The Long Good Friday (1980)

Colin (Paul Freeman) delivered a suitcase of money, but not before pocketing some of it.  Soon after, his driver and date are killed and left on the side of the road.  Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) returned to London from the United States.  Harold is a gangster with a beautiful girlfriend (Helen Mirren), an extensive network of goons & thugs, a police chief on the dole, and even a councilman in his pocket.  His trip to America was to arrange a joint venture with the mafia.  Everything was going his way.  Then his Roll Royce exploded, killing the driver.  Colin turned up stabbed to death at a swimming pool.  Who was making a move against him?  His deal with the mafia was being threatened.  Strong measures were needed.  However, every effort came to naught.  No one knew from where the threat originated.  When the full story is finally revealed, many of the mysterious events become clear.  Even so, Harold thinks he can handle this threat the way he has handled other gangsters.  He cannot.  Of course, virtually everyone in the film is a criminal, a corrupt official, or a hapless victim.  Many of them get their just deserts.

Bob Hoskins is terrific as the gangster, a great performance.  Sure, he's clearly a bad guy but you can't help but root for him to come through this trial.  The rest of the cast is quite good, but this is Hoskin's movie and he carries it perfectly.  Paul Freeman had surprisingly high billing for someone with almost no lines who dies early in the film.  He followed this movie by playing the chief villain, Belloq, in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Pierce Brosnan makes his movie debut as an IRA assassin, his only line being 'Hi' before stabbing Colin to death.  His IRA partner, Daragh O'Malley, would go on to play Sgt. Harper in the Sharpe series.

Terrific film that grows to a crescendo of an ending.  Highly recommended.

UK in Collapse

A Scottish girl - only 14 years-old - has gone viral by displaying a knife and an axe to a migrant.  Of course, she was arrested soon after.  The question becomes, why was a migrant following a teenaged girl and her 12-year-old sister?  And filming them with his phone?  Why would a teenage girl carry weapons at all?  Rapes in Scotland have tripled in the last 20 years, from 924 in 2002 to 2,897 in 2024.  Stories of grooming gangs have been mostly ignored by the government lest the open borders policy suffer from the bad publicity.  The UK has failed to protect its girls and this particular girl has taken her defense upon herself.  Tragic.

Coincident with this incident, the English have started a campaign of flying the St. George Cross throughout England.  While flying Ukraine flags and Palestinian flags was supported and protected by the government, the English flag has been taken down or painted over.  It is a sign of bigotry and intolerance.  Really?  The English can't fly the English flag in England?  Here is an obvious case of the government attempting to dissolve the people and import another.  London, the capitol city, is majority foreign.  England has been conquered by a hostile power, and the English are only now catching onto the fact.

Brannigan (1975)

Detective Jim Brannigan (John Wayne) of the Chicago PD roughs up a counterfeiter to get information about Ben Larkin (John Vernon), a crimelord on the lam.  It turns out that Larkin fled to London so Brannigan is dispatched with extradition papers.  Brannigan has only just arrived and met his local contact, Commander Sir Charles Swann (Richard Attenborough), when news arrives that Larkin has been kidnapped.  When Larkin's lawyer, Mel Fields (Mel Ferrer), contacts Scotland Yard about the ransom demand, Brannigan finds himself staking out the drop point with Officer Jenny Thatcher (Judy Geeson).  The kidnappers prove cleverer than it first appeared and Brannigan uses some Chicago investigative techniques to ferret them out, much to Sir Charles' annoyance.  To add to Brannigan's troubles, an assassin - hired by Larkin - is on his trail.  Can Brannigan survive assassination attempts while rescuing Ben Larkin from kidnappers so he can bring him back to Chicago for trial?

John Wayne had lobbied to be Dirty Harry but was viewed as too old for the role.  Both this movie and McQ (1974) were his hardnosed, loose cannon cop movies.  If I had not read the bit about Dirty Harry in the trivia on IMDb, I would never have made a connection between the two films.  It is fun but there isn't anything new here.  Wayne doesn't spend enough time with Attenborough for this to be an off-beat buddy cop film and Judy Geeson is basically a chauffeur.  Thatcher and Swann should have been combined into one character.  The underlying plot proves to be clever but that's a minor point that only comes into play at the very end.  The assassin (Daniel Pilon) becomes less threatening as the movie progresses and his failures pile up.  Maybe he should have acquired a rifle and gone the sniper route.  Lesley Anne Down has a brief role as a high-end prostitute with only one line.

Despite being a disappointment at the box office, it is still good popcorn fun.

Knife Control

In the wake of London somehow eclipsing New York in murders recently, mayor Sadiq Khan is moving to implement knife control.  Gun control is already very strict in the UK so now knives must be controlled.  England has already gone through the gun control debate and the gun owners lost.  Now that all the guns are gone, the knives are next.  Once the knives are gone, will there be fork control?  Cricket bat control?  Whatever the case, those who oppose gun control can point to the case of England where 'weapon-du-jour control' is just the incremental disarmament of the populace.  Once 'assault rifles' are banned, the controllers will move to ban shotguns, then to handguns, and eventually to knives.

 

A disarmed populace may be less violent (London appears to be an exception) but is also much less of a threat to the government, which funds the police and military.  Government always prefers docile and defenseless subjects and will always say it is for your own good.

The Second English Civil War has Begun?

There are reports that a clean-shaven white man drove a van into a crowd of Muslims who had just left evening prayers in London.  There are two probable explanations.  First, the man is not Muslim and had decided to get 'payback' for the multiple attacks in recent weeks.  Second, the man is Muslim and viewed the Muslims from this particular mosque as hypocrites.  The first of those two options is more likely.  If so, what does that portend?

The British government has been hapless in addressing the long-standing and growing issue of domestic Islamic terrorism.  Worse, in the wake of every attack, the politicians defend Islam with claims that it is a religion of peace.  Those claims have worn thin.  The attacks are increasing in frequency and each new attacker proves to be a known wolf whom the government had investigated and set free.  One of the June 3rd attackers - Khuram Shazad Butt - had appeared on a documentary last year called The Jihadis Next Door but he was somehow still on the loose to inflict death and mayhem.  The government has demonstrated not only an inability to protect the citizens but an unwillingness to do so because recognizing the cause would be politically incorrect.

 

Islamic-based attacks in England this year:

March 22: 5 killed, 29 injured

May 22: 22 killed, 119 injured

June 3: 8 killed, 48 injured

 

Islamic-based attacks in European countries this year:

England: 3 attacks, 35 killed, 196 injured

France: 7 attacks, 4 killed, 6 injured

Germany: 3 attacks, 2 killed, 1 injured

Italy: 2 attacks, 4 injured

Russia: 4 attacks, 20 killed, 50 injured

Sweden:1 attack, 5 killed, 14 injured

 

With all that in mind, some idiot decided to take matters into his own hands and start killing Muslims in retaliation.  More such idiots will appear with each new terrorist attack.  The utter failure of a feckless government to address the problem, even deny the source of the problem, has left a desperate population with no recourse.

 

Islam and Western values are not compatible but to admit that would be to also admit the goal of multiculturalism is a failure.  The dream of multiculturalism is a belief that many cannot let go even as it destroys their culture and kills them.

President Held to Higher Journalistic Standards?

Before the news of the London terror attack was confirmed, President Trump retweeted a headline from the Drudge Report about a van mowing down 20 people.  NBC was quick to point out that the news was unconfirmed.  Russia collusions anyone?  That still hasn't been confirmed but has nonetheless been front page news for months.  How many unconfirmed stories - often provided by anonymous sources via leaks - have been reported and then proved false?  Trump has a rocky relationship with facts and truth but the news media are no better.  It would be nice if the media practiced the standard that they are demanding of Trump.

"This is for Allah!"

Another London attack in which some people were run down and others were "stabbed indiscriminately" by men claiming that it was "for Allah."  Doubtless, we will soon hear pronouncements that this has nothing to do with Islam and warnings that there must be no backlash against Muslims.  These crazies are perverting the peaceful message of Islam during the holy month of Ramadan.  As it is Ramadan, let's ponder some of the peaceful passages in the Koran:

 

48:29 Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those who are with him are severe against disbelievers, and merciful among themselves.

 

Do you suppose the people who were run over and/or stabbed were disbelievers who required severity or "with him" and deserving mercy?

9:29 Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allah, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

 

Do the non-Muslim people of the UK feel themselves subdued or is more fighting required for them to pay the Jizyah (tax to practice non-Islamic religion) with willing submission?

9:73 O Prophet (Muhammad SAW)! Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them, their abode is Hell, - and worst indeed that destination.

 

Would running over those who do not believe in Islam be considered harsh?  Is it is a sin to stab those destined for Hell?

 

9:111 Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties; for the price that theirs shall be Paradise. They fight in Allah’s Cause, so they kill (others) and are killed. It is a promise in truth which is binding on Him in the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel) and the Quran. And who is truer to his covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded. That is the supreme success.

 

Did they fight in the name of Allah by killing others and being killed?

 

Islam is not a religion of peace.  Anyone who makes that claim is either ignorant of the above passages or lying.  How many more attacks accompanied by cries of Allahu Akbar will it take for political leaders and the news media to wake up to the links between Islam and terrorism?