The Observer.

Hulu's little gem, "Deli Boys," giving in to Oscar champ "Anora," and the sublime beauty of Steven Soderbergh's "The Limey."

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“The Limey.” Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

I got on a little Soderbergh jag with “Haywire” (2011) and decided to go back to 1999 and a film that has not only become a Soderbergh fan favorite but is consistently gaining in acclaim and esteem as it ages.

“The Limey,” written by Lem Dobbs, who also wrote “Haywire,” was a nice little find.

And now I know why it ranks highly. The jagged direction and editing on this film adds to its Neo-noir charm (and how is that 1999 looks more like 1959 with all those steel cars, etc.). I love the backward-forward editing, the dialog bleeding from one past (or future) scene into the current one, leaving viewers slightly altered, their minds slightly ajar to something being weird and different.

“The Limey” is weird and different while also being a classic crime story, set in Los Angeles and then briefly and lovingly in Big Sur. This is a Terence Stamp Appreciation Film and it never feels hesitant to focus on his face and his accent and his menace and charm. Terence is the “Limey” who comes over from England to find out who killed his estranged daughter in Los Angeles.

That cold face, those steel eyes.

It wastes little time getting to what is ultimately the point: “Tell them I’m coming!” Revenge is on his mind. How it plays out is what makes the movie. But what I was fascinated with was the seemingly retro feel it generates throughout, starting with what I’m assuming is a “restrained naturalism” directive from Soderbergh, as almost every character in the film is on this lo-fi discourse, even when bullets are flying. Only Stamp gets to truly change up the octaves.

Adding to the retro feel (and, hey, it was roughly 26 years ago and that’s some ancient times if we go by the clock of technology), is the presence of Lesley Anne Warren, Peter Fonda, Barry Newman, Joe Dallesandro (from the Warhol days!) and then, on top of everything else, Soderbergh going to and getting approval from British writer-director Ken Loach to use scenes featuring a young Stamp from Loach’s early film, “Poor Cow,” to tell the double-fictional background of Stamp’s character, Wilson. It’s all so cheeky and successful.

I’m learning to love Soderbergh’s penchant for odd/inspired casting (although Gina Carano in “Haywire” still feels like a bit of madness), and in “The Limey” we get a young ingenue in the actress Amelia Heinle, who would later star in soap operas, suggesting that her near-Denise Richards looks were, soon after, not as valuable to Hollywood as Denise Richards proper. Somehow that fits the film as well, dripping as it dose the ooze of Hollywood. But Heinle works, especially as the young girlfriend to the record industry mogul that Fonda plays. It’s creepy in just the right kind of believable Hollywood way. And, in retrospect, it was a good role for Fonda to take, aging out at the time.

You also don’t hear much about Lesley Anne Warren, even way back in 1999, but in “The Limey” she proved she still had a lot to offer, though the roles that came after don’t look as plum.

The real standout besides the almighty Stamp is a young Luis Guzman as the random acquaintance of Wilson’s dead daughter who sends a letter to an old address, informing the long-time English con that his daughter had died in sunny Los Angeles. Guzman seems to have never changed, which is a high compliment, as he remains a great character actor.

I loved the restrained nature of “The Limey,” its matter-of-factness and its intriguing end. I loved the direction and editing being full-force forward. And there’s no disguising Soderbergh’s talent. I would have watched the film for Stamp alone, or even for the Big Sur scenery (and a wonderful collision of characters there), but it was really Soderbergh’s early rise that I wanted to keep discovering.

Something you might want to consider as well.