Great film with a brilliant performance from Bob Hoskins. I preferred this to the long good Friday, it seemed to hang together a bit better and the characters had a little bit more depth.

Though I've definitely seen films with similar concepts to this, Mona Lisa pulls off the idea with more personality and substance than I've seen before. Mona Lisa is an amazing film that somehow beautifully examines the horrific world of prostitution by putting you in the head of its confused and disoriented lead, played brilliantly by Bob Hoskins, with the neon colored and often dreamlike imagery. This is also one of the saddest and most tragic films I've ever seen, with each scene sending me further down an emotional spiral. Though this is not for the faint of heart, Mona Lisa is a beautifully tragic film that succeeds with its performances and filmmaking.

A fascinating sort of re-imaging of "Taxi Driver". Hoskins gives a superb, towering performance here.

Scenes from the 1980s. Too slow for me. I expected to "happen" more, but that's OK. Good ending.

One of the best Bob Hoskins movies out there. The fact it has Michael Caine playing out of type, plus the excellent Cathy Tyson, make this a movie you need to see at least once in your lifetime.

Bob Hoskins is fantastic and Neil Jordan’s direction is as good as ever. Great stuff

Hoskins is brilliant in this excellently directed and produced British thriller. Sadly the film is let down by the acting of all the female parts who are all unconvincingly wooden or overacting. Excellent plot with some memorable moments. Best film I've seen for a while but Hoskins really does carry it.

Loved this movie from beginning to the heartbreaking end. The only downfall was having to use headphones to hear and understand the British accent. Very moving story line where you find yourself pulling for Bob Hoskins character. Cathy Tyson was brilliant and her performance should have been recognized as well as Bob Hoskins deservant Oscar Nominated performance. Loved this movie enough that i found myself watching again.

I heard wonderful things about this movie... I've just watched it and it's a load of bullocks!

i cant review the painting online idk why so it's being done under the movie (same rating applies) mid af and overhyped + ratio

Neil Jordan is a fine film maker, and an Oscar winner for The Crying Game (1992) a film that I very much like although I seem to find that I'm in an increasingly small group with that opinion. His follow up to the impressive fairy tale gone wrong The Company Of Wolves (1984) is this Bob Hoskins fronted drama about a man recently released from prison (Hoskins' George) who gets a job as a driver for a call girl (Cathy Tyson) taking her from appointment to appointment. Tyson is superb as Simone, there's clearly darkness in her simmering beneath the surface, and as George becomes more and more connected to her he starts to scrape away the layers of protection to try and find out the whole truth. Hoskins is also terrific, he admits he's not the sharpest tool in the box but as he delves deeper and deeper into the seedy underbelly of London's dank underworld, he gradually becomes horrified at the scene unfurling before him. George, upon hearing a half story from Simone about her problems agrees to help her, as he's slowly falling in love with her although he seems to be oblivious to this fact. Entering into Simone's issues pits both of them against George's boss (Michael Caine's very nasty Mortwell) and puts them both in a huge amount of danger. It's hard not to be reminded of The Long Good Friday (1980) but that's certainly not to the films detriment, Mona Lisa really stands on its own feet throwing you into a truly grimy world of filth with some genuinely dreadful individuals. It's not all heavy, there's a great small part for Robbie Coltrane as George's friend Thomas, and there are fleeting moments of happiness throughout the film. What makes it work so well however is that you aren't sure how legitimate the happiness is, and the constant degree of nuanced menace that carries right through the film makes this a terrific watch.

Love is a dangerous game Neil Jordan director of the 'Crying Game' helms another complicated love story Starring the late Bob Hoskins, Robbie Coltrane, Cathy Tyson, and Michael Caine George just got out of prison and his wife and daughter have dismissed him entirely His crook image on the streets is outdated The only job he gets is a minder/driver for a call girl named Simone George gets in hot water after she asks him to track someone down from her past Hoskins is brilliant and so is Tyson George tries throughout the whole film to help this woman out of a lousy scrape of a life but she is forever chained it seems The majority of this movie is just him prancing around hoping to save her from this forced lifestyle, so much of it keeps going back and forth Didn't really satisfy my viewing I thought 'Crying Game' was better

An understated, bittersweet love story aided by a lovely, bittersweet score, "Mona Lisa" is both touching and irksome. Here's George (Bob Hoskins), a fifty-something, hard on the outside, soft on the inside, ex-con, no doubt well acquainted with the seamy underworld. Yet, somehow, when he's hired to chauffeur a prostitute named Simone (Cathy Tyson) and confronts the details of her work, we're asked to believe he's getting his very first lesson in that sordid, dangerous, business. And when she shoots down two thugs chasing her, George - having previously protected her - has the perfect motive to be implicated for the murders himself. But all this goes perplexingly unresolved. It all seems intended as parable about a man who redeems himself of his own criminal past so he can embrace his estranged daughter with clean hands. But the father-daughter subplot never gets explored, so the ending feels forced, while the main plot love affair gets swept under the rug. Still, when the end credits roll and that bittersweet theme song takes over, it's hard not to weep a bittersweet tear - while noting, too, that it speaks volumes about George's broken heart that the narrative leaves out.

Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa is a relentlessly entertaining and intriguing character study of two outcasts trying to make their way in life. George (Bob Hoskins) is an ex-con, recently released from prison and trying to make sense of his life, who is tasked with the job of being the driver for high-class prostitute Simone (Cathy Tyson). Both Hoskins and Tyson are fantastic in their respective roles and are aided by Jordan's brilliant script, which is laden with sharp dialogue and unexpected turns. Throughout, George and Simone seem destined for continued failure, but Jordan dangles glimmers of hope and redemption for both of them, which is a large part of why the movie is so compelling.

Watching Mona Lisa you can immediately understand why some people compare it to Taxi Driver - a character-driven drama focusing on a maladjusted, violent, and angry man who is immersed in a search for an underage girl trapped in prostitution. However, the 'protagonists' of these two films exhibit notable deviations between each other, and the films are rather different thematically; Mona Lisa is the tamer of the two. In some ways, Hoskins' role as George is emblematic of a sort of typecasting that he suffered throughout his career - the unrefined tough guy operating in a world in which he doesn't quite fit, his crude nature often causing him to stand out, as in The Long Good Friday and even Who Framed Roger Rabbit to an extent. Maybe it was his physical appearance that shoehorned him into these roles, despite his undeniable talent and versatility as a leading man and character actor (the spiritual predecessor to Dave Bautista?). The plot of Mona Lisa itself is remarkable, suggesting a predictable romance between an enforcer and the call girl he protects, gradually proceeding from discord to rapport to affection, with Hoskins having to fight for their right to be together, but the film adds a welcome twist. Simone (played very capably by Tyson) is ultimately revealed to have been only manipulating George to her own ends, much as George's employer routinely does (although she was supposedly motivated by love rather than greed). George is displayed as streetwise and often capable, but compare that to his distressing immaturity with respect to romance, capping off his character with a brilliantly uncomfortable boardwalk scene in which he aggressively 'flirts' with Simone, unable or unwilling to recognize her social cues. And ultimately, it is partially due to that crude nature that is so often attributed to Hoskins' characters that prevents him from fitting in the grimy world that Simone and Caine's Mortwell inhabits (initially a hurdle), but ultimately is what allows him to escape. Compared to the tone of most of the film, the ending is strangely positive. A notable exception to the largely unexciting output of British drama, particularly crime drama, of the mid-80s. (4/5)

This film couldn't figure out what it wanted to be. It ended up as a cheap struggle. Saw on HBO.

The script isn't good enough to justify these performances.

After waiting 34 years to see this, was it worth the time? Not really. Despite the rave reviews, I found it obvious and filled with holes. Why is George (Bob Hoskins) so clueless about criminal activities? George has, apparently, just been released after seven years inside - he hasn't learned a thing it seems, nor is he on licence and being monitored by the probation service, as he certainly would have been. He 's on a mission to find a particular sex worker called Cathy but he doesn't think to ask anyone, just wander around Soho visiting sex clubs and getting ripped off. I gave up after a while, it was too unconvincing a portrait of the world of sex work.

They don't make them like this anymore. Not quite a romance, not quite a gangster film, not quite a reverse pretty woman, not quite a detective story, but a bit of them all and more. A very unclassy film about class. A very gritty street level London with a plethora of superb British actors. Neil Jordan knows what he's doing, he's got a sense of framing and pacing and objects little quirks in the script as the flick moves between realism and stylised very subtly, like the best neo-noirs. Hoskins' rough man with a code and a heart of gold is plenty watchable even when his cohort working girl is less than stellar. The interspersed moments of Robbie Coltrane are hilarious and sweet and the rest of the movie has a befuddled, messy, charged Hoskins trying to make sense of a changing world in his own way. It's a serious movie with a sense of humour, that rabbit, but it's not without an explosive ending.

A fascinating sort of re-imaging of "Taxi Driver". Hoskins gives a superb, towering performance here.