Category: Genre

HOBSON’S CHOICE (Great Britain, 1954)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: David Lean
Cast: Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda de Banzie
My Rating: 7/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 92% Fresh

PLOT: A widowed bootmaker in 1880s England with three unmarried daughters is thrown when his eldest daughter announces her intentions to marry his best cobbler and start her own business.


From Wikipedia: “A Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one thing is actually offered. … The most well-known Hobson’s choice is ‘I’ll give you a choice: take it or leave it’, wherein ‘leaving it’ is strongly undesirable.”

Ask ten cinephiles about their favorite David Lean films, and I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts not more than two of them will even know Hobson’s Choice exists.  It’s one of only two comedies Lean ever directed (the other being Blithe Spirit in 1945), and it’s one of the last smaller-scale movies he would direct before 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai made his name synonymous with big-budget cinematic spectacles.  Hobson’s Choice oozes charm from every frame, has many well-earned laughs, and features a brilliant performance from the great Charles Laughton.  I just wish it had a better ending.  I’ll try not to spoil it for you, but…dang.

Henry Hobson (Laughton) is a widowed bootmaker in late 19th-century England with three unmarried daughters.  The eldest daughter, Maggie (Brenda de Banzie), keeps house, manages the books, and essentially runs the business, leaving Henry free to drink himself silly at the local pub every night and come home drunk as a skunk.  Being of an undesirable age – 30 years old – Maggie is also considered unmarriable.  But she’s no dummy.  See, one of Henry’s employees is a cobbler named William (John Mills, a legendary, prolific British actor), and Maggie notices when a rich patron praises William’s boots as the best she’s ever owned.  So, Maggie hatches a plan that will accomplish three things: get herself married, steal her father’s prize employee, and start her own business with the best bootmaker in town.  Hobson, of course, will have none of it, for various reasons…one of which is that, as the father, he is expected to pay a handsome dowry to the bridegroom, and he’ll be damned if he’ll give hundreds of pounds to a lowly cobbler, nor will he allow his “uppity” daughter to get the best of him.  Comedy ensues.

There is a lot to like in Hobson’s Choice.  First, there is the clever skewering of the class system, both socio-economically and along gender lines.  Hobson is reluctant to pay anything to William other than his barely-livable wages.  When circumstances force him to treat William as if he were a member of the same middle class as he, Hobson, is, he becomes enraged because…he simply has no choice.  The idea of all men being created equal is alien to him.  This same principle applies to his treatment and perception of his daughters.  He may genuinely love them in his heart of hearts, but all we ever hear from Hobson is how bothersome and loud and “uppish” they are.  To him, their sole purpose is to keep things neat and tidy and have dinner ready when he demands it.  It never once occurs to him that Maggie, the eldest, would be capable of putting her plan together, let alone actually pulling it off.

I also enjoyed how a good chunk of the story parallels Shaw’s Pygmalion, at least in broad strokes.  Will, Hobson’s prize cobbler, is as low-class as you can get, and has been treated as such his entire life.  Part of Maggie’s plan is to get Will to behave and dress more genteelly, and her method is nothing short of brilliant.  Rather than follow Henry Higgins’s approach – bullying with a heavy hand – Maggie very gently points Will in the right direction, stepping in with a firm hand only when necessary, as when it becomes necessary to deal with Will’s landlady, one of the funniest bits in the movie.  At first, Will is taken aback by Maggie’s directness, but it’s fun watching how gradually he gets turned around.  He may not be the spitting image of a member of the royal family after all is said and done, but his transformation is unmistakable.

Another great factor is the blustery performance by Charles Laughton in a role that, in my opinion, deserves more attention from film fans.  He’s most commonly associated with Quasimodo or Captain Bligh or the barrister in Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution (1957), but in Hobson’s Choice, he convincingly plays a man who is painfully aware he’s being driven towards a specific decision he does not want to make.  He’s been lord of the “manor” his entire life, and the idea that he might be forced to bow to his daughter’s whims is unbearable.  He is the most fun person to watch in the film…although John Mills is a close second.  I love his borderline incomprehension as Maggie patiently explains her plans and orders him about.

As I said, there is a lot to like in Hobson’s Choice.  But, man, did that ending let me down.  I was reminded oddly of David Cronenberg’s most recent film, Crimes of the Future (2022), which rolls the closing credits at the EXACT moment it becomes the most interesting.  I have no theatrical knowledge of the play on which Hobson’s Choice is based (other than the fact it ran for over 130 performances), but if the play ends the way the movie does, and I had been a member of the audience at a performance of that play, I would have rolled up my program and chucked it at the curtain.  I don’t want to give too much away, but its abruptness is breathtaking.  In my mind, it leaves far too much unresolved, unless there’s something I missed in that final scene/conversation.  I kept waiting for Hobson to make his eponymous choice, and for a second it LOOKED like he did, but it also looked like he had a devious plan of his own, and then…credits.

Oh, well, no matter.  There is more charm in a single frame of Hobson’s Choice than there is in any two Will Ferrell rom-coms.  I found it thoroughly enjoyable, even if it did let me down at the end.  Since Lean directed my favorite movie of all time, I’m inclined to forgive it.  I’ve seen most of Lean’s other films, and none of them committed this same blunder, so…c’est la vie.  Hobson’s Choice is still worth seeking out.

THE LOST WEEKEND (1945)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Billy Wilder
CAST: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Certified Fresh

PLOT: The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout.


I don’t drink.  Like, at all.  I’ve never taken drugs, and I’ve never smoked a cigarette.  Luckily, I have never been gripped in the throes of a crippling addiction, unless collecting movies counts as an addiction, in which case I plead the fifth.  I say this, not to brag, but because a lot of my first impressions of Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend are tinted by the fact that I don’t know the first thing about being drunk or what it means to suffer from an addiction so crippling that it would force me to hang a liquor bottle outside my window to hide it from my brother.

As it happens, Don Birnam (Ray Milland) DOES suffer from this kind of mid-to-late-stage alcoholism.  We first meet Don as he and his brother, Wick (Phillip Terry), are packing for a long weekend to get away from everything and everyone, including alcohol.  Don is a would-be author who needs a break from…something.  (Whatever he went through is never specified, only hinted at: “It’ll be good for you, Don, after what you’ve been through.”)  Don’s plan to surreptitiously pack the hidden bottle of liquor falls through after the arrival of his almost unbelievably good-hearted girlfriend, Helen (Jane Wyman).  No matter.  He still has a plan, which he confides to the long-suffering but increasingly annoyed bartender, Nat (Howard Da Silva).  He’s bought two bottles of rye.  He’ll hide one badly in his own suitcase and another in his brother’s suitcase.  When Wick discovers the badly hidden bottle in Don’s suitcase, he’ll chew Don out, Don will act suitably contrite, and Wick won’t think about searching his OWN suitcase for a second bottle.  What could go wrong?

During these first few scenes, when Don lies and lies and drinks shot after shot in a bar and winds up missing the train for his getaway weekend, I found it difficult to sympathize with him.  Oh, he’s clever and loquacious when he’s either about to drink or while he’s drinking.  He has enough knowledge to quote Shakespeare at the right times and wittily proposes to Nat the bartender: “I wish I could take you along, Nat.  You and all that goes with you.”  Under the right circumstances, Don is a fun guy, always good for a laugh…until his seventh or eight or ninth shot of bourbon.  Then the other Don shows up, Don the drunk, Don the liar, the Don who gets so desperate for cash that he’ll walk 70 or 80 New York City blocks trying to find an open pawn shop so he can hock his typewriter for drinking money.

For some reason, it was harder for me to empathize with Don Birnam than it was to empathize with any of the main characters in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000).  In that film, not a single leading character escapes the ravages of addiction, and yet even as they made their mistakes, I empathized with them and grieved when their bad decisions made things worse and worse.  With Don Birnam, however, every bad decision he made just made me like him less and less.  I remember thinking at one point, “He’s brought this all on himself, he deserves what he gets.”  Not a very Christian attitude, but I’m not gonna lie about it: that’s what I felt.

And his girlfriend, Helen…wow.  It’s almost like she needs as much of an intervention as he does.  She loves Don so unconditionally it’s almost unbelievable.  What’s the attraction?  Perhaps it’s symptomatic of the era in which The Lost Weekend was made.  She discovers Don’s alcoholism late in their 3-year dating relationship.  (What did people think in 1945 of someone who dates a man for 3 years?)  Instead of breaking up with him or giving him ultimatums, she devotes herself to “fixing” Don.  Not precisely the course of action I would recommend myself in today’s world, but there you have it.

Director Billy Wilder presents this first half of the movie in a very uninflected tone with little-to-no comic relief.  This flat tone becomes very effective at simply presenting the information without directly commenting on it one way or the other.  There are moments up to this point where the movie seems to side with Don (his struggle to find a bottle whose hiding place he’s forgotten is particularly pathetic), but it’s still not really passing judgment or giving him a pass.

And then…the turning point.  Don accidentally falls down a flight of stairs and knocks himself out after finagling some drinking money out of a young lady he flirts with at his favorite dive.  When he wakes up, he’s lying in a bed in the Alcoholic Ward of the local hospital, face to face with one of the strangest characters I’ve ever met in a Billy Wilder movie, and that’s saying something.  He’s a nurse.  “Name of Nolan.  They call me Bim.  You…can call me Bim.”  The closest I can get to describing Bim’s weirdness is to imagine an evil Waylon Smithers from The Simpsons as a male nurse.  On quaaludes.  To Don’s slowly increasing discomfort, Bim lovingly describes what Don is in for during his stay on the Alcoholic Ward, giving the inside scoop on the various repeat offenders and what to expect during his D.T.’s: “You know that stuff about pink elephants?  That’s the bunk.  It’s little animals.  Little tiny turkeys in straw hats.  Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.”  This Bim…he has NO bedside manner, man.  “Prohibition…that’s what started most of these guys off.  Whoopee!”  (Nice little social commentary there…classic Wilder.)

Don manages to find his way home once again, having not had a drink for almost a day-and-a-half, if my memory is correct.  And it’s at this point that the movie, Billy Wilder, and Ray Milland finally got me in Don Birnam’s corner.

SPOILER ALERT, SPOILERS COMING.

Don finally has a bout of the D.T.’s.  It’s not turkeys or monkeys or elephants, though…it’s a rat.  A single rat chewing its way out of the wall in front of him.  Then, out of nowhere…a bat finds its way into the apartment and flutters around the room.  Don is understandably distressed.  But then the capper: the bat swoops down to where the mouse’s head is poking through the hole, there is a terrible squealing sound, the bat sort of trembles and scuffles…and a stream of thick blood starts to dribble out of the hole where the bat is presumably chewing the rat’s head off or something.

To say I was surprised is an understatement.  Don starts screaming his head off…and at long last I finally empathized with Don’s situation, and I no longer wanted him to wind up penniless and/or alone and/or dead.  I wanted the movie to find a way to fix him, like Helen tries desperately to do through the entire picture.  From then on, I was on his side, or Helen’s side, or whoever’s side, it didn’t matter, as long as he figured out a way to get out from under the disease that was slowly killing him.

I would not dream of revealing exactly how the movie ends.  It might go the way of Leaving Las Vegas (1996).  Or it might go the way of the vastly underseen Duane Hopwood (2005), featuring David Schwimmer as an alcoholic father on a path of self-destruction, but who manages to turn things around.  (Sorry if I spoiled that for you, but I’m betting it’s not a movie most people will want to seek out.)  I will say that it’s the ending of The Lost Weekend that really showcases the era in which it was made more than anything else.  But it could just as easily have gone the other way and still been just as successful.

The Lost Weekend cleaned up at the 1945 Oscars, winning awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay (it was based on a novel).  At the time, it was the most unglamorous movie ever made about alcoholism.  Up to that point, drinking in movies rarely if ever led to hangovers and the D.T.’s and spending the night in the Alcoholic Ward.  It certainly belongs to be mentioned with Wilder’s greatest films.  But you’re gonna wanna watch something a little lighter afterwards.  Stalag 17, maybe.  Or Some Like It Hot.  A laughter chaser.

SHE SAID

By Marc S. Sanders

I get high off movies about journalism.  All The President’s Men and Spotlight are at the top of this pillar.  The main characters seem to be moving a hundred miles per hour even if they are reserved to their cluttered desks and phones, or if they are talking delicately, and slowly, with empathy as they carefully approach a potential, yet frightened source.  She Said is a 2022 film about how the New York Times reporters, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor (Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan), exposed the systemic process of sexual harassment and rape that was running rampant through Miramax Films.  The accused was always its CEO, Harvey Weinstein.

It’s extraordinary that this film got produced so soon after the MeToo movement and Weinstein’s downfall occurred.  All of it seems like it just happened yesterday.  In fact, Harvey Weinstein is still going through court procedure and trials for sexual crimes he’s accused of that occurred in London, New York and Los Angeles.  There might even be more locations.  New developments hit the internet all the time.  This guy just never stopped.  So, there’s much for the courts to process and try.  This was a terrible black eye, not only for Miramax’s reputation (at the time owned by Disney), but on the entire film industry in Hollywood.

She Said explores not only Twohey and Kantor’s relentless pursuit of the truth and various descriptions of Weinstein’s method with young women, but also how corrupt non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) were used.  The NDAs contained unreasonable demands for hush money provided.  Mandates such as speaking with a therapist or other professionals and close-knit relatives were never allowed lest they suffer consequences.  The victims would get paid, but would also be denied of a copy of the contract, and thus Weinstein found a way to allow his constant grooming and sick pleasures of perversion to carry on. 

The reporters concluded that these victims had no money or resources to stand up to the kind of bullying and harassing that Weinstein’s power exerted.  Quitting or getting fired for fighting for their rights or just refusing his advances left these women out of an industry in which they were trying to elevate their careers.  They lacked proof of the occurrences.  They had to fight a he said/she said scenario.  They were victimized by a man who associated with some of the most powerful people in the world.  It happened to known actresses like Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd (who plays herself in the picture).  It nearly happened to Gwyneth Paltrow (providing her own voice on the phone) as well.  Even worse, it happened to women who didn’t even have the luster of celebrity brand name recognition to help them in their cause.    Nevertheless, it practically destroyed McGowan’s reputation in Hollywood altogether as she was labeled a crazed pariah for declaring her truth.  The tolerance and strategic payoffs were perhaps just as overwhelming as the attacks by Harvey Weinstein.  (Forgive me, I say perhaps because there is no way I am qualified to empathize, measure, or relate to what these victims endured or continue to survive through.)

Maria Schrader’s film does a good job at explaining the risks these reporters take.  A brief prologue shows Megan Twohey getting death threat calls for her write up of Donald Trump’s accusations of sex crimes.  A very convincing Trump vocal impersonator even calls her to tell her she’s a disgusting human being and how he must be innocent simply because he does not know any of these women.  Reader, it bears repeating that many rapists and harassers never know their victims.  When Twohey teams up with Kantor, the intimidations don’t stop and their supervisors and editors in chief (Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher) lend support.

Paltrow’s ex-boyfriend, Brad Pitt, was a producer on this film and it’s gratifying to see him lend the support.  I recall reading how he confronted Weinstein following attempts of harassment upon Paltrow shortly after they began dating and making the film Seven together.  Looking back to those years of the mid-1990s, I’d argue that Pitt and Paltrow were taking enormous risks with their careers.  They were just becoming marquee names. Yet, they could have still been ruined within the industry.  This is an environment synonymous with putting blinders on to systemic offenses that occur while lending praise to those that’ll eventually grant them potential Oscar winning roles or twenty-million-dollar paychecks.  

When Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, George Clooney, and Quentin Tarantino say in interviews that I’ve seen that they had no idea what was occurring with Harvey behind closed doors, my reaction has always been skeptical to these claims.  At one point in this film, Twohey and Kantor refer to Harvey’s antics as the worst kept secret in Hollywood. It is sad to say that these marquee names will always owe their careers and success to Harvey Weinstein, criminal rapist or not.

I do have some reservations with She Said, though.  Often the reporters are typing and quick close ups or glances at their monitors are edited into the film, but I can’t read what they are documenting, and I believe the film was assuming I could.  At one point, Braugher’s character announces that Weinstein spoke to Variety magazine and another competitor to share his side of the story and declares “This is bad.”  Yet, we never find out what Weinstein said, and we just get the “Oh shit!” expression from Twohey and Kantor.  Why leave us in the dark on subjects like this?  Why is this so bad? 

The film is fast paced, but many of the scenes are identical to prior ones.  As the reporters speak with victims, they break down their own story.  I believe Weinstein practiced a similar method each time, but the dialogue in these accounts seems redundant.  I get that we are to understand how excessive his predatory actions were, but I was hoping for fresh angles to their ongoing investigation.

The cast is spectacular, particularly Mulligan and Kazan who make a great pair. I really like the dialogue written and delivered by Andre Braugher.  I always thought I don’t see that actor enough in films.  He’s sensational in everything he does, and he carries a real strength to his authority in the New York Times offices.  A championing moment occurs when he cuts in on Harvey’s call with the reporters to give an ultimatum and hangs up.  He just told Harvey, “ENOUGH ALREADY!”

She Said relies on prior knowledge that you must have before watching the film.  You must know who Harvey Weinstein was and the large space he occupied within Hollywood and the film industry.  You need to know who these actresses were, and you have to be familiar with the overwhelming female response to Donald Trump’s agendas which set up the picture.  Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, it’s hard not to be aware of what’s occurred in the last 5-6 years. 

However, as this film is discovered by future generations, long after Weinstein and Trump, and these victims are passed on, future generations like our children’s children may not fully understand the terrible conspiracies that transpired. 

She Said is a good movie and it holds significant importance.  However, I imagine the book written by Twohey and Kantor provides more details and exposition that I wish the film adaptation offered.  The pace and performance of the picture work very well.  I’m just afraid the script relies a little too much on assuming we know the whole backstory as the film carries on to its triumphant ending.

Watch it anyway, though.  It’s a bravely daring film to say the least.

DEMOLITION MAN

By Marc S. Sanders

In the years since the Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes futuristic action picture Demolition Man came out in 1993, bloggers have been giddy to post about how brilliant the satire is, especially since much of its fictional future set in a totalitarian San Angeles (formerly Los) in the year 2032 ended up becoming real to some degree.  Okay, fine.  I’ll go with what they say.  However, Reader, this is not on the same level as Paddy Chayefsky’s prophetical film, Network, and the legacy it has bestowed.  Demolition Man remains just as stupid as it was when it first came out.

In a mid-1990s prologue of fire, gunfire, and flames, a vicious killer named Simon Phoenix (Snipes), with a happy go lucky habit of giggling through the mayhem he unleashes, is apprehended by decorated cop John Spartan (Stallone).  However, both men are sentenced to decades of cryo-freeze imprisonment because the hostages that Phoenix held had perished and Spartan was found neglectful.

The film jumps to 36 years later. Phoenix has been released and immediately returns to his old habits.  The problem is the law enforcement of this period is not equipped to contain the crazed criminal.  So, Spartan is defrosted as well to go up against Phoenix.  This future is occupied by the cute smiles and charms of Sandra Bullock, Benjamin Bratt and Rob Schneider as the cops who happily sing the melodies made famous by radio and television ads.  Guns are entirely outlawed along with drugs, alcohol, spicy food, and obscene language.  Say a curse word and a machine is nearby, quick to charge you with the offense.  Touching and the exchange of bodily fluids are forbidden as well.  A high five with no contact was an uncanny precursor and is now reminiscent of the early days of the Covid crisis when it was strongly urged that people not even shake hands.  About the only favorable improvement of this future is that toilet paper is no longer used, and people resort to solving their hygiene problems with three seashells.  Regrettably, the technique is never demonstrated.

This film invests a lot of time in its satire, and I appreciate the attempt to find its humor.  The problem is the humor is delivered by Sylvester Stallone and he’s not Bill Murray or Aaron Eckhardt (check out Thank You For Smoking).  Satire is not a wheelhouse for Stallone to reside in.  Sandra Bullock on the other hand is cute in her response.  A memorable scene could have been so much better had Bullock had a more appropriate scene partner.  Lovemaking takes on a whole new method in this 2032 future.  Head devices are used to stimulate the mind.  Oddly enough, you could say that’s the direction that virtual reality has taken.  I appreciate the intuitiveness, but Stallone’s performance doesn’t.  What was intended to be a foreign experience for sexual gratification, comes off very clunky with Stallone.  Imagine what Ben Stiller or Paul Rudd could have done here.  Bruce Willis would have been marvelous in a scene like this.

Wesley Snipes is just as good an action star as Stallone or Willis or Schwarzenegger.  Unfortunately, his Simon Phoenix is so one note as a villain.  He’s a got a bleach blonde crew cut and a giggle and nothing else.  Stallone’s character describes Phoenix as a dirt bag, and the dastardly bad guy shoots guns and does quick kicks.  There’s nothing to know or learn about this guy.  He’s just a target for Sylvester Stallone to do his typical Sylvester Stallone with a shotgun and a handgun and his signature rahhhhhhh bellow that he’s provided in Rambo and Cliffhanger and Cobra and most of the rest of his career.  (Don’t get me wrong though.  Stallone does have a good repertoire of movies.  This one in particular is what doesn’t work.)

Denis Leary lends to the thin plot for a time.  Back in ’93, Leary was known for a few MTV ads where he did his infamous ranting monologue while popping a cigarette.  Because the script for Demolition Man is so nil, the angry comedian is granted opportunity to do his schtick here…twice!  It didn’t amuse me in ’93.  Now it’s just terribly outdated.

Back to the satire, I question the response of the players.  This film takes place only 36 years after a time of violent crime and cursing and smoking and drinking and all the debauchery that we were tolerated.  When Rob Schneider and the police look shocked and terrified at Simon Phoenix’ measure of violence, they are completely oblivious to what’s occurring.  I dunno.  Should they be that gullible?  This guy is only from a time that’s just over thirty years ago.  It hasn’t been that long.  Bullock even has a poster of Lethal Weapon 3 hanging in her office.  The response was hard for me to swallow, and that’s what killed the satirical attempts.  You can’t be that dumbfounded or naïve, can you?

There was a good idea here, but any kind of semblance of thought went out the window once that was jotted down.  The right player was not inserted into the main slot.  Stallone is miscast.  That’s the biggest problem.  Demolition Man hinges on the ho hum gunplay of any Sylvester Stallone actioner and stands on a sliver of irony with how dynamics have played out since the film’s release.  That’s not enough to consider it a fun kind of popcorn flick, though.  Demolition Man needs to remain frozen in time.

LIFEGUARD

By Marc S. Sanders

Sam Elliott is Rick, the Lifeguard at a sunny Los Angeles beach in 1976.  He’s handsome with his trademark mustache and bronze tan.  He’s also in his early thirties and his parents as well as some friends think it’s time he moves on from his occupation into a more responsible and adult line of work.  Even Rick considers the fact that perhaps it is time to finally come of age.

This film from director Daniel Petrie is nothing special or necessarily memorable.  However, while I first thought it would be a wasteful story of just the various walks of life that peruse the beach, it turns out to be a personal story about a man well past the time when he should have transitioned into the next phase of his life.

Rick has been invited to his fifteenth-year high school reunion.  It’s pretty telling when he enters the ballroom.  Petrie does close ups of the other attendees who are all talking about their jobs, maybe their children and spouses as well, maybe even their divorces.  Rick arrives in his gorgeous bachelor ride, a Corvette Stingray convertible, donning a leather jacket and a shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest.  He’s a fish out of water with his former classmates, but he’s still admired and welcomed.  He rekindles a romance with an old flame, Cathy (Anne Archer) who’s a successful art dealer, and he’s welcomed to get to know her young son.  Cathy is ready to go the distance in a relationship with Rick.

At the same time, Rick is trying to hold on to his youth of a bygone time.  He warns his new, college age lifeguard partner, Chris (Parker Stevenson), not to get involved with a cute and precocious seventeen-year-old kid named Wendy (Kathleen Quinlan).  Wendy has her eye on Rick though, and for a moment he returns to when the beach and the surf were once new to him, and he welcomes her invitation for an evening of lovemaking.  Later, as Rick becomes more aware of people his own age doing more appropriate activities for his generation, does it become a challenge for him to reject Wendy’s ongoing attention. 

The legalities and morals of Rick’s involvement with an underage girl are approached but the movie doesn’t delve much deeper than that.  It’s a film of its time, made in the mid-1970s.  I thought of movies like Little Darlings and even the original Meatballs when the drama focused on the internal struggle of some of its main characters. 

Lifeguard starts out episodic as it shows the shenanigans of its beachgoers.  Rick and Chris laugh as two goofballs manage to strip a bikini top of a young blond.  They also fend off a couple of potheads picking on a teen regular.  They deal with a perverted flasher.  Then the movie improves as it gets personal with Elliott’s character and his performance. 

Rick is the guy that everyone looks up to, but he’s human and he can even falter on a team relay race, gasping for breath that just won’t come as he sprints out of the water.  This is a good moment in the film.  Rick is desperately trying to catch his breath and young Wendy is looking right at him trying to see if he’s okay.  Rick’s youth is speaking directly to himself fifteen years later. 

He’s encouraged by a classmate to become a Porsche car salesman where he could make good money.  A good dinner table scene with his parents also occurs when he’s pointedly told to grow up.  I remember a couple of conversations like that with my father.  The question is who does Rick have to grow up for, himself or those around him? At the same time, he’s a very responsible and good lifeguard, and he reminds us that being a lifeguard is also about being a literal life saver.

I appreciate the conclusion to the film.  It’s more realistic and grounded than other movies might have offered with similar themes.  Framed around acoustic guitar and vocals from Paul Williams, Daniel Petrie allows moments of silence for Rick to contemplate and think while gazing at a sun soaked beach and ocean, not talking with anyone about what his next step in life should be.  Don’t we all do that, where we just sit and think, pondering the possibilities of various outcomes for ourselves? 

Lifeguard may be outdated, nearly fifty years after it was filmed, but it is an honest account of a guy who may be content with his current state, even if he’s not ready to consider what’s to come as he continues to age. 

THE LOST WEEKEND

By Marc S. Sanders

Ever wonder why I write so many reviews?  It’s because I yearn to be a successful playwright/screenwriter.  I’ve directed three original plays that I’ve written over the years.  I will be directing a fourth for the holiday season later this year.  Had a few short plays I wrote performed locally as well.  Still, I suffer from a terrible ordeal that often grinds me into bouts of depression and internal rage.  Writer’s block! 

My father always told me that he stayed away from gambling and casinos. He said it was because he could have an addictive personality and he was not confident he could stop if he started.  I know what he means.  I have an addiction.  One that’s not commonly recognized, but I obsess over something every single day. Without fail, every damn day.  It’s my weakness.  Sorry.  I must keep that to myself, though.  Yet my pursuit of what preoccupies my mind taxes on my motivations to write and stretch the imagination needed for churning out one script after another.  So, a remedy is to write about movies that speak to me in lieu of my next great play. 

Billy Wilder’s Oscar winning drama The Lost Weekend demonstrates a writer’s inability to exercise his talent when an endless need for alcohol consumes his every waking moment.  Ray Milland delivers an Oscar winning performance as Don Birnam, an alcoholic wannabe writer of the worst kind.  When Wilder’s film opens, Don seems healthy and spry.  He’s clean shaven, well dressed, and ready to pack a bag for a weekend getaway that his brother Wick (Phillip Terry) has arranged for him along with Don’s girlfriend Helen St. James (Jane Wyman).  Wick implies to Don that this trip is just what his brother needs after what he’s recently been through, and he’ll have his typewriter with him to write in calming solitude.  Eventually we get an idea of what Wick has been referring to as Don attempts to sneak a bottle of rye that is strung outside the window of his New York apartment.  Wick catches Don in the act, pours the bottle down the drain and assures him that he won’t find another drop of liquor anywhere.  He doesn’t even have money to go to the corner bar.  So, Wick and Helen leave Don alone for a few hours before it’s time to depart. Don gets ahold of some cash though, and thus begins a spiral into a drunken binge over a four-day weekend.

I read that when this film was released, test audiences laughed at it.  I guess in 1945 people were not attuned or prepared to witness an account of a very real disease like alcoholism.  I’m not certain it was even diagnosed as a disease at that time.  Surely, the addiction was an ailment though, and Billy Wilder uses some effective cinematic devices to demonstrate the journey into madness and desperation for even just a tiny shot glass of gin or rye. 

A repetitive device is to show a tormented performance from Milland within the shadow of bars or fences.  He’s trapped in his own need for swill.  A telling moment occurs when Don is desperately trying to pawn off his typewriter just for some money to buy more alcohol.  Every store in the city is gated and closed on this particular Saturday though.  It’s the Jewish holiday of atonement for past sins, Yom Kippur.  I found that little detail to be interesting.  Surely, it’s a sin to harm yourself whether by alcohol or suicide, for example, and the holiday is a time for speaking to your inner self and Hashem (G-d) for your past transgressions.  Yet, that is no matter to Don.  He’s not ready or wanting to climb out of his dark hole.

Inanimate objects or props are also given much focus.  Early on, Don is seen at the local bar and Billy Wilder brings an inventive visual to explain just how much this character has consumed in under two hours.  The camera focuses on the wet rings on the bar top left by Don’s shot glass.  First there are two rings, then four and soon, fifteen.  Wilder also zooms his lens into the very bottom of the small glass filled with liquor to show how much the audience will drown in Don’s despair over the course of the film.

Other props also work towards Don’s paranoia such as a ceiling lamp bearing the shadow of a hidden bottle.  Milk bottles left in front of his apartment are not collected from one day to the next showing the passage of time for this weekend, and how even the most basic chore is dismissed so Don can extend his stupor.  A lady’s unguarded purse offers temptation.  A tossed lamp shade seems to glare at Don like a hole that he’s in, as he gets weaker and weaker. 

A magnificent scene, one that I can envision a skilled director doing today with quick cuts on digital film, occurs as Don recalls sitting in a crowded opera house watching the toasting scene of La Triviata; one of the most recognizable operas of all time.  Don is one of many in the audience, and yet he’s the only one alone with the production’s props of various drinking glasses and champagne bottles being used on stage that are mere inches away.  Very quickly into the scene, Billy Wilder skillfully draws focus from the opera singers and diverts towards the immense amount of liquor adorning the stage and the cast with quick cuts of Don salivating and perspiring alone in a chair of a crowded theater.  Everyone else is watching the performance.  Don is gazing at the alcohol.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Martin Scorsese had much admiration for such a sequence.

Phillip Terry is very good in his performance.  I’m surprised he’s not promoted as much as the other two stars of the picture.  Wick cares for his brother, but he’s ready to give up on him after six years of this ordeal, with one more transgression played out. He’s exhausted from lying to cover for Don’s weakness.  He represents the outsider of the dilemma who’s been affected by someone else’s ailment. Jane Wyman as Helen serves a nice purpose as well.  The one last hope for Don.  She’s the only one left who holds on to the faith that she can pull Don out of this nightmare.  Wilder presents these characters as side effects in the Oscar winning script written by him and Charles Brackett. 

Another haunting, but effective dimension comes when Don finds himself in the alcoholics’ ward at Bellevue Hospital, shot on location, and the first film to ever do so.  With an eerie use of a theremin in the soundtrack from Miklós Rózsa, Don is surrounded by dark shadows and tormented victims suffering from drying out just like him.  A nurse explains that he still has the DTs to experience like envisioning being surrounded by horrifying images like bugs crawling on him or something comparatively worse.  I recall from childhood seeing this symptom used on an episode of M*A*S*H.  Wilder invents his own kind of imagery and it’s pretty shocking in its grotesqueness.

I ask for forgiveness when I say that The Lost Weekend seems a little melodramatic. Maybe that’s because movies have built themselves into much more graphic and honest depictions of alcoholism since 1945.  The ending seems to welcome a stringy violin to accompany Ray Milland’s final scene with Jane Wyman.  However, I’m completely impressed with how pioneering this movie must have been for its time.  Billy Wilder didn’t shy away from the dramatic side of drinking. 

The Lost Weekend is certainly an effective and important piece on the study of alcoholism.  I’d recommend it as a visual reference to what can happen to the one who suffers, as well as those around him, including the bartender who deals with the regulars he easily knows by name.  While it’s certainly a movie of its time, the message remains the same.  Though I’m no expert on the effects of alcohol, I’ve seen enough friends who deal with the problem to know that the message in Wilder’s film still rings true.  An addiction to drink will dominate a life.

I always say that movies offer another valuable avenue to learn from.  There’s much to learn from The Lost Weekend.

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

By Marc S. Sanders

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is a gorgeous kaleidoscope of color and kinetic energy.  Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K Thompson are a directing powerhouse trio making every scene, moment, or caption completely unique from anything you’ve seen before.  This movie never stops being inventive with itself, all the way down to its end credits.

Within the first half hour of the film, two stories unfold where two “Spider heroes” from different dimensions are struggling with maintaining their costumed alter ego while grasping with lying to their families.  Reader, having just seen the 2023 live action interpretation of The Little Mermaid, I can tell you that in comparison, Across The Spider-Verse is more frank and honest in its characters with what makes them tick and what pains them during their adolescent years.  The acting in this film of various forms of animation is sensational.  Often, animated films don’t let up on the high energy, like the Minions movies for example.  It can get tiring.  This Spider-Man picture allows those quiet intimate moments where it is hard for any teenager to come to terms with his or her parents.  Gwen and Miles are fearful of disappointing those that are close to them.  They’re also reluctant to surrender the secrets they value only with themselves.  Thus, it puts a strain on their respective familial relationships. 

Eventually, the two friends must even come to grips with secrets they’ve kept from one another.  It doesn’t matter that these characters are superheroes.  This is a coming-of-age film on the same level and maturity that writer/directors John Hughes and Cameron Crowe approached with many of their films.  Most teenagers have something unusual in them, and part of growing up is sometimes struggling with whether to ever let our guard down.  The conflicts that Gwen and Miles experience are trying to figure out what is best for themselves and the relationships they have with their parents.  I really felt for them in those quiet moments when the music was turned off and the fast paced scene changes that moved the film’s adventures came to a welcome pause.  Santos, Powers and Thompson know the beats to uphold their story.

Gwen Stacey (Hailee Steinfeld) is known as Spider-Gwen.  Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is known as Spider-Man, residing in different dimensions of Earth separate from Peter Parker’s interpretation that most people are familiar with.  Complications arise when an inventive new villain causes mayhem in Miles’ neighborhood.  This guy is known as Spot (Jason Schwartzman), who opens holes or portals for him to transport objects like, say an ATM machine from one spot to another as he tries make way with his robbery loot.  Seems like a simple villain of the week, but then Spot gets some ideas and before you know it, Miles is following Gwen into another alternate dimension in pursuit of the dastardly mischief maker. 

Much like we see in time travel films like Back To The Future, if you mess up what was meant to be, it could alter everything else a million fold.  Just one tiny pebble rippling across the water can cause all sorts of trouble, and without even realizing it, Miles’ heroics may have caused a problem that can’t be undone.  This only invites more trouble for the poor kid.

The real treat of Across The Spider-Verse is what Gwen and Miles encounter, which is pretty much the entire history of the most famous Marvel Comics character of all time.  So many different interpretations of Spider-Man eventually lend to this story, and each one serves a purpose within the two-hour film.  My comic book experience allowed me to recognize so much from cartoons of the 1960s to the Saturday morning series of the 80s, and all the way through the various iterations found in newspaper pages and comic magazines. The last 20 years of films are also given their due.  It’s unbelievable how deep the filmmakers go.  Still, you don’t have to know about one single Spider-Man to follow this picture and appreciate all of its frolics.

Beyond a Best Animated Film Oscar, here is an animated film worthy of a nomination in film editing.  Miles and Gwen call it threading.  I love that term!  When they are swinging over skyscrapers and then down into the valleys of the metropolitan city streets alongside the multi lanes of traffic, buses and cabs, through alleyways, over sidewalks, and then up into the skies again, only to run atop an elevated train, the action moves so fast and seamlessly.  It’s a glory to watch it play out.  It feels like a wonderous amusement park ride.  The action is bridged together beautifully in different shades of reds, blues, greys, pinks, and purples.  This is how you assemble a film and take passion in the project.

I did think the movie ran about ten or fifteen minutes too long.  However, the ending packs such a punch.  When the film finishes, I defy you not to hearken back to the first time you saw The Empire Strikes Back, or The Fellowship Of The Ring, or Avengers: Infinity War.  The preview audience that my Cinemaniac pal Anthony and I were a part of roared with cheers at the conclusion of this film with tremendous applause.  Put it this way, reader, sadly the theatre we saw this film at left me wanting a better sound system.  The volume was way too low.  However, it never hindered the thrilling experience we had with this inventive picture story.  (That’s another recommendation.  See Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse with the best sound system you can find on the best screen you can uncover.)

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse may be one of the top 10 best films of the year.  I know I’ll be considering it for my list come late December/early January.  Few films get as inventive as this, and it is definitely one of the best Spider-Man films to ever grace a movie screen.

THE LITTLE MERMAID (2023)

By Marc S. Sanders

Film remakes can go either way.  It’s even more of a challenge for it to succeed artistically if the original interpretation is such a favorite among the masses.  The 2023 updated version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid directed by Rob Marshall is fair, but it also never overcomes the challenge.

The new film primarily repeats the same story that many are familiar with.  A youthful mermaid girl named Ariel dreams about living among the humans above the surface.  Her father refuses the idea as he finds humans to be vile and dangerous.  Ariel makes a deal to trade in her beautiful voice to Ursula, the sea witch, in exchange for becoming a human.  She is granted three days to fall in love with Prince Eric.  If at the end of the three days she has not kissed the prince with a means of true love, she will turn back into a mermaid and will remain a prisoner of Ursula forever.

To call this new film adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale a live action film is only partially true.  If we are to witness the undersea life of mermaids and talking fish, well then, it’ll have to be animated somewhat, even if it is done digitally.  Therefore, to have the freedom to animate the sequences set to unforgettable numbers like “Part Of Your World” and “Under The Sea,” I wish the filmmakers were paying a little more attention. 

Consider some lyrics to “Under the Sea:”

Down here all the fish is happy…

Up there all the fish ain’t happy

They’re sad, cuz they’re in the bowl

It doesn’t win my attention if Sebastian the singing crab is singing about fish while the heroine of the story, Ariel, is swimming among dolphins who are scientifically regarded as mammals!!!!!!  You can show me any number of different colorfully prancing ocean dwellers, and you show me dolphins?????  In a musical number, the choreography must serve the purpose of the song.  In the original 1989 film, every animated image of any particular song lines up with the lyrics of numbers written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.  Regrettably, Rob Marshall seems to have turned the sound off while reinventing this moment. 

Sadly, I didn’t care for the updated composition of “Under The Sea” (an Oscar winning number) or “Part Of Your World.”  Why alter the notes and vocal delivery of some of the most famed pieces in Disney’s musical library?  Steven Spielberg’s update of West Side Story didn’t do that.  Spielberg knows that if ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  These are favorites!!!!  I can’t be the only one who doesn’t like it when the artists change everything about his/her/their greatest hits when I’m at their concerts.  The same accounts here. 

Still, it’s not all bad in this new The Little Mermaid.  Most of the cast is quite good.  Newcomer Halle Bailey (sure to be memorable in the upcoming musical version of The Color Purple) is sensational and she’s wonderful to look at as either the mermaid or the human version lacking a voice.  She has a wonderful singing voice and she’s a terrific actor against a CGI world of complicated water shots and imaginary creatures serving as her companions.  Melissa McCarthy is unrecognizable as Ursula, the sinister squid sea witch.  Her voice has a gruff intimidating edge to it and her torso and head donned in purple texture flow nicely with the CGI tentacles.  Javier Bardem is not doing his best work here because the script doesn’t demand it of him, but he fits in nicely as Triton, king of the undersea and father to Ariel.

Jacob Trembley lends a preteen personality to Flounder whose role is significantly diminished in this update.  That’s a mistake.  Instead, we get more of Scuttle who doesn’t look like a pelican any longer but is a bird who can somehow hold his breath under water for long periods of time to carry on panicked conversations with her pals.  Awkwafina voices Scuttle, and though I heard some laughter from the audience in response to her performance, it just didn’t win me over.  I found this Scuttle to be a nuisance that took me out of the film with each appearance.  The hip hop rap number (written by Lin Manuel Miranda) she performs was a very underwhelming substitute for comedy.  What was sacrificed was the hilariously silly, slapstick number from the original, where the French chef enthusiastically sang “Les Poisson,” as he torments poor Sebastian in a kitchen full of knives, boiling water and searing hot stoves.

Sebastian, the well-known sidekick, is just okay.  Daveed Diggs is a talented vocal performer, but I don’t think the final product served him well.  Often, I looked at this little guy and was not impressed, as remembrances of disappointment came back to me when I saw Jar Jar Binks for the first time.  Just like that Star Wars character, the googly eyes are detached from the head and Sebastian only evokes expression in that one area.  Nothing is done with the tiny mouth or cheekbones or ears.  Not even his claws or tiny legs offer much to do.  This crab lacked life.  As my colleague Miguel simply put it, the crab was not funny.  He just wasn’t funny in the slightest. 

A nice surprise comes from Jonah Hauer-King as the dashing Prince Eric, rescued from a shipwreck by a mysterious woman with a hypnotically, sensuous voice.  Eric’s role is thankfully expanded with the inclusion of his mother the island Queen (Noma Dumezweni).  Grimsby, the Prince’s aid, is also a welcome appearance (Art Malik) with more to do this time around.

I know for sure that I preferred the second half of the film over the first where new surprises are offered.  Rob Marshall’s film switches the influence of the story to a calypso/Caribbean vibe which is different from the slightly implied Greek environment of the 1989 piece.  This change allows a variety of different people of color and cultures to blend nicely together with believability.  After Ariel transforms into a human and Eric guides her across the island for a day of fun and escape, the story and settings come alive in color and calypso harmony.  In this area of the picture, much of the script is concentrated on Eric and his debates with his mother and her disapproval of the undersea colonies.  Confidant conversations also arise between Eric and Grimsby that I liked.  There’s more innocent flirtations between him and Ariel.  Hauer-King has good scenes with all of his co-stars from Halle Bailey to Noma Dumezweni and Art Malik.  The first half of the film is where much of the underwater life takes place, and it only convinced me so far, really taking me out of the film with the reinvention of the movie’s most famous songs.

Ultimately, like the live action interpretations of Aladdin and Beauty And The Beast this new version of The Little Mermaid is not a must watch and as much as I’m impressed with Melissa McCarthy, Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King, I can’t recommend seeing it at $15 a ticket.  Why should you when the easily accessible and wholly original film is available?  This is just an unnecessary venture.

I’ve grown up as a Disney fan, but once again the Mouse House is demonstrating a lack of will to broaden its imagination.  They’d rather run in with another cash grab at the box office by issuing a substandard product repeat. 

PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Sidney Lumet
CAST: Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, Bob Balaban, Lindsay Crouse
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 92% Fresh

PLOT: A New York City narcotics detective reluctantly agrees to cooperate with a special commission investigating police corruption, and soon realizes he’s in over his head, and nobody can be trusted.


Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the City is based on a true story, and it never lets you forget it.  In a good way.  The film is defiantly ambiguous when it comes to the main character, Danny Ciello (Treat Williams), who is onscreen in virtually every scene, so we get to see every detail of his epic, tragic fall from a revered cop in the NYPD’s Special Investigations Unit to a glorified stool pigeon for the feds.

…ah, but see what I did there?  Without even realizing it, I’m already sort of siding WITH Ciello, who participated in many, MANY counts of outright theft, evidence tampering, bribery, and so on and so on.  But…in a very Dirty Harry way (but much more realistic), he was helping to cut through the frustrating red tape that would otherwise enable career criminals to get around the system.  But…he had to break the law to do so, and his fellow officers in the SIU were all complicit, some to greater degrees than others.  Their unbreakable code: never rat out your partners.  Ciello has a revealing line at one point: “I sleep with my wife, but I LIVE with my partners.”

This somewhat misguided code of honor is central to Prince of the City.  The film opens as Ciello’s unit makes a lucrative drug bust, confiscates some or most of the cash, and parades the captured criminals into a ramshackle courtroom, whereupon the assorted drug dealers are immediately sent back to Central or South America, bing, bang, boom, no muss, no fuss.  Meanwhile, a special commission, the Chase Commission, has begun questioning officers about police corruption.  Ciello is naturally resistant to cooperating at first, but a feisty conversation between him and his ne’er-do-well brother puts doubts in his mind.  “Look at you in your big house and your two-car garage!  You think I don’t know where this all comes from?  You think I’m stupid, Danny?!”

Ciello’s conscience finally gets a hold of him, and he agrees to cooperate with the commission.  This includes the unbelievably dangerous practice of wearing a wire to meetings between himself and assorted mob-affiliated tipsters.  I’ve seen numerous other films involving wires and mobsters, but Lumet does something different here, and it carries throughout the entire film.  Instead of punching up the suspense with crazy edits or inserts or spooky music, he simply explains the danger and lets the scene play out with as little movement as possible.  In its simplicity, there is as much suspense there as in anything by Hitchcock, accomplished with much less cinematic “pizzazz.”

This simple style pays off in two incredible scenes.  One is where a mobster is dead sure Ciello is wearing a wire and searches him thoroughly…but Ciello’s sixth sense warned him earlier to leave the wire at home.  Another comes when Ciello unthinkingly hands over some evidence to the mobster…wrapped in a post-it that basically says, “From the desk of the State Attorney’s Office.”  Because everything has been presented in such a straightforward style leading up to this moment, this scene has an astonishing effect on the viewer.  There is real danger here, an almost documentary-like feel to it.  The resolution of this scene, including the unexpected appearance of a gun at the worst possible moment, is one of the emotional highlights of this nearly three-hour film.

The casting of Treat Williams in the lead role of this crime epic was also a key to its success.  In the early ‘80s, there were any number of leading men that might have been a much more natural choice for this part: Pacino, De Niro, Hoffman, Beatty, even Travolta.  Putting a relatively unknown, but VERY talented, actor in such a prominent role was a calculated gamble that paid off.  Since he had no major previous roles, Williams was essentially a blank slate.  He hadn’t been typecast as either a villain or a hero yet, so that supports the film’s foundation of maintaining a neutral stance toward the lead character.  The movie isn’t going to come out and tell you if it’s for or against Ciello.  The audience has to make that decision for themselves.

For myself, I would in no way condone his corrupt behavior.  But I admire his decision to at least try to do the right thing.  Despite his adamant stance that he will never, ever turn in his partners, it becomes abundantly clear that the various feds, attorneys general, prosecutors running his case will have no qualms whatsoever about putting him in jail the second he refuses to play ball.  As a result, he winds up being forced to provide crucial evidence that generates indictments for several of his partners.  The aftermath of those indictments varies from partner to partner.  Ciello is being eaten alive by remorse.  He believes he’s doing the right thing, but he can’t stand watching his partners go down one by one.  It’s a fascinating conundrum, manifest at every turn, even in the very last scene of the movie.

In one great scene, a group of prosecutors meet to decide whether to formally indict Ciello and pursue a prison term, even after he has provided them with information that led directly to countless arrests and indictments.  They are divided.  One prosecutor threatens resignation if charges are filed.  But another prosecutor’s argument stuck with me:

“I’ve never known a lawyer to risk his livelihood to expose the crooks in his profession.  And where’s the doctor who ever exposed Medicaid fraud?  Or unnecessary and botched operations?  Or even dope, for that matter?  What doctor ever came in?  Dan Ciello came in, and I don’t care why.  To me, Danny Ciello’s a hero…and we’re trying to decide whether to put him in jail or not.”

For me, that sealed the deal.  The movie is admirably restrained in providing its own standpoint on Ciello, but I would side with those calling him a hero instead of a villain.  I found myself thinking back to Sunday School and the parable of the prodigal son.  After the prodigal forsakes his father and his family, he returns, contrite and humble, begging forgiveness.  The loyal son can’t understand why his father rejoices upon the prodigal’s return, to which the father replies, “We have to celebrate, because your brother was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Ciello is that lost soul who desperately wants redemption, no matter how it might hurt himself or his literal partners in crime.  For that, I consider him a hero, not a villain.  Perhaps he’s no longer a prince of the city, but he is at least back on the side of the angels.

THE DEAD POOL

By Marc S. Sanders

Sometimes five is too much.  It was for Clint Eastwood as Inspector Dirty Harry Callahan.  The Dead Pool was the fifth and final entry in the famed crime drama series.  Eastwood moves slower this time.  He does not come off as much of a rebel any longer.  Most notably, the story doesn’t have the feel of a Dirty Harry film.  The cop who was infamous for questioning the laws set in place seems to be just slotted into this film. 

The Dead Pool is directed by Buddy Van Horn, who had a long career as a stuntman and assistant director for many of Eastwood’s films, and other actors like Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda.  He does a ho hum job with the picture.  I don’t need to be treated to inventive shots or camera angles to enjoy a movie.  I have yet to visit San Francisco, but at least Buddy Van Horn provides enough locales to feel like I’m getting a serviceable tourist view.

A twisted game is being played in the underground scene.  People are making lists and betting on local celebrities they expect to die soon.  One name includes a heavy metal rock star played by James Carey, later to be known as Jim.  There’s also a snobby film critic who is a deliberate inspiration of Pauline Kael.  (Kael’s reviews were not too kind to many of Eastwood’s films over the years, particularly the original Dirty Harry.)  At the bottom of the list is Harry himself, who is surprisingly favored by the police department officials – first time that has happened – for putting away a powerful mob boss.  A side story consists of the boss giving orders out to his crew to take revenge on Harry and provide some escapist shootouts to move the film along. 

The police department want Harry to cooperate as their hero poster boy.  Harry doesn’t care for fame, though.  It’s not his style.  Yet, a persistent television reporter (Patricia Clarkson) wants his story.  A little romance is implied but Harry is not one for gossip fodder.  Unfortunately, Eastwood and Clarkson are really lacking chemistry here.

The rock star and the movie critic are murdered.  Harry must be next, and a horror film director (Liam Neeson) seems like the prime suspect because his dead pool list had included all three names. 

The Dead Pool is not a terrible movie, but it does not live up to other Dirty Harry installments. Primarily because it does not follow the character’s familiar mantra against the bureaucrats and the flawed system of prosecution and law enforcement that he’s always been challenged with.  At times, I’m looking at Eastwood and I’m asking myself who is this guy?  Sure, he’s got a few one liners of dry wit.  The famed eyebrow stare is there too, and the .44 Magnum as well.  However, Harry doesn’t seem to stand apart so much from everyone else as he did in the other films.  Beyond the giant gun, that is what made Harry Callahan so famous on screen. 

The investigation that Harry is assigned to with a Chinese American cop (Evan C Kim) is very bland.  We hardly get to know any of the victims or what they stand for, and when the true killer is revealed, it turns out to be a last-minute introduction of someone we’ve yet to see.  There’s no surprise to the culprit behind all of this. 

The series is also well known for the partners that Harry is forced to work with.  In The Enforcer, Tyne Daly brought out Harry’s regard towards women working in his dangerous field that demonstrated his initial frustration followed by his reluctant acceptance.  In the first movie, Remi Santori came about when it was okay to say that Harry took issue with all kinds of demographics, including Mexicans.  A chumminess nicely developed between those two guys as they tracked down the killer, together.  The second film, Magnum Force, offered a partner to also care about.  These are good side performers that colored in much of the Harry Callahan lore.  In this movie, Evan C Kim has one standout moment in the first ten minutes where he surprises everyone, especially Harry, with how he disarms a robber by use of martial arts.  It’s a great scene.  After that, though, he’s given nothing to do.  This actor had promise for more interactions with Eastwood.  It just never delivered.

The series started in the gritty times of 1971 when political correctness was not ever considered.  By the time the last two films were released in the 1980s of Ronald Reagan, who famously adopted “Go ahead.  Make my day,” for Gorbachev, there was a new wave of sensitivity abound.  I like to believe with the prior installment, Sudden Impact, Harry Callahan learned something new about himself with regards to the rights women had or were denied of while still applying his own code.  With The Dead Pool, the writing seems reluctant to go anywhere near a potential debate, and so it drips itself into a stale slasher movie with the cop ready to fire his six shooter.

The grand highlight of the film is a car chase on the hilly streets of San Francisco, which is the best place for a car chase, always.  What separates this one from the others is a little remote-controlled car that pursues Harry and his partner, ready to activate its equipped detonator at just the right moment.  The editing of this sequence is really fun, and it’s a great salute to Bullitt and other gritty, urban cop films, particularly the Dirty Harry movies.  This toy car flies over fruit stands and careens through sidewalks and over sewer holes.  Meanwhile Harry screeches down one hill after another trying to evade this pesky rapscallion.  It’ll definitely put a smile on your face while the moment lasts.

I recall being eager for another Dirty Harry movie.  I grew up loving many of Clint Eastwood’s films.  Dirty Harry is a favorite character of mine.  Yet, I also remember feeling really let down when my dad and I walked out of the theatre.  The Dead Pool just doesn’t have the same flavor as the other Eastwood products.  Again, it’s not the worst picture.  It’s standard cop fare coming in at a lean ninety minutes.  Eastwood and the rest of the cast are okay with what they’re doing.  I just would’ve changed the name of the main character listed at the top of the cast list.  He could have been Dirty John Doe for all I care.