Mark L. Lester

  • Stunts (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I keep wondering why there aren’t more movies about stunts, but there have been a few in the past, and Stunts is clearly one of the more earnest. Taking place during the production of an action film with dangerous set-pieces, it’s both a murder mystery and a look at stunt industry and the kinds of characters it attracts. Our protagonist is the brother of a stuntman who dies in the film’s opening sequence, highly motivated to find the truth and escape alive. Few genres are best-suited to the exploration of a subculture as the murder mystery, especially if the investigator gets to explore relevant aspects of the subculture. It’s in that context that Stunts finds its true calling, featuring characters and details to give enough of a flavour to larger audiences. The result isn’t perfect—in trying to marry the requirements of a murder investigation with those of an action film aping the shooting of an action film, Stunts often plays hard and fast with credibility versus convenience. It’s not completely successful at maintaining tonal consistency (where the tragedy of euthanasia co-exists with the obvious comedy of shotgun affair discovery) nor all that good at realism. But director Mark L. Lester makes it watchable, even entertaining if you lean into its origins as a B-movie thriller with a focus on behind-the-scenes material. It pairs up really well as an opener to the similar Reynolds/Needham comedy Hooper if you want some more stuntman fun. Were the later-1970s the high point of films about stunts? Maybe… but it doesn’t have to stay that way.

  • Class of 1999 (1990)

    Class of 1999 (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2021) Younger readers may want to note that by 1990, American society had experienced nearly four decades of an uninterrupted rise in violent crimes. There are many explanations for this (the best being the neurological poisoning brought about by lead poisoning — yes, really) that neatly dovetail with the crest seen in 1990, followed by a gradual and real decrease in crime that continues to this day. But my point is: if 1990 filmmakers now sound unbelievably paranoid and grim about society falling apart, they had their reasons. With a touch of exaggeration, those fuelled films like Class of 1999, in which violent crime permeates every facet of American society, including its high schools. Taking the madness of Class of 1984 (only tangentially related by having both been directed by Mark L. Lester) one step further, this near-future nightmare presents schools as warzones controlled by gangs who must be cleaned by any means necessary. So, naturally the next logical step is to send three military robots disguised as teachers inside the school and start disciplining the rebellious youngsters. Given that one of the robots is played by the ever-beautiful Pam Grier, I’m not complaining at all. Although I do have, oh, huge issues with the rest of the film. Clearly meant as semi-trash exploitation, Class of 1999 is never meant to be taken seriously, especially not when the climax consists in having students escape, trap and destroy killer robots hunting them down throughout the school. (I rarely quote Wikipedia plot summaries, but this is wonderful: “While they look for Christie and the teachers, they soon learn of the real situation with the teachers. Ms. Connors’ arm becomes a flame thrower. Bryles’ arm becomes a missile launcher.”)  There’s some ironic fun in watching a film with concerned scientists watching a classroom altercation through 1990 “high-tech” displays, but let’s not confuse this film with anything traditionally successful. Class of 1999 belongs far more to the 1980s than the next decade, and should probably be approached more as a semi-effective B-grade picture than anything particularly worthwhile.

  • Firestarter (1984)

    Firestarter (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) 1980s Stephen King adaptations span the scale from terrible to terrific, and Firestarter lands right in the middle of it, meaning that it’s both mediocre and bland. Anyone who has read the novel will be disappointed at how much of the humanistic material has been stripped away, leaving in its place a blunt blend of paranoid thriller, paranormal powers, secret government experiments and endangered children. Some of it does work, mind you: the father-daughter relationship is effectively sketched, and Firestarter remains more interesting than it could have been because it doesn’t settle for a simple chase narrative. Special effects are not bad for a lower-budget mid-1980s film, with some spontaneous combustion out of thin air. A very young Drew Barrymore stars, and much scenery is chewed by George C. Scott. Still, while much of what works here is taken straight from the novel, the film itself simply refuses to go anywhere beyond a mediocre middle-of-the-road adaptation. There’s little life to Mark L. Lester’s direction, and aside from a climax that appropriately burns everything up, the film has trouble sustaining the pacing that a thriller should have. I suppose that King fans weren’t too disappointed in Firestarter back in 1984—after all, no less than seven King adaptations were released in 1983–1985. Not all of them could be complete successes.