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The Limey (1999)


Commentaries on this disc:

Commentary 1: Director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs Rating:8.0/10 (41 votes) [graph]Login to vote or review
Reviewed by ratethatcommentary on May 5th, 2004:Find all reviews by ratethatcommentary
This is a pretty unique commentary. First of all, some of it has the same editing feel as the movie does: you hear this phrase repeated here and there, and bits of it are out of order. It gives the same weird, disjointed, out-of-order feel as the movie sometimes does. And while it's a neat idea to mirror the movie's editing style, I wouldn't have been able to take very much of it, and thankfully the track settles down and is much more straightforward most of the time.

This commentary is also unique because Soderbergh (the director) and Dobbs (the writer) had a number of disagreements during the production about how the movie should turn out. And Dobbs isn't afraid to speak his mind on this track about why he's somewhat unhappy with the way the movie turned out, and how he thinks it would be better. And Soderbergh is right there to argue with him. It makes for a very interesting commentary track.

I don't want to give the impression that the whole track is them arguing, since it's definitely not. But, writing this review several months after listening to the track, that's what sticks in my brain the most.
Reviewed by Bickle, T. on May 9th, 2009:Find all reviews by Bickle, T.
It is interesting to hear about the disagreements. But it’s mostly Soderbergh trying to shift the conversation away from Dobbs (who comes off as a very eager, pompous asshole), and back to the important aspects of the experimental film. Don’t let the trippy sound effects scare you, they’re just good fun.
Reviewed by grimjack on January 20th, 2020:Find all reviews by grimjack
Like the other reviewers said, a lot of this track is the writer and director arguing about the way he shot his script. And it is pretty amazing! They do not talk about the movie taking place as much as I think they should, but the tangents they get on are pretty fascinating. It helped me understand the directors process.

Additionally I would point out that the last 15 seconds (practically after the credits) is the director explaining exactly what the film was about. And it is a helpful and thoughtful description that makes a second viewing more impactful.
Commentary 2: Actors Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Lesley Ann Warren, Barry Newman, and Joe Dallesandro Rating:6.2/10 (20 votes) [graph]Login to vote or review