Bob Hoskins makes a tough man’s hopes as convincing as his threats. We rate him for the feeling he lets through the bluster, though some of his Hollywood roles gave him too little to do.
Fi1m perspective
The Long Good Friday (1980) lets Bob Hoskins talk, and he makes Harold Shand’s pleasure in being heard both funny and alarming. This London gangland boss believes his business ambitions deserve a respectful hearing; Hoskins gives him enough conviction to make the proposition briefly plausible. We laughed at Harold’s grand manner, then felt uneasy because the aggression never quite left his speech. The hope Hoskins allows him matters just as much as the menace: we can see how badly he wants his future to happen.
His television breakthrough, as the fantasy-prone salesman Arthur Parker in Dennis Potter’s Pennies from Heaven (1978), came before Harold established his tough-guy reputation. With George, the ex-con employed as a chauffeur in Mona Lisa (1986), menace, charm and hurt could occupy the same performance. Playing Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) took him into a Hollywood lead that required him to work across live action and animation. The settings changed, but the useful constant was his ability to make forceful men seem vulnerable without making their forcefulness disappear.
John Mackenzie’s The Long Good Friday also understands how much Hoskins gains from good company. Barrie Keeffe’s dialogue gives Harold a respectable vocabulary for criminal ambition, and Hoskins enjoys the language without letting us forget the violence behind it. Helen Mirren’s Victoria is essential company: her composure gives us time to consider Harold rather than simply await his next eruption. Hoskins’s forcefulness could make other actors seem incidental; Mirren prevents that. Mike Taylor’s editing keeps the criminal business moving without always making it clear, and we found Harold’s hopes more absorbing than the effort of untangling it.
Not every part asked for so much, and some of the Hollywood work underused him, with Super Mario Bros. (1993) a case in point. The repeated casting as a tough guy could narrow expectations of an actor whose sensitivity was part of what made those men convincing. It is worth keeping that sensitivity in mind rather than treating Harold’s aggression as the whole achievement. Start with The Long Good Friday, provided you can forgive a plot that occasionally needs untangling.
Biography
Bob Hoskins was an English actor. He was born Robert William Hoskins on 26 October 1942 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and died on 29 April 2014 in London.
He began his career on stage before his screen breakthrough in the 1978 BBC television serial Pennies from Heaven. Hoskins became known for intense portrayals of tough characters, notably as gangster Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday (1980) and the ex-convict George in Mona Lisa (1986). He also appeared in lighter roles such as Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Smee in Hook (1991).
Hoskins received a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe for Mona Lisa, and an Academy Award nomination for the same performance. He directed two films, The Raggedy Rawney (1988) and Rainbow (1995).
