Instant Action: The Warriors (1979)

That’s a lot of colorful gangs, literally!

Screenplay By: Walter Hill & David Shaber

Directed By: Walter Hill

Young men; sweat flowing from their pores, dirt on their bodies, and venom in their veins. Those are the characters in The Warriors. They may be from the future, the past, or the present. They have no time because they inhabit a masculine place that is timeless. The street toughs we meet in The Warriors are the summation of what it means to be a man, what it once meant to be a man, and the fear of the future man.

As the men of The Warriors sweat, attempt rape, and try to murder one another the viewer can only sit and watch. They are so powerful in their masculinity that we are helpless to stop them in their actions. We are forced to watch, there’s no hope of turning away from the onslaught of their manliness. It’s not easy to watch at times, even if it is always oddly exhilarating. Their fights enchant, their attempts to woo women are boorish, and the way they dress is mesmerizing. Hard to watch, but an enticing watch nonetheless.

Walter Hill is the man in charge of the introverted action in The Warriors. The men he presents appear to be part of the outside world, but they really aren’t. They are their own world, a world within which they are trapped. When they are confronted by the actual outside world they know not how to react. How can children react when they are shown something that scares, titillates, and presents them with something completely alien?

Youthful the Warriors are, full of piss and vinegar. They’re also scared, and that is their main driving force. They are scared of a world they don’t know and a society that will never accept them. That’s why they so easily toss around a word like faggot. Eventually homosexuality will be accepted, and yet they still won’t. They don’t understand being gay, just as they don’t understand women, the law, or anything but trying to be tough.

The film moves at a breakneck pace, it can’t stop because its main characters can’t stop. They aren’t just in a race to save their lives, they are in a race against time. At some point in their nebulous era the Warriors will become old, and that scares the young men most of all. What if they are old and haven’t accomplished anything? How will they deal with time passing them by and leaving them in the dust? They aren’t equipped to handle such change, and it is their fear of this change that they are truly running from.

Lean and mean, The Warriors comes at the viewer like a fast moving wrecking ball. Mr. Hill orchestrates his cast and the material in exquisite fashion. He gets the most out of every bit player, every costume, and every flash of a weapon. Mr. Hill focuses on the men of this world, throwing all other characters to the side. One female is allowed in their midst, but she is treated as second fiddle to the dying manhood of the gang. Keep on running Warriors, run all night and day. There’s no sunset for you retreat into, and no happy ending to save your hides. Walter Hill gives his young men no place to hole up; their ugliness, bravery, and stupidity is on display for all to see.

Rating:

7/10

Cheers,

Bill Thompson

Instant Action: The Spirit (2008)

That's a lot of fake CG backdrops for one film!

Screenplay By: Frank Miller
Directed By: Frank Miller

The Spirit is what happens when a man with the maturity of a teenage boy is allowed to make a film. That doesn't guarantee a bad or terrible film, but it can certainly result in a film of very low quality. I stopped caring about Frank Miller as a comic book writer sometime around the late 1990s, when it became all too clear that he had nothing new to say and that he was trapped in an extended adolescence. The same nihilism that infected all of Mr. Miller's comic book writing is present in The Spirit, which is unfortunate since the comic it's based on is a rather hopeful noir.

Now, I don't care much about the fact that Mr. Miller deviated severely from Will Eisner's work, that's fine by me. The problems with The Spirit go well beyond any adaptation issues. It's, simply put, not a well made film. Mr. Miller's version of The Spirit is all too fake and soulless. This is true for both the characters and the look of the film.

Mr. Miller's adopted the look of the Sin City film wholesale, which is fine but he's taken it a step further by making it where the characters aren't able to mesh with the computer backgrounds that surround them. When two characters are standing in the snow and not a single drop of snow falls on either character because the computer program won't allow for it, well that's just a terrible design flaw in the film. That's how The Spirit comes across visually, as one massive design flaw.

The characters in The Spirit can't be described as human, or even too comic book like. Rather, they are robots existing in a computer playground. This may have sounded great on paper, but in realization it leaves a film that is a chore to get through. It's easy to not care about any of the characters in The Spirit because Mr. Miller's plodding and tactless script never gives the viewer a reason to care about said characters. Without characters to care about it leaves the action hollow and empty, same with the story.

There's a scene in The Spirit where for no reason whatsoever Eva Mendes' character lifts the lid up on a copier, sits on the screen, and photocopies her ass. There's no reason for her to do this, it's only in the movie because for Frank Miller women don't matter other than as bodies to be ogled. Come to think of it, there's no reason for much of anything that happens in The Spirit. It's a misguided attempt at bringing a classic comic strip to the big screen. The Spirit should be the nail in the coffin for Frank Miller as a voice in the film world, which is okey dokey by me.

Rating:

3/10

Cheers,
Bill Thompson

Instant Action: Death Wish (1974)

To wish for death, or not to wish for death, that is the question!

Screenplay By: Wendell Mayes
Directed By: Michael Winner

There are a couple of very important elements at play in Death Wish. Firstly, Paul Kersey is not on a revenge fueled ride from the get-go. The film takes its time to get him to the point where he is willing to fight back, and more specifically to pull the trigger on someone's life. We spend time with Paul, we get to know what makes him tick and how much the changes in his life are effecting him. This all leads to the most important moment of the film, when Paul finally fights back against a thug. He commits the act of pulling the trigger and what follows is different from most revenge films. Paul feels remorse, maybe not for the person he has killed but for the person he is becoming. Paul returns to his house and throws up, he's so torn up over what he has done that his own body is rebelling against him.

The two elements discussed above aren't the only elements that pull Death Wish away from the revenge pack. I was very impressed with the fact that the thugs who accosted Kersey's daughter and killed his wife are never seen again in the film. Were Death Wish made today chances are that the film would have ended with Kersey finally confronting the thugs who set him on his murderous path. Death Wish isn't the story of those thugs, it's the story of Paul Kersey and that's why it's important that he not meet up with those thugs again. Sure, Death Wish is a fantasy, but it's not the happy ending where everything is tied into a neat bow type of fantasy. Had Paul met up with the men who changed his life that would have created too neat of an ending and taken away from the wonderfully ambiguous nature of the film.

Charles Bronson is especially worth talking about when it comes to Death Wish. I've never pegged Mr. Bronson as a terrific actor, and I'm still not sure if he has the most range. However, range is not what is needed for the role of Paul Kersey. Mr. Bronson plays the role super quiet, and that makes sense as he is the representation of the silenced and humiliated everyman versus the loud thugs. I don't know what more anyone could want from Mr. Bronson as an actor, his performance as Paul Kersey is pitch perfect. He may not be the world's greatest thespian, but after Death Wish I'm much more convinced that Charles Bronson is an actor who knows how to play to his strengths.

It's tempting to call Death Wish a satisfying film. While such a label would fit I'm not sure if it's actually an apt description. Yes, there is some joy to be had in watching thugs be gunned down. There's plenty of joy to be taken from the filmmaking craft on display from Michael Winner. That being said, Death Wish isn't the sort of revenge tale that is about good versus evil. Paul resorts to evil to fight evil, a decision that makes sense but is still troublesome. Death Wish is gloriously ambiguous in the way it handles the social problem of vigilantism. It's easy to make a case for Paul's actions being justified, but it's just as easy to make a case for Paul's actions being over the line.

I wasn't sure what to expect going into Death Wish. I'm happy to report that the film was a smashing success. Mr. Winner's film gave me plenty to think about and plenty of filmic elements to rejoice over. Death Wish finds the right middle ground between drama and revenge tale. Most importantly Death Wish never rushes, it takes the time to establish its characters and its world. The tempo and the tone of Death Wish is spot on throughout, and that's why it remains a fine piece of action cinema all these years later.

Rating:

9/10

Cheers,
Bill Thompson

Instant Action: Cobra (1986)

I'll tell you who's awesome, the guy with the scissors and the pizza, he's awesome!

Screenplay By: Sylvester Stallone
Directed By: George P. Cosmatos

It's hard not to love a film where the hero cuts his pizza with a pair of scissors. Let that little factoid sink in for a second, Marion "Cobra" Cobretti is such a god damn loose cannon that he cuts his pizza with a pair of scissors. This is a man who can't do anything normal. He has to drive a vintage car. Cobretti has to have a gun with a custom tip handle. A health nut, that's what makes this man different. Or, what makes him different is that he's a rebel who can't get along with his bosses. Lest we forget, he's also different because he doesn't shop at King's Grocery. There's also his license plate that proudly proclaims both his car and he are awesome. I'm sure that when the film was being put together each of these traits were thought of as cool little additions. When added up they equal one hilariously over the top quirky character. But what really makes the character is that Sylvester Stallone isn't in on the quirk. He plays Cobretti as straight and as seriously as possible, because you know, it's only natural for a man to cut his pizza with a pair of scissors.

Let's get one thing straight, Cobra is a pretty awful film. It has a barely present plot, some truly awful acting, and just about every police subgenre stereotype I can think of. Let's get one other thing straight, Cobra is so awful that it ends up being pretty darn good. From Cobretti's awkward attempts at hitting on Brigitte Nielsen to the musical choices that turn a gritty crime film into neon colored 1980s mainstream pop fare, Cobra is a movie that is comfortable being terrible. It all comes back to how serious the film is, and how it truly feels like no one is in on how terrible of a film they are making. Frøken Nielsen probably thought this was the dramatic turn that would bring her stardom. But it's hard to think of a movie as anything other than awful when Cobretti's sidekick is a guy who is only concerned with what candy he will be eating next. Of course, I may be finding his character unintentionally funny as I will forever remember him as Poppie from Seinfeld.

On a more serious note, there is the action and the performance of Brian Thompson. The action is okay, if a bit too rushed and over the top. The over the top aspect isn't really a negative as it kind of fits in with the motif of a film so bad it's good. The rushed nature of the action is a problem because it does lead to certain situations where time and place are lost. That's a bad thing, even in a movie that's only saving grace is how bad it manages to be. Mr. Thompson however, is a gem as the Night Slasher. He's sleazy, grimy, and completely believable as a serial killer. I kind of wish he had been in a different and better film, because the Night Slasher is a great villain and responsible for most of the atmosphere present in the film.

Cobra is one of those films that I will hold up as an example of how bad cinema can be enjoyable cinema. I had a great time with the craziness of Cobra and its unintentionally quirky lead. There may be some out there who think Cobra is an altogether terrible movie. I am not one of those people, there's no way I ever could be with this film. Cobra manages to transcend its status as a terrible film and become something else altogether. Like it's lead character, Cobra is bad, but it's bad in all the right ways.

Rating:

7/10

Cheers,
Bill Thompson