At the heart of this dark tale is Terence Stamp, playing the “limey” of the title. A fish-out-of-water, he has come to America to avenge the death of his daughter at the hands of some Los Angeles gangsters. His obsessed manhunt leads him closer and closer to record producer Peter Fonda, who may know the truth of what happened. It’s great fun watching these two ’60s acting icons display their now-mature and wholly opposite talents.

As Smith showed in both “Clerks” and the far better “Chasing Amy,” he is a wordsmith to champion. As a director, however, he’s often less than divinely inspired. I thoroughly enjoyed “Dogma,” even though it could have used a little more judicious editing. While it’s being damned in some circles as blasphemous, I found it to be the opposite. One of the things I likes least about “Dogma” is its self-piety.

In this big-screen tale, those foul-mouthed and precocious third-graders from South Park Elementary find themselves battling for First Amendment rights. Guaranteed to offend just about everyone at some point, “South Park” is a raunchy riot. Not a single contemporary sacred cow goes unskewered.