Peter Hyams

  • Timecop (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Streaming, October 2022) I have dim memories of watching Timecop in the mid-1990s, but few of them include much past the first third, and nothing at all after the first half of the film. Much to my dismay, this is probably going to be what I’ll say about this viewing as well in a few years: For all of the fun and games of the film’s first third, which delves into the criminal (and counter-criminal) uses of time-travel while showing a gently futuristic world, Timecop becomes increasingly generic the longer it goes on, all the way to a generic climactic showdown inside an isolated house. Jean-Claude van Damme does have one of his better roles here (in one of his best movies) as a, well, timecop who goes around apprehending people who go into the past for crimes. Don’t look too deeply into the film’s ideas—they get progressively more ridiculous the longer you think about them. But, for a while, Timecop maintains the façade of a fast-paced Science Fiction thriller. Ron Silver is deliciously slimy as a corrupt politician, while I did like Gloria Reuben in the too-short time she had on-screen. Director Peter Hyams keeps things moving just fast enough that we don’t ask too many of the questions that would puncture the film—in this case, running fast is better than running on cool. (My favourite/worst example is the rocket sled that sends people to the past, but disappears… when it doesn’t slam in a wall that’s there for no good reason.) Anyway—this is not a film for nitpickers: it’s there for fun, for van Damme doing the split to avoid being electrocuted (if you’re looking for a reason, might as well reach for that one) and for a minor mid-1990s vision of a future.

  • Narrow Margin (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2022) I will never fail to mention when a Hollywood film heads to Canada for an extended period of time, and Narrow Margin frankly surprised me by spending nearly all of its running time on a long train journey in the wilds of Western Canada. The thin but effective plot has a Los Angeles district attorney (Gene Hackman) reinventing himself as an action hero to protect a witness who could bring down a mob boss. The wrinkle here is that she’s hiding in a cabin “in Canada” and mob enforcers are doing their best to kill her. One escape from a cabin shoot-out later, the two are aboard a VIA Rail train heading to Vancouver on an overnight trip, with heroes and villains trying their best to best each other in a confined space. A rather more thrillerish version of Silver Bullet, this Peter Hyams film works better than I expected. The simple plot allows for a succession of suspense set-pieces, with a nice twist and some good action sequences. The film feels proud of its Canadian setting, and the confined settings work well in creating suspense. Anne Archer looks quite cute in curly red hair, while Hackman is only slightly ridiculous as an improvised action hero. The cinematography (also from Hyams) takes full advantage of the train rolling through the Canadian wilderness, and I liked the way a 1990 film managed to re-create the romance of classic Hollywood trains of earlier decades. (The film is a remake of a 1952 film, but doesn’t feel too much like it.)  In other words, Narrow Margin is the kind of solid but not overly spectacular thriller that may be forgotten in time but still manages to satisfy upon discovery.

  • The Musketeer (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2022) Every era gets the Three Musketeers film adaptation that they deserve, and so the early 2000s were about personal heroics and wire-fu action sequences. Directed by Peter Hyams (still a solid action director at the time, albeit definitely losing his touch), this version of Dumas’ d’Artagnan cycle differs from others in three main ways: it focuses on D’Artagnan to the comical downplaying of the other musketeers, creates an action villain out of Richelieu’s shadow and integrates some 1990s Hong Kong action movie clichés into the inevitable action sequences. (Alas, this is only fully realized in the wild ending action scene set in a ladder-laden warehouse—the rest of The Musketeer is more sedate.)  Digital production techniques are also used to give a more convincing sheen to the historical re-creation, although it doesn’t compare to the work later overseen by Paul W. S. Anderson in his steampunk 2011 version of the same source material. You would think that Hyams plus Hong Kong wire-work plus the innate appeal of Dumas’s novel would inevitably lead to something at least mildly enjoyable… but no. The result is both dull and incoherent, briefly coming to life in its final action sequence, which is far too late to five a good overall impression. Justin Chamber is a dud as d’Artagnan, although some of the cast around him (Tim Roth, Stephen Rea, Mena Suvari, Catherine Deneuve) does have some appeal. It seems amazing that a film would do so little with what it had at its disposal, but there you go—it’s neither the most faithful, the most fun, the most spectacular or the most well-rounded version of the Dumas novel. If you see The Musketeer somewhere and must see it, fast-forward to the final action sequence and you will have experienced the best that the film has to offer.

  • 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

    2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) The most common criticisms of 2010: The Year We Make Contact usually compare it to its illustrious predecessor and find it wanting. This, of course, is damning a film with excessive expectations: While 2010 is no transcendental experience like 2001: A Space Odyssey was, it’s a terrific science-fiction adventure with one heck of a send-off. It has the joy of the kind of nuts-and-bolts hard Science Fiction that I used to read by the truckload a decade or two ago—starting with the Arthur C. Clarke novel from which the film is adapted. Even the mid-1980s visual sheen to the film, grimy and realistic in the tradition of somewhat realistic Science Fiction, is a welcome sight. The plot takes a while to get going and usually operates at half-speed, but it does blend a delicious mixture of mystery, suspense, Cold War stakes and mind-blowing concepts. I particularly enjoyed the suspenseful sequence midway through in which two astronauts board the deserted Odyssey from the first film, their breathing setting the pacing of the action. The special effects are still good, even incorporating early photorealistic CGI in portraying the transforming Jupiter. The lead cast is star-studded, from Roy Scheider as the protagonist scientist, Bob Balaban as an AI expert of dubious loyalties, John Lithgow as an engineer pressed into service as a space traveller, and the timelessly beautiful Helen Mirren as a Soviet commanding officer. Writer-director Peter Hyams is near the top of his filmography here, keeping action going at a slow burn. The film’s science is not bad at a few gravity-related exceptions, but then again those effects were nearly impossible to do convincingly in a pre-CGI era. All in all, I really enjoyed 2010—it’s not 2001, but then again only one movie is 2001. This is an entirely acceptable follow-up, and a solid space adventure in its own right. There are even no less than two Arthur C. Clarke cameos!

  • Running Scared (1986)

    Running Scared (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, March 2019) So, there was apparently an effort in the mid-1980s to make Billy Crystal an action-comedy star? Well, why not: it was his biggest decade on the big screen, and who can blame studios for trying all sorts of things? He certainly won’t be remembered for Running Scared, a standard 1980s buddy-cop film in which our two cowboy cop heroes go around Chicago shooting and blowing up everything the producers could afford. It even comes with all the banter, police brutality, car chases and Uzi-toting drug dealers they could round up. Casting is hit and miss: While Crystal is fine with the banter, his limitations as an action hero are apparent, while the well-matched Gregory Hines does very little tap-dancing but feels significantly more rounded both on the comedy and the action side. Still, there’s enough blood and mayhem to prevent Running Scared from being a pure comedy: With Jimmy Smits on drug dealer role duties, the film does often feel a bit too spread between its successful comic dialogue (even awkwardly translated in French) and its less-successful action beats. Director Peter Hyams makes good use of the Chicago setting with a chase sequence involving the El, but on the flip side he ends up using some of the worst snow ever put in a studio film. There’s little point in getting incensed about it, or any other aspect of Running Scared’s production: the film feels forgettable even as you watch it, and it probably would have been completely forgotten if it wasn’t for Crystal headlining.

  • Capricorn One (1977)

    Capricorn One (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2017) I’m not that fond of anything bolstering moon landing hoax conspiracy theories, and Capricorn One (despite technically being about a faked Mars landing) is one of the codifiers of that particular delusion. But let’s not blame a glum seventies thriller for contemporary idiocy—and let’s recognize that the film, one of veteran writer/director Peter Hyams’s first popular successes, still has a modest kick to it. Much of Capricorn One’s first half is a procedural thriller explaining why and how a Mars landing would be faked, and the reasons why the astronauts would go along with it. Then, landing successfully faked, it switches gears to a more familiar conspiracy thriller, keeping a trio of desert chases for its third act. The conspiracy itself doesn’t make a lot of sense (although it is good for a few vertiginous moments, such as the lengthy shot that gradually pulls away from a helmet to encompass the studio in which everything has been broadcast) but the film does get better with its thrills as it goes along. Highlights include a first-person runaway speeding sequence through a city that feels viscerally dangerous, and an extended air chase sequence toward the end that rivals anything produced since then. Hyams is a canny filmmaker, and it shows through a film that occasionally feels as gripping as it must have been back then. There are also a few good actors: Hal Holbrook is remarkable as a man who ultimately has to fake everything in order to keep his dream alive, whereas Elliott Gould is in fine form as an unlikely action hero. (For more of Gould as a dashing lead, have a look at the rather good Canadian-made thriller The Silent Partner, also released the same year.)  O.J. Simpson and James Brolin also show up as astronauts, even though they’re severely underwritten. While Capricorn One could have been tightened up considerably, it’s decently enjoyable as it is. I’m not asking for a remake, though.