The movie is done stylishly by the director (Steve Soderbergh) whose breakthrough hit was "Out of Sight." That movie, too, had a stylish edge to it, and much of its plot depended on its characters. “Sight” constantly jumped around in time, but it still built an interesting plot around its characters. “The Limey” uses a somewhat similar approach, but it goes a little overkill.

Scenes bleed together by the use of dialogue. For example, in one scene Wilson and a woman walk along silently outside, while dialogue passes between them. Then it cuts to them eating dinner somewhere, where the dialogue is actually happening. Then it will cut back to a close-up to Wilson sitting in a hotel room. The dialogue keeps going through all of this.

The opening moments of the movie set its tone, and they also sum up how the movie will work. The Who’s “The Seeker” plays as the opening credits roll and we watch this man check into a motel room. Sitting on the bed, he pulls out a newspaper clipping that’s headline reads: Woman dies on Mullholland. He also has a handwritten letter from an Edward Roel. It cuts to a shot of his face as he stands in a doorway and asks, “Edward Roel?” The Who song ends quiet chimes begin ringing. Then it cuts to Wilson on an airplane plane looking pensive.

If I had to guess, I’d say a good ten to fifteen minutes in the movie are spent cutting to Wilson’s face as he’s sitting somewhere intensely feeling sad, angered, or sometimes even redeemed. The shot of him sitting on the plane is especially popular with the director, as he shows this at least ten times. It then cuts to a shot of a hand (Wilson’s hand) holding a picture of a girl (his girl) in a car. Then it cuts to his face in the motel room. Chimes ring all through this silent opening to the movie. Then we see a young girl standing on a beach, a spotlight moving across her face; back to Wilson thinking about her on the airplane; then Wilson smoking in the motel room, considering things; then back to his daughter (young) looking angry and expectant at him; then her as a young woman in a car. Finally, this sequence (?), which only is about ten seconds in the film (much longer in words), ends with showing Wilson’s weary face as he rides in a cab. He gets out and approaches a house. A man opens the door, and we go back to Wilson’s face.

“Edward Roel?” he asks. The movie took us for a loop. It showed that shot about fifteen to twenty seconds earlier, skipped around for a while, then got back to the story. Much of the movie operates in this way. Right in the middle of a scene, you’ll get a glimpse of something that makes absolutely no sense at the time. There are couple of routes these images allow you to believe: it is (a) something Wilson is considering, (b) something Wilson remembers in his past, or (c) it could be a glimpse of something coming up in the movie. Each of these roles for the quick glimpses is used, and they are effective because you can’t be quite sure what it is on the first viewing.

Often times we get to see him picturing his daughter standing on the beach, holding a phone and yelling at him (things in his past), but sometimes it fools us and what we see is some violent thing Wilson thinks about doing. Sometimes it is a glimpse of a violent or significant scene to come. There are a couple of violent, action scenes in this movie because it is a movie about revenge. His daughter, Jenny Wilson, died in an auto accident, and he doesn’t buy it. What could be a simple Charles Bronson “Death Wish,” is made interesting by Soderbough’s direction, Terrence Stamp’s portrayal of Wilson, and the eerie, depressed, determined music. The use of the theme music is just as abundant in the movie as close-ups of Wilson’s face.

But “The Limey” is not just an action movie, nor is it only a revenge movie. In a way, it’s about the effects of a life of crime, and what happens when you grow old. There may be more in common with Wilson and his target, Terry Valentine, than we at first expect. Later it becomes apparent how similar they are, and the problems they face, which is vital to the movie’s outcome.

The Limey is a good, interesting movie, but it’s definitely not for all tastes. The characters aren’t flat and two dimensional, and the movie is refreshingly forgiving of them.

The major problem with “The Limey” is it has been marketed as a revenge-action flick, when it’s far from that. Even those action fans who can handle character-driven action stories might be repelled be the intrusion of Soberbergh’s artsy direction. They also might get sick of looking at close-ups of Terrence Stamp for much of the movie, no matter how convincing he looks.

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