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Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa is a gangster film, but it's a love story, but it's not romantic, but it's sentimental. It has the violence and testosterone-driven grit and Cockney linguistics of an English gangster movie, but it's emotionally driven story and the deeply felt inner softy in the outwardly angry, husky Bob Hoskins character make it different. As a love story, it's not for one second a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl yarn. It's much more complex and goes in a much different direction. I like that about Mona Lisa. Jordan makes the film very offbeat by making it very personal, which he does every film he makes. He closes in on a character's emotional motives and inner battles.Bob Hoskins leads the very realistic cast with his powerful performance, not quite as intense or charismatic but just as interesting and different as he was in The Long Good Friday. Michael Caine, as he always has and always will be, is the highlight of the cast though. No matter how charming he is or how much presence he has to make the audience yearn for his time on screen, he still portrays a ruthless crime boss that we hate for Hoskins's sake. His half-closed eyes and spread lips during a scene when he loses his temper make him an almost bullying figure that must get his comeuppance.Mona Lisa, aside from its rushed and perplexingly tacked on ending, is a decent contribution to the English crime genre, coming from a very individual approach.
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