Alex Datcher

  • Passenger 57 (1992)

    Passenger 57 (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2021) The mid-to-late-1990s still reign supreme as the best-ever era for big brash action movies, but the early-1990s were quickly putting together the pieces to get there, and transitioning from the dour 1980s buddy-cop clichés to the vastly more ludicrous style of the latter decade. Passenger 57 isn’t that good of a movie, whether you’re talking about an action film or a straight-ahead thriller: it’s got some weird ideas about spatial unity of action (going from the plane to a country fair and back), is slightly too enamoured of Wesley Snipes as its protagonist (although it did launch his career as an action hero), sounds dissonant with its jazzy score, and doesn’t seem quite so willing to exploit the elements at its disposal. Still, there’s some entertainment value in seeing Snipes as an overconfident air security expert dealing with a terrorist engineering his high-flying escape. As antagonist, Bruce Payne regularly out-acts Snipes by chewing scenery as if it was an onboard meal. The classic line “Always bet on black” is perfectly placed here, explaining its enduring appeal even for white guys like myself. Alex Datcher has a small but eye-catching role as a likable flight attendant, while you can spot Elizabeth Hurley as a supporting villainess. I’m still dubious about many of the script’s attempts to extend the action — the opening can sporadically slow, while the third-act detour off the plane seems out-of-place in a thriller that is otherwise centred around civil aviation. But it’s watchable, even if for the wrong reasons. There’s no doubt that the same concept would have been made very differently even five years later (case in point: Executive Decision and Air Force One), and so you can see in Passenger 57 one of the transition points between 1980s thrillers and 1990s action.

  • Body Bags (1993)

    Body Bags (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) Clearly a film by and for horror fans, Body Bags can best be described as another horror anthology movie (patched together from a failed proposal for an episodic TV series), with a moody framing device (John Carpenter playing a morgue worker messing around for the audience) setting the stage for three twenty-some-minute-long segments. The first is “The Gas Station,” featuring Alex Datcher as a student taking up a gas station attendant job in the middle of the night, and (rightfully) feeling scared when a killer is identified as prowling around. Directed by John Carpenter, this a rather straightforward action thriller segment is well-executed but familiar in its topic matter. The second segment, “Hair” (directed by Tobe Hooper), is somewhat more comedic, as a middle-aged Stacy Keach takes increasingly drastic steps to reverse his increasing baldness. It ends in creepy-funny material, although the abrupt end once the joke is explained seems unsatisfying—at least it takes the time to properly dissect the various reactions of its characters to encroaching baldness. The third segment, “Eye,” lands us in straighter horror territory as a baseball player (Mark Hamill with an unfortunate moustache) who lost an eye in a car accident is the recipient of a transplanted eye… who belonged to a serial killer. The eye predictably takes over with disastrous results. As an anthology film, Body Bags is not all that bad—but its most distinctive feature is its unapologetic appeal to horror audiences: There are tons of cameos from horror director here, and the tone is the kind of horror/comedy that reaches as far back as the early EC comics. It’s not world-changing entertainment, but it’s a chance to see a few familiar names having fun, and one of Carpenter’s last good films.