James Belushi

  • Thief (1981)

    Thief (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, May 2020) You can take a look at Thief and not immediately get how many things had to come together in exactly the right way for it to succeed. First up, you have writer-director Michael Mann in his feature-film debut, taking a few years of experience doing TV and applying a meticulous eye for detail at this drama featuring a master thief trying to get out of the business. There’s also the cinematography proper to an early Bruckheimer production, making splendid use of darkness and light to heighten what could have been handled as just another thriller. You’ve got James Caan, also precise in the way he plays a professional safecracker with an almost abstract idea of what he would do once away from the outlaw lifestyle. It features an able performance from Willie Nelson, as well as the big-screen debut of James Belushi and Dennis Farina. You have exact technical details, a strong sense of place for Chicago, some strong neo-noir style, plenty of elements anticipating Mann’s later movies (Heat, notably), and enough sordid details that not everything is settled by the film’s end. Thief is a strong debut for Mann, an intense role for Caan, and a great throwback watch for twenty-first century viewers.

  • Curly Sue (1991)

    Curly Sue (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2019) As much as John Hughes dominated the 1980s comedy landscape, his decline in the 1990s was rapid and definitive. Curly Sue earns a special spot in his filmography by being the last movie he ever directed, after which he focused on producing and screenwriting before gradually retiring from Hollywood. It’s not exactly a high note on which to stop, but you don’t have to squint to find the Hughes touch even in the middle of a strictly formulaic product. From the moment we understand the dynamic between the main characters (a middle-aged man and a young girl as a con-artist team) and meet the missing part of the triangle, there’s not a whole lot left for the script but to go through the motions of mawkish sentimentalism. But Curly Sue’s workable premise is hampered with execution issues. The film aims much younger than it should, and the caricatures in lieu of characters are fit to frustrate adult watchers. (Family films aren’t particularly good if the whole family doesn’t enjoy them.) The needlessly violent slapstick doesn’t help in grounding the weak result. In terms of actors, the result is a mixed bag. Much depends on the young Alisan Porter in the title role and she is fortunately up to the task. The same can be said of Kelly Lynch as a wealthy divorce lawyer. Alas, the film does depend a lot on the inexplicable confidence that 1990ish Hollywood had in James Belushi as a leading man—the film would have been significantly different with another actor in his role. There is some skill in the way the plot pieces are moves around, but Curly Sue is disappointing even for Hughes completists.