Occasionally dubious but mostly compelling crime drama with a great leading performance

BJJManchester

A crime drama showing the seamy (often very seamy) side of London's underworld,MONA LISA is a sometimes flawed but mainly absorbing mid-80's British pic with an outstanding performance at it's centre from Bob Hoskins.

A newly released con,George (Hoskins) has taken the rap for his former boss,Denny Mortwell (Michael Caine) by doing seven years inside.An attempted reunion with his wife fails miserably, though he keeps in contact with his teenage daughter, and Mortwell gets him work as a driver for a high-class prostitute Simone (Cathy Tyson) whom George soon falls in love with.Simone's response is more measured,and she asks him if he can find and trace a younger prostitute whom she befriended,Cathy (Kate Hardie),with the unpleasant intentions of Mortwell and her sadistic pimp (Clarke Peters) always a continuing threat.

MONA LISA has some decidedly sordid aspects in it's plot and content, with Mortwell having no scruples in procuring clearly underage girls (usually drug-addicted) to wealthy and perverted elderly clients, requesting George gets photos of Simone's clients in compromising positions (for obvious blackmailing purposes), and hanging around the seediest bars and sleaziest strip joints.This material quite easily could have tipped over the top and into sensationalism,but Neil Jordan's admirably understated and atmospheric direction thankfully prevents it from doing so,with apposite cinematography in murky,desaturated tones effectively lensed by Roger Pratt,capturing the sense of gloom and melancholy perfectly.

The film's main flaw are scenes involving George and his mechanic friend Thomas (Robbie Coltrane) who he lodges with.Presumably intended as light relief and further explanations of the plot, they merely come across as irrelevant and superfluous and cause lapses in the skillful mood and atmosphere Jordan creates in the crux of the film around the red light district of King's Cross and Soho,and swankier hotels in contrast.This was the mid-80's era of expanding free market ethics and Yuppiedom,but there's little indication of this in MONA LISA,perhaps emphasising an essential soulessness to the period's outlook, with a predictably miserable image of a dank,chilly English seaside in Brighton.

There's a basic unlikability to all the characters on view,yet Hoskins makes his character wholly sympathetic,as we travel with him into a world he is increasingly horrified and repelled by,and seemingly attempts to prise away those caught in such a labyrinth of unending nastiness and seediness.His love for Ms Tyson is genuinely touching,adding complex layers to a character that is on the face of it bullish and intimidating,yet deep down very caring,protective if even compassionate,with a heartbreaking revelation that the love is not requited.Much of the film resembles TAXI DRIVER in this sense,though Hoskins' George is a rather more mentally stable hero than Robert De Niro's anti-heroic Travis,with MONA LISA's violent climax not of his making.

There's fine support from Caine as the evil Mortwell,and a often touching portrayal by Cathy Tyson who struggles to keep her senses in the midst of the violence and perversity she is tragically subject to.But this is Hoskins' film all the way,with his memorable performance than even has tinges of humour helping to take the edge of the often questionable material and subject matter at hand,and with the help of Jordan's careful direction (barring the unnecessary scenes with Coltrane),making MONA LISA one of the better British films of the mid-80's.

RATING:7 1/2 out of 10.

score 7/10

BJJManchester 13 February 2012

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2565709/