Stormy Monday – 1986 | 93 mins | Crime, Thriller | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Director Mike Figgis’ feature debut I this stylish film noir homage set in the waterfront clubland of Newcastle. Mixing American gangsters, Newcastle councillors and Polish avant-garde jazz musicians, the taut plot sacrifices credibility to sustain the substituting of economically depressed Newcastle for neon-lit New York. Roger Deakins’ ravishing camerawork effectively captures the air of urban melancholy and Northern menace. The performances, particularly of Jones, are memorable, whilst Sting is more effective than in several of his films, reverting to his native Geordie accent.

It’s America week in Newcastle – a celebration of Anglo-US trade and friendship. Francis Cosmo (Tommy Lee Jones) is a crooked Texan wheeler-dealer moving in on Tyneside and buying up heaps of real estate. Brendan (Sean Bean) is a young drifter and jazz aficionado who becomes involved in all this when he both strikes up a relationship with the American waitress Kate (Melanie Griffith), who is struggling to ditch her old life as a hooker and obtains employment at the jazz club the vicious American businessman hopes to take over as a front for his money-laundering scheme. The Key Club’s owner, Finney (Sting), refuses all of Cosmo’s lucrative offers, so hoods from London descend upon the jazz club owner with a blowtorch, but find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.