Category: Fred Ward

UNCOMMON VALOR

By Marc S. Sanders

In the decade following the Vietnam War a common denial (or ignorance, maybe) went towards American soldiers who were missing in action.  Many men were theorized to be prisoners of war long after the armed forces left the country, ending a losing battle with record numbers of casualties.  A handful of films of the 1980s brought focus to this topic, as a means for adventurous entertainment.  Chuck Norris had a series of Missing In Action films.  Even light action fare TV shows like The A-Team and Magnum PI brought attention to this issue.  Most predominantly, the possibilities of POWs were ingrained within Sylvester Stallone’s box office bonanza of Rambo pictures.  In 1982, Ted Kotcheff directed the initial entry of that series, First Blood, and he zeroed in much more precisely the following year, with Uncommon Valor.  

Gene Hackman is retired Marine Colonel Jason Rhodes who begins a decade long campaign convincing the U.S. government to seek out those who were left behind and are likely being held as prisoners of war.  His motivation stems from his belief that his son Frank is likely being held captive in a camp located in northern Laos.  

By the time 1983 arrives no action of recovery or rescue is taken.  The Colonel is committed to bearing the responsibility.  He appreciatively accepts financing of his own mission from an oil tycoon (Robert Stack) whose son might be with Frank.  The Colonel also recruits members of Frank’s unit who made it home (Fred Ward, Reb Brown, Randall “Tex” Cobb, Harold Sylvester, and Tim Thomerson). Patrick Swayze is a young guy named Scott who never served in the conflict but is an expert combat and weapons specialist who will get these men retrained for the upcoming rescue.  He also has his own reasons for partaking of this mission. 

Uncommon Valor is sporadic on humor and focused on the adventure and resourcefulness.  The first half provides footage of how the squad gets reacquainted with each other and the jungle elements they left behind in Vietnam.  They practice routines outlined by the Colonel with ground patrols, detonators, hand to hand combat, artillery, sabotage, and chopper rescue.  The second half follows them back into the Asian country where they have to obtain weapons and supplies, while making connections with locals who will escort them through the dense jungle area towards the camp.  

This is a rare occasion where Gene Hackman is not applying much of his acting craft. He is primarily going through motions of Kotcheff’s film direction with a script rumored to be co-written by Wings Hauser (also a producer on the film).  The trauma of the war is primarily carried by Fred Ward who struggles with PTSD long before it became so widely attributed to service men and women after returning from combat.  In First Blood, Stallone offered a much more substantial and convincing demonstration.  Yet, Ward does a serviceable job with a script that never goes terribly deep.

Uncommon Valor is better described as a present-day adventure picture.  It’s never boring.  There are fireball explosions and machine gun shootouts. The action set pieces still hold up with good art designs staged off the Hawaiian Islands in place of a sweltering Vietnam.  The prisoners who are recovered, supposedly held for over a decade, are chilling to look at with obvious malnourishment and dead-blank expressions.

Randall “Tex” Cobb and Reb Brown (the TV movie Captain America) are mostly doing wacky A-Team material here.  Gene Hackman, Fred Ward and Harold Sylvester are the straight characters.  

It’s not as grand as a Rambo film, but Uncommon Valor never lampoons or minimizes what was a horrifying experience for those enlisted soldiers who never came home, while their next of kin never obtained closure.  

For the 1980s, which feels like it had just passed yesterday, it’s fair to say that all those missing in action during that terrible and bloody war are no longer alive over fifty years later.  The opportunity to search and negotiate for their freedom has long expired by now.  While movies like Missing In Action, Rambo and Uncommon Valor focused on fictional triumphs that were never factually replicated, at least these films can serve as reminders for the sacrifices these people served at the behest of their country.  I’m not writing to ease lifelong pains.  All I can do is recognize, remind and be forever grateful.  These movies still serve a purpose beyond the pulpy Saturday afternoon adventures. 

SILKWOOD

By Marc S. Sanders

As the 1980s were setting its stride, Silkwood might have been one of the earliest in a line of films to focus on the union worker who fights back at the billion-dollar corporation.  Some might unfairly regard the movie as The China Syndrome, Part II. Other well-known pictures of this mold are even more familiar to me like Michael Mann’s The Insider.  However, director Mike Nichols, working with a first screenwriting effort from Nora Ephron who partnered with Alice Arlen, showcases the aggravation on not just Karen Silkwood, the real life potential whistleblower, but also her friends and co-workers in a one factory town just outside of Oklahoma City.

Karen (Meryl Streep) lives with her boyfriend Drew (Kurt Russell) and her best friend Dolly (Cher) in a run-down house in the middle of nowhere.  They ride to work together at the local plutonium manufacturing plant where they dress in scrubs and gloves. Punch in, punch out kind of days, and often they are expected to work double shifts and weekends.  Karen works an assembly line where she places her hands in rubber gloves and assembles dangerous combinations of chemicals in an enclosed box.  It’s also routine that before you leave your station you wave your hands over a sensor to ensure you have not been exposed to radiation.  There’s even sensors you walk through as you enter and leave the plant.  When those sensors go off, a calm kind of film seemingly turns into a horror movie.  The last thing anyone could ever want is to get “cooked.”

Karen does not live a perfect life.  Her three kids reside with their uncompromising father in Texas.  Money is not ideal.  Dolly is a slob and has also invited her girlfriend to live with them.  Karen can manage with all of this, but when she observes some unconventional activities around the factory she gets up the nerve to head the union for better protection and working conditions.  However, the further she goes looking at files and photos, jotting down notes of what people say and do, plus taking trips to Washington DC, and getting phone calls from attorneys at night, she becomes more and more isolated from Dolly and Drew, along with the rest of her close-knit workers.  Karen is not just risking her job, but everyone else’s jobs and worse her own life.

The attorneys lay it out to the townsfolk and the union of the horrifying statistics that go along with radiation exposure.  The tiniest fraction of a miniscule of exposure to the smallest crumb of chemicals could increase a human’s bearable limit towards radiation and cancer.  The sad irony is that the more that is learned, the more the people of this area smoke and smoke some more.  Granted, this story takes place in the early 1970s, though.    

The company is primarily represented by an intimidating Bruce McGill.  He’s great in everything he does and is worthy of an Oscar nomination somewhere.  M Emmet Walsh has no lines but his presence is enough to shake you; the slimy guy you easily recognize from every other movie you have seen.  While the company’s overbearing intrusion is shown plenty, the script for Silkwood focuses more on how these working people get by.  They are treated unfairly and in dangerous working conditions, but they also know this is the only place that offers steady income in the area.  Without this factory, the whole town would be left in dire straits.  Karen is repeatedly told or implied to leave well enough alone.

Meryl Streep notches another harrowing performance on her resume and bears such a departure from more sophisticated characters found in Sophie’s Choice and Kramer Vs Kramer.  Karen Silkwood is not educated and she bears an unmistakable white trash dialect but she’s also not stupid and the more progress she makes at exposing the plant’s shortcomings the more unfairly she is treated with department transfers and workplace shake ups that she is indirectly blamed for.  Potential threats on her life begin to build, but she only upholds a bravery.  You really observe the strength of Meryl Streep.  She’s at the top of an elite class of actresses at this time that also included Sally Field, Jessica Lange and Glenn Close.

Cher plays Dolly in her first on screen role.  The variety act performer probably subjected herself to a bigger departure than Streep.  She was not a professionally trained actress at the time.  Mike Nichols insisted on no makeup along with her hair unkept and flat, while dressed in green chino pants and baggy sweatshirts.  The new actress carries herself so well without the usual glitz that accompanies her.  Her scenes with Streep are workshops in acting technique. 

Kurt Russell delivers another understated performance.  One of the best actors out there who has never been enough of a critical darling.  Drew is likable and Kurt Russell plays him as a settled in match for Streep’s portrayal of Karen.  Watch how they tangle up in each other’s arms in bed or when he snaps at her as she carries on her crusade while he’d rather things be left alone.  His timing is perfect for the script.

Mike Nichols keeps his film calm, except when the go by the numbers narrative must be disturbed.  A radiation cleanse with high pressure hoses will make you wince.  The factory alarms will terrify you.  Meryl Streep accepts the physical taxations necessary for this setting.  Nichols gets in close with his camera to show how cleansers dressed in scrubs and masks rub Streep down until her skin is a burning red.  I distinctly remember how her right ear appears in this scene, getting flushed by something just short of a fire hose, and the aftermath of her sitting in a chair is so discomforting while a company doctor assures her that there’s not much to worry about as long she brings in her urine samples daily.  In fact, soon all of the employees are tasked with delivering their urine samples.  What kind of place is this?

While Silkwood is based on a true story with a burning question left behind, I do not want to reveal too much.  Many have seen Silkwood since it was released over forty years ago, but as the third act begins, the fallout only becomes more disturbing and Mike Nichols directs a horrifying sequence built primarily on the pealing of old wallpaper.  That’s all I want to suggest. 

Karen Silkwood was a very unlikely crusader.  She probably never envisioned what she would become and what she would fight for.  Yet, she uncovered horrible truths that should not have been occurring under the eye of billion-dollar corporate America.  After watching Silkwood, I can only imagine what else was there to turn over.

NOTE: Another good reason to watch Silkwood is to discover early performances from some amazing character actors who were either just starting their careers or continuing to hide in the crowd. 

Scavenger hunt for Anthony Heald, James Rebhorn, David Strathairn, Ron Silver, Fred Ward, Diana Scarwid, Bill Cobbs, M Emmet Walsh, Craig T Nelson, Tess Harper, Will Patton, Richard Hamilton and Josef Sommer.

SILKWOOD (1983)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Mike Nichols
CAST: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson, Fred Ward, Ron Silver, Bruce McGill, David Strathairn, M. Emmet Walsh, James Rebhorn
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 77% Fresh

PLOT: On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, an employee of a nuclear facility, left to meet with a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there.


The tagline for Silkwood (quoted above) almost feels like it gives the game away, but it doesn’t really.  Even if Karen Silkwood’s name isn’t exactly part of the cultural zeitgeist anymore, I am willing to bet that a lot of people know what her name signifies in one way or another.  So, it’s not like the movie’s poster or trailers are spoiling what happens at the end of the film because most of us know.

In any event, Mike Nichols’ film isn’t a nuclear-based thriller, like The Day After (1983) or WarGames (1984), that depends on an unexpected resolution.  Silkwood isn’t about theatrical heroics or bombastic personalities.  It’s a quietly intense character study of an everywoman with an untidy personal life who experiences a seismic shift in her perception and decides she simply can’t stand by and do nothing.  This isn’t a crowd-pleaser like Erin Brockovich (2000), but this film’s story and central character are no less important.

The film goes to great pains to show us how ordinary and messy Karen Silkwood is.  The incidents at the Oklahoma nuclear facility where she works (along with her live-in boyfriend, Drew, and her roommate, Dolly) are almost secondary to the plot, at least for the first half of the film.  Karen has kids that live with her ex-husband and his girlfriend in Texas.  Her relationship with Drew isn’t stormy, but it’s not perfect.  Dolly seems tolerable as a roommate, but is not shy about speaking her mind.  Dolly brings a girlfriend home one night, and there is a slyly amusing conversation between Karen and Drew about Dolly’s sexual preferences.  (“I can handle it.”  “Me, too.”  “…so why are we talking about it?”)

I don’t want to go into too many details about the true-life incidents that occurred at the facility where Karen worked because, if you’re not intimately familiar with the facts of the story, they should be as surprising to you as they were to me.  Plutonium is involved, but probably not in the way you’re thinking.  Karen learns enough to know she should be more involved in the factory’s union…a LOT more.  One plot thread almost feels like it’s ripped off from The China Syndrome (1979), until you realize Syndrome was released four years after the events of Silkwood, so if anything, Syndrome was probably inspired by Karen’s discoveries.

I also have to mention Cher as the roommate, Dolly.  Of course, Meryl Streep is amazing and convincing as an everyday, average divorced mom, but Cher more than holds her own in every scene.  There is absolutely no hint of the pop music megastar of the ‘70s in this film.  Director Mike Nichols insisted she wear little or no makeup in her scenes, which went against every fiber of her instinct as a performer.  She understood the assignment: she never upstages anyone.  This is not a grandstanding kind of supporting role, like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive (1993) or Cate Blanchett in The Aviator (2004).  It required subtlety and understatement, and Cher delivered.  I tried to spot her “acting,” and I never could.  She was unbelievably natural and, at times, heartbreaking.  The movie is almost worth searching out just to see her performance.  It’s a clinic in how to own a small role and make it stand out by doing less than you might expect.

Silkwood may not feel as thrilling as some of the other thrillers I’ve already mentioned, but it is just as compelling, specifically because we’re watching an ordinary person under extraordinary circumstances.  We’re not watching a hero triumphantly rise to the occasion.  We’re watching a struggling divorcee who’s trying to do the right thing after years of inaction, even if it means losing the trust of her co-workers or sacrificing her other personal relationships.  I identified more with Karen Silkwood and her situation than I did with Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome or Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. 

The ambiguous nature of the film’s ending mirrors what happened in real life, and when the credits rolled, I felt a surge of empathy for the people left behind and the unanswered questions they live with to this day.  That doesn’t happen to me very often.