Mona Lisa (1986)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Mona Lisa (1986) – N. Jordan

Bob Hoskins plays George, just released from prison (and quite a few steps lower on the gang ladder than his Harold Shand from The Long Good Friday, 1980), and in need of work.  His old boss, Michael Caine, arranges for him to drive a high-class call girl, Simone (Cathy Tyson), on her dates in fancy hotels.  He’s too rough and Cockney but she buys him clothes to make him more respectable (basically an impossible goal). Although his wife has basically shut the door in his face, George manages to reconnect with his teenage daughter who he is sad to discover is the same age as some of the streetwalkers he sees on his nightly rounds with Simone. As a result, he wants to help them because he’s a good egg, after all.  But it’s so Eighties, right down to the Genesis/Phil Collins-soundtracked montage (“In Too Deep”) in the middle.  Eventually Simone trusts him enough to ask him to find her missing friend, Cathy, another young prostitute who has been beaten and subjugated by Simone’s old pimp, Anderson.  By this time, George is in love – and the film noir themes come to the forefront and carry us to the film’s violent conclusion.  Director Neil Jordan went on to greater fame with The Crying Game (1992) and Interview with the Vampire (1994).