Summaries

Synopsis

Under the opening titles, we see a man crossing a bridge in London carrying a package. He stops off at a florist and picks up a bouquet. When he arrives at his destination, a rowhouse in a lower-class neighborhood, he knocks on the door. A teenage girl in a school uniform answers the door, but the encounter is swiftly interrupted by her mother, who comes out shouting and cursing at him. He responds in kind, and by the time she's closed the door on him for good, a crowd has formed in the street. The man nearly gets into a fight with one of the neighbors, but another man pulls him out of the whole thing.The man's name is George, played by Bob Hoskins. The teenager is his daughter Jeannie, played by Zoe Nathenson, and the man who rescued him from the fight is his best friend Thomas, played by Robbie Coltrane. Thomas has been keeping in touch with George, largely through sending him mystery novels. George complains that in some of them it's far too easy to figure out who the murderer is, and often posits alternate, better solutions to the stories. We learn over time that George is a low-level gangster who has been in jail for seven years, and it's likely that he went up because he took the heat for someone else's deeds. That "someone else" is Denny Mortwell, a big-league player in the local prostitution scene, and he's played by Michael Caine. Because George took that heat, however, he thinks that Denny owes him something, so he spends some time looking for Denny, but apparently he's out of the country at the moment. However, he's given a job to do by one of his capos. He's to be the driver and bodyguard for what we can only assume is a very high-priced call girl named Simone, played by Cathy Tyson. Simone is very hostile to George at first, and it may be because he's rather uncouth and outspoken, and he's hostile to her because he thinks she's putting on airs. She gives him money to get a decent outfit, and the clothes he picks out are no better than the ones he had on previously. Later on they go out shopping for something more suitable. We see a friendship start to grow between the two, but it's still somehow guarded on her side. Occasionally, between jobs, she has him drive to King's Cross, which is one of those areas where the hookers openly solicit customers. As they drive through, she appears to be looking for something, but she doesn't say what. At one point George notes that a couple of the girls are his daughter's age, and when one girl approaches him and he turns her down, she begins to abuse him verbally until her pimp shows up. From his car seat, George beats up the pimp and they drive off.Later, in her apartment, Simone tells him why they keep going down to King's Cross. In her past, she was one of the girls down there. She had a pimp named Anderson, who would beat her regularly. She had a single friend down there, a young girl named Cathy, who also worked for Anderson. She'd promised to take care of Cathy, but at one point she took the opportunity to escape. She ran away to Brighton and discovered a whole other level of clientele. When she returned to London she realized that these bigger fish also existed there, so she began working on her own, though Denny was finding the clients for her. But she's haunted by the fact that she left Cathy behind and keeps looking for her, knowing that the lifespan of a girl at King's Cross is likely to be limited, especially when they're working for a guy like Anderson. She enlists George's help to find Cathy, reasoning that he'd have an easier time moving through that part of town.George meets up with Denny and Denny gives him a little lecture on the nature of happiness. He then says that what makes him happy are the small details in life. To that end, he wants George to find out what Simone does when she's with her clients, presumably as a means of blackmailing them or otherwise using the information as leverage.In between all of this, George has occasional encounters with his daughter Jeannie, by picking her up at school and driving around a little bit, talking with her before dropping her off near her home. Jeannie has no idea why George disappeared for seven years, but she's eager to have him back in her life. George keeps drawing mental parallels between Cathy, who's about Jeannie's age, and Jeannie, and thinks about what could have happened while he was away. And in the meantime, he's increasingly torn between his loyalty to Denny and his affection for Simone. At one point he literally asks her what she does with a client, and she tells him that they drink tea and do nothing else. To underscore the lie, she has someone take a couple of Polaroid pictures of her serving out tea and has them sent to George while he's waiting for her. When George reports back to Denny that she's having tea and actually has photographic proof, Denny gets furious at him and tells him to get his head back in the game.Now, in between his chauffeuring jobs, George also delivers packages for Denny to various places in the red-light district, so he's been looking for Cathy on the sly. At one point he thinks he's getting close to her but it turns out to be another teenager who bears a superficial resemblance to Cathy. George tries to "rescue" her but is unsuccessful. On another delivery trip, he spots a porno tape and tries to buy it, but the owner just gives it to him. When he gets an opportunity, he plays the tape and his suspicions were right: it's Simone in the video, giving oral sex to a man. George confronts Simone about the video and she confirms that the man in the video is Anderson. He's played by Clarke Peters.Anderson tracks Simone down to her apartment, and tries to slash her, cutting George's arm instead. They manage to get away from him and he stashes her in Thomas' place, which is basically a secluded garage where he works on cars and deals in buying and selling various knickknacks. Because Thomas can get stuff, George asks him if he can procure a gun.George then goes out and locates Cathy at Denny's house. He takes advantage of a hidden door to sneak her away from her client, but she's badly addled by heroin. It's clear that she's deeply addicted to the stuff. He takes both girls to a hotel in Brighton, and Cathy is in the early stages of withdrawal. Simone sends George to a pharmacy for some drugs to help Cathy, and he gives her the gun, just in case.Later on, he and Simone go for a walk on the boardwalk. Early on, they get into an argument but he finally gets the whole story out of her: Simone and Cathy aren't just good friends, they're lovers. Suddenly Simone spots Anderson nearby on the boardwalk and the chase is on. Eventually George manages to get away from both Anderson and his henchman, but they know where everyone is staying, so he knows that they won't be safe for long. In fact, it's not long after they get back to the hotel that the gangsters catch up with them. A fight ensues and Simone winds up shooting both of them dead, but then in the heat of the moment she points the gun at George. George is infuriated and strikes her, then takes the gun and leaves.Sometime later we see George, who's now basically free of his obligations to whatever remains of Denny's organization, and Thomas working together under a car, when we see a pair of female feet walk up. It turns out to be Jeannie, who's still rebuilding her life with her father. The two of them walk out of the garage, chatting happily.