gridoon2018 Gritty and well-done, if somewhat overrated at the time of its release. The performances are explosive (the best moments of all three leads are their violent outbursts - there is a lot of bottled-up anger and frustration in this movie - and Bob Hoskins deserved his Oscar nomination), but the script is kind of monotonous. **1/2 out of 4.

HotToastyRag Neil Jordan, the writer-director who brought audiences The Crying Game in 1992, created another dark, mysterious story Mona Lisa. In this film, Bob Hoskins stars as an ex-con who can't find work. His friend, Michael Caine, helps gets a job as a chauffeur to a call-girl, Cathy Tyson, but he has ulterior motives. As Bob and Cathy become friends, he gets involved in her seedy world and dangerous problems.Mona Lisa is a pretty upsetting movie, even though you might not be able to tell from the beginning. It feels like just a seedy drama, but by the end, you'll be extremely shaken up, and depending on how deeply you're affected, you might wipe away a tear. Bob Hoskins swept the Best Actor awards the next year, winning at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Cannes, Boston Critics, Kansas Critics, London Critics, Los Angeles Critics, New York Film Critics, Valladolid Festival, and National Society of Film Critics. Normally a character actor, Bob took command of the screen and owned his leading role. Even though he played a hardened ex-con, he was sensitive and felt a range of emotions deeply. At the Academy Awards, Bob lost the gold to Paul Newman's ridiculous, phoned-in performance in The Color of Money.If you can handle a heavy story set in a less-than-savory environment, you might want to check out Mona Lisa. It's not really the kind of film you'll love and want to watch over and over, but you'll be able to appreciate the acting. Let's put it this way: I own The Crying Game, but I could only handle watching Mona Lisa once.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to violence, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

Jackson Booth-Millard From BAFTA nominated director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, Michael Collins, The Brave One), I knew the leading British actor of this film, but nothing else about it, I hoped it would be good. Basically smalltime criminal George (BAFTA and Golden Globe winning, and Oscar nominated Bob Hoskins) has been released having served a seven-year prison sentence, but his time in prison has lowered reduced his stature in the criminal underworld, and his ex-wife will not allow him to talk to his daughter. Unable to find work his friend Thomas (Robbie Coltrane) explains the realities and changes in the neighbourhood, then his former boss, local kingpin Mortwell (Sir Michael Caine), hires him to work as a driver, and driving his returned Jaguar he drives and is bodyguard to high-class call girl Simone (BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Cathy Tyson). At first George is a misfit for the position driving Simone from customer to customer, he does not get on well with her, but gradually they form a friendship, and slowly he develops an unrequited love and affection for her. Simone looks for prostitute Cathy (Kate Hardie) on the streets of the King's Cross district (red light district of London in the 1980s), she asks George to help find her abused friend from the past. This becomes a quest filled with danger and violence, George is chased by dangerous pimp Anderson (Clarke Peters), and he is a huge amount of trouble with Mortwell, and it gets worse when George finds Cathy and discovers the true nature of the relationship between her and Simone. Also starring Zoë Nathenson as Jeannie, Sammi Davis as May, Rod Bedall as Terry, Joe Brown as Dudley, Pauline Melville as George's Wife, EastEnders' Perry Fenwick as Pimp, Kenny Baker as Brighton Busker and Jack Purvis as Brighton Busker. I can only assume the title is related to the leading female character, because you can never tell her true expression, oh, and there's the song "Mona Lisa" by Nat "King" Cole played as well. Hoskins gives a fantastic aggressive performance as well as some more tender moments, Tyson is good as the emotionally damaged hooker, and Caine is good with his time on screen being quite sinister, it is a simple story of a man falling in love with a woman, but there are twists along the way as she and situations becomes much more complicated, there is a fair amount of violence and thuggery, and it is both thrilling and moving in the right places, it's a terrific crime drama. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film, Best Editing and Best Original Screenplay, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Screenplay. Very good!

screenman 'Mona Lisa' is a 14-year old movie that could have been released yesterday. It is a wonderfully vivid and inevitably sordid insight into the sex industry. Although based in London, it could be any major city.Bob Hoskins heads a cast that never put a foot wrong. He's a stooge, a schmoll, a muggins. Fresh out of jail after a 7-year stretch during which time he has done the honourable thing and kept schtum, he is naturally seeking some payback. But his paymaster, played by a wonderfully sleazy Micheal Caine, is giving nothing. Indeed, he has all but forgotten him. In an oleaginous exchange, Hoskins' simple character is talked into settling for no more compensation than a driving job. And even then he has to use his own car. It's a good old-fashioned villains' Jaguar 3.4 saloon. He is driving a high-end whore, played by Cathy Tyson. Hers are a wealthy clientele, to which she has worked her ticket from the street. Hoskins' character is a combination of tough, worldly, working-class, and at the same time untutored, in good taste, or the complex subtleties of human nature. His best mate is a strange character played by Robbie Coltrane. He's a sort of Del-Boy, constantly looking for the latest big thing, but apparently getting nowhere. We meet him living in a trailer. He provides a cushion of levity which I found implausible and out of kilter with the brutal frankness of the other issues. There are plenty of other characters who also earn their cameo pay-cheques. But this is Hoskins' movie. His realisation of a simple east-end crook struggling to grasp the larger issues of the plot is an absolute tour-de-force. He is at once tough and vulnerable, ruthless and humane, smart and simple. And the shifting shades of personality and behaviour are absolutely seamless. He's a confessed murderer, but you love him even so. He wouldn't 'top' anyone who didn't deserve it.There's so much to enjoy and admire in this movie that I could write all night, but enough. It's flawed. Yet the story, the shocks, the camera-work, and the top-notch acting set in the insidious stratum of human vice will stay with you long after.Very highly recommended.