Felicia's Journey

First of two Bob Hoskins films, with this one set in Brum.

Bob Hoskins plays Joseph Hildritch, a catering manager for a factory in England’s industrial Midlands. Hildritch is mild-mannered and soft spoken, but right from the start it’s clear that terrible things are roiling just beneath the calm surface. "Food must be served by caring hands, not machines," Hildritch tells a representative from an automated catering company, and there’s something both endearing and unsettling about his gentle demeanor.

Leaving the factory one day, Hildritch encounters Felicia (Elaine Cassidy), who has fled her home in Ireland in search of her boyfriend Johnny. Johnny had left Ireland weeks earlier, ostensibly to take a job at a lawnmower factory in Birmingham. Felicia’s father, though, believes Johnny to be a member of the British Army and a traitor to the Republican cause. Hildritch is unable to be of much help at first, but in the course of several chance meetings, he gains the girl’s trust. Then things begin to unravel…

Not got enough Bob for one night, stick around and see one of the greatest British gangster movies of all time, The Long Good Friday.