Category: Rutger Hauer

BATMAN BEGINS

By Marc S. Sanders

The merits of a lot of action/adventure films is predicated on how strong the villain is to the story.  Often the hero is the straight character in the heroic garb ready to enter the scene just as the bad guy is on the brink of maniacally destroying the world.  In the early 2000s however, the focus diverted to the hero when big franchises opted to reinvent themselves.  James Bond’s origin was finally offered up in the best film of the series, Casino Royale.  Christopher and Jonathan Nolan served up one of the best cinematic Batman stories on screen.  The title said it all.

Batman Begins gets every note right with the all too familiar back story of Bruce Wayne’s drive to become Gotham City’s Dark Knight vigilante.  The film has its collection of villains but the center of the picture is always circumventing around Bruce Wayne, perfectly played by Christian Bale, with somber truth hidden by handsome playboy disguise.  As a child, he discovers his fear of bats and then attends the theater with his billionaire parents.  Upon their exit through a back alley, he witnesses their death and is left to be raised by his trusty butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine, my favorite actor in the role to date).

This film achieves my undivided attention because it paints a full canvas of this character before he ever adopts an alter ego in a black costume.  We explore how he becomes motivated followed by his intense training in the zenith alps, on the Asian continent.  Then we see how he supplies himself with all of the familiar gadgets and costumes when he befriends an ally within his father’s company, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). 

Jonathan Nolan’s script diverts away on occasion to embrace the capable villains of this story with the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), Rha’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson).  Bruce’s mentor, Ducard (Liam Neeson), is a big factor in the hero’s development as well.  Lastly, there’s Bruce’s childhood friend and legal connection, Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes).  Lt. James Gordon is the uncompromised police detective that Bruce singles out to trust within this dense world of corruption.

Just to read this cast list is impressive as they fall beautifully within the matrix of Nolan’s blueprint.  Everyone is given enough time to make more than one impression as their storylines twist and alter.

Christopher Nolan’s films are always moving like a smooth ride on a never-ending stretch of road with no traffic in the way.  Nothing bears repeating from what was already shown in an earlier scene.  There’s something new to learn as the pace continues.  Nolan is one of the few filmmakers where you do not mind the time jumps he incorporates into his stories.  Bruce will first be seen as a ten-year-old boy, then in his muscular fit thirties in a Chinese prison completely departed from the wealth of Wayne Manor.  A step back before that shows him as a Princeton drop out with a mop top haircut.  Every different appearance of Bruce is interesting and you become intrigued with how he ends up in one place after another. 

Like the first appearance of Daniel Craig in the Bond series, this Batman/Bruce Wayne is repeatedly imperfect.  He’s flawed because he still needs to learn and the characters that enter and exit and reenter his life must teach him.  Alfred will lecture a short-triggered Bruce when he’s on the cusp of risking the reputation of his father’s legacy.  Rachel will slap him when he’s prepared to kill in cold vengeance.  Ducard will teach him the ways of physical survival and will test Bruce’s loyalty and the measures of crime with punishment.  Even the Scarecrow is smarter than Batman when he springs an unexpected trap.

The ongoing education of Bruce Wayne is the theme of Batman Begins, all the way to the end, when he finally learns to mind his surroundings.

Christopher Nolan made Batman exciting in a new unfamiliar way.  The Batmobile is a not a sporty kind of vehicle.  It’s a tank called The Tumbler and it bears a thunderous series of sound edits as it barrels through Gotham City.  After some slip and falls off rooftops, Batman becomes much more covert than in other interpretations.  You don’t have to physically see Batman to observe him operate.  If a thug gets swallowed into a void of darkness, you know what has ensnared him.  The crusader’s devices which stem from his gold utility belt are demonstrated with explained reason for why he selected them for his fighting advantage.  The Nolans proudly recognize the theatricality of this guy.

Cillian Murphy is unforgettable as he lives up to the name of Scarecrow, also known as Dr. Jonathan Crane, a criminal psychologist.  His choice to put his victims into a hypnotizing sense of fear lend to the back story of Bruce Wayne’s intent to become a frightening figure himself, where his enemies will recognize his dread.  Tom Wilkinson claws his gangster persona straight from a Godfather kind of picture, but he represents an old guard of Gotham City before costumed and makeup identities take over.  Gotham will transition from the sharp dressed mobsters over to the crazed clowns yet to come. 

Gary Oldman invents another unique personality – a strait-laced city guy who might have come from a 1970s ABC cops and robber show like Dragnet.  No two characters of Oldman’s are ever the same.  So much so, you almost wish they would all assemble in a movie for the various personalities to interact.  Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are like comfort food who are so subtle and relaxed in front of a camera.  Neither one makes big waves with their characters.  Jonathan Nolan wrote their respective purposes for this Bruce Wayne and they execute their techniques of less is more beautifully.

Liam Neeson delivers the second-best performance of his career thus far, after Oskar Schindler.  He adopts the same kind of method that Freeman and Caine work with, but then he sways from that behavior when Ducard has to surprise Bruce as a means for his pupil’s development. Some of what he does comes from nowhere.  Early in the film, his first two scenes could not be more different.  Neeson works like an unpredictable entity.

The next film in this trilogy replaced Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal.  I was disappointed because Holmes was maturing as a very formative actor by this time.  She was blessed with a well written character in Rachel Dawes.  When I watch the next film, The Dark Knight, I cannot help but wonder how she would have performed the role for a second and much more developed opportunity. 

There is not one flaw in Batman Begins.  This is the movie that placed Christopher Nolan in the echelon of top blockbuster directors like Spielberg and Hitchcock, along with Lumet and Mann.  Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack is thrilling as it speaks for The Dark Knight who is of few words.  Zimmer’s scores announce the introduction of Bruce Wayne first, and then later Batman. 

Gotham City makes for a sensational character with various rooftops, fire escapes, tunnels, bridges and a gorgeous, elevated train at its center.  The entire city breathes steam amid the distressed decay, wet streets and rusted architecture. 

Wayne Manor has a ghostly effect as Alfred and Bruce climb the large staircases and floors.  Further down under its platforms rests the cave that’ll serve Batman well.  The waterfalls and rocky caverns are immense. 

Batman Begins is not one of the best films of a genre like any other superhero movie.  I refuse to recognize it that way.  Instead, I see a character study where a man accepts a responsibility to fix what scarred him at a young age.  He wants to right a world that once had promise.  I don’t see the costumed protagonist announce himself as a superhero.  I don’t see the costume.  With the cape and the horns on the head and the car and the tools, I see an image, never a superhero.  With Christopher Nolan’s first film in what will become a well-received trilogy, I always see the man underneath the mask. 

BLADE RUNNER

By Marc S. Sanders

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a technical and special effects masterpiece…however thin-very thin-its story may be. 

When the film was originally released in 1982, its period setting of November 2019 seemed unimaginable.  So, it was easy to accept that the dystopian future first conceived by author Phillip K. Dick (in his book Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?) could actually happen.  With the Vietnam War behind us, and shopping malls becoming the happening place to be in our Members Only jackets and Jordache jeans with Swatch watches, the 1980s seemed like eternal bliss.  Middle class America felt prosperous and free and comfortable with a President on his way to eight years in office.  Bright pastel and neon colors took over.  A hopeless, dreary future was all but fantasy.  Therefore, just like Star Wars, a gritty, urban Los Angeles seemed like another possibility where science fiction had become as trendy as super hero movies are today.  It was cold and rainy and dirty, but we wanted to see that because that was nowhere near what we were living in, much less envisioning. 

Ridley Scott achieved greatness with visuals never thought possible.  George Lucas might have introduced moviegoers to desert and swamp planets and industrialist Death Stars, but Scott delivered an Earth where Coca-Cola, Pan Am, Atari and Cuisinart still existed amid a dark, rainy Chinatown section of Los Angeles with glowing umbrella handles, flying police cars and cabs, hovering electronic billboards, and exhaust flames that spewed out of the rooftops of cylindrical skyscrapers.  Ridley Scott might have supervised this palette of futuristic film-noir, but the real heroes of Blade Runner belong to its Oscar nominees Lawrence G. Paull, David L. Snyder, and Linda DeScenna for set decoration, as well as Douglas Trumbull (already a legend for 2001: A Space Odyssey), Richard Yuricich and David Dryer for visual effects.  All these years later, there’s much to explore within the appearance of Blade Runner, but the storyline still remains shallower than a puddle of water.

I’ve watched Blade Runner a number of times because fellow peers and colleagues carry such admiration for the film.  I cannot deny the first third of the film holds your attention as you acclimate yourself to this enveloping world.  Once your accustomed however, the story is what has to carry you through to the end, and the journey is as slow moving as a rickshaw on one wheel.  Harrison Ford is Rick Deckard, a blade runner and the best one there is.  Upon learning of an escape of four Replicants from an off-world slave site, Deckard is tasked with coming out of retirement to hunt down these Replicants and “retire” them.  Retire is the polite word for kill, exterminate, slaughter or execute.

A replicant is an android that looks completely human, bleeds like a human and talks like a human.  It’s near impossible to tell the difference on sight between a human and a replicant. As well, replicants are manufactured with four-year life spans and are not permitted on Earth.  They are intended for the sole purpose of slavery towards their human creators.  Yet, what makes them so exemplary or offensive?  What trait do they carry that threatens their human counterparts?  Racism often occurs because of fear derived from skin color or appearance.  Antisemitism will have you believe that Jews have horns growing out of their heads under their yarmulkas.  What is so terribly misconstrued or offensive or threatening about Replicants?  The film never makes clear, and that’s frustrating.  What makes a villain a villain?

M Emmet Walsh comes on early enough to tell us through dialogue that he needs the best of the blade runners back and that’s Deckard.  When I’m to understand that I’m watching the absolute best of something, whether it be a cop, lawyer, baker, student, doctor, painter or blade runner, I want to see what exactly makes them the best.  In Top Gun, I saw the aerial maneuvers that potentially justified why Maverick could be the best of the best fighter pilots.  The problem with Blade Runner and the script, written by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples, is that I never see in its two-hour time span when or how Rick Deckard is such an exceptional blade runner.  How is a blade runner different from an ordinary cop or a simple person with a large gun?  No matter which of the various cuts of the film I’m watching, with or without Harrison Ford’s voiceover narration, I fail to see any outstanding fighting skills or clear thought-provoking intuition.  This guy is neither as good as Dirty Harry or Sherlock Holmes or even James Bond.  He’s not even as personable as Sam Spade, the original noir detective.  Rick Deckard just looks like Harrison Ford with a very large hand gun.  Furthermore, where does the term “Blade Runner” derive from?  Is it just there because it sounds cool?  The moniker wasn’t even created by Philip K. Dick.

The film’s eventual sequel, Blade Runner 2049, is a far superior film.  It’s longer, but it’s much more fleshed out in tone and character and understanding of its setting.  The original film stands on the heels of its cult like legendary status.  Some of the best filmmakers today cite Blade Runner as an influence in how they construct their own movies.  I buy that.  The assembly of whatever cut I’m watching is evident of how mind blowing its appearance is.  You can see some of the blue print visuals that carried over in to Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve’s pictures. But I’m past all that.  Now I need to appreciate what it’s all there for, and who is playing in its yard. 

I cannot simply rely on IMDb trivia and endless social media sites that speculate on whether Deckard is a replicant himself, or why he dreams of a unicorn and why Ridley Scott opted not to include said dream in the original cut.  I cannot just tickle my curiosity with the picture’s eerie foreshadowing of the various product placements that suffered real life eventual downfalls after its release.  Beyond the visuals, what am I watching Blade Runner for?  This is not just a riddle in the Sunday paper.

The film boasts an eclectic cast that work well together.  I just wish they were provided with something much more insightful with background and personal experience.  Rutger Hauer became a familiar name following the release of this picture.  When he’s finally given the opportunity within the second hour of the film to come off as hideous and terrifying and strange, it’s worth looking at.  His famous “tears in the rain” closing dialogue is beautifully poetic, as it was personally written by him.  It’s as ambiguous as the film.  Yet, Shakespeare can be vague too.  I might not understand what anyone is talking about, but the performance can keep my attention.  Regrettably, he does not do much else in the film beyond his closing fight scene with Ford.  Ridley Scott insisted on casting Sean Young as Rachel, as her appearance was reminiscent of Vivian Leigh.  She’s intentionally mysterious as a likely replicant and/or niece of the wealthy creator of the replicants, Dr. Tyrell.  It works, but again, if the viewer is going to be questioned on the mystery of this major character early on, then why doesn’t the film follow further into that enigma?  You don’t have to say for sure, but at least give me evidence to argue one way or the other.  The same goes for the speculation on Deckard.  Had it not been for outside references, I’d never question who or what Deckard really is.  Daryl Hannah, Brion James and Joanna Cassidy round out the rest of the cast/replicants within the film.  Edward James Olmos is here too with a curious and odd habit of making origami.  They all have their unique way or look about them.  In science fiction, every character should stand apart.  Yet, again, it’s all about appearance.  What is the motivation here?  What is the motivation to live on earth or off earth?  What is the motivation to kill a human?  What is the motivation to kill a replicant?

I’ve beaten my head enough over this film.  Blade Runner has always been frustrating to me.  Maybe I’m not being fair to myself, as I try to find something else or some underlying layer each time I watch it.  Why do people love this movie so much?  Why does it consistently appear on “greatest of all time” tabulations?  Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just pounding sand, or maybe as Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty suggests, I’m impossibly looking for tears in rain.