8 Million Ways to Die (1986)

I’m an ex-cop. Los Angeles. Matt Scudder (Jeff Bridges) is a part of LAPD’s Sheriff’s Department and he takes part in a drugs bust that goes badly wrong with his colleagues beaten to death. Six months after the internal investigation he’s in Alcoholics Anonymous celebrating his pin for sobriety but his marriage is gone, his daughter lives with his wife and he’s picking up private eye work from his meetings. A request from a call girl Sunny (Alexandra Paul) brings him back into contact with a drug dealer Willie ‘Chance’ Walker (Randy Brooks) he used to know from the streets who’s now running a flash gambling club where he has a business arrangement with Angel Maldonado (Andy Garcia) who himself has an ongoing interest in another one of the prostitutes, Sarah (Rosanna Arquette). When Sunny turns up at his home looking for help because she’s being threatened Matt agrees but she’s abducted and brutally murdered and he’s too late to help. He wakes up in a detox ward and signs himself out. When he finds evidence against one or other of the men at the club in Sunny’s Filofax, he embarks on a quest for vengeance aided by the discovery of a jewel and a mountain of cocaine while Sarah accompanies him and tries to seduce him before agreeing to help … You’re not a mindless lush after all. Adapted (somewhat) from Lawrence Block’s fantastic New York City-set novel, the fifth in the Matt Scudder series, this was a disappointment on several levels. Oliver Stone did the first pass (and more), with R. Lance Hill (writing as David Lee Henry) then went off to direct a film of his own, so Robert Towne was prevailed upon by director Hal Ashby to do a rewrite but took so long the production was already shooting and changes made on the hoof with improvisation by the cast by the time his pages started arriving. Unrelenting and cliched in ways and draggy in the second half, which is surprising given Ashby’s subtle way of controlling narrative, it retains some of the superficial interest that the cast and behind the scenes team accrues but takes too long to get where it’s going and is horribly violent in one scene. The plausibility of an alcoholic former cop being allowed back in the fold to exert a vigilante-type revenge seriously tests the saw suspension of disbelief. And yet this hovers on the edges of greatness which begs the question why it went wrong. The drift commences with the change in setting – which the opening voiceover does not assist in any way. It’s (obviously) set in New York City. Then, Matt Scudder is an NYC detective, cut from a very different cloth than any denizen of LA. All the performances feel a little too loose in a film that swings between character study and crime story. The contrasting styles of Sunny and Sarah seem off and Angel’s swagger is exaggerated. Bad writing, bad direction or both? I live in a world I didn’t make. Bridges had already done better in the era’s popular noir remake Against All Odds and the thriller Jagged Edge – so this was not his best performance although he has his moments as the lower depths of his addiction to the bottle are plumbed. The major problem appears to be the fact that the film was taken from Ashby and edited by someone else. Ashby, as we know, was one of the great film editors prior to directing so this made absolutely no sense albeit he had his own addiction issues and this was sadly his final feature. This is beautifully shot by Stephen H. Burum with a striking score by James Newton Howard but it fundamentally changes the intent of the book and the re-edit altered it completely. The final shootout is simply unbelievable and not in a good way. Novelist Lawrence Block was not happy (to say the least) with this first screen take on Matt Scudder, as he recounted to this author. You can read more about that and Robert Towne in Chinatowne: The Screenplays of Robert Towne, https://www.amazon.co.uk/ChinaTowne-Screenplays-Robert-Towne-1960-2000/dp/1695887409/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1MXGOF3HFVGNA&keywords=elaine+lennon+chinatowne&qid=1705759297&s=books&sprefix=el%2Cstripbooks%2C847&sr=1-1. Waking up is the hardest part. #600straightdaysofmondomovies

Year of the Dragon (1985)

Only one Stanley White. Following the murders of Mafia and Triad leaders in NYC, Polish Captain Stanley White (Mickey Rourke) takes it upon himself to bring down the Chinese organised crime gangs. He’s breaking the long held treaty to permit the Chinese to take care of things in Chinatown. This puts him in conflict with Tony Tai (John Lone) the ruthless leader of the organisation.  It pulls his life apart with his already crumbling childless marriage to nurse Connie (Caroline Kava) collapsing altogether when Stanley falls for the charms of ambitious journalist Tracy Tzu (Ariane). Now Tony has a major shipment coming in from Thailand and Stanley engages in wire tapping for information .. This is America and it’s two hundred years old and you need to change your clocks. This sprawling portrait of the gangs of New York was much misunderstood upon its release but it lays its cards on the table upfront: it’s all in the name (changed) because NYC’s most decorated cop is an unapologetic racist Nam vet and sexist to boot. He’s launching his own tong war. Naturally Rourke plays him as a total charmer and it works:  he has the aura of death about him, his hair is as white as his adopted name and everyone around him seems to get crushed.  As written by Oliver Stone and director Michael Cimino this adaptation of Robert Daley’s novel is remarkably discreet in some areas – and lurid in others. The major love scene between Stanley and Tracy is cleverly done as they tell each other how much they hate each other and then … Her big ‘angry’ scene when he’s moved his team into her preposterously huge loft is amusing because her acting is so poor, all stiff arms like an Irish dancer. Part of the film’s issue representationally is the obvious inexpressivity of the Chinese actors, a physical trait there’s no escaping. They make up for it by killing people. Their treatment historically in the US and their unequal immigrant experience is posited against Stanley’s veteran’s hangups, something that’s used against him.  He wants to sleep with a journalist while both he and Tony decry the media’s role in the portrayal of violence and the way ethnicity is covered. Therefore there is a balance established with Tony – that’s clever storytelling. Lone is super handsome, a great suave villain to play opposite.  The lean way in which the marital story is exposed is a good hook for Stanley’s humanity and it’s the dramatic crutch that assists the outcome. The intra-Asian racism is well dramatised and horrendously violent. Class is an issue that becomes an overriding theme. The whole thing looks incredible – shot by Alex Thomson on a set (by Wolf Kroeger and Victoria Paul) in North Carolina for NYC (except for the views from Tracy’s apartment at the top of the Clocktower Building giving a beguiling view of the city’s skyline).  There’s a fascinating and intricate score by David Mansfield with echoes of phrases from The Deer Hunter. That this is a disguised western is clarified in those final scenes on the railway track. And in this wonderful mesh of genre and tradition there is an honourable way out for one man. What a way to end. Amazingly the role of White (originally called Arthur Powers – but there’s a Stanley White credited as Police Consultant!) was intended for Clint Eastwood. Both he and Paul Newman turned it down. Just as well. Only one Mickey Rourke. He’s a good cop but he won’t stop

Midnight Express (1978)

The best thing to do is to get your ass out of here. Best way that you can. American college student Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is caught smuggling hashish when he’s travelling out of Turkey with girlfriend Susan (Irene Miracle). He is prosecuted and jailed for four years. When his sentence is increased to 30 years, Billy, along with other inmates including British heroin addict Max (John Hurt) and American candle thief Jimmy (Randy Quaid), makes a plan to escape but local prisoners betray their plans to vicious guard Hamidou (Paul L. Smith)… It’s not a train. It’s a prison word for… escape. But it doesn’t stop around here. Adapted by Oliver Stone from Billy Hayes’ memoir (written with William Hoffer), this is a high wire act of male melodrama and violence with an astonishing, poundingly graphic series of setpieces that will definitely curdle your view of Turkey, even knowing that much of this was deliberately fabricated for effect. The searing heat, the horrendous conditions and the appalling locals will give pause to even the most strident anti-drugs campaigner. Director Alan Parker has a muscular, energetic style and brilliantly choreographs scenes big and small with the tragic and brilliant Davis (an appealing latterday James Dean-type performer) perfectly cast and Hurt a marvel as the shortsighted druggie whom he protects. The big scene where Davis totally loses it shocks to this day. Shot in Malta (permission to shoot in Istanbul was not granted, unsurprisingly) by Michael Seresin with a throbbing electronic score by Giorgio Moroder. Everyone runs around stabbing everyone else in the ass. That’s what they call Turkish revenge. I know it must all sound crazy to you, but this place is crazy

Scarface (1983)

‘Say hello to my little friend!’ Ah, Cuba. What it has given to the world. Cigars. And… coke dealers! This probably isn’t the film to recommend to people opposed to the mass entry of refugees in their back door. How to describe what has long been a pop culture phenomenon? Oliver Stone interpreted the great Ben Hecht’s original story (for director Howard Hawks and producer Howard Hughes’s 1932 classic) to incorporate the influx of criminals to Florida in 1980 with Castro’s amnesty, flooding the area with jailbirds. It was Pacino’s idea to remake the film and Sidney Lumet came up with updating it setting it in the Mariel boatlift but Stone then picked up the reins while dealing with his own cocaine habit when Lumet dropped out. Stone and producer Marty Bregman got access to US Attorney and Organized Crime Bureau files in Miami so we have to say in our defence, m’lud, these things may actually have happened … Teamed with director Brian De Palma we get a great, baroque, violent tale of the rise and fall of Tony Montana (Pacino, peerless, unforgettable, brilliant), who’s just assassinated a Cuban  government official and gets a green card to a very unwelcoming Miami. He teams up with Manny (Steven Bauer) and they take on the local crime lords to become drug kingpins, picking up the stunning Michelle Pfeiffer along the way with little sis Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio joining in the drug-addled fun. The violence is just jaw-dropping – and yes, I’m referring to the chainsaw in the shower. Jesus. With a great supporting cast giving wonderfully detailed performances – Paul Shenar and F. Murray Abraham among them, and goodness, why doesn’t Pfeiffer do more films? Or Mastrantonio?! – cinematography by John A. Alonzo and a pretty groundbreaking score by Giorgio Moroder, we have to say that this visceral, confident, sensory assault is … INCREDIBLE! Nothing exceeds like excess