When it came out in 1986 I was totally enraptured by the film, although even then I could see that George, the character played by Bob Hoskins, was far too naive to be in any way believable. And yes I'd cringe at the dwarf dumbshow echoing the main action on Brighton Pier as the film moved towards its climax.
Yet at the time I was obsessed by film noir and this seemed a rare British example, rich with the same bruised pulpy flavours I'd tasted in late night TV outings for old 1940s movies and in the Black Box anthologies of noir writers published in the early eighties by Zomba Books (I still have my copy of the Marc Behm book from the series on my shelf).
It tastes a little gamey now, if truth be told, but I still think Jordan's eye for London is sharp. And I'm still impossibly thrilled by the movie's (almost) final sweeping tracking shot, where the camera rushes up behind, then circles in front of Hoskins's embittered, angry, sorrowful face. It remains one of my favourite sequences in British cinema, a shot that conflates motion with emotion.
Jordan must have liked it too. A few years later in one of his lesser works, The Miracle, another slightly noirish confection of his favourite tropes made in the career lull between the failures of We're No Angels and High Spirits and the success of The Crying Game, he used it quite a few times, to inevitably diminishing effect. (TJ)
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