Marcia Gay Harden

  • The Maiden Heist (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2022) If you swear that you’ve seen The Maiden Heist before it even concludes, that may be because the “geezer heist thriller” has become a viable subgenre in the past decade (as aging stars struggle to maintain their box-office appeal), and especially since 2017’s Going in Style shares Morgan Freeman with The Maiden Heist. Of course, it’s not quite identical—here, we have elderly security guards at a New York City art museum being distressed at the thought of their favourite masterpieces being transferred to Europe, and engineering a heist to make sure they keep it for themselves. If that doesn’t sound too noble (art should be for everyone!), well… deal with it, because it’s one of the film’s main flaws. Freeman, Christopher Walken and William H. Macy all star as the three guards conspiring to keep their favourites from emigrating, with Marcia Gay Harden playing support. Thanks to director Peter Hewitt, the result is straightforward, even if the script feels slightly undercooked and can’t do much to paper over a not-so-compelling premise. With Going in Style, the heist motivations were transparently mercenary—here, the art thing feels like a contrivance. (Take a picture, we’re tempted to say: it will last longer.)  It’s certainly watchable—but I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell it apart from other similar films in a few months.

  • Spy Hard (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On Cable TV, September 2022) I remember paying good money to watch Spy Hard in theatres during its opening week, and getting nothing good out of the ordeal. For a Babylon 5 fan, the film’s sole highlight was spotting super-cute Shari Shattuck in a very short role—otherwise hearing Weird Al Yankovic sing the theme song over the opening credits. Still, it was a disappointment even then: By the 1990s, Leslie Nielsen’s spoof comedies were fast declining even if we viewers had no idea how terrible the genre would become by the late 2000s. Fittingly enough, Spy Hard was the first film co-written by the harbingers of the spoof apocalypse Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer—and as unimpressive a job they did here, they would do much, much worse over the following decade and a half. But Spy Hard is terrible enough by itself, with Nielsen sleepwalking through a weak Bond parody that doesn’t have much pep. (As many have noted, the opening song is funnier than the rest of the film, exploding head excepted.)  If Spy Hard has one overall saving grace, it’s that it’s dull, not actively unfunny like much of the later Friedberg-Seltzer catalogue. Gags still try to build a comedy with a distinct identity (rather than just as assemblage of re-created scenes), and there are occasional smirks. One of them would be Marcia Gay Harden in a sexpot take on Miss Monneypenny—something she reportedly regrets now, but actually feels funnier than in 1996 considering the oh-so-serious turn her screen persona later took. But the rest of the film? There isn’t much there even if you’re being generous. In historical context, Spy Hard is most remarkable as another entry in the downward trajectory of spoof comedies from their 1980s heyday to their 2010 nadir (and subsequent disappearance). That’s not something to be proud of.

  • Innocent (2011)

    Innocent (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2020) The main claim to fame for TV movie Innocent is being a belated sequel to the 1990 potboiler thriller Presumed Innocent (itself adapted from the bestselling 1987 Scott Turow novel). Well, that and an interesting cast, as Bill Paxton steps into Harrison Ford’s role, Marcia Gay Harden for Bonnie Bedelia and Alfred Molina for Raúl Juliá. Once again based on Turow’s own sequel, the premise is slightly ridiculous, as the protagonist is once again accused, twenty years later, of killing someone close to him—this time his wife rather than his mistress (although viewers of the first film will remember how it was the wife who killed the mistress, which would work in favour of suspecting him—except that the sequel doesn’t even seem to acknowledge that). It’s once again a complex legal thriller with murder, affairs and judicial shenanigans. It’s not uninteresting despite the contrivances, but still closer to a sequel cash-in than something that expands upon the themes and characters of the original—despite the better-than-usual production values, it’s still very much a TV movie. The twist at the end is rather pleasant, but it fulfills the expectation of a banger mic drop considering the example left by the first film.