Film Review: ALAMO BAY (1985, Louis Malle)

Stars: 3.9 of 5. Running Time: 98 minutes. Notable Cast or Crew: Ed Harris, Amy Madigan (NOWHERE TO HIDE, THE PRINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA), Ho Nguyen (FINAL VERDICT), Donald Moffat (THE THING, TALES OF THE CITY), Caroline Williams (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2, THE STEPFATHER 2), Music by Ry Cooder. Written by Alice Arlen (SILKWOOD, THE WEIGHT OF WATER). Tag-line: "Alamo Bay. A place where everyone risked everything for a piece of the American Dream." Best one-liner: "Communist cunt!" Wow. Said by Harris to Madigan. 

 

More in the vein of his working-class documentaries than his arthouse fare, Louis Malle's ALAMO BAY was unjustly maligned by critics at the time of its release and has basically languished in obscurity ever since. I'm not suggesting that Malle is one of the most perceptive commentators on race in America, or that this film isn't at times a little ham-fisted in its approach (i.e., climactic shootouts), but there's a lot to like here. Ed Harris plays a racist Nam vet who wears confederate flag hats, works on a boat named the "American Dream Girl," and has the beard of a sub commander.

  

Ed is one of my favorite actors, and I was fully expecting to see glimpses of his now-classic 'Ed Harris as a crazed madman' role. Instead, Ed delves deeply and delivers a performance where he doesn't quite seem like himself at all- he genuinely transforms into a terrifying, real-McCoy redneck.  

He and a bunch of other white guys are fairly rankled that a bunch of Vietnamese immigrants are shrimping in their waters. At first, they have valid concerns- the newcomers engage in overfishing and ignore just about every rule and regulation. Of course, the native Texans haven't got a moral leg to stand on as soon as they make it 100% racial, enlist the aid of the KKK (via right-wing grassroots organizing), and start wavin' the guns around.  

Donald Moffat plays a grizzled, well-meaning, cigar-chomping entrepreneur who runs the only fishery that'll employ (or is that exploit?) the Vietnamese.

   

Moffat weighs some shrimp. 

Amy Madigan plays Moffat's resolute daughter and Ed's old flame (by the way, Ed and Amy are real-life husband and wife, and there's genuine, scary chemistry),  

a delicate predicament which could explode into violence at any moment, given the community's volatility.

   

Ed dances for the first time since CREEPSHOW. 

Ho Nguyen plays a newly-arrived immigrant whose callow enthusiasm belies his unwavering resolve; he's not about to let a bunch of douches with guns rule his life- he's already lived that nightmare before.

   

Ho, like the rest of us, is transfixed by the natural electromagnetic energy that flows between Madigan and Harris. 

Malle imparts his tale with quotidian realism: failing to obtain a loan at the bank, striking nets and sorting shrimp at sea, knockin' back a few Lone Stars at the bar... it's extremely vivid, and you can almost feel the briny sting of the seawater or smell that miasma of oily, piscine, sweaty deck odors mixed with the remnants of stale cigarettes.  

And in the world of ALAMO BAY, everyone has a got a beer in their hand at all times. Driving? Have a beer. Working? Have two. Going to church? You're gonna need a bunch of beers. You'd almost think this was a dive bar-topia if it wasn't for all the hate crimes. Ry Cooder's score is decent, but phoned in to the max– it's nearly an exact retread of his work on PARIS, TEXAS. He was generally making a much greater effort on the Walter Hill films of the day. Although, who knows? Maybe Malle told him to senselessly plagiarize himself. Also of note is a bit part by native Texan Caroline Williams (Stretch from TEXAS CHAINSAW 2, Lady in Truck from THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN, etc.) as a xenophobic bar waitress.

   

Caroline Williams serves some ice cold Lone Stars to some grassroots KKKers. Yeesh. Note the light-up Schlitz sign. 

In all, an atmospheric social drama which certainly deserves to be seen. Nearly four stars.

Film Review: JOHNNY HANDSOME (1989, Walter Hill)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Lance Henriksen, Morgan Freeman, Forest Whitaker, Elizabeth McGovern, Carpenter-fave Peter Jason, Scott Wilson (IN COLD BLOOD, THE GREAT GATSBY). Music by Ry Cooder. Based on a novel by John Godey.
Tag-line: "Revenge has a new face."
Best one-liner: "GEEK!"

Ah, Mickey Rourke. You gotta love a guy who frequently compared his party-heavy personal life in the 80's to HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH. Not 'HALLOWEEN,' not the 'HALLOWEEN series.' HALLOWEEN III. (That's the one where Irishmen, who have stolen part of Stonehenge, orchestrate a sinister plan to kill trick-or-treaters via evil, transformative masks.)

I like to think a little of that comes through, especially here in JOHNNY HANDSOME, one in a slew of masterful Rourke performances from the 80's. Rourke dives headfirst into a role that has him in turns channeling the disfigured John Hurt role in THE ELEPHANT MAN, the 'hood with a new face' Humphrey Bogart role in DARK PASSAGE, and the 'psychologically reformed' criminal Malcolm McDowell role in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.


Directed by action maestro Walter Hill (fresh off RED HEAT and EXTREME PREJUDICE); and co-starring sleazy cop Morgan Freeman, fresh-faced surgeon Forest Whitaker, Ellen Barkin (channeling a homicidal, Louisianian Cyndi Lauper),

and stone cold psycho Lance Henriksen (wearing sleeveless cowboy shirts and a giant earring), I feel like this should have been a masterpiece. But it's not. It's enjoyable enough, but it's difficult to enumerate exactly why Hill can't pull it off. It LOOKS great. DP Matthew F. Leonetti (POLTERGEIST, WEIRD SCIENCE) frames many shots wonderfully with neon, foreground elements, and shadows; recalling imagery of bandages being unpeeled from one's eyes. Ry Cooder (PARIS TEXAS, SOUTHERN COMFORT) delivers a solid, if not entirely appropriate, score. The story's sound, too, based on a novel by John Godey (THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1, 2, 3). But something fails in the pacing, and the story fails to truly congeal: by the end, you don't really care about the characters, and it's certainly not the fault of the actors. It's a solid enough little movie, but you can't help but feel that it had the potential to be a classic. Three stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: SOUTHERN COMFORT (1981, Walter Hill)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 106 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Keith Carradine, Brion James, Fred Ward, Peter Coyote, Powers Boothe, T.K. Carter, Michael Kane, David Giler, Ry Cooder
Tag-line: " The bayou has its own law... and they just broke it. " AND "It's the land of hospitality... unless you don't belong."
Best one-liner(s): "Voulez vous fuck me!"


Casper: "There's supposed to be a river here... "
Spencer: "Them ecology boys must've moved it."

Walter Hill strikes again. Along with John Carpenter, I would say Hill is one of the few working directors to truly continue the 'men bonding/entertainment as art/but with surprising depth' genre laid out by the likes of Howard Hawks and John Ford. Imagine DELIVERANCE meets APOCALYPSE NOW meets ALIENS, and you have a pretty good idea of what this film is like. And if it doesn't warm your heart to see Powers Boothe as leading man material before playing scores of skeazes and miscreants, then you probably don't deserve to see it happen, and here's a rap on the knuckles for good measure. The cast is immaculate: Boothe, Keith Carradine, Fred Ward, Peter Coyote, the cook from THE THING, and Brion James (the android from BLADE RUNNER who says 'Wake up, time to die'), among others.

The film also manages to have one of the most cogent commentaries on the whole Vietnam imbroglio I've ever seen. It brilliantly adheres to the whole Rod Serling school of thought whereby injecting elements of the fantastic and the familiar (while still retaining your subtext) can give the subject far more weight and poignancy than if you actually focused entirely on the topic at hand. See Twilight Zone episodes like "I Am the Night- Color Me Black" and "The Invaders" if this sort of commentary appeals to you. But don't worry, it's not as heavy as all that. It's also a slam-bang survivalist picture with enough paranoia, character development, and drably hypnotic bayou visuals to hold the non-theorist's attentions. It also goes damn well with some Cajun cookin' and couple of swigs of everyone's favorite bubble gum-smellin' whiskey-tastin' south of Mason-Dixon liqueur, which happens to share its name with the title of this fine picture.

-Sean Gill