This is the film in which Bob Hoskins (whom I only knew for his later, mostly comedic roles) shows the acting of his life as a gangster boss trying to become a legal businessman, and in which young Pierce Brosman left enough impression in a role with a single "Hi" as the only spoken word to establish his career in film, but Helen Mirren as the brain behind the brawn was just as impressive.

I read in advance that the film was prophetic in capturing the spirit of the coming Thatcher era. This included the very project Hoskins's gangster wanted to start to become a 'legal businessman': re-developing London's Docklands district (which happened in reality, on an even grander scale than imagined in the film). And here it got personal for me: as a child I visited London in 1980 (on a grand trip of Western Europe with my family) and we also took a walk across the Docklands, and I recognised where on the grand camera pan early in the film (shot just a year before we were there); now all of this is history.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}