Movie Review

  • Death Wish 3 (1985)

    Death Wish 3 (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) I’ve been plumbing the depths of 1980s Hollywood lately, and movies seldom get as crazy as Death Wish III. If the original 1974 film was arguably a statement on early-1970s urban crime and the second 1982 film became an outright exploitation picture, this third instalment goes full-on bonkers in an attempt to give more to the target audience. Here we have the series protagonist (once again played by Charles Bronson, here in his mid-sixties) coming back to New York to visit an old army buddy. Except that the cops know what he’s done and are aware of the bad neighbourhood where he’s going and they have a deal for him: kill as many criminals as you want, and let us claim the credit. With a setup like that, it’s no surprise to find out that the protagonist’s army buddy is one of the last decent people in a crime-ridden neighbourhood where even the police fear to tread. Put together as if someone had no experience of American cities other than the worst crime dramas of the 1980s, this neighbourhood hosts ludicrous gangs with stylish looks that pretty much do whatever they want to anyone. Bronson steps in with a crime-fighting attitude and an unexplained supply of heavy weaponry. It all escalates ludicrously to out-and-out urban warfare by the end of the film, complete with anti-tank rockets being used to dispatch opponents. We’re far, far away from the 1970s angst of revenge here … and that may be part of the film’s peculiar charm. The Death Wish series has never been about serious exploration of issues, and while Death Wish 3 is fantastical in the way it treats New York City as a playground for explosive mayhem … at least it’s a bit less hypocritical about its intention. It’s really not a good movie, but at least it’s interesting in its craziness. In keeping with the series’ tradition of having a famous actor in an early role, here we have the always-stunning Marina Sirtis playing a victim of the hooligans. I’m not even covering half the nonsense of the film: Suffice to say that Death Wish 3 inches toward the have-to-be-seen-to-be-believed category of the worst of 1980s Hollywood. Alas, there’s a lot of competition in that field, but still: at least it’s an improvement over Death Wish 2.

  • Endless Love (1981)

    Endless Love (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) Considering that an endless loop of “Endless Love” is the soundtrack of my nightmares, I really couldn’t wait until Endless Love (the movie) had run its course. Taking teenage romance to an obnoxious melodramatic intensity seldom seen elsewhere in fiction, this film features an obsessed male lead taking wilder and more dangerous steps to be with a particular girl, with devastating consequences. This is a film with several significant problems, but the biggest is probably a fundamental disconnect between its romantic and thriller elements. There’s an attempt her to recast a dangerously obsessive protagonist as a romantic hero and it really just doesn’t work. In fact, it’s so incongruous that at some point it’s justifiable to ask pointed questions about the filmmakers themselves and whether they’re being stupid or disingenuous in shaping the film to its final form. In any other movie, having a young man lust over a girl, setting fire to her house, going to a mental institution, being seduced by her mom, killing her father, pursuing her to Vermont and fighting her brother (even in a series of accidents) would be seen as, well, an outright villain. Or most likely a dark comedy if handled by sufficiently skillful filmmakers. Here, we’re close to full-on apologia at the protagonist just being romantic, up to and including her coming back to him at the end. You don’t need to look any further to understand how weird early-1980s films could be. It sounds like a nightmare when summarized, and it doesn’t feel any better when experienced one minute at a time. Except that you then spend two hours wondering what quirk of upbringing, touch of psychopathology or outright misanthropy from director Franco Zeffirelli would lead to such a badly ill-advised film. It’s this close to self-parody as it is that I wouldn’t mind someone actually taking one step further and making an actual parody out of it. Maybe they can even get a cameo from Tom Cruise, who here appears for the first time in a small but pivotal role.

  • Death Wish 2 (1982)

    Death Wish 2 (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) The original 1974 Death Wish was a piece of exploitation filmmaking relying on the revenge fantasies of its audiences, but it could at least point to the growing urban crime rates in mid-seventies American cities as justification. It clearly expressed something about its times and refrained from a number of excesses—There was a feeling, pervasive throughout many of the similar gritty urban thriller of the 1970s, that while satisfying on a primal level, this kind of revenge was not a good thing, either for the protagonist or for everyone around him. Sequel Death Wish 2 from a slightly different time, as the bleak realism of the 1970s was being transformed into the violent escapism of the 1980s. Relocating to bright sunny California, this sequel follows the mild-mannered protagonist (played by Charles Bronson, still one of the most confounding choices for an action hero) as his daughter (and maid; let’s not forget about the maid) are assaulted, raped or killed by hippie hoodlums. In keeping with series tradition (with Jeff Goldblum being in the first film in a minor role as a hoodlum), here we have Lawrence Fishburne in a small role as a hoodlum who assaults, rapes, kills, etc., all of the protagonist’s female acquaintances. Cue the bloody revenge, this time with far less soul-searching given that the protagonist has done this before and because audiences expect the kills rather than the personal anguish. Police are once again useless in the neon demimonde of L.A. at night, although there’s a nod to the events of the first film as the police suspect but cannot prove that our death-thirsty protagonist is behind the escalating mayhem. There may be something interesting in how the film must create a bleak universe of rampant urban crime in order to justify its ludicrous plot (read comments made by the film’s producer and screenwriter for some distasteful justifications) but the problem is that since 1982 we’ve seen this manoeuvre make its way from movies to national politics with terrifying results. The manoeuvre is transparent and as a result Death Wish 2 never earns the sympathy for the victims that would propel it forward. Instead, it’s laid bare for exactly what it is: an exploitative cash grab playing serious issues for not much more than cynical thrills.

  • Mannequin (1987)

    Mannequin (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2019) It’s one thing to remain open-minded to the possibility that a film’s execution would rescue an inane premise, but even that fog of possibility disappears after watching Mannequin: What? Were? They? Thinking? The premise is as dumb as it’s simple: What if a mannequin came to life in the presence of our protagonist? That’s it. Of course, the mannequin goes limp in the presence of another person. Of course, there are misunderstandings and caricatural business shenanigans and villains that seem to come out of a kid’s movie. But it’s not much of a comedy—despite a few bright spots, much of the film feels like a particularly dumb take on obvious material. Or at least that’s what happens when the film is not just weird for its own sake—I mean; that ancient Egypt prologue? Whew. At least Andrew McCarthy is likable, Kim Cattrall looks cute and Meshach Taylor gets a few laughs. It’s also interesting that a film would use downtown Philadelphia as its playing ground. But Mannequin never manages to take its premise and transform it into something more than the bare-bones minimum. The script is unimaginative when it’s not crazy (a bad combination), and the directing merely moves plot pieces around without going the extra distance. If Mannequin has any quality, it’s to show you the ground floor of what uninspired 1980s comedies felt like.

  • The Secret of My Success (1987)

    The Secret of My Success (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2019) In between Wall Street, Working Girl, Baby Boom and The Secret of My Success, 1987 (ish) was quite a year for Hollywood taking on the Manhattan corporate career path. This time around, we get Michael J. Fox as a corn-fed Kansas graduate heading to the Big Apple with the conviction of impending success and big bucks. Things soon take a turn for the worse, and he gets to barely eke a living out of a mailroom job. But you can’t keep an ambitious lad down, and before long he’s reading inter-office mail not addressed to him, taking over an empty office and making executive choices for his new company. Of course, I’m skipping over the whole sleeping-with-the-president’s-wife (who happens to be his step-aunt—it’s that kind of movie) thing. Or should I? Because one of The Secret of My Success’s most repellent aspects is how it makes a big deal of accusing its female lead of sleeping around while cheering the male protagonist’s escapades with lengthy sustained replays of Yello’s “Oh Yeah.” This being a comedy, hard work and perseverance take a back seat to Fox’s admittedly considerable boyish charm as he romances the ladies and schmoozes the bankers required for his ultimate success. Caricatures of corrupt business executives end up making the film feel like it’s aimed at kids despite the considerable sexual material. The result isn’t just hard to appreciate as a coherent whole as it zooms between get-rich glibness, sex farce and half-hearted romance: it’s a bit of a repellent mess when taken in as a whole (the protagonist’s lack of ambition beyond being rich also reflects poorly on its 1987 pre-crash nature). Of course, I’m now old enough to think that Helen Slater (then 24) isn’t nearly as attractive as Margaret Whitton (then 38), but I suspect that much of this has to do with each character’s hairstyle. Anyway: the point being that The Secret of My Success is the kind of film that is badly steeped into its time and not really in a charming way—more in a vaguely horrifying fashion that lays stark the moral degeneracy of the time as it blithely does not question its worst aspects. That’s quite a bit to lay down at the feet of what’s supposed to be a quirky breezy comedy but if thirty years’ worth of hindsight show, it’s that The Secret of My Success is far more corrupt than it realized at the time.

  • Summer School (1987)

    Summer School (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On TV, July 2019) I could have sworn that I had never seen Summer School before, but as the film unfolded the gory pranks played by two horror-loving characters seemed familiar. No matter; much of the rest of the film felt brand new, even as it showed a very familiar kind of comedy. The premise feels pure-1980s (even though a lot of it was reused in later movies such as 2018’s Night School) as a below-average gym teacher is asked to handle a remedial English summer program. The assorted characters found in his class are custom-designed to provide comic subplots, from the proud dyslexic black woman to the Italian exchange student to the teenage mom to the football guy to … and it goes on. Can they will all band together and outperform expectations? Yes! And that’s the movie for you. Highlights include a gory masterclass in makeup effects, Mark Harmon playing a Steve Gutenberg role, Kirstie Alley looking wonderful and … not much else. Formulaic and forgettable at once, likable yet empty, Summer School comfortably represents some kind of typical 1980s movies (surprisingly not too far away from Police Academy) but I really wouldn’t go as far as saying that it needs to be seen.

  • Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

    Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) As someone of the generation who count Bohemian Rhapsody as one of the greatest songs of all time (Wayne’s World is to blame, but doesn’t entirely explain why I insist the song has to play at my funeral), I was very favourable predisposed toward Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie adaptation of Freddie Mercury’s years with Queen. It does get going with a roar, as exuberant editing, terrific music and many directorial flourishes introduce Mercury on the cusp of his Live Aid set, then flashes back to the early 1970s for a look at how the band got together. It doesn’t take much of a knowledge of Queen’s history to realize early on that the film lies frequently and blatantly—from inventing a band’s breakup to rearranging events by years for maximal dramatic impact, Bohemian Rhapsody is also guilty of more fundamental issues—being written by the winners of the events described here, it presents the surviving member’s perspective on events: Only Mercury and his outcast partner do bad things (Mercury’s arc is one of apology and redemption), while the rest of the band argues and occasionally fights, but otherwise stand as far more reasonable bystanders to Mercury’s excesses. The hypocrisy here is staggering, but let’s not expect anything even close to an honest Queen biography unless the project is taken away from the band itself. It’s also often, especially early on, superficial to the point of being meaningless as a portrait of the characters. (It gets better later.)  Still, despite the blatant manipulation (riiight, Live Aid wasn’t getting any donations before Queen started playing), I actually had a really good time watching Bohemian Rhapsody—the music being predictably great, it doesn’t take much for the pacing of the film to attach itself to the beat. There are also showpiece sequences that give us a very dramatized but enjoyable recreation of how some of Queen’s biggest hits (may) have been created. The ten-minute sequence in which “Bohemian Rhapsody” is recorded, then discussed, then released to bad reviews and popular success, is a joy to watch. (The film gets a big meta-laugh from Mike Myers’s character claiming that teenagers will never bang their heads to the song.)  It’s all fanciful and often scattered and deliberately chooses to dilute its climax by recreating nearly the entire Live Aid performance in real time, dropping an expensively recreated concert movie in the middle of its biopic. Narratively, Bohemian Rhapsody doesn’t have a lot of freshness to it: It’s the same old tropes used in the same old ways, and the liberties taken with the band’s history only reinforce its familiarity. On the other hand, there’s quite a bit to appreciate here about how the possibilities of CGI and autotune now allow for a convincing recreation of an arena concert in full daylight with the actors recreating familiar tunes. It’s quite a ride, and it’s rarely boring. There’s a lot more to say about director Bryan Singer and the tumultuous making of the film (Singer was replaced from the film about three-quarter in its production when damaging allegations against him became public) but it’s not nearly as interesting as seeing the result, as loud and flashy as any movie about Queen should be. Rami Malek’s performance is mesmerizing, the look at the inner working of a band is frequently hilarious and it’s a pretty good time for anyone even remotely familiar with Queen’s iconic tunes. It’s a shame that Bohemian Rhapsody has to lie so much in making its point, especially when the real story is readily available at our fingertips and everyone will take delight in pointing out the film’s inaccuracies … but what can I say—Hollywood’s been like that for more than a hundred years by now, and it’s not going to stop messing with the facts anytime soon.

  • De Père en flic 2 [Father and Guns 2] (2017)

    De Père en flic 2 [Father and Guns 2] (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2019) As a French-Canadian cinephile who almost exclusively watches foreign movies (understandable: In good years, only half a dozen French-Canadian releases sell more than 100,000 tickets and even the local movie theatre shows maybe one French-Canadian release per month), it’s not unpleasant to go back to the homegrown stuff and watch a movie that speaks my language, takes place around here and features actors that I’ve seen over and over again. De Père en flic 2 has the distinction of being the most popular French-Canadian film of 2017, with roughly 680,000 admissions and $5M in grosses. It’s a relatively big-budget follow up to the 2009 original which was also a box-office success, and it features both veteran Québec movie superstar Michel Côté and wildly popular comedian Louis-José Houde as father and son cops who compete professionally to catch a mob boss. In an attempt to recreate the premise of the first film, the plot is shamelessly manipulated so that both protagonists find themselves at a couple’s retreat in order to get a confession out of their target. Since this is a mainstream comedy, De Père en flic 2 spends a third of its time on a passable cop thriller, and the rest on grimacing antics featuring a bunch of seasoned comedians milking the couples-therapy premise for all it’s worth. It actually works well … although I wonder how well it travels outside Québec’s border with its unapologetic French-Canadian blend of bilingual dialect, pop-culture references, familiar sights and uniquely local references. At least the film is decently paced, which is crucial for a comedy: aside from some weird editing and blurry CGI due to the film’s relatively low budget by American standards, writer-director Émile Gaudreault gets his jokes neatly lined up in a row and even manages to put together a few cinematic sequences (most clearly the dance sequence) on its way to the conclusion. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and favourably compare it to that other Québec cop comedy sequel of 2017, the far more disappointing Bon Cop Bad Cop 2.

  • The Bells of St. Mary’s (1944)

    The Bells of St. Mary’s (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2019) Hollywood has been obsessed with sequels for a long time, and following up Going My Way’s success with The Bells of St. Mary is as good an example as any that 1940s cinema wasn’t immune to the impulse. Reprising Bing Crosby’s Oscar-winning turn as a likable priest sent to fix a troubled Manhattan religious institution (he jokes, he sings, he tolerates mild amounts of teenage hooliganism), this sequel pairs him with none other than Ingrid Bergman as a nun who also has a lot on her plate in teaching her students. (If you needed any proof that Bergman was a top-tier beauty, consider that she remains captivating here through her face and hands alone, never taking off her nun’s outfit.)  Much of the plot has to do with the school being threatened by a businessman building a factory next door and coveting the school’s ground for a parking lot. Other subplots revolve around the school’s students. But there is no nice way to say it: The Bells of St. Mary’s is an inferior sequel to the original Going My Way. Crosby is an immensely likable presence, Bergman is great, the film makes sure to go for a heartwarming ending and the religious content is toned down to the point of being nearly irrelevant, but the film remains considerably duller than its predecessor. The drama has become superficial melodrama, with fewer captivating moments and if the result never quite overstays its welcome, it still feels longer than optimal. It doesn’t help that the subplots are assembled mechanically, with cheap resolutions that seem to ignore basic human impulses. (That subplot about a wayward father reuniting with troubled daughter and fallen-on-hard-times mother … yeah, no.)  The Bells of St. Mary’s does have a special place in history as 1944’s highest-grossing film, but it’s also a cautionary tale of how even massive box-office successes can fall in obscurity if they’re merely based on copying better material.

  • Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

    Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) The historical record tells us that Sylvia Scarlett was a notorious flop upon release; that it had a legendarily bad test screening; and that it helped send Katharine Hepburn’s career in a slump that would take five years to correct. And certainly, it’s a film with its share of flaws—starting with a herky-jerky plot that’s unpredictable not because it’s particularly clever, but because it goes from one thing to another without much forethought. There are some intensely weird mood swings to the story, as it goes from comedy to the death of a main character to once more into comedy. But it’s also a film with many interesting things, especially from a modern perspective. The biggest of those is probably the presence of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, both of them young and dashing and still developing the persona that would follow them throughout their career. Grant’s charm is a bit subdued under a Cockney accent and a character meant to keep audiences either guessing or seething. Hepburn’s turn is far more interesting, as the tergiversations of the plot mean that she spends about half the film in drag, playing a young man. She goes from long tresses to a boy’s haircut, with makeup accents meant to highlight her masculine features. It’s not a bad look, and she does sell the illusion despite being, well, 1930s world-class beauty Katharine Hepburn. Brian Aherne also does quite well as a deliciously likable character absolutely unphased by the revelation that Hepburn’s character is, in fact, a girl. One can see, however, that depression-era America may not have known what to do with the gender-bending comedy of the film (complete with real same-sex kissing and proposed perceived same-sex cuddling). Director George Cukor keeps things moving, but there isn’t that much directorial prowess to the 90-minute film. The comedy is more a case of chuckles than outright laughter: it doesn’t go the extra mile and never makes the fullest use of the elements at its disposal. The ending is odd—satisfying at a basic romantic level, and yet a bit scattered in the way it gets there. It’s perhaps best to see Sylvia Scarlett as a curio, an early showcase for two legendary actors, and also an early example of queer cinema at a time when the Hays Code was starting to crack down on anything outside heteronormativity. (One notes that Cukor was homosexual and that Hepburn was widely rumoured to be bisexual.)  By 1935 standards, Sylvia Scarlett may have been an odd flop—but today, it’s far more interesting than most other movies of the time.

  • Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)

    Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, July 2019) Blame my failing memory, but I assumed that Godzilla, King of the Monsters! was a sequel to the original Gojira, and nearly put off its viewing to another day after watching the original. But I didn’t, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that in its cinephile goodness, TCM had played both the Japanese original and its Americanization back-to-back. Godzilla, King of the Monsters! takes Gojira and reshapes its footage around new sequences featuring Raymond Burr as an American journalist who gets to experience the events of the film as part of his reporting. Extra sequences with Japanese actors talking with Burr are inserted in the previous film’s footage, providing a snappier rhythm (the film begins with catastrophic devastation, then flashes back in time to explain how we got there) and an accessible way for 1950s audiences to appreciate an unapologetically Japanese movie. Tall-and-wide Burr towers awkwardly over Asian extras as he describes the events unfolding, and even sort-of-interacts with some of the original characters through tricky editing. Despite the repetitiousness, it’s a far better movie if you’ve just seen the original as I did, as you can really appreciate the efforts that the American filmmakers went through in order to adapt the material to their target audiences. (History, hilariously enough, shows that this Americanization was more popular than the original in many markets, and even found its way back to Japan a few years later where it made a substantial amount of money.)  Some of Gojira’s most explicitly political (read; anti-nuclear) material did not survive the recut, but some of the best lines of dialogue remain. For today’s far more cosmopolitan audience, the idea of re-cutting a foreign movie with American content is tantamount to heresy, and it’s easy to laugh at the clumsiness of the attempts. But that’s missing the historical context: Without Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, there wouldn’t be much of a Godzilla cultural imprint in American society, and perhaps even less of an inroad from other Japanese filmmakers (including Kurosawa) in 1960s American film culture. It did the job at the time, and it does feel reasonably respectful even today: Burr interacts humbly with his Japanese hosts, and even if the spotlight is on him, he does not diminish the heroism of the Asian characters. The result is fascinating, especially if you can pair it with the original.

  • Gojira [Godzilla] (1954)

    Gojira [Godzilla] (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) I first saw the Americanized version of Gojira (the one with Raymond Burr) a few decades ago, but had clearly forgotten most of it given that a look at the original Japanese version kept most of its power to surprise me. [July 2019: Having seen the Americanized Godzilla, King of the Monsters right after this one, I can understand the reaction—the American version feels like a highlight reel of the original that cuts away much of the gradual buildup.]  Given that this is the original kaiju movie that spawned it all, it’s no surprise to find out that this Gojira feels very different from all the other ones. Made at a time when the conventions of monster movies did not exist, its first half-hour is a mystery that only gradually reveals the existence and then the shape of the monster, with much of the destruction occurring two thirds of the way through in order to provide a climactic ending that defeats the monster but feels much smaller than the citywide destruction that precedes it. There’s more human material than you’d expect, what with a romantic triangle and a tortured scientist reluctant to kill the monster. The special effects are rough and obvious, but they still have an effective earnestness that bests a lot of expensive CGI—the point being that the scenes where Godzilla goes to town, complete with atomic breath, are still effective enough to be worth a watch. It’s not possible to talk about this original Japanese Gojira without mentioning the social subtext that comes with it, released nine years after Hiroshima/Nagasaki and explicitly presenting the monster as a product of atomic blasts with the promise of more to come.

  • On Golden Pond (1981)

    On Golden Pond (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Popcornflix streaming, July 2019) I probably expected a bit too much out of On Golden Pond-the-movie as compared to On Golden Pond-the-career-highlight. For cinephiles with extensive knowledge of film history, every movie operates on at least two levels—the basic surface level of what we see and experience on-screen, and the way the film slots into the history of its genre, actors, and filmmakers. On that second level, On Golden Pond is essential: It’s one of Katharine Hepburn’s last great performances in a role that cleverly builds upon her own lifelong evolving persona; it’s Henry Fonda’s sole Oscar-winning performance; it’s an illustrated peek into the relationship between father and daughter Henry and Jane Fonda’s relationship; and it’s a major Oscar-winning movie. How could you not want to see a film with that kind of pedigree? I was there as soon as “Hepburn” was shown on-screen. But then there is the film, in which an old couple gets to care for their daughter’s new step-son during a summer at the cottage. Given that On Golden Pond is a theatrical adaptation, you can bet that the film is an actor’s dream with fully realized characters, strong dialogue, an undeniable thematic depth (with death and father/daughter relationships jockeying for importance) and a structure that allows for a lot to happen in a confined space and time. And yet, and yet, I think I was expecting just a bit too much. For all of Fonda’s fantastically cantankerous performance, witty bon mots and deathly obsession, I expected a grand finale for him—but the film is a bit too nice to get to the end of that thematic obsession. Hepburn is great, the Fondas are very good but the film does seem a bit too good-natured to truly get to the bottom of its themes. I’m as surprised as anyone to feel this way—I’m usually the first person to argue in favour of happy endings even when they’re not deserved. But it strikes me that this story had the potential to wring a lot more drama out of what it started with, and that it blinked in favour of far more superficial results. I’ll allow for the possibility that I’ve misunderstood the result or wasn’t quite in the right frame of mind for it. But it seems to me that the legend of On Golden Pond has outstripped its actual viewing experience.

  • A Place in the Sun (1951)

    A Place in the Sun (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2019) I had reasonably high hopes for mid-period noir A Place in the Sun and found myself … underwhelmed. The story of a man pursuing both a working-class and a high-class girl but accidentally killing the less fortunate one when she announces her pregnancy and dashes his hopes of marrying the richer girl (whew!), it’s a film that pretty much does what it says in the plot description. Coming from the depths of the Hays Code era, of course he doesn’t get away with it. It’s a remarkably middle-of-the-road premise for a noir, and it executes it about as competently as you’d expect. The big draw here is a very young Elizabeth Taylor, always stunning, as the high-class girl and Montgomery Clift as the man at the centre of it all, with Shelley Winters as the poor victim. But the exceptional nature of the film stops there. While A Place in the Sun is still watchable, it pales in comparison with many of its more daring (or exploitative) contemporaries. The social commentary is tame, the pacing is incredibly slow and the film can’t help but throw in melodrama when good acting would have sufficed. Any respectable film noir would have lopped off the entire courtroom sequence, going right from arrest to the electric chair, and the film would have been substantially stronger from it: said courtroom sequence adds nothing to the plot and actually distracts from the fatalistic theme of the film, or (as suggested by the title) the perils of American greed. But no; A Place in the Sun is determined to parlay it off all the way to the end. It did do very well at the Academy awards for its year, so at least it’s of historical interest. Still, it could have been quite a bit better had it not tried to be so respectable or overly faithful to its literary source material.

  • Sniper (1993)

    Sniper (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) There are times when Sniper feels like a throwback to the Reaganesque military adventures of the 1980s, merrily overthrowing Central American regimes for the heck of it. But as the film advances, it clearly attempts a deeper kind of story with two mismatched snipers, one of them inexperienced and nervous about actually killing anyone. Alas, Sniper doesn’t quite commit to this psychological exploration—before long, we’re watching a solid action film with inventive one-bullet kills (one of them through the scope of a rival sniper, of course) with a structure suspiciously feeling like a horror movie except with meticulously planned shots leading to the gory kills. Our two mismatched buddies do eventually learn to trust each other and become even better killing machines, so at least the film has that bit of machismo going for it. Despite my sarcasm, it’s an adequate film: Tom Berenger and Billy Zane do well in their developing relationship, with director Luis Llosa providing the expected thrills. Sniper is perhaps best known today for having spawned no less than six sequels, all of them straight to video and some of them even reprising the lead actors from the first film. This being said, this first instalment does feel stuck between two poles, being neither completely satisfying as a “fun” war adventure, nor as a psychological exploration of what it takes to be a sniper. The same material has, since then, been covered in far better movies such as Shooter, American Sniper or Enemy at the Gates. This leaves Sniper a bit redundant, although still reasonably entertaining on evenings where there’s nothing else on.