The Long Good Friday

A man delivers a large sum of cash to an unknown recipient in Belfast and in the process takes some of it for himself. As the recipients count the money in a country farmhouse, uniformed gunmen attack them. Soon afterwards Phil, the driver for the delivery, is kidnapped and killed. Later, the delivery man, Colin, is murdered at a London swimming pool.

Harold Shand, a London gangster, aspires to become a legitimate businessman and is trying to form a partnership with Charlie, an American mafioso, with a plan to redevelop London Docklands in association with local construction boss Councillor Harris. Shand's world is suddenly destabilised by a series of bomb attacks on his property and murders of his associates, including his old friend Colin. He and his henchmen try to uncover the attackers' identities by threatening corrupt police officers, informers, and other criminals, whilst simultaneously trying not to worry their American visitors, who they fear will abandon Shand if they think he is not in full control. Shand's girlfriend, Victoria, tells the Americans Shand is under attack by an unknown enemy but assures them he will quickly resolve the matter. She starts to suspect that Shand's right-hand man, Jeff, knows who is behind the attacks.

After some investigation, Shand confronts Jeff, who confesses that under pressure from Councillor Harris, he sent Colin and Phil to Belfast to deliver money to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on Harris's behalf. He explains that three of the IRA's top men were killed on the same night the money was delivered. Shand realises the IRA have concluded that he sold them out to the security forces and pocketed the missing cash, and are targeting his organisation in revenge. Vowing to destroy the IRA in London, he accidentally kills Jeff in a rage.

After confronting Harris, Shand sets up a meeting with the IRA's London leadership at a stock car racetrack. He ostensibly offers them £60,000 in return for a ceasefire but double crosses them and has them and Harris shot as they are counting the cash. Believing his enemies are dead and the problem solved, Shand travels to the Savoy Hotel to triumphantly inform Charlie and his assistant Tony, only to find the Americans preparing to leave, having been spooked by the carnage. In response to their derisory comments about the UK, Shand berates them for their arrogance and dismisses them as cowards.

Leaving the hotel, Shand steps into his chauffeur-driven car only to find it has been commandeered by IRA assassins. He sees Victoria also kidnapped in another car. As his car speeds to an unknown destination, Shand contemplates his fate.

{{Div col|colwidth=20em}}

• Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand
• Helen Mirren as Victoria
• Dave King as Parky
• Bryan Marshall as Councillor George Harris
• Derek Thompson as Jeff
• Eddie Constantine as Charlie
• Paul Freeman as Colin
• P. H. Moriarty as Razors
• Stephen Davies as Tony
• Brian Hall as Alan
• Alan Ford as Jack
• Paul Barber as Erroll
• Pauline Melville as Dora
• Patti Love as Carol
• Nigel Humphreys as Dave
• Karl Howman as David
• Gillian Taylforth as Sherry
• George Coulouris as Gus
• Trevor Laird as Jim
• Roy Alon as Captain Death
• Tony Rohr as O'Flaherty
• Pierce Brosnan and Daragh O'Malley as IRA men
• Leo Dolan as Phil
• Dexter Fletcher as Kid
• Kevin McNally as Irish youth
• Susie Silvey as Erroll's girlfriend (uncredited){{Div col end}}

The film was directed by John Mackenzie and produced for £930,000"Association of Independent Producers' magazine, September 1980. by Barry Hanson from a script by Barrie Keeffe, with a soundtrack by Francis Monkman; it screened at the Cannes, Edinburgh and London Film Festivals in 1980."Producer seeks a £ 1m buyer...": news report in movie trade magazine Screen International, 22 November 1980.

Under the title The Paddy Factor,Bloody Business: The Making of The Long Good Friday, documentary film, 2006 Keeffe wrote the original story for Hanson when the latter worked for Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television. Euston did not make the film, but Hanson bought the rights for his own company, Calendar Films. Hanson designed the film for the cinema and all contracts were negotiated under a film, not a TV, agreement, but the production was eventually financed by Black Lion, a subsidiary of Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment for transmission via Grade's ATV on the ITV network. The film was commissioned by Charles Denton, at the time both programme controller of ATV and managing director of Black Lion. After Grade saw the finished film, he allegedly objected to what he saw as its glorification of the IRA.

The film was scheduled to be televised with heavy cuts on 24 March 1981. Because of the planned cuts, in late 1980, Hanson attempted to buy the film back from ITC to prevent ITV from screening the film. The cuts, he said, were "execrable" and yielded "about 75 minutes of film that was literal nonsense".

Before the planned ITV transmission, George Harrison's company, HandMade Films, bought the rights to the film from ITC for around £200,000 less than the production costs. It gave the film a cinema release.Robert Sellers, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: The Inside Story of HandMade Films, Metro, 2003, pp. 56–70.

The role of Harold Shand was written with Hoskins in mind. In 1981, it was reported that Hoskins was suing both Black Lion and Calendar Films to prevent their planned release of a US TV version in which his voice would be dubbed by English Midlands actor David Daker. Ultimately, Hoskins' voice was not dubbed.

The Long Good Friday was the film debut of Pierce Brosnan, then 25. It was also the final role of George Coulouris.

File:St George-in-the-East (35944948224).jpg, featured prominently in the film.]]

• St Katharine Docks
• Civic Centre, Dagenham
• Isle of Dogs
• Heathrow Airport
• Paddington tube station
• Savoy Hotel
• The Salisbury pub, Harringay
• Harringay Stadium
• St George in the East
• Ladywell Leisure Centre, Lewisham
• St Patrick's Catholic Church, Wapping
• Wandsworth Town Hall, Wandsworth
• No.1 London WallThe building was used in the scene when Harold and Victoria return to their flat. It was the offices of Orion Bank.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads "Bob Hoskins commands a deviously sinister performance in The Long Good Friday—a gangster flick with ferocious intelligence, tight plotting, and razor-edged thrills."{{cite web |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_long_good_friday |title= The Long Good Friday|website=Rotten Tomatoes |publisher=Fandango Media}}

The Long Good Friday was number 21 on the British Film Institute's list of the "BFI Top 100 British films" list. In 2016, Empire ranked The Long Good Friday 19th on its list of "The 100 Best British films".

Keeffe wrote a sequel, Black Easter Monday, set 20 years after the events of the first film. It opens with Shand escaping from the IRA after police pull his car over. Shand retires to Jamaica, then returns to stop the Yardies from taking over the East End.{{cite news|url=http://www.theartsdesk.com/film/interview-barrie-keeffe-sus-long-good-friday-and-londons-changing-east-end|newspaper=The Arts Desk|title=Interview: Barrie Keeffe on Sus, The Long Good Friday and London's Changing East End: Artful dodgers, diamond geezers and the real East End, by one of its leading scribes|first=Sheila |last=Johnston|date=21 April 2010}} The film was never made. In one of his last interviews, Keeffe seemed unconcerned by that: "In some ways, I’m glad we didn't, because sequels are usually diminishing returns. To put it up there with Casablanca, no one wants Casablanca II."{{cite news|url=https://wearecult.rocks/barrie-keefe-on-the-long-good-friday|newspaper=We Are Cult|title=Barrie Keefe on 'The Long Good Friday'|date=5 September 2021}}

{{reflist|group=note}}

• {{IMDb title|0081070}}
• {{rotten-tomatoes|the_long_good_friday}}
• {{Screenonline title|480130}}
• [https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/34-the-long-good-friday The Long Good Friday] an essay by Michael Sragow at The Criterion Collection

{{John Mackenzie}}

{{HandMade Films}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Long Good Friday, The}}

Category:1980 films

Category:1980 crime drama films

Category:1980s English-language films

Category:1980s gang films

Category:1980s mystery films

Category:British crime drama films

Category:British gangster films

Category:British mystery films

Category:Edgar Award–winning works

Category:Films about the American Mafia

Category:Films about corruption in the United Kingdom

Category:Films about the Irish Republican Army

Category:Films directed by John Mackenzie (film director)

Category:Films set in Belfast

Category:Films set in London

Category:Films shot in London

Category:HandMade Films films

Category:English-language crime drama films

Category:English-language mystery films