Sudden Impact (Eastwood 1983)/The Dead Pool (Van Horn 1989)

(Working on three new reviews right now, plus some real life stuff, so here is a heavily re-edited "classic" review from my "Facebook only" days)


Ah, Dirty Harry. The name alone brings up images of Clint Eastwood in his prime, spewing out memorable quotes and dishing out violence against lawbreakers. The character is real pop culture phenomenon, moving beyond being a cinema icon to become something more abstract; a representative symbol of a cultural and political attitude.

It is this very cultural status that is investigated in the final two Dirty Harry films, Sudden Impact (Eastwood 1983) and The Dead Pool (Van Horn 1989). These films appeared after a sizable absence of Harry from the screen: Sudden Impact (Eastwood 1983) was released a full seven years after The Enforcer (Fargo 1976), while The Dead Pool would follow six years after Sudden Impact. The gap between the 1970s instalments in the series and these 1980s productions seems to mark a shift in the tone and look of these films, a change resulting not only from the evolution of film technology but from the awareness of the iconic status that the character eared after the earlier films. However, the manner in which this awareness manifests in the films Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool are entirely different, as one seeks to critically examine how the character reflects and responds to reality, while the other sets out to outright exploit the character‘s iconic status.

Sudden Impact appears to be star and director Clint Eastwood’s attempt to work out the problematic contradictions of the preceding films in the series regarding their political content and function as entertainment. The original Dirty Harry (Siegel 1971) was a straightforward police thriller about an officer who operates as a hero from a western rather than as a modern cop, who ultimately seems to lose his faith in the law and finds himself outside of society that doesn’t seem to like him. Dark, violent and featuring a lead character in Harry who, as portrayed by Eastwood, is pretty darn miserable, Dirty Harry is a film that is a fairly cynical commentary on American after the 1960s. It is this political nature of the film which gives it a powerful edge and transforms it into more than a mere thriller.

However, the 1970s sequels increasingly try to reintegrate Harry into society and mute his harder edges, attempting to make him into a seeming didactic voice of reason whilst simultaneously trying to make him seem less authoritarian. Thus, Harry’s violent streak in these sequels becomes less shocking as it lacks the aggressive political stance of the original. By The Enforcer, the series is little more than a collection of action set pieces with no point or commentary, with Harry as the gruff but loveable lead. Sudden Impact tries to bring back the seriousness of the original film while layering on an additional goal of pointing out the vapid nature of the preceding direction the series was taking, even criticising how commercial filmmaking hides the harsher realities of the subject matter in the name of entertainment.


The central thrust of the film is that a series of murders are being committed by a woman named Jennifer Spencer (Sandra Locke), who ten years preceding the events of the film was raped along with her sister by a group of men with the assistance of another woman. Spencer’s targets are those who committed the crime against her and her sister, one of whom is in San Francisco, where she exacts her revenge before returning to the small town of San Paulo where her remaining targets live. However, the San Francisco murder becomes the excuse for the SFPD management to get Harry out of town for a while, with the investigation taking him to San Paulo and directly into the life of Spencer.

The key to understanding the film’s themes and ideas is within the flashbacks to Spencer and her sister’s rape. The flashbacks to the rape reveal that the location was beneath a boardwalk near the town carnival and the sequence in the film is completely disturbing, jump cutting between the rape and the carnival as people carry on, not noticing the horror being carried out nearby. The crime is quickly covered up in a due to a set of circumstances I will not spoil here, but it leaves Spencer and her sister to internalize the event, with the psychological scars rupturing to the surface in Spencer’s art, a rupture which is mirrored cinematically as jump cuts to the flashback appear throughout the film.

For a large period of time, the grim narrative of Spencer’s revenge is kept separate from Harry Callahan’s narrative, in regards to location, plot and even Harry’s involvement in the case. As the film starts, Harry is once again in trouble and carrying out his usual brand of justice, causing an aging mobster to have a heart attack and getting firebombed in his car by a group of fairly moronic young men. San Francisco here is not the same dire city falling apart at the seams as in the original: it is now a playground where Harry and criminals of various sorts shoot it out, giving the audience what they seem to want. These sequences are exciting and often full of humour (Harry’s heart attack inducing visit to the mob boss at his daughter’s wedding is priceless), but they carry no weight when contrasted to the far grimmer narrative of Spencer.


As Harry moves into the town and into Spencer’s life as both an investigator and as a form of love interest, the fun and humour of the early San Francisco portions of the film give way to a much grimmer story. Spencer soon becomes the target of the remaining rapists and Harry finds himself in a world far from the over the top shootouts of San Francisco, entering into the grey areas of the law and his role as upholding it and questioning his own views and values. The audience is thus dragged away from any concept of pure entertainment, and forced to try and reconcile their own desires and the two halves of the film.

Eastwood’s staging of the final shootout at the carnival crystallizes the criticism of entertainment, as personal violation, rage, and the law confront one another and take on a perversity within the surroundings. I will not spoil the ending, but I will note that the film leaves the viewer with more questions than answers, as it should.


The Dead Pool however is an entirely different beast. Once again, the idea of Harry’s role in popular culture and as a figure of entertainment comes to the surface, only this time more overtly. In the film, Harry has become famous for his arrest of a noted mobster, managing to get good publicity for the police department for a change and leaving him the target of the media, a position he could care less for. Soon Harry is assigned to investigate the murder of a rock star, Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey in an early role), who was filming a horror film with director Peter Swan (Liam Neeson). It is soon discovered that Swan and members of his crew are involved in a game titled “the Dead Pool” where bets are made on whether or not the individual can correctly guess which celebrities will die in the coming year, and Harry’s name is on the list.

If Sudden Impact is an attempt to question the co-existence between entertainment and the complexities of reality, The Dead Pool is the exact opposite. It is a film which seeks to be pure entertainment and functioning as a love letter to the character of Harry Callahan and his status as cinematic icon. Oh sure, there are vague themes about the media, celebrity and social responsibility, but the film never lets these themes get in the way of basically letting Harry kick ass. Nor does the film allow logic, character development, or solid screenwriting get in the way either, as all is swept aside for over the top action, bad one-liners and police thriller clichés.


More often than not however, this superficial approach works as a piece of sheer entertainment, if only because of some the bizarre elements that make it into the film. This includes Jim Carrey as a hard rocker lip-syncing to “Welcome to the Jungle,” and Harry being chased on the streets of San Francisco in his car by a radio controlled toy car with a bomb in it. However, the film’s presentation of horror films, filmmakers, and rock stars feel like an episode of Matlock rather than a hard edged police action thriller, showing no sign of understanding any of these elements of the popular culture . While this is funny, it also illustrates why the series needed to be retired at that point, having drifted too far away from the cultural relevancy of the original film. Eastwood more than manages to hold the film together however throughout its running time, by sheer force of screen presence. As such, the film remains an entertaining experience.


At the end of the day, I have no problems recommending either film, although I admit your enjoyment of The Dead Pool may not match mine, while Sudden Impact, by its very nature is a dark piece of cinema that is sure to turn off its fair share of viewers through its challenging of what one expects from a Dirty Harry film. Still, for those fascinated by cinema’s attempts to reflect on its own nature, these films will prove to be enlightening, showcasing the various sides of a truly legendary character.

Black Rain (Scott 1989)

After the disappointment of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (2010), both as entertainment and as art, it was interesting to dip back into the work of Scott with Black Rain, a 1989 police thriller starring Michael Douglas. While a heavily flawed film, featuring lapses in logic and pulling out nearly every cop film cliché in the book, Black Rain is also a film which serves as a reminder as to just how visually powerful Scott’s work can be, especially in his 1980s heyday. Unfortunately, the impressive visuals also happen to go along with a confused and conflicted cultural and political subtext that borders on being xenophobic.

Black Rain’s narrative is the stuff of typical police thrillers: New York police officer Nick Conklin (Michael Douglas) is under investigation by internal affairs, when he witnesses the slaying of a Yakuza member in a restaurant along with his partner Charlie (Andy Garcia). The killer is another Japanese criminal, whom they capture. Forced to return the criminal to Japan, Conklin and Charlie act as curriers, only to accidentally turn the killer over to his own fellow criminals. Looking to make up for the mistake, Conklin and Charlie are forced to work with a Japanese detective named Masahiro (Ken Takakura), with the usual cross cultural misunderstandings taking place as they take to the streets to crack the case.

While the film is a police thriller, the real concern of the film is with the increasingly encroachment of capitalism, industrialism, consumerism and conformity upon the world, with Japan, and by extension its citizens, being a culture representative of these elements within the world of the film. Visually, Japan in the film is an industrial nightmare of oppressive buildings and advertisements,suppressing the personal for the supposed sake of society as a whole. Given this, it is no surprise that the opening image of the film is of the red sun of Japan’s flag being overlaid on a globe of the world, the first indicator of the film’s near racist paranoia of cultural invasion through globalisation. If not racist, the film is at the very least reductive in its portrayal of Japanese society and culture, playing up the noted “-isms” to the negation or submersion of other cultural attitudes and elements which make up Japanese society.

The fear of these “-isms” is given voice by Conklin, a detective who is something of a throwback to the cowboys of American mythology with his repeated resistance to “suits,” by any-means-necessary approach to policing, and visually in his navigation of urban, industrial spaces with his modern horse, a motorcycle. Conklin’s resistance to the forces of capitalism stems from a fear of being emasculated: divorced and attempting to keep his kids in private schools, Conklin has turned to occasionally skimming from the criminals he captures to function in the society he finds himself in. Conklin’s arrival in Japan places him in a society which, as already noted, has become a symbol for all these elements, increasing his feelings of distress and giving his rage a racist dimension as he becomes angered at the attempts to sideline him in the investigation.

In a different and much smarter film, Conklin’s behaviour and rage would have been explored while giving room to the possibility that his anger towards the noted “-isms” have a legitimate root. The narrative trajectory of Black Rain however is one in which the East and West move closer to one another, as represented in the relationship between Conklin and Masahiro, and as a result the film attempts to suppress or negate the thematic concerns with mixed results. An example is the way in which the film addresses the issue of Conklin’s theft from the criminals he captures, where Conklin explains that his theft was motivated by the needs of his family. While the film rightfully doesn’t allow this to justify Conklin’s behaviour, Conklin’s reasons and sense of emasculation in his inability to perform well in a consumerist society does hold a grain of legitimate criticism.

(SPOILERS)

However, such issues are brushed aside in the final as Conklin finally comes to wear a suit himself, now officially having “bought” into the mentality he has thus far detested. The film even goes a step further in having Conklin give a gift to Masahiro of a high end suit shirt (along with a certain plot device). Handled differently, this moment could have been a note of ambiguity, but instead, Scott presents the moment as one of bonding and light heartedness, failing to take note of the question of just how Conklin is, in his newfound state of being a brainwashed consumer, able to make his way without needing to steal. Instead, we are expected to simply accept this for the “happy” moment it is.

The film is also unable to rectify Conklin’s supposed transformation with the oppressive nature of the capitalist society, as visualized by the endlessly dominating cityscape of the film. The film never manages to convincingly give Conklin power over his environment, and thus instead allows him to regain a sense of masculine authority by being able to engage in his cowboy antics in an open, rural environment which descends into a one on one battle between Conklin and the film’s villain. Given this, Conklin more or less lucks out in being given an opportunity to police his way rather than successfully demonstrate any ability to function in the world around him. As such, the ending “transformation” is made all the more hollow and artificial, and more over, upholds an American sense of law enforcement and justice over the approach taken by the Japanese police in the film.

(SPOILERS DONE)

While the finished film is a thematic mess, upholding the values of capitalism, consumerism and industrialism while at the same time giving a half hearted critique of them, one could at least hope for a cohesive thriller narrative. Unfortunately, even the basic narrative is something of a mess, with lapses in logic, plot holes, plot conveniences and typical police procedure clichés. Given that Conklin is under investigation by internal affairs as the film starts, the very idea that he would even be allowed to leave the country is questionable, and the film’s subplot involving Kate Capshaw as an American bar tender in Japan serves little purpose beyond keeping the plot moving and giving Conklin some sort of romantic foil. Seeing as how the film never actually manages to give any screen time to this supposed romance however, it instead feels like a tacked element from another script, and the idea that Capshaw’s character would honestly be as well connected to the Yakuza as she is defies all sense of logic.

The film is furthermore done no favours in having Michael Douglas in the lead. While Douglas does capture the emasculated side of Conklin, Douglas performance more often than not is not that of a man raging against the world around him, so much as it comes across like a child throwing a temper tantrum. A scene is which Conklin supposedly gets down to business by searching a crime scene for clues is particularly glaring, as Conklin, without any rhyme or reason, merely starts destroying the area in broad sweeping gestures. Scenes such as this occur often in the film, and raise questions as to why he has any respect on the force at all, as there is clearly no real method to his approach. Thankfully, the rest of the cast aside from Douglas is able to keep the film afloat, though no one is given much to do in the film.

As much as I am ripping the film apart, there is one thing which ultimately holds the film together and makes it worth at least a rental, that being Ridley Scott’s visuals. Working with director of photography Jan De Bont, Scott creates a world that is utterly beautiful in just how bleak it is, mixing rich blacks and neon colour together in their representation of the city of Osaka. Every frame of this film is simply a stunner to look at, layered and full of life, even in the starkest of scenes. While it certainly doesn’t forgive the film’s other faults, the visual power of the film was such that I often was willing to go with the narrative just because of how beautiful the film looked. For those with Blu-ray players and HDTVs, Black Rain is worth every penny to see how good a film from that era can look.

Still, I can hardly make an honest recommendation of Black Rain beyond those fans of Scott. The film is simply too thematically confused and lacking in anything to make it engaging to be worth watching. The same however, cannot be said for another 1989 film looking at commercialism and consumerism: How to Get Ahead in Advertising, the film to be reviewed in the next few days.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (Herzog 2009)

The narrative of Noah’s Ark is one which has left a great imprint upon Western culture, as its imagery of a world being purified of evil by a great flood has offered a striking mix of apocalyptic imagery and hope for people to tap into. It is this narrative that serves as the vital intertext for Werner Herzog’s 2009 black comedy crime drama Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, as the film is set in the wake of the titular city’s near destruction from Hurricane Katrina. Port of Call - New Orleans however is anything but a modern run through of the Noah’s Ark story, instead subverting the original story as the “purifying” flood leaves behind only the corrupt and the impoverished innocent to rebuild the city.

Port of Call - New Orleans follows a lieutenant named Terrance McDonagh (Nicolas Cage), who suffers from an injured back resulting from his saving a criminal from drowning in a jail cell. Due to the fact that his back pain will last an indefinite length of time, likely for the rest of his life, McDonagh is prescribed pain killers, which he quickly abuses before moving onto harder drugs. As his addiction grows, McDonagh finds himself dealing with a murder case, an out of control gambling debit, a hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendez) who makes a well connected enemy, and an alcoholic father with and equally addicted step wife.

While hardly an art film, Port of Call - New Orleans is a film which actively works against traditional narrative structure and storytelling, rejecting concepts of cause and effect in order to present a tale of a man and city that, while progressively becoming more obvious in how twisted and corrupt they are, don’t progress or regress so much as remain stagnate in their state of failure. Characters pay lip service to change, and some seek to change the city, but it is all hollow: things are only able to get better enough to allow the real problems go unaddressed. This is encapsulated in a particularly hilarious and tragic moment when McDonagh’s girlfriend says that she is going to an AA meeting to sober up, but proceeds to say a moment later that she is open to possibly getting high with McDonagh afterwards. Moreover, the film is book ended by scenes which embody the meaning of the words “failing upwards,” underlining how futile the possibility of salvation is in the world of the film. Thus, the film is of a counter point to the salvation narrative of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 crime drama Bad Lieutenant, which Port of Call - New Orleans is only superficially associated with in regards to content.

While this material could easily have transformed into a grim and depressing work, Herzog instead takes the material into an openly comedic terrain, bringing a detached and ironic tone to the film as we watch the increasingly absurd existence of McDonagh. The approach simultaneously manages to make the material palitable as well as highten the sense of tragedy, as moments of real horror rise to the surface of the film to contrast the overall humour. Herzog populates the film with a cast of characters equal in their flaws and insanity to McDonagh, transforming the New Orleans setting into a world misunderstandings, delusions, posturing and self absorbed behaviour, where characters find nostalgic magic in what appears to be a heroin stained spoon, and lucky crack pipes indeed seem to bring a demented sense of luck to their owners.

Speaking of lucky crack pipe owners, Cage is in fine form here as McDonagh. McDonagh isn’t so much a bad man as he is a pathetic one, being just human enough to avoid being a total monster, but just out of his mind enough to tether his sense of masculinity to his job as a police officer. McDonagh’s moments of extortion, excessive violence and outright theft are little more than attempts to show off his worth as a male to himself, a point underlined when he claims that a man without a gun isn’t a man. Cage’s performance takes on an increasingly unhinged quality, marked by shifts in vocal and physical performance over the course of the film. McDonagh transforms into a type of hunchbacked oddity typically found in a Universal horror film of the 1930s and 1940s, making his ability to function in the world at all increasingly baffling and comedic.

Mendez heads up a fine supporting cast, but isn’t given much to do beyond playing off of Cage as her character increasingly falls into the bizarre world of McDonagh’s father and step mother. Of greater note is Jennifer Cooliage as McDonagh’s step mother Genevieve. While a small roll, Genevieve is the closest thing to a truly human character in the film. While as much an addict as every other character, Genevieve is the only one whom seems to understand how sad and pathetic everyone’s existence in the film is, but takes some comfort in her attempts to understand and connect with her step son. Xzibit as the gangster sitting at the center of the murder case is fine, though the role never gives him the opportunity to flex much acting muscle, while Brad Dourif and Val Kilmer turn in solid performances in what are primarily extended cameos.

If the film belongs to anyone other than Cage however, it is director Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, who both walk a fine line between grounding the film while giving it a visual sense of a drug haze. The film is never quite subjective or objective in its point of view, frequently bouncing between McDonagh’s view point to a more observational view of events as we move from a handheld, documentary style to carefully composed shots. Herzog and Zeitlinger furthermore take full advantage of the New Orleans setting, allowing the stark and ruined streets and buildings seep into the frame, constantly imbuing the film with a sense of the real life chaos and impoverishment to play out before the audience.

While I personally find no fault with the film, Port of Call - New Orleans will likely be off putting to those expecting a traditional drama or thriller of the Hollywood mould. While highly entertaining, the film is one which in part asks the viewer to find humour in a series of volatile and shocking behaviour carried out by one man, and the film never once includes a condemnation of this behaviour within the narrative itself. It is a film where filmmakers expect the audience knows how horrific the content is, and go with the tone of the piece. If such an approach offends, simply consider yourself warned. Furthermore, fans of the original Bad Lieutenant might be turned off by what can be seen as a film which almost satirizes the themes of the original film. Personally, I believe the films to be counterpoints to one another rather than mere oppositions, but again, fans of the original should be warned.

Overall, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans is one of the best films released in 2009, brining Nicolas Cage back to his darker roots and providing Herzog with one of his strongest film in his canon of work. In a film season where the likelihood of cinematic junk is high, the film is a worthwhile rental an antidote to the tame and conservative popcorn fare of the coming months.

Cash on Demand (Lawrence 1961)

While audience discussions of film might seem to indicate otherwise, rarely ever is it the overall plot which makes or breaks a given work. After all, take a look at perhaps the most popular genre in film at the moment, that of the superhero. Breakdown these films to their bare basics, and you will find a similar overall structure and story which repeats time and again, be it Superman, Batman or Spider-man. This is the same of all genres.

No, what most often makes a work is not the plot, but the details, which shape a work and give it the texture that makes it memorable. It is in the details where the subtext is to be found; it is in the details where the subtleties of character and drama are to be made or lost.

Take the film we are examining today, Cash on Demand. This 1961 suspense thriller from director Quentin Lawrence sounds like a typical heist film, with an innocent bank manager (Peter Cushing) blackmailed by a cunning crook (Andre Morell) into robbing the bank during operating hours. However, instead of being a standard bank heist film, Cash on Demand is a crime thriller update of Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol, exploring class relations in post war Britain, with Andre Morell’s criminal character acting as a twisted, but likeable, amalgamation of the three ghosts of Christmas. This is achieved by smart writing, acting and directing which places emphasis on character and cinematic craft over cheap thrillers and violence, elevating the finished work into something more than a simple genre retread.

Played out real time, the first fifteen minutes or so have little to do with the robbery, but rather focus on the relationship between the bank’s chief executive Fordyce (Cushing) and his staff at a small town bank. A former soldier, Fordyce brings a military style of discipline to his branch and its operations, frequently noting that their job is to service the people of the community in an efficient and morally upright manner. However, Fordyce is totally detached from the very people he serves and, by extension, the people he works with. His service to the community is based in a very vapid ideal, believing in the structures of community, society, and most importantly, authority, without any actual understanding as to what those structures are designed to serve. This lack of understanding seems rooted in a sense of class distinction and generational difference, revealed by his contempt for the younger members of his staff and his obsession with his establishment remaining “dignified.” As played by Cushing, Fordyce is a man who conducts himself as if he were a lord, pronouncing judgments on his staff and believing in fear and respect as the most effective methods of conducting his trade.

It is these complex social and societal dynamics surrounding Fordyce’s authority and personality which explode with the arrival of Hepburn (Morell), and which become the real basis of the drama in the film. Hepburn is not a threat so much because he desires the bank’s money, but because he systematically disrupts, subverts and destroys the very symbols and structures which empower Fordyce, emasculating him and revealing his moral and ethical failings. It is here that the similarities with A Christmas Carol become increasingly apparent, as Hepburn becomes, in a perverse manner, a moral guide for Fordyce. This is all the more peculiar in that the audience is invited to not only like Hepburn, but actively root for him, despite the fact that Hepburn is threatening the lives of Fordyce family in order to gain the bank's funds.

No scene perhaps captures the central drama of the film more than a moment where Fordyce tries to stand up to Hepburn, making a declaration about how he will kill Hepburn if anything happens to his family. In what is a case of perfect acting, writing and directing, what would normally be a moment of heroic rebirth for Fordyce instead becomes a moment of great pity, as we are witness to how empty Fordyce’s threat is: it is pure posturing, with no real authority to be a credible threat. It is a magnificent scene for both Cushing and Morell, as Cushing, normally the most powerful of actors, allows himself to be shown at his most vulnerable, while Morell actually manages to subtly suggest a sense of pity on the part of Hepburn for Fordyce. It is a wonderfully layered scene, demonstrating a level of craft and intelligence missing from most modern thrillers, where the characters are often vapid stock types.

Director Lawrence in fact deserves a great deal of credit here. Working from a script from David T. Chantler and Lewis Greifer, based on a television script from Jaques Gillies, Lawarence careful utilizes the cinematic space, transforming the three room set into a rigidly defined areas designed to segregate and confine, mirroring the class and interpersonal dynamics between Fordyce and his staff. Moreover, the camerawork designed by Lawrence and cinematographer Arthur Grant is careful and controlled, at first distancing the viewer from Fordyce as we observe him, then gradually drawing the viewer into his point of view as his world falls apart.

Where the film fumbles slightly is with its conclusion, which creeps far too close towards sentimentality for a story which begs for a cynical and ambiguous conclusion. While it is a bit much to say the filmmakers cop out at this point, given that the ending was likely crafted to appease censors, it is hard not to feel slightly cheated as the film comes to a close. It isn’t a horrible ending by any stretch, but it is not nearly as satisfying as it could have been.

Regardless, Cash on Demand is well worth a rental, if not an outright purchase. Tense and well written, Cash on Demand is an example of how a stale genre can be transformed into something more by avoiding cheap, gimmicky twists and embracing character and an attention to detail that is often forgotten about in such films.

The Departed (Scorsese 2006)

(NOTE: Ok, so where is the Carnival of Souls review? As anyone who has followed this blog for an extended period of time knows, I have been having laptop problems, with the machine breaking down every few months. To avoid this interfering with the reviews, I decided to start writing them on the family desktop, which has been very reliable.

Until this morning, when the damn thing crashed.

As such, my review is trapped on the machine, meaning I have to rewrite from scratch rather than finish my edit. So, to keep things going here, I am posting a "classic" review from back when I just placed these things on facebook. Carnival will be posted late Monday or Tuesday, but it WILL be next.)

The most fascinating element of the Martin Scorsese film The Departed (2006)is also the element which undermines the film the most. Using the same basic storyline of Wai-keung Lau Siu Fai Mak’s Infernal Affairs (2002), in which moles for both sides of a police/organized crime conflict hunt one another, Scorsese modifies the themes of identity from the original to include a focus upon a Biblical understanding of lineage, exploring the concept of how family shapes not only our immediate self understanding, but also shapes the context of how we are received in the world. Sounds good and rich for exploring, huh?

So how can this rich thematic material be a problem as I have noted? Primarily, it is an issue of execution, resulting in a war between characters for control of the narrative. As the basic story outline would indicate, it is the moles that would seem to be the main characters: the mob mole Colin (Matt Damon), and Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), an undercover agent for the Boston police. However, The Departed unbalances the narrative by giving an almost equal amount of screen time to Jack Nicholson’s Costello, head of the Boston Irish mob, who plays surrogate father to both characters in the film. The end result is an unfocused film that doesn’t really seem overly invested in the tale it is supposedly telling.

Costello is a fascinating character, and Nicholson manages to turn in a performance that is his best in a long, long time, requiring him to turn down his Jack-isms that have become standard over the last twenty years. Scorsese paints Costello as a fraud coming apart at the seams, projecting an image of power while being literally and figuratively impotent. As the film opens, we are presented with narration from Costello, where he reveals that he always wanted to be able to impact his environment, rather than it impacting him. Certainly, he is able to achieve half of the goal, as his actions and choices simultaneously destroy and help the lives of others. However, Costello is still birthed from the violent culture around him, with the criminal elements around him helping to facilitate his dreams, and in turn he facilitates the criminal endeavours of others. Yet none of what he seeks, or produces is original. Yet even the simple ability produce an heir escapes him, and the result is an increasingly deranged man on the verge of self destruction. It is an excellent character study.

However, this does raise a big question: why wasn’t Costello the lead in his own film? Costello dominates the film so much that Colin and Costigan become one note characters in their own film. They never become living, breathing people, but stock characters who do only what the plot tells them to do, a plot which itself is mostly dictated by the Costello character.

Furthermore, in being reduced to stock characters, Colin and Costigan's identity crisis, which was supposedly the whole dramatic thrust of the film, is treated in the most superficial manner possible. The original film Infernal Affairs was more about the hell of existing without understanding one’s own identity, where death is presented not as a horrible outcome or justice, but as release from have to live a life of uncertainty. The Departed by contrast defines identity in black and white terms, with the filmmakers stacking the the deck against Colin so much that there is no sense of the identity confusion central to the original film. Colin is clearly a villain, and Costigan so clearly heroic that there is no drama. Instead, the audience sits and waits for the inevitable conclusions to be reached, and for Costello to come back on screen and do something of interest.

As such, the bounty of thematic ideas contained within the film are left undeveloped, being tossed on screen with the connecting tissue between them failing to keep the film together. The personal and political dualities never really come together in a meaningful way, resulting in a frustrating experience for the viewer. Well, at least this one.

The situation is made all the worse by the far too large supporting cast, filled with actors fighting to accomplish something of value on screen. Mark Walberg, Alec Baldwin, and Martin Sheen are among the cast who have nothing to do in the film except go through the motions with little rhyme or reason. Walberg, for example, has little to do except curse and wait to fulfill his role at the end of the film, while Martin Sheen fails to make any impression whatsoever. Baldwin fairs a little better with his somewhat comical department head, but still the character never evolves beyond the “angry Alec” of numerous other films.

It might sound like I am being hard on the film, and perhaps I am. There are many wonderful elements in the film, from Scorsese’s visual style (a shot of a coked out Costello is perhaps the most haunting) and sequences that manage to entertain, such as an alleyway chase that is every bit the equal of the same scene in the original. But the film lives moment to moment rather than existing as a unified whole, which at two and a half hours results in allowing the viewer to reflect far too much on the flaws rather than on what works.

The most frustrating aspect of all of this though is that it was this film Scorsese won his Oscar for. Certainly, the man deserved it a long, long time ago for his previous efforts, including his most recent work before The Departed. But awarding him for this film was a serious mistake: the Oscars are (supposedly) to award the best filmmaking efforts of the year, not the lifetime body of work of an individual (unless, of course, it is a lifetime achievement Oscar). Scorsese has made better films, and will make better films. To award him for this work undermines the value of what such an award should mean to him. With any luck, he will get nominated again for a worthy film, and win this time for the right reasons.

Bad Lieutenant (Ferrara 1992)

It is safe to say that I am not a fan of Abel Ferrara’s work for the most part. While I loved his direction on the pilot for the television series Crime Story, Body Snatchers (1993), his remake for the 1950s classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, was mediocre at best, while King of New York (1990), along with many of his other crime films, were ultra violent attempts at mimicking Martin Scorsese’s early works.

So consider me surprised to find that I am not only impressed by his 1992 effort Bad Lieutenant, but I am willing to go as far as to say that Ferrara has made a legitimately great film. Moreover, Bad Lieutenant is a film that demonstrates a thoughtful and mature exploration of Christian faith and man’s relationship with God, regardless of where one stands on the spectrum of thought regarding God, faith and religion.

Bad Lieutenant tells the tale of a nameless New York Lieutenant (Harvey Keitel), who is just about as corrupt as they come: he is a heroine addict, a gambling addict, and and adulterer who is prone to violence and extortion when it comes to the people he meets on the job. As the Lieutenant’s life slowly unravels, his bets on a series of baseball games place him in the hole and his drug addictions grow more uncontrollable, he is presented with a shockingly brutal case. A young nun, during a break in at a church, is raped. While initially cynical and dismissive as to the horror of the event, the Lieutenant is shocked when the nun not only reveals she knows her attackers, but forgives them and refuses to give up their names. As his life falls apart, the case becomes a quest for the Lieutenant to understand the choice of the nun, and possibly find redemption for himself.

Bad Lieutenant is a film that is likely to offend viewers across the board. Conservative, religious audiences will likely be turned off by the extreme and volatile character at the center of the film, a character that we follow into the darkest of corners when it comes to his personal failings and vices. Non-religious viewers may very well be turned off by the film’s focus on spirituality and faith. Still others will likely be put off by the fact that the film is not a thriller or mystery, but a character study with little in the way of a traditional plot. All three possible rejections of the film would be a shame, as the film’s complex exploration of the possibility for personal redemption is rich and textured, asking the viewer to really engage with the issue both emotionally and intellectually.

The Lieutenant of the title is not merely a misguided individual, but a truly vile human being: a wretched father, a lousy husband, and a sickeningly horrific police officer who abuses his powers daily. The Lieutenant is the embodiment of every character an audience has ever been asked to root against. His initial reaction to the crime against the nun not only invites disgust from the audience, but elicits shock from some of his fellow officers. He cannot even fall back on the claim of being any good at his job, as the time he spends on his vices leaves little time to accomplish any form of crime fighting. About the only thing he cares about is baseball, where he seems to invest himself both financially and spiritually. By all definitions, he is an irredeemable monster, and there is no reason for us to give a damn about a monster, except for the fact that society has invested this one with power.

Oddly enough however, we do give a damn about this monster. All credit must be given to Ferrara and Keitel, because they somehow manage to find the humanity in this abomination of a character. The nameless Lieutenant is less a character than a walking, talking collection of anger, frustration, self pity and hatred, aimed at anyone and everyone. In lacking a name or much in the way of a defined existence outside of his job, Ferrara allows the viewer to project onto the character, and identify the traces of our own personal dark side within his behaviour. Keitel manages to give the best performance of his career here, portraying a man so convinced in his understanding of the world that the actions of the nun totally shatter his very core.

What differentiates this redemption narrative from others is that the redemption for the title character is of secondary importance. While certainly the Lieutenant’s own redemption comes into play, what he seeks most is to understand the choice of the nun, an understanding also sought by the audience. This search for answers, to seek to understand another point of view of life free of or base traits, ironically further unifies the viewer and the Lieutenant, connecting his attitude towards life and bad behaviour as being typical of part of our everyday lives.

It is debatable whether or not the Lieutenant is able to comprehend the answers to his and the viewers’ questions, and unlikely that all viewers will be open to accepting these answers, but the Lieutenant’s quest for knowledge leaves him by the final third of the film fully stripped of agency, belaying any power he might have over his life. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Whatever redemption the Lieutenant finds by the conclusion of the film has little to seemingly do with his own will, Ferrara and Keitel magnificently establish this redemption as one in which the character has been kicked dragging and screaming from his typical patterns of behaviour. Keitel’s performance is at its best here, as he makes a decision he clearly is tormented by, yet clearly feels he needs to do. His reconnection with humanity has left him broken and in pain, toying with the viewers’ emotions as to how to interpret the conclusion of the film. (SPOILERS OVER).

Ferrara wisely attempts to place the viewer squarely into the subjective point of view of the Lieutenant, following the character as he makes his journey from home to the streets, clubs and grimy apartments of criminals, drug dealers and prostitutes. As the Lieutenant deteriorates, so does the stability of the camera, and the end results helps to add to the grimy world from which escape is seemingly impossible, at least for the Lieutenant.

The deployment of music is also highly notable in the film, mainly for how little music is actually featured in the film. Ferrara doesn’t bother to often highlight scenes with non-diagetic music, instead allowing for the harsh collection of voices and city noise to carry entire scenes, adding a heightened tension to the film, as we lack an audio cue to help navigate just where scenes will head.

Bad Lieutenant will not be for all tastes, but it was not made to be. It is a film which relentlessly tells its tale the way it needs to be told, the audience’s reaction be damned. As such, the film is unquestionably art, and needs to be accepted on that level, along with the work that a viewer must do to understand art. Those seeking easy answers or sheer entertainment, look elsewhere.

Film Geek Flashback: Space – The Imagination Station

The kind of film geek one is can largely be understood by the situation in which one grows up. I myself have been one of those to benefit from the era of home video, particularly VHS growing up. It was a short walk from home down to the local video rental shop, and it was a pretty good one before it was completely altered by new management early in the last decade. Packed with a large selection of titles, and before the era in which video stores had to check your age, I was able to usually rent a good number of titles to watch over the course of my youth, from classics such as Gone with the Wind, Blade Runner, Alien, and the Vincent Price version of The Fly, to selections of the James Bond series and absolute crap like the straight to video Captain America film. There was just one little problem with the place, and that was that it cost money to rent from them. Truly shocking, I know.

There were other options for watching films though. For starters, there was TVO and "Saturday Night at the Movies", back when it was hosted by Elwy Yost, which exposed me to many of the greats, such as Citizen Kane and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. However, as great as the Yost program was, it was always seemingly in the era of Classic Hollywood, leaving me without any real access to many of the films that followed. Furthermore, it seemed to avoid airing genre films of old most of the time. How on Earth was I ever going to get to see The Day the Earth Stood Still or Invasion of the Body Snatchers? To top it off, our family didn’t have cable, so that wasn’t an option either.

Cut to 1996. My grandparents took advantage of a special deal that gave them access to some upcoming, newer channels that were about to launch on the Canadian cable system. Not having cable ourselves, these channels held no interest to me, until I noticed a little name on the list of new channels they were to receive:

Space – The Imagination Station.

For any viewers outside of Canada, you probably have no idea what the hell this channel is. Well, in an attempt to prevent American broadcasters from entering Canadian markets, many Canadian channels were launched to offer similar choices to that of American cable but keep the control in Canadian hands. Space was launched as a counter to the American Sci—Fi channel, with the intention of broadcasting science fiction, fantasy and horror programming from all over the world.

And it was glorious.

Now, like I said, we didn’t have cable at our house, but you can bet that I took full advantage of asking my grandparents to tape programming off of Space. While some might have complained about the lack of original programming at the time, I wasn’t one of them. The bizarre mish mash of quickly cancelled sci-fi series, serials, and anime imports gave Space its own quirky identity, furthered by the intermixing of brief snippets of science facts, interviews and quotes from historical and literary sources in between shows. It was truly a geek paradise.

Then, there were the films. Oh lord, were there the films.

Every night at midnight, as well as on weekends, Space would air, uncut (though not commercial free) science fiction, fantasy and horror films from every decade under the sun. Not only that though, they were almost always aired as part of theme weeks, mixing and matching the best, the worst, the middle ground and the just plain interesting together. One week, it was Martian invasion films; the next was a week dedicated to all five Fly films, allowing viewers to see the evolution from Vincent Price to Cronenberg’s tragic exploration of sex in the modern world, followed by the underrated B-movie joy that was The Fly 2.

How about outright classics of the genre? Not only could you find relatively recent genre classics such as Alien, but the original 1950s golden age of Sci-fi cinema was always well represented, with classics such as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet. When you needed a break from the good stuff, there was always an airing of Santa Clause Vs. the Martians around the corner along with other great B-move oddities. This was the channel that first introduced me to these greats that even Yost was ignoring, and for that, I will always be thankful.

Every week, when the TV Guide arrived, the first thing I would turn to would be the midnight listings on Space. I didn’t think every film was worth taping, and some of what was taped was outright painful to sit through (I’m looking at you Scanners 2), but it was always worth giving it a shot, particularly when it was films and filmmakers I had no clue about at the time. A great example was the work of Ralph Bashki, which I was introduced to through the film Wizards when it aired on Space. While I am no Bashki fan on a whole, there is no arguing his work is unique and worthy of study, and I am happy to look back and know that it was Space that introduced me to the filmmaker among others.

While I love film as a whole, there is no question that I have a deep rooted love of sci-fi, fantasy and horror cinema that dominates all others, and Space was a large part of developing this love. Heck, if it weren’t for Space and their catchy style of advertising these films, there are a many films I more than likely have ignored rather than give a chance. This developed my willingness to give pretty much anything a try and the knowledge that all films have some place in film history, hence, being worthy of study.

Even into my early days of university, Space was a great place to catch films that might have slipped my attention or were worth seeing again. One night I remember distinctly was finishing a fall term with the handing in of my final paper, and being unable to sleep due to the bucket loads of caffeine in my system from the combo of Jolt Cola and coffee. Playing on Space was David Cronenberg’s Rabid, and it turned out to be the perfect way to unwind from the previous few days of steady work.

Sadly, as with all good things, it had to come to an end. Well, the Space I knew and loved had to come to an end. About two years after that viewing of Rabid, I tuned into Space on a Saturday night to unwind once again. However, I was surprised by what I found: they were airing Backdraft. Now, I’ve got nothing against the film (well, actually I do, but that is for another rant), but it certainly wasn’t a science fiction, fantasy or horror film. I was convinced it was an error, but sure enough, it was correct: Space was airing Backdraft, followed by Daylight.

Just what the hell was going on? While I am sure that there are a series of ownership changes, policy shifts and other real life answers to that question, the simple fact was that Space was going mainstream rather than playing to the fringe anymore. In early 2009, while working on assignments for my professional program, I occasionally switched to Space during my breaks and was disappointed by what I saw. Gone were the random collection of shows, the weekend serials and the mix of classic films and oddities. In its place were recent action films that had nothing to do with the original intention of the channel. The cool little interviews with writers, artists and scientists were gone. Instead, we now had (and have) camera friendly vapid youths who do little more than peddle recent films and shows in the style of Entertainment Tonight. Space was dead, and the animation centered network Teletoon was left to pick up the geek friendly audience.

Still, there are some redeeming qualities for the modern Space. After the CBC mishandled the broadcasting of the brilliant "Doctor Who" revival, Space has stepped in to make sure the series airs with proper support and with a limited waiting time between the Canadian and BBC broadcasts. But such effort does not change the fact that the channel of my youth is gone, and with it, all the opportunities it provided me to grow as a film geek.

Of course, perhaps Space is no longer needed for the little film geeks growing up now. For those truly seeking to explore genre cinema, there are endless resources and methods for seeing these films.

I still can’t help but feel sad though that such a resource as Space, for all its flaws, is reduced to a shell of its former self. So goodbye Space – The Imagination Station. You will always live on as a memory and as part of what made me, well, me.

Payback/Payback: Straight Up (Helgeland 1999/2006)

As hard as it might be to remember, there was a period of time when Mel Gibson was not a controversial figure, but in fact was a respected actor and a movie star’s kind of movie star: he was box office gold, an actor with solid range, and an acclaimed director to boot (though I personally have problems with his directorial efforts, but let’s save that for later). This was a time when Gibson could go on The Simpsons, claim to be loved by everyone, and not have an audience laugh at the bitter irony the line now carries. This was also a time when, when you boil it right down, he was able to star in some damn good films, like the crime caper/revenge film Payback.

Of course, Payback is a film that has been caught up in a very different type of controversy, though one where Gibson is no less at the center of it. The directorial debut of acclaimed screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential), Payback became the type of disaster every director, first timer or not, dreads. After finishing his initial edit, Helgeland was fired by Gibson (a producer on the film) and the studio, who were shocked by how harsh the film was. Reshoots were mounted under another director, with an entirely new ending and beginning attached to the film. The finished film proved to be a modest success in terms of both box office and critical reaction, but the controversy surrounding the production problems resulted in fans asking time and again as to when the original version of Payback would ever be released.

Luckily, in 2006 the original version of the film was finally released on home video for all to see under the title Payback: Straight Up. Usually in these cases, there is a clearly superior version of the film, or both versions are heavily flawed works with their own strengths and weaknesses. Payback however manages to buck the trend with both versions managing to be solid genre efforts without a clear victory in the better film department. While each film goes down a different road and fits a different mood, both Payback cuts are worth owning in a film collection.

Based on the novel by Richard Stark, which was used as the basis for the 1967 John Boorman film Point Blank (which might still be the best film of this group by far), both films follow the same set up: Porter (Gibson) is a small level thug who is double crossed and left for dead by fellow criminal Val (Gregg Henry) and Porter’s wife (Deborah Kara Unger) after stealing money from a Chinese gang. Returning to the city a few months later, Porter simply wants his cut of the money, and is willing to work through various lowlifes to get it. Unfortunately, the further he goes, the more criminal bureaucratic red tape there is to work through.

The differences between the two cuts are subtle until the end of each respective film, but the small changes make a tremendous difference in the tone of each work. The first important difference is the introduction to Porter: the theatrical cut, which employs voice over from Porter over the entire film, gives the viewer a clear understanding of what has happened to Porter and his goals starting with the first scene on an operating table. Knowing about Porter’s situation and experiences from the start provides a context for Porter’s actions which allows an audience to more easily digest the violence he engages in. Porter is bad, but not that bad. We actually grow to like him somewhat.

Payback: Straight Up however drops the viewer right into Porter’s arrival in the city, with no voice over to be heard anywhere over the entire film. The result is a Porter whose actions and motivations are more ambiguous, and leave the viewer on edge. The revelation about what happened to Porter is saved until after he finds his wife and a brutal physical altercation happens that is more reminiscent of domestic abuse than a man defending himself. While we are not exactly against Porter in this version, we understand him to be a far more ruthless individual, and remain more objective to the actions he takes. In fact, we are left to ask the same question that the other criminals in the film ask: is the miniscule amount of money really worth the hell Porter causes for himself and others? Is this really about the principle of the matter for Porter, or is there something else?

It is this key shift that, as a total film and experience, makes the director’s cut of Payback a superior film in that it is trying for something more than the original cut. The result of this effort is a tighter, more focused film overall. Yet the original film cannot be dismissed entirely either, for while it is somewhat shallower and certainly more mainstream, the slick, pop pulp version of the story is a ton of fun itself, allowing for a gleeful bit of fantasy where the little guy can get what is rightfully his and stick it to the upper level powers in society, laughing all the way.

Such a fantasy is oddly compelling, particularly in the ten years that have passed since the original release of Payback. With what seems like endless corporate fraud and various lower to middle classes individuals paying the price for big corporate greed, Payback taps into that desire to get back at such institutions which seem to be able to say “sorry, but we cannot give you your money back.” The moral questions of such a fantasy are vast of course, and seems entirely counter to Hegeland’s intents with the film, but the appeal is undeniable.

Moreover, the film in its two versions can be seen as both marking very different points in Mel Gibson’s public image. While Gibson would make a few more standard blockbuster films after, the original Payback is perhaps the last great film of the “classic” Gibson era. He is a likeable, hard working average man up against the vast resources of those above his station (even if he is a criminal). Payback: Straight Up, coming at the time of his notorious arrest for driving while intoxicated and making an anti-Semitic remark, seems eerily coincidental with its harsher Porter who is not easily liked or understood. It is allowing the viewer to see Porter in a different light, much as Gibson had been (and continues to be).

That might just be the shame though with regards to the release of Hegeland’s director’s cut. While we are finally able to see the film as he intended, Gibson’s shadow dominates the piece in more ways than one, feeling like a film that belongs to Gibson more than anyone else. It doesn’t matter that the supporting cast is the kind that most filmmakers would dream of, with Maria Bello, Gregg Henry, Bill Duke, John Glover, Lucy Liu, James Coburn and William Devane among others: the film is Gibson’s show, like it or not.

As it stands, I highly recommend Payback in any version, though if you had to pick just one to watch, Payback: Straight Up is the way to go. With Gibson finally returning to the public eye with the upcoming thriller The Edge of Darkness, it will be interesting to see which Gibson turns up. Are we about to witness Mel attempting to carry on business as usual? Or are we about to see Gibson radically altered by his recent mistakes? It will be interesting to find out.