Helen Slater

  • Ruthless People (1986)

    Ruthless People (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2020) Considering that I have long been a steadfast fan of the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (ZAZ) spoof comedies (Airplane!, Top Secret!), it’s a bit of a surprise that I managed to wait this long to see their Ruthless People. There’s definitely a reason for that, however: Ruthless People, compared to other ZAZ movies, is known to operate on a very different comedic register. It’s not a visually intense spoof, is far from being as absurd on a gag-to-gag basis and is far more character-based. I hesitate to call it more realistic, however, considering the incredibly dense and twisted nature of its plotting as a “simple” kidnapping case soon reverses the usual good/bad character roles and leads to some strange alliances, twists and counter-plotting. Milquetoast Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater star as disgruntled employees who decide to take revenge by kidnapping the wife (Bette Midler) of their boss (Danny DeVito), but things very quickly take a turn for the weird when the boss actively attempts to provoke the kidnappers into killing his wife. This is all in the film’s first fifteen minutes, and there’s a lot left along the way, including the jarring introduction of a serial killer who eventually ends up becoming a comic prop. It’s both disappointing (if you’re expecting the usual ZAZ goofiness) and better than expectations when compared to other comic crime capers of the time. There’s a pleasant density of plot developments, DeVito is at his most darkly unhinged, and Bette Midler is the force of nature that she is in her better roles. On the other hand, this is not as distinctive as other ZAZ comedies, and in a post-Tarantino world it’s not quite as intriguing as it must have been at the time. Pair it with Throw Momma from the Train for a fun Danny DeVito dark comedy combo.

  • Supergirl (1984)

    Supergirl (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2019) For the very first minutes, it’s obvious that Supergirl comes from an earlier, dumber period of superhero comics. The stupid stuff accumulates faster than we can object: Everyone is the galaxy is related to each other, plot devices quickly go from Krypton to a megalomaniac witch (!), and the film plays the fish-out-of-water card without much sophistication. The comedy is ham-fisted, and the plot drivers are meaningless to the point of being absurd. And yet, Supergirl isn’t a complete waste of time, and does actually improve after a weak first half-hour. Much of the credit goes to Helen Slater, whose turn as the titular Supergirl makes the most out of a bad script. Then there’s the blockbuster effect: Clearly a lot of money went into the film’s production, and while it’s easy to focus on the aged special effects and sometimes slap-dash staging typical of the time, there are a few interesting set-pieces along the way: the mid-film action sequence with a magically (eh) controlled crane does have a few effective shots of mayhem along the way. Unfortunately, the film never quite recaptures the energy of this middle sequence, sinking deeper and deeper in silliness until the conclusion. Supergirl was not a good movie even by 1984’s standards, but it’s a look at such 1980s productions that shows how much things have evolved in popular entertainment—there are script issues in here that wouldn’t pass muster today, and even bigger execution flaws that would get the film laughed even harder out of theatres.

  • 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.