From Dom Hemingway’s opening shot, in which a meaty, coarse looking Jude Law delivers an obscene soliloquy about the magnificence of his c*ck, it’s clear that we’re not in Kansas anymore insofar as expectations of Law are concerned. Like Ben Kingsley before him, this is Law’s submission for inclusion in the canon of British screen gangsters, and while Law doesn’t achieve the iconic greatness of Kingsley’s Don Logan in Sexy Beast, his Dom is fully formed and sympathetic, dominating this black comedy that mostly sidesteps ‘Mockney’ crime film stereotypes.
Safe cracker Dom Hemingway (Law) is released from prison after serving 12 years. During his time inside his wife divorced him, remarried and subsequently died, and his daughter grew up with another man raising her. Instead of immediately reaching out to his daughter when he’s out, Dom’s first concern (after punching out his wife’s second husband) is to collect his just reward for keeping quiet about the involvement of crime boss Mr. Fontaine (Demian Bichir) in the job Dom went down for. Reuniting with his best friend Dickie (Richard E. Grant, in his best feature film role in years), Dom heads off to the south of France on an ill-fated venture to get his money from Fontaine that goes from bad, to good, to very, very bad.
Dom Hemingway was written and directed by American Richard Shepherd, who has worked extensively in American television and has made a few smaller features including 2005’s enjoyable black comedy The Matador starring Pierce Brosnan. To his credit, he gets the character of English villain Dom just right, a mixture of self-destructive arrogance, furious menace, and a complete lack of self-awareness. Law is clearly enjoying himself immensely, holding nothing back but still managing to keep Dom from becoming a Guy Ritchie gangster caricature.
The inevitable redemption of Dom is both expected and somewhat necessary; Shepherd doesn’t really try to reconfigure the material in the way that a filmmaker like Tarantino or any of his disciples would. Jude Law’s manically endearing performance is a pleasant surprise from an actor whose breadth of talent is often overlooked.
[Rating:3.5/5]
