Did ‘The Long Good Friday’ predict the 1980s gentrification of London?
While the fans of Abel Ferrara, Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma would likely argue otherwise, the glaring truth is that nowhere does the gangster movie quite like the UK. Boasting the likes of Sexy Beast, Get Carter and Layer Cake, British crime films are the pick of the lot, and in 1980, John Mackenzie added another to the list of brilliance with The Long Good Friday.
With a screenplay from Barrie Keeffe and a lead cast of Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren, The Long Good Friday tells of Harold Shand, a powerful London crime boss who is preparing for a deal with a group of American investors that will take him from being a local gangster to a luxurious life as a wildly wealthy entrepreneur. Harold’s plan is to redevelop London’s Docklands into a major hub of commerce, but as the deal nears completion, Harold’s criminal empire begins to crumble under attack from his biggest enemies.
The Long Good Friday is a brilliant gangster flick in its own right, but it also serves as an important piece of British cinema from a socio-political perspective. After all, upon closer inspection, it seems like Mackenzie’s film details London on the brink of significant change and seems to pre-empt the gentrification of London in the 1980s.
After London had suffered a huge economic struggle in the 1980s, the historically working-class East End of the capital was viewed as having potential for redevelopment. New Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was pressing forward with policies that promoted private investment, policies that would inevitably shape the inner city areas of the UK’s capital in the 1980s, 1990s and beyond.
In that light, the mission of Harold Shand seems to mirror Thatcher’s desire to transform the commercially weak parts of London into bustling economic centres of business. Using the derelict Docklands area to allure and bait American private investors, Shand serves as a signifier of the popularity of securing international funding that would become a central part of the gentrification of the following decades.
Naturally, this has significant consequences for those who call (or want to call) London their home. The existing communities of London’s Docklands and East End are displaced as soon as wealthier individuals and economically-promising businesses move into previously neglected areas, and The Long Good Friday serves as something of a prescient insight into the effects of gentrification.
As a gangster film, though, the violence of these consequences is ramped right the way up, especially as Harold begins to ostracise those who might not fit into his new vision of the Docklands. Social tension arises between Harold’s enemies and his associates as the old criminal powers of London are threatened with being replaced by wealthier international forces. American investment is therefore seen as a threat, not as a Thatcherian promise, but as a disruption of communities despite its economic growth.
The Long Good Friday explores the themes of power and betrayal at a time when London was on the cusp of significant change. The gritty crime movie might be an intoxicating watch in its own right, but thanks to its intelligent form of social commentary, it also serves as an important piece of British history. The 1980s helped form London into the city we know today, so Mackenzie’s film is a brilliant product of its time and a forward-looking examination of controversial urban transformation.
