Stephen Lang

  • The Hard Way (1991)

    The Hard Way (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) Let’s face it: building a buddy cop movie around a hardened non-nonsense police officer and a frivolous Hollywood actor trying to gather inspiration is an evergreen premise. It’s good to bring in both the gritty policework and the innate humour of an outsider, along with a pinch of Hollywood satire. (It was such a solid premise, in fact, that it’s shared with that other 1991 movie, Into the Sun, about which the less said, the better.) Being able to claim John Badham as a director is a further coup, and having no less than James Woods as the hard-boiled cop and Michael J. Fox as the Hollywood celebrity is just icing on the cake. With Stephen Lang as the serial killer and Annabella Sciorra as the love interest (along with briefer roles for an ensemble as diverse as Delroy Lindo, Luis Guzmán, L. L. Cool J, Christina Ricci and Lewis Black), everything is there for a competent Hollywood film. The Hard Way more or less meets those expectations, with a few issues along the way. Woods and Fox play each other off quite well, even through the rote sequences of early distrust and gradual bonding. The film isn’t so successful as blending the menace of its villain (a bit overdone for a comedy) and feels creepy in its depiction of a cop regularly practising police brutality, but scores a few hits in describing how a Hollywood megastar can have a few problems “going undercover” when everyone knows their name. The metafictional material doesn’t stop there, what with specific problems when the investigation movies inside a movie theatre that happens to be playing the movie in which the actor stars, and a rather elegant envoi that blurs the lines between the film’s reality and the movie it inspired. Much of The Hard Way is rather predictable, but that’s not a bad thing considering the practised skill through which it’s executed. Less interesting are the three or four climaxes that cap the picture—two would have been enough, three is excessive and four gets ridiculous, even though the best and most interesting sequence is kept in reserve for the final climax. The Hard Way isn’t some kind of undiscovered gem or early 1990s classic, but it’s good enough and slick enough to please even despite its flaws.

  • Death of a Salesman (1985)

    Death of a Salesman (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) It’s kind of amazing that the 1985 filmed version of Death of a Salesman would be so widely regarded (and still replayed) today. It was a made-for-TV film and so prospects for its longevity weren’t exceptional—after all, there’s been five other filmed adaptations of Arthur Miller’s play so far, and that’s from a play that goofs around with very theatrical conventions. But this version happened to star two powerful actors (Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, even a young Stephen Lang) and earned an impressive list of accolades at the subsequent Emmys and Golden Globes. It’s still the most popular filmed version of the play, and the one most likely to be rebroadcast. While it can’t quite transpose the unusual conventions of the theatrical play to the big screen (what with its characters deliberately crossing over the symbolic décor, and playing along several timelines), it does some unusual and interesting things with its own staging, and certainly gets the point across. Death of a Salesman does not replace a good theatrical production, but sometimes (especially for such a glum work) a viewing at home is what’s indicated. The downbeat nature of the story is credibly rendered, and it’s a good thing that we’ve got at least one decent version of the story available on film.