cathy is one of his girls, but the trail also leads back to his own boss, Mortwell - and Mortwell wants to use Simone to blackmail one of her clients, some rich Arab guy. Mortwell suspects that Simone does more with him every night than wear lingerie and drink tea, and sure, he's probably right, but poor George is caught in the middle of all of these low-level criminal masterminds. He and Simone take Cathy out of the system, only they don't travel far enough away to matter, they only go to Brighton (only 47 miles south of London, I checked).
Bob Hoskins got a ton of awards for this film, but lost the Oscar that year to Paul Newman for "The Color of Money". Still, this may have been the highlight of his career, except of course for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", of which I'm definitely overdue for a re-watch. But then on the other hand, perhaps this film is nothing more than the UK version of "Taxi Driver". I'm kind of torn on this point. Perhaps I'll have a different perspective on this film after I watch tomorrow's film, which is a documentary about Handmade Films, the studio that made "Mona Lisa", also "Time Bandits", "Monty Python's Life of Brian" and the infamous "Shanghai Surprise".
Also starring Cathy Tyson, Michael Caine (last seen in "Wolfgang"), Robbie Coltrane (last seen in "Effie Gray"), Clarke Peters (last seen in "Harriet"), Kate Hardie (last seen in "Cry Freedom"), Zoe Nathenson, Sammi Davis (last seen in "Four Rooms"), Rod Bedall, Joe Brown, Pauline Melville (last seen in "Shadowlands"), Hossein Karimbeik, John Darling, Raad Rawi (last seen in "Official Secrets"), David Halliwell, Maggie O'Neill (last seen in "Gorillas in the Mist"), Perry Fenwick, Bryan Coleman (last seen in "The Crying Game"), Robert Dorning, with cameos from Kenny Baker (last seen in "I Am Your Father"), Jack Purvis.
RATING: 6 out of 10 light-up Virgin Marys
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