In his follow up to Out of Sight, director Steven Soderbergh has come up with a moody five-finger exercise about loss. This is not your routine revenge thriller, although it starts out that way. In an impressive performance, Terence Stamp plays Wilson, an English career criminal who's on his way to L.A. to solve the mystery surrounding the death of his daughter.
He makes contact with Ed (Luis Guzman), the ex-con who sent him the clipping about Jenny's accidental death in a fiery car crash. Wilson believes that Valentine (Peter Fonda), a rich and powerful rock producer, was somehow involved in his daughter's demise. They had an affair and the snooty wheeler-dealer is now involved with Adhara (Amelia Heinle), another beauty the same age as Jenny.
Soderbergh skillfully uses film clips from Ken Loach's 1967 film Poor Cow where Stamp played a young thief to provide a glimpse of Wilson's earlier life. Only after he meets Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren), a voice coach who was his daughter's friend, does the protagonist realize his inadequacies as a father. Although there are several shooting scenes involving various underworld figures, The Limey registers mainly as a tender story of a father's deep regret that he wasn't there for his daughter when she really needed him.