An original screenplay from Peter Price opens with gangster Terence Stamp ratting on his colleagues, then picks up with him in Spain ten years later. John Hurt and Tim Roth have been sent to take him to Paris, where he'll meet his maker, but things go blackly comic, leaving a very obvious trail for the police (Fernando Rey) to follow. Laura del Sol is the spunky Spaniard they stupidly take along with them.
It's a lovely tribute to Terence Stamp, who died August 17. He's quite reconciled about dying, has a sort of Zen approach - though he could have escaped more than once. It felt like he hadn't been around much - the only later film of significance you really remember is The Limey, but he had been steadily working - though I don't think he'd object if I called this body of work 'mixed'. I guess he's best known for early appearances in Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), also Billy Budd, The Collector, Poor Cow, The Mind of Mr Soames and Superman.
John Hurt is impassive (I've always had a special fondness for him, ever since I first saw - ? Midnight Express), Tim Roth as the gradually more friendly inexperienced punk.
It was edited by Professor Mick Audsley and photographed by Mike Molloy (also The Shout), produced by Jeremy Thomas. Stylistically it makes good use of the deserty Spanish locations - often in very wide shot - and has interesting blocking of actors. It's one of those - y'know - existential thriller road movies!
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