Don Johnson

  • Book Club (2018)

    Book Club (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2020) Cinema should be for everyone, and that includes demographic groups far, far away from mine. Thus enters Book Club, a romantic comedy featuring and aimed at women of retirement age. As four decades-long friends have their mutual social life revolve around a book club, their newest pick is Fifty Shades of Grey, and things pick up from there—from rekindling loveless marriages to golden age online dating to reuniting with an old flame, Book Club keeps things at a naughty titter (which isn’t much, but it’s the thought that counts). Perhaps the film’s most valuable contribution is allowing a cast made of Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen (superb, no matter the age) to play against each other, and provide some representation for a demographic often neglected in mainstream cinema. (Let’s also admire the intricate joke of having Don Johnson play in a film where Fifty Shades of Gray is explicitly mentioned.) The material doesn’t rise much above mediocrity and the humour barely pokes at the PG-13 level, but Book Club is still somewhat endearing – this is a fun group of actresses, and they are apparently having fun here.

  • A Boy and His Dog (1975)

    A Boy and His Dog (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, April 2020) For prose Science Fiction readers such as myself, A Boy and His Dog is almost legendary—it remains the only major film adapted from one of infamous Harlan Ellison’s SF stories, and a particularly striking example of the kind of dystopian Science Fiction that was so popular in the 1970s before Star Wars came out and dragged the genre back to crowd-pleasing entertainment. Compared to those other downbeat 1970s dystopian films, however, the bleak weirdness of A Boy and His Dog is more interesting than most. It’s not only about a young man (a young Don Johnson) scrounging for survival in what looks like a devastated desertic world, but also about his telepathic dog-and-best-friend. After a lot of throat-clearing describing life in the post-nuclear wasteland, the film finally finds its groove underground—in a vast subterranean city where a warped vision of small-town pastoral America has taken root. Our protagonist is warmly greeted by the population, and it takes a while for him to realize what’s going on. The dog is witty. The ending is merciless. But this is an Ellison story—you know what you’re going to get and writer-director L. Q. Jones doesn’t pull his punches. Arguably more disturbing now than back in the 1970s (essay question: is today’s society more like the underground “Topeka” than upon the film’s release?—discuss), A Boy and His Dog is certainly not comforting entertainment—unarguably provocative and misogynistic, it’s thankfully a reflection of an earlier era and I’m probably not going to watch it a second time.

  • Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)

    Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On TV, August 2019) Now here’s something that younger generations may not understand: there were two solid decades, roughly 1975–1995, where the late 1990s were fiction’s “techno-thriller years”—a time where writers set stories that were a bit like the future but not too much. Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is a really good example of that: By setting their story forward in 1996, the filmmakers are free to imagine a slightly more dystopian future (no ozone layer!) with stronger corporate control and, crucially for the story, a new synthetic drug. The narrative gets started when two bikers rob an armoured van and end up not with cash but a substantial shipment of drugs that are, of course, property of corrupt corporate executives. As the title suggests, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man dives deep into the biker outlaw archetype, with Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke showing a much-inflated opinion of themselves as they strut around thinking that they are the epitome of cool. But the film is all attitude and bluster, and not as much fun thirty years later. There are some moments that stand out: Vanessa Williams and Tia Carrere have supporting roles (the first as a singer), the portrayal of mooks in bulletproof long coats seems prophetic of a late-1990s cliché, and there’s an occasional so-bad-it’s-good quality to the over-the-top dialogue and mindless action of the film. It’s also interesting to measure the results against familiar western archetypes, making an argument about bikers being modern cowboys. To be clear, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is not good, and nearly everything intriguing about it has been seen elsewhere. You also have to tolerate unearned machismo in order to even get into the film (although the opening monologue from a radio DJ rather efficiently sets the tone). But I’ve seen much, much worse, so at least it’s got that going for it.

  • The Hot Spot (1990)

    The Hot Spot (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2019) I don’t think that The Hot Spot is all that good a movie, but if you’re the kind of viewer who craves a bit of steamy neo-noir, then it will satisfyingly scratch that particular itch. The film, adapted by none other than Dennis Hopper from a 1950s novel, starts from the familiar premise of a stranger coming into a small Texas town and deciding to stay for a while. This being a neo-noir from the 1980s rather than the 1940s, there’s a lot more explicit sex and violence than its black-and-white predecessors, as our hero frequents a strip bar, befriends women played by Jennifer Connelly and Virginia Madsen, and gradually puts his plan in motion. True to noir, even a canny man of mystery is no match for the machinations of women with their own designs. The visual atmosphere of the movie does reflect the kind of torrid Texan heat best suited for the film’s subject matter. Don Johnson plays the protagonist with a certain stoicism not dissimilar from Kevin Costner, which does suit the film. Meanwhile, I may have been vocal before about how twenty-first century Madsen is more attractive than her younger self, but she looks really nice here (it’s the curly hair and the stockings more than the brief nudity). Meanwhile, Connelly is presented as innocence personified—misleading, but convincing. The pacing of The Hot Spot is a bit too slack for it to rank as a truly good 1980s neo-noir, but if you’re indulgent on that aspect then the film does deliver what it intended, and fans of the genre will find it very much to their liking.