R.I.P., Yaphet Kotto

R.I.P. to the inimitable Yaphet Kotto, whose rogue's gallery of bold, funny, scary, lovable, and offbeat characters left an indelible mark on studio pictures, the art house, and genre film alike. He's been eaten by the Alien. Headlined seven seasons of HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET and cameoed on THE WIRE. He's beaten the shit out Freddy Kruger with a ball bat. He's dropped grenades from a cropduster while blasting James Brown in order to help save Gary Busey (in EYE OF THE TIGER). He's run alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger on futuristic gladiatorial TV. He's played Othello. He's worked with Paul Schrader, Larry Cohen, William Wyler, and Rod Serling. He's played a Bond villain. He's even been on MURDER, SHE WROTE. Standout performances include BONE, BLUE COLLAR, MIDNIGHT RUN, ACROSS 110TH STREET, and the aforementioned ALIEN.  You can see him deliver award-worthy performances in less prestigious fare like EXTREME JUSTICE, THE PARK IS MINE, THE RUNNING MAN, and TRUCK TURNER. You can even see him uncovering the racial bias of NYC cabbies in a notorious segment from Michael Moore's TV NATION. He was a one of a kind badass, a profound and sincere actor whose performances could turn on a dime from the brave to the sinister to the comical, and he'll be deeply missed.

Film Review: MIDNIGHT RUN (1988, Martin Brest)

Stars: 5 of 5.

Running Time: 127 minutes.

Tag-line: "Taking the midnight run is a hell of a way to make a living."

Notable Cast or Crew:  Starring Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin (BEETHOVEN, ROSEMARY'S BABY), Yaphet Kotto (ALIEN, BLUE COLLAR, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 6: FREDDY'S DEAD), John Ashton (BEVERLY HILLS COP, SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL), Dennis Farina (THIEF, MANHUNTER, GET SHORTY), Joe Pantoliano (THE GOONIES, RISKY BUSINESS, BOUND, THE SOPRANOS), Jack Kehoe (THE UNTOUCHABLES, SERPICO), Wendy Phillips (BUGSY, THE WIZARD), Philip Baker Hall (SECRET HONOR, HARD EIGHT), Fran Brill (WHAT ABOUT BOB?, Jim Henson crony and puppeteer and voice of "Prairie Dawn"), Tracey Walter (REPO MAN, BATMAN, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS).  Directed by Martin Brest (BEVERLY HILLS COP, SCENT OF A WOMAN).  Written by George Gallo (WISE GUYS, BAD BOYS).   Music by Danny Elfman (BATMAN RETURNS, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS).  Cinematography by Donald E. Thorin (THIEF, TANGO & CASH).

Best One-liner: "Why are you so unpopular with the Chicago police department?"

Let's talk MIDNIGHT RUN– undoubtedly, it's one of the funniest, most artistic, best-written, and best-acted buddy movies of the 1980s, or perhaps ever.  It was recommended to me for years (and most successfully so by J.D.'s terrific writeup over at Radiator Heaven), and I must say it was well worth the "Very Long Wait" it endured in my Netflix queue.  It's a road trip-buddy movie without clichéd characterizations, and each and every role and setpiece feels lived in.  In a year (1988) where one of the most acclaimed films (RAIN MAN) was a cloying and much less successful riff (in my opinion) on the convention, MIDNIGHT RUN has become a kind of sleeper classic, and one that I believe truly stands the test of time.

The plot is simple, but there's a lot of moving parts– consequently, even before we get to the characterizations it's a little more complex than the usual potboiler:  a sleazy bondsman (Joe Pantoliano) unwittingly posts bail for an accountant (Charles Grodin) who has embezzled $15 million from a ferocious mob boss (Dennis Farina).  With mafia assassins after him, Grodin has jumped bail and escaped cross-country, therefore Pantoliano employs a bounty hunter (Robert De Niro) to track him down in the five days he has left before he defaults on the massive bond.  Finding Grodin is only half the battle, however– De Niro must bring him back, alone, and he faces stiff competition from a dirty bounty huntin' rival (John Ashton), a single-minded FBI agent (Yaphet Kotto), the aforementioned mafia assassins,  double-crossin' informants, and even a helicopter.
 
 
 In what is possibly the best De Niro vs. Helicopter scene in all of filmdom. 

Whew.  And there's so many shifting allegiances and players, it's practically Shakespearean.  (Or at least GAME OF THRONES-ian.)  And I must say that it roughly does for bail bonds and bounty hunters what REPO MAN did for that occupation; a seedy and offbeat journey across the American underbelly.  I wish they made more films like this.

At the center of all this scheming and law-bending is the relationship between De Niro and Grodin (which, as J.D. astutely points out in his review, builds an atypical comedic relationship with two 'straight' men, eschewing the funny/zany guy), and boy, is it a doozy. 

We watch them (successfully) get on each other's nerves for nearly two hours, usually by petty and/or absurd means,

 
but something spectacular happens along the way:  it turns into one of the better character studies of the decade.

You expect De Niro, pre-"phoning-it-in era," to be excellent, and he is.  And the way he naturally takes to the comedic role, particularly in his improvisations, is admirable.  At one point, Grodin's character accuses him of having "only two forms of expression: silence and rage."  While this may be true, De Niro gives us each and every color of those respective rainbows––it's like how they say the Inuit language has over two hundred different words for snow: De Niro has at least that many ways to express silence and rage!

I must say that this movie transformed my understanding of Charles Grodin.  I suppose I'd become used to thinking of him as "the dad from BEETHOVEN who was in ROSEMARY'S BABY when he was really young," but holy Toledo– the man can ACT!

The choices he makes are spectacular– you know him, and you believe he's real, but you can't fully read him- he's wise, yet high-strung; paranoid, yet zen.  You get the idea that he just might be the smartest guy in the room, but you're unaware of his actual plan; like Michael Emerson's character on LOST but with an air of benevolence instead of menace.  He's always working an angle, and you can see it playing across his face, especially when nobody's looking.

His general demeanor is "disappointed" and nearly uninvolved, but make no mistake, he's heavily invested.  In who or what, I shall not say.

Then there are all these beautiful, understated moments of pathos and verisimilitude that pepper their journey.  De Niro has fleeting reunion with his ex-wife and daughter, and as it happens, we're really witnessing two scenes:  the foreground with De Niro and his daughter, and the background with Grodin and the ex-wife (Wendy Phillips). 

A lot of actors would have stood around while the main action played out, but not in this movie!  The word of the day is "subtlety."  Enrichment without pulling focus.

Shortly thereafter, there's a peculiar, tender moment as De Niro leads Grodin back to the car.  You could say it is a prisoner being led by his captor; you could say it's two opposing forces about to be confined in a single space; you could say it's two human beings compelled into an uncomfortable position because of pressures beyond their control.  No matter what you say, there's a sad dignity in the following, oddly paternal gesture whereupon De Niro repositions Grodin's overcoat so it doesn't get caught in the car door.



And that is the film in a nutshell.  Many movies are simply a collection of scenes, and the makers are interested in getting from point A to B to C.  If a journey by car is required to get from A to B, they'll put on their workgloves and hammer out a segue.  It risks becoming a chore, a time-filler, a necessary evil.  Here, that's not so.  MIDNIGHT RUN breathes life from every pore, it's teeming with an authenticity that cannot be contained.  Slamming a car door becomes an opportunity for character development, enlightenment, truth– not simply an audiovisual cue that we're about to move from one location to another.  This is just one example out of dozens: I can already tell you that this film will reward multiple viewings.

Now, I don't want to give too much away– especially because, as the film progressed, I found myself legitimately not knowing how it was going to end.  Do you realize how rare that is in an 80's buddy/action/crime/comedy?  Such a thing must be savored!


In closing, here are ten bits of my beloved minutiae that I must mention in order to properly sing MIDNIGHT RUN's praises:


#1. Yaphet Kotto.  Hell yes, Yaphet Kotto.  Master of the slow burn.


I've never not loved a scene that starred Yaphet Kotto, from LIVE AND LET DIE to ALIEN to THE RUNNING MAN to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 6: FREDDY'S DEAD.  His big, watery eyes are slow-cookin' with gentlemanly rage. 

He plays it so deadpan, I suppose you could make the argument that he's the true straight man of the piece.  Carry on, Yaphet.

#2.  Danny Elfman's score.  It is the least-Danny Elfmanish Danny Elfman score ever.  It's like honkytonk Ry Cooder meets a Huey Lewis and the News karaoke track.  It's beautiful and terrible both, and it's still stuck in my head.

#3.  Joey Pants.  Mr. Pantoliano himself.

His stash of money in his pink socks, his terrible late 80s patterned shirts, his shit-eating grins, his sweaty combovers, his ratlike countenance– has anyone ever been better suited to play a bailbondsman?  Perhaps not.

#4.  Apparently the studio wanted George Gallo to rewrite the screenplay to accommodate Cher in the Charles Grodin role.  When that didn't work, they were pulling for Robin Williams.  Obviously, given the perfection of Grodin's performance, in either case it would have been a real movie killer.  I just physically shivered.  I don't even want to think about this.

#5.  Philip Baker Hall (SECRET HONOR, BOOGIE NIGHTS, DOGVILLE) as a Las Vegas mob associate named "Sydney."

Fans of P.T. Anderson's HARD EIGHT (aka SYDNEY) will note that he plays a washed-up Las Vegas gambler also named Sydney in that particular film.  I realize that the continuity isn't perfect by any means, but seems like a little more than a coincidence.  I'm just going to pretend it's an official sequel, and don't try to stop me.

#6.  Cult maniac Tracey Walter (REPO MAN, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, CONAN THE DESTROYER, BATMAN '90, RUMBLE FISH, THE HAND) as the proprietor of a greasy spoon diner.

That is his natural habitat, and all is right in the world.

#7.  The "litmus configuration" scene (I will say no more of the specifics) is a mini-masterpiece of actors playing characters who in turn are "acting."  Every element of the scene: the improv, the near crack-ups, the locale, the bystanders– it's perfection. 


I think it even quietly transcends the classic "I hate rednecks" bar scene from 48 HRS., another classic buddy movie moment similarly founded on some harmless flim-flammin'.

#8.  John Ashton.  As an endearingly diabolical rival bounty hunter, John Ashton officially won me over with this movie.  I'd probably seen him in half a dozen other roles (including BEVERLY HILLS COP, BREAKING AWAY, BORDERLINE, and SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL)

but only here did I see his acting chops on full display.  You love to hate him, and he never lets up– though he's imbued with a few streaks of pathos that wouldn't usually be afforded to such a character.

#9.  Dennis Farina.  I suppose this movie is ostensibly a comedy, thought I hope I've adequately made the argument that that's not entirely the case.  That fact is never more clear than when we get to sit down and meet Dennis Farina's mobster, up close.  He starts tossing around death threats

and for a moment the movie turns legitimately scary.  I applaud this.

#10.  Another cross-country fugitive road trip movie, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, gets a nice nod when Robert De Niro chases a crop duster– instead of the other way around.


I was speechless when I witnessed that moment, and speechless I shall remain.  

But before I go, let me say:  Five stars... and bravo!

–Sean Gill

Film Review: TRUCK TURNER (1974, Jonathan Kaplan)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 91 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Isaac Hayes (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA), Yaphet Kotto (BLUE COLLAR, ALIEN, FREDDY'S DEAD, BONE), Scatman Crothers (THE SHINING, FRIDAY FOSTER), Dick Miller (GREMLINS, BUCKET OF BLOOD), Alan Weeks (SHAFT, BLACK BELT JONES), Nichelle Nichols ('Uhura' on STAR TREK), Charles Cyphers (DEATH WISH II, HALLOWEEN, THE FOG), Matthew Beard ('Stymie' from THE LITTLE RASCALS!). Music by Isaac Hayes.
Tag-lines: "Black, bold, and bloody mean!"
Best one-liner: "Anybody ask you what happened, tell 'em you been hit by a truck: Mac 'Truck' Turner!"

If Jack Hill's COFFY is Queen of the Blaxploitation flick, then TRUCK TURNER is King. Originally designed as a Robert Mitchum (!), and then a James Coburn (!!) vehicle, one thing led to another and American International modified it to fit the mold of their other, 'urban' successes like SLAUGHTER, BLACK CAESAR, HELL UP IN HARLEM, et al. It becomes a wild sprint from start to finish- outrageous fashions, hostile language, splurting bullet wounds, and sassy, sassy tambourines.

Isaac Hayes IS "Mac 'Truck' Turner."

What he lacks in acting chops, he makes up for in sheer badassery and wanton cheekiness. The film begins with a very 'Philip Marlowe'-style scene (suddenly the Mitchum connection makes a little more sense). Our charmingly disreputable hero wakes up in his ramshackle L.A. apartment. His cat trots around, playfully. He moves to put on a shirt. It's the place where Marlowe would say something witty and sardonic about the previous night's exploits. Instead, we have: "Francis, I forgot to feed you last night. I'm sorry about that––YOU PISSED ON MY SHIRT! My last goddamned shirt! You punkass son of a bitch! Get your ass offa here!" And he tosses the cat off the bureau.

"You punkass sonofabitch!"

Whew. I think it's safe to say that in the alternate universe where I control the outcome of the Oscars, this would've at least won Best Screenplay. We got an obligatory women's prison scene; Scatman Crothers as a semi-retired pimp who enjoys Créme de Menthes while reclining on wicker furniture on a well-manicured lawn:

a pimp's funeral that involves a procession of increasingly ludicrous costumes (a sequined eye-patch! a rainbow clown wig!):



the most pleasantly surprising hospital scene until BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO:

The sharp-eyed viewer will note that Yaphet Kotto has taken a toddler hostage, then in a display of gratuitous violence knocks over a porter and a wheelchair-using man– just for the hell of it!

and an oddly transcendent death scene that makes me wonder if Terrence Malick was on set for a day. Then, there's car chases that put films with ten times the budget to shame:

nearly as much beer consumption as WHITE LINE FEVER:

and...Dick fuckin' Miller!

Joe Dante would be proud.

But the real stars may be our villains: Yaphet Kotto (BONE) and Nichelle Nichols ('Uhura' on STAR TREK) deliver bold performances that perfectly alternate between nuanced and over the top. Yaphet, always a treasure, is pimped out in... well, a pimp outfit:

and matter-of-factly delivering brutal disparagements, punches to the guts, and at one point, actually spitting in OUR face!

Put-tooey!

Nichols rolls in wearing an iridescent white super-flared polyspandex pantsuit with a bikini top:

making exclamations like "THIS AIN'T SEARS ROEBUCK, NIGGAH!" and otherwise distancing herself from the calming presence of STAR TREK's Uhura by delivering brilliant monologues such as the following:
"Your ass belongs to me, I tell you what you can and can't do with it. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? Shut up! Now all you whores sit down, I wanna talk to you. Anybody thinking about leaving here is gonna find my left foot square up their ass, do you understand me? Shut up, ya chunky whore. I'm talking to you!...


...Those two bitches that left they better learn to sell pussy in Iceland because if I ever see them again, I'm gonna cut their fucking throats. Hey! We are a family. And that's what we're gonna stay. Now I got important business out there today. So when I call you I want you to shake yo asses proper, ya hear? HUH! Now get out there and make it look good. And Raquel, take that fucking jacket off!"

Sheer genius. And for those who are still skeptical- I offer these two sublime clips which I've entitled, A. "Naw I'm indestructible!" and B. "What about me?" –"What about you?":


A.


B.



Clearly, this movie deserves five stars.

-Sean Gill

Junta Juleil's Summer '10 Movie Series
1. HELL IN THE PACIFIC (1968, John Boorman)
2. KUFFS (1992, Bruce A. Evans)
3. THE OUTFIT (1973, John Flynn)

4. FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY (1981, Eddie Nicart)

5. A*P*E (1976, Paul Leder)

6. BLIND FURY (1989, Philip Noyce)
7. HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951, John Farrow)
8. HIGH SCHOOL U.S.A. (1983, Rod Amateau)
9. DR. JEKYLL AND MS. HYDE (1995, David Price)
10. MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (1997, Clint Eastwood)
11. 1990: BRONX WARRIORS (1982, Enzo G. Castellari)
12. FALLING DOWN (1993, Joel Schumacher)
13. TOURIST TRAP (1979, David Schmoeller)
14. THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1973, Richard Lester)
15. BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986, John Carpenter)
16. TOP GUN (1986, Tony Scott)
17. 48 HRS. (1982, Walter Hill)
18. ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (2003, Robert Rodriguez)
19. TALES OF THE CITY (1993, Alastair Reid)
20. WHITE LINE FEVER (1975, Jonathan Kaplan)
21. 99 AND 44/100% DEAD (1974, John Frankenheimer)
22. LET'S KILL UNCLE, BEFORE UNCLE KILLS US (1966, William Castle)
23. TRUCK TURNER (1974, Jonathan Kaplan)
24. ...

Film Review: EXTREME JUSTICE (1993, Mark L. Lester)

Stars: 3.7 of 5.
Running Time: 96 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Scott Glenn (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, W.), Lou Diamond Phillips (THE DARK WIND, LA BAMBA), Yaphet Kotto (ALIEN, BLUE COLLAR), Ed Lauter (DEATH WISH 3), Chelsea Field (COMMANDO, THE LAST BOY SCOUT), L. Scott Caldwell (LOST), Andrew Divoff (LOST), William McNamera (Argento's OPERA). Cinematography by Mark Irwin (VIDEODROME, THE FLY, SCREAM).
Tag-line: "They're an elite task force. They target high-profile criminals, learn how they work...and shut them down."
Best one-liner: "Oh, shiiiiiiit!"

Mark L. Lester is a master of cobbling together chunks of existing genre cinema and fashioning them into an outrageously entertaining end result (COMMANDO, FIRESTARTER, CLASS OF 1984 and 1999). Now, EXTREME JUSTICE isn't anywhere near the top tier of Lester's output, but it ain't the worst way to waste 96 minutes. Within the first ten, we have a shootout, a car chase, the exchange "What the hell are we doing?" -"GETTING THE JOB DONE!," a throwaway black partner who says "Oh, shiiiiiiit!," and a lecture from a superior officer calling our hero a "loose cannon"... this is what we're getting into, ladies and gentlemen, and personally, I'm totally okay with it. [And I think that if this movie were made in, say, 1998, they probably would have called it X-TREME JUSTICE.]

The plot is simple: a ragin' Lou Diamond Phillips (with backwards ball cap and long, early 90's tresses):

You thought I was kidding when I said 'raging,' didn't you? If this was in 3-D, you'd be shitting your pants, I guarantee.

is recruited by a delightfully skeezy Scott Glenn:

(here in a masterful, nuanced role that at times resembles an unholy hybrid between John Hurt and Lance Henriksen!) to serve in a modern-day official police 'posse' of sorts, where "What used to get you in trouble will get you a round of beers with us!" Diamond Lou finds his morals compromised, and at the insistence of his douchey crime-reporter girlfriend, decides to 'do the right thing' and shut the unit down. Blah.

"Moralizing chippy" tries to ruin the movie for the good ole boys.


Yeah, this is all we really wanted! Beers and 90s stylings and hearty slaps on the back!

But Scott Glenn and the rest of the cast are so effin' awesome, it doesn't matter that things get a tad too moralistic. We got Yaphet Kotto, perpetually dressed as a cowboy (ponchos, dusters, etc., etc.) and gunning down wrongdoers with dual six-shooters. (I don't know how much the producers had to pay Yaphet to get him in that silly 5 gallon hat, but I hope it was a lot.)

I'm not gonna lie- Yaphet deserves better than this.

Then we got Ed Lauter ('Shrike' in DEATH WISH 3) as the crusty Captain, master of accents Andrew Divoff ('Mikhail' on LOST) as an asskicking Cuban, and L. Scott Caldwell ('Rose' on LOST) as an Internal Affairs rep.

Andrew Divoff tries to calm down ragin' Lou.


L. Scott Caldwell will call you out for what you are: a loose cannon that doesn't belong on the force.

Now nearly four stars is probably a touch generous, but Scott Glenn's X-treme N-tensity goes a long way.



Side note: I don't know if it's just the word EXTREME in the title, but certain aspects reminded me of a poor man's EXTREME PREJUDICE- a hero (Nolte vs. Diamond Lou) led down the garden path by a unit of antihero character actors (Forsythe, etc. vs. Kotto, etc.) headed by a charismatic skeeze (Ironside vs. Glenn) in a sunbeaten, Western locale (Texas vs. L.A.) that involves botched bank robberies, tense shootouts, and lots of cervezas. Something to think about.

-Sean Gill