Wilford Brimley

  • Brubaker (1980)

    Brubaker (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) Making a movie about prison reform, inspired by real-life events, isn’t exactly the most compelling subject matter. But make sure that your hero is a two-fisted reform advocate, pit him against an entire corrupt prison/town/state and given the role to Robert Redford and suddenly Brubaker gets far more interesting. Redford’s legendary charisma is well suited to his role, as he takes on an establishment that actively profits from old-fashioned prison practices. A gallery’s worth of character actors (including Yaphet Kotto, M. Emmet Walsh, Wilford Brimley and very young Morgan Freeman—recognizable by voice rather than by sight) are united against him. This being from a true story, don’t expect a triumphant ending: at most, the character gets applause and an end title card explaining the scandal that erupted afterward. Still, much of Brubaker’s entertainment value comes in seeing an incorruptible character uncover the vast web of old-boys corruption that surrounds the prison, and defending himself against attacks. It does make for dramatic intensity and narrative interest. It also represents a good entry in Redford’s filmography as a progressive champion, a role matching his political interest with his megawatt charm. Plus, he gets to shoot a shotgun, which isn’t to be neglected.

  • Absence of Malice (1981)

    Absence of Malice (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) We seldom get feature-length classes in journalism ethics, so Absence of Malice is a welcome entry in the genre. Featuring no less than Sally Field as a journalist with a dodgy sense of propriety, Paul Newman as an aggravated suspect singled out by the media, and Bob Balaban as a slimy underhanded District Attorney, this is a film that shows a complex dance between police, media, and private interests. It’s seldom glorious, but it does portray a nicely cynical view of the city newspaper desks of the early 1980s, with the “public interest” running afoul of private interests when unscrupulous individuals get involved. It’s a crime thriller, a newspaper drama, a doomed romance all at once. Wilford Brimley gets a short but spectacular role late in the film as the troubleshooter sent from Washington to untangle the mess and assign punishment—his folksy demeanour hides an iron mind and a determined fist. Meanwhile, Balaban plays a far less admirable version of his usual characters, while Newman and Field are up to their usual standards at the time. The atmosphere of Miami is well presented, and the period details are striking—I mean, the film begins with a montage showing us the minutia of publishing a daily metro newspaper, instantly endearing me. The rest of the film does toy with mounting curiosity as how it’s all going to play out—the script cleverly features first-act secrets, mid-movie coyness and final revelations hopping over each other, a sure-fire way to keep the audience interested. Absence of Malice amounts to a decent film—perhaps not a classic, but one worth revisiting even in these accursed times when the daily metro newspaper is regrettably becoming a relic of the past.

  • Cocoon (1985)

    Cocoon (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, January 2019) I remember seeing Cocoon as a kid, but considering the film’s themes of aging it’s very different to see it as a middle-aged adult. (There’s one shot in the film, in which “human skins” are discarded and thrown to the floor by the alien characters, that seriously freaked me out when I was younger.) Efficiently directed by Ron Howard, this is a clever blend of SF, romance and comedy as retirement-aged characters discover alien eggs and the rejuvenating effects of the pool in which they’re stored. Of course, the aliens are there for a reason and their minders have good reason to be concerned. The script cleanly moves between one mode to the other, gradually making its way to a sentimental action-driven finale. There’s a tremendous amount of irony and foreshadowing in Cocoon’s early lines, showing the craft in the script. This probably remains the best film in which Steve Gutenberg ever starred, although his acting simply can’t reassure up to the impressive elderly ensemble cast assembled in between Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy and others. Now that the baby boomers are taking over retirement homes, I expect the film to undergo a modest rediscovery as its themes of eternal youth directly addresses them. For younger viewers, Cocoon can occasionally be a meditation on growing old (and what people would do if there was an alternative), although it doesn’t forget to leaven the meditation with genre elements and comedy.