Film Review: STRAIGHT TIME (1978, Ulu Grosbard)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 114 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Writers Eddie Bunker, Jeffrey Boam (THE LOST BOYS, INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE), and an uncredited Michael Mann. Starring Dustin Hoffmann, Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Busey, Kathy Bates, Jake Busey, M. Emmet Walsh, Theresa Russell. Damn, what a cast!
Tag-line: "Please God, don't let him get caught."

STRAIGHT TIME is yet another one of those excellent, underrated crime dramas that seemed to flow so effortlessly out of the 1970's. Based on Eddie Bunker's novel NO BEAST SO FIERCE, it's a rumination on a life lived in and out of institutions: compelled to submit to Draconian rules and forced to undergo humiliation after humiliation until the core is so deadened that nothing even matters any more.

'Prison' and 'freedom' become just two sides of the same fucked-up coin to him. Bunker's work is completely earnest and always has the ring of truth to it- there are no one-dimensional characters here, and it's exceptionally well-acted.

Bunker in a brief role as, basically, himself.

Dustin Hoffman (who, from accounts, co-directed, and originally bought the film rights to Bunker's novel) is our recently-released career thief who genuinely sets out with the intention of going straight. M. Emmet Walsh is the slimy parole officer with an occasional glimmer of 'straight talk' humanity, but who ultimately enjoys being a cog in a wheel of a rotten system.

Gary Busey is a shaggy old buddy who appears to lead a squeaky-clean life (with long-suffering wife Kathy Bates and real-life son, Jake), but who's ready to cook up some H in a spoon as soon as the missus turns her back.

Theresa Russell is a spunky temp agency clerk who strikes up rapport and romance with our hero.

Even at the tender age of 20, Russell possesses the presence and depth of an actress far beyond her years: I'm reminded of Lauren Bacall storming the industry at 19 with complete poise and assurance- Russell's truly one of the greats. And she does her thing in a role that now, in 2009, would be a complete throwaway 'girlfriend' part. Harry Dean Stanton plays a sidekick who's as at home singing "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane" with an acoustic guitar as he is terrorizing a bank with a sawed-off shotgun.

"How was I, was I good?" -"You scared the shit outta me!"

Every character seems like a real person- there's no 'too cool' antiheroes or satanic bad guys, and that's, in short, why it works.

For more of Bunker's potent artistry, see RUNAWAY TRAIN and ANIMAL FACTORY.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: RED DRAGON (2002, Brett Ratner)

Stars: 1 of 5.
Running Time: 124 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Emily Watson, Mary-Louise Parker, Philip Seymour Hoffmann, Anthony Heald, Ken Leung, Anthony Heald, Ralph Fiennes, Lalo Schifrin, Mary Beth Hurt, Ellen Burstyn, Danny Elfman.
Tag-lines: "Before the Silence, there was the Dragon." AND "To understand the origin of evil, you must go back to the beginning." AND "Meet Hannibal Lecter For The First Time."
Best one-liner: "There's nothing wrong with you... except your hair. Your hair is a train wreck." (Also note that this quote in no way pertains to the actual bad hair at hand described in notation #4.)

My mind is blown. This got fairly solid notices- glowing raves from the Washington Post, Variety, Time, and Film Threat? Ebert loved this?! Gone is the class, restraint, and artfulness of Mann's original masterpiece, MANHUNTER.

Here's ten reasons why RED DRAGON is one of the most embarrassing movies of the decade:

#1. Keitel. If Keitel is phonin' it in, you've got problems. He didn't even phone it in for MONKEY TROUBLE.

The barometer for this is Keitel nudity. There's a scene where Keitel’s asleep. The Keitel I know and love would have, at the very least, been shirtless. A committed Keitel would have been doing full frontal. The fact that he didn't give a shit when even Ralph Fiennes is getting some naked screen time speaks VOLUMES. His eyes are telling me,"I'm only on set for 5 days, thank God." This sets the tone for everyone phoning it in, even the sprightly Emily Watson.

#2. Clumsy exposition. We start right off with a Lifetime movie montage of clippings and carefully designed "psycho" scrap-booking.

Yep, they just watched SE7EN. Also, aural flashbacks involving an old lady whispering and white flashes are really corny, even when that old lady is Ellen Burstyn.

#3. Later, when they're altering the ending (!), they steal a cue from Argento's OPERA. The ole 'wrong-body-got-shot-and-set-on-fire-switcheroo.' It's not exactly a good fit when your milquetoast American serious serial killer drama is hamfistedly stealing outrageously hilarious twists from Italians.

#4. Ed Norton's hair.

There's some kind of blonde highlights with roots showing going on that makes no sense for a normal human, much less an FBI agent. 

#5.The dungeon prison cell.

I understand you're trying to make the space that Hannibal inhabits be 'epically scary.' But when the rest of your film is attempting realism, to have a super-stylized, over-the-top gothic castle dungeon lair (immaculately adorned with shafts of natural light) as Lector's cell is redunkulous. MANHUNTER managed to be creepier with a sterile, standard, realistic space.

#6. Criminal misuse of Danny Elfman. Here, he's just a puppet for their gauche, graceless "scare stingers."

#7. And what happened to Frank Whaley?!


#8. Fiennes, though by no fault of his own.

You don't have your disfigured, self-loathing serial killer played by one of the most attractive people on the planet. That's not how it's done. Ask Tom Noonan how it’s done.

#9. This tableau:

Chekhov sez: if a tableau such as this appears in the first act; Mary-Louise Parker must save Ed Norton by remembering her target practice and shooting the killer in the last act. Actually, I could probably discard all of my talking points and just present this freeze-frame as evidence of this film's lame-itude.

#10. Stop TELLING me about the characters and start SHOWING me. What Mann conveys in a simple shot, Ratner TELLS through an awkward exchange of unnatural dialogue. And the tacked-on SILENCE OF THE LAMBS-segue ending is as laughably harebrained as Anakin building C-3PO. One star.


Side note: The silver lining in all this is Anthony Heald, who realizes how dumb this movie is and manages to at least have fun with it.

He's like Nick Nolte combined with John Glover as directed by Douglas Sirk, and that is amazing.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: MANHUNTER (1986, Michael Mann)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 124 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: William L. Peterson (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., C.S.I.), Brian Cox, Kim Griest (BRAZIL), Stephen Lang (TOMBSTONE, LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN), Tom Noonan (LAST ACTION HERO, SYNECDOCHE, NY), Brian Cox (L.I.E., BRAVEHEART, RUSHMORE), Joan Allen (FACE/OFF, PLEASANTVILLE, THE ICE STORM, NIXON), Dino de Laurentiis, Thomas Harris, Dante Spinotti (multi-Oscar nominated cinematographer of everything from L.A. CONFIDENTIAL to THE INSIDER to HUDSON HAWK).
Tag-lines: "It's just you and me now, sport..." (possibly the greatest tag-line of all-time?)
Best one-liner(s): "And if one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is."

MANHUNTER is order and disorder. Geometry and chaos. It's steel bars and sheet glass windows and buildings wrapped in concrete. It's cool blue nights, shimmering amber waves, and foreboding forest glens.


Michael Mann creates the world of a man who hunts serial killers by logically absorbing their thought processes, and not for one second is this the corny cheesefest such a statement would ordinarily precede. Mann uses symmetrical compositions, rack focuses, tinted lenses, and naturalistic acting to create his macabre atmosphere. This is a master of the cinematic medium at the height of his powers. The story unfolds with subtlety and grace, like the best of Jean-Pierre Melville or Sidney Lumet. There are no "Hollywood scares" here, no obnoxious sonic stingers- it's a quotidian terror. The performances are brilliant:

William L. Peterson as the investigator, coming straight off of the excellent TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.;

Tom Noonan as the terrifyingly low-key 'Tooth Fairy;' Joan Allen as a naive blind co-worker; and Brian Cox as the first cinematic incarnation of Hannibal Lecktor (Yep, that's how it's spelled here). The film is sprinkled with realistic, true-hearted touches: a little girl on a plane panics when she sees the crime scene photos Peterson has fallen asleep to; cops talk like cops, not like TV-writer mouthpieces; and Mann doesn't just tell you about Lecktor's intellect, he SHOWS you, lets him speak and act and think for himself. MANHUNTER just goes to show you that an American director CAN make a 'mainstream' genre picture without sacrificing personal style, dumbing down the material, or pandering to the masses. Why can't they all be like this?

-Sean Gill