Taylor Hackford

  • Against All Odds (1984)

    Against All Odds (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2020) As much as the idea of remaking classic noir film Out of the Past is promising, most will agree that Against All Odds ends up being a curiously inert romantic thriller. Clearly part of the 1980s trend of remaking noir movies, it’s perhaps too successful in loosely updating the material that it ends up feeling more like a generic 1980s thriller rather than carrying anything of its illustrious predecessor. Jeff Bridges is not bad (and bearded) in the lead role, while a young James Woods is quite creepy as the antagonist. Meanwhile, Rachel Ward does better than expected as a femme fatale with shorter curly hair, but she too does mark the film as mid-1980s vintage. The story advances forth through a trip to Mexico and back, sombre sport fixing schemes, assorted criminals and vengeful lovers, but remains middle-of-the road throughout. Workmanlike direction from Taylor Hackford doesn’t help. At a minimum, Against All Odds does hold attention and delivers a story of love, crime and death, but it’s nowhere near its Out of the Past inspiration, and doesn’t feel special in any way.

  • Dolores Claiborne (1995)

    Dolores Claiborne (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, March 2019) The history of Stephen King movies across the 1990s is … shaky, but Dolores Claiborne is not going to count as a bad one. Much of this success can be traced back to the original material, which (despite featuring murder in most unusual circumstances) lends very little freedom for filmmakers to go wild in bad ways. Keeping the tone close to the novel, screenwriter Tony Gilroy and director Taylor Hackford deliver a film that sticks close to reality—and thankfully so, considering the film’s themes of domestic violence and abuse: inserting supernatural elements would have been a distracting mistake. A great sense of place, in a small island community off the coast of Maine, certainly helps in creating the film’s convincing atmosphere. Dolores Claiborne is Kathy Bates’s show as she delivers a full-featured performance, but the supporting cast is unusually strong, what with Jennifer Jason Leigh as an estranged daughter, Christopher Plummer as a detective and a pre-stardom John C. Reilly as a policeman. There’s some skill in the way the film blends a modern-day timeline with flashbacks, complete with specific colour schemes and makeup. The eerie colour manipulation throughout the film—and most intensely in the eclipse sequence—clearly prefigures more ambitious (and now commonplace) efforts in current movies. The result, as skillful as it is, can’t avoid a few missteps that reinforce its melodramatic nature—the soundtrack is too insistent at times, adding far too much to something that didn’t need it. The slow start of the film reinforces the impression that it is too long and overdone—a shorter climax would have helped. Still, Dolores Claiborne does stand as a rather good adaptation of the King novel, despite taking a few justifiable liberties (notably in beefing up and adding more characters to the present-day frame). Dolores Claiborne is probably too often forgotten in the King filmography—not horrific enough, not necessarily fitting the mould of what people expect from him—but it’s a successful effort, and one that can still be watched with some satisfaction nowadays.

  • Parker (2013)

    Parker (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) Jason Statham can act quite a bit better than his usual screen personae allows, and while I do like his stock character a lot, it’s a shame that we don’t see him attempt more ambitious movies than cookie-cutter efforts such as Parker.  It’s not that Parker is badly made: Director Taylor Hackford knows what he’s doing and gives a nice gloss to his visuals –especially once the action moves to Miami Beach.  Statham is his usual gruff-but-charming self, while Jennifer Lopez gets a few comic moment as a desperate real estate agent.  But Parker really can’t rise above its generic nature: Not only has the “left for dead good-guy criminal seeks revenge” shtick been done to death, it has often been executed in far more economical fashion: For a film with such as straightforward plot, Parker overstays its welcome at nearly two hours –Lopez, nominally billed as one of the two lead characters, doesn’t show up until mid-movie.  It’s a bit of a shame that this first titled adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels is so generic: I recall Mel Gibson’s 1999 vehicle Payback with a lot more fondness.  (It’s not the only late-nineties to be favorably compared to Parker – it’s hard to see Lopez in this film without thinking about Out of Sight.)  The dead-end romantic subplot doesn’t help, and there’s a sense that much has been wasted in this hum-drum effort.  Ironically, the best reason to see Parker remains Statham himself –even in the most generic of vehicles, he remains curiously compelling.