rpmmurphy

Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger were a married couple when they portrayed the married McCoys in this 1994 remake of the 1972. Their on-screen chemistry is incredible. Any time you get this kind of casting occurrence in a film, it is at least worth checking out. Here it really works.

The thing that distinguishes this Jim Thompson story is the catch-22 Carol McCoy is faced with- and the percussive effect her necessary action has on the McCoy couple- while the tension is ratcheted up to 11- in their non-stop hour-and-a-half getaway throughout the Southwest.

It is a juicy role for a married couple, and Baldwin & Basinger make the most of it. They both are in prime form here and very compelling to watch together.

Besides the McCoys (and Richard Farnsworth), it is a B film. Michael Madson's hair is a real challenge to deal with. At least you can cut out of the Richard Marx end credit song. You have to live with Michael Madson's hair for the whole ride. IMDb rating should be around 7.

A carefully constructed and beautifully photographed film. Very successfully and thoughtfully utilizes diverse North American locations- from rustic summertime Quebec to New York City to White Sands, New Mexico and SW environs.

Features classic Atom Egoyan narrative/plot/hook structure: that keeps you "learning" -up to the final frames- just what you have been watching.

But...... the film is so thick- both thematically and with its sumptuous imagery- that by the time you get there (the end)- the reasonable 1hr45 screening time seems about 30min past due. You are worn out as if you've been force fed a fine cheese cake. Less would definitely be more.

Also... the film comes so close to Egoyan as to practically- and I believe at one point actually- lift some lines directly from THE SWEET HEREAFTER (1997): "...Someone didn't do his job... There is no mystery..." - although here, the character's arc carries him beyond being imprisoned by this thinking.

Overall: good, meaningful, thought provoking, flawed- underrated by the IMDb score.

Stanley Kubrick picked Sterling Hayden up off of the Boone County, Kentucky ground of the close of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950), gave him life (and a five year stint in the prison), and brought him back, on time, for THE KILLING (1956), to engineer a heist of the same quality and complexity, this time centered not on jewels, but his personal passion- horses.

(1950): On his dying drive to Hickorywood Farm, Hayden speaks of a black horse, a prize horse of much promise, raised by his father, who we learned earlier broke a leg and had to be shot. With his last breaths he relates the symbolic importance of the fate of that horse.

(1956): Kubrick has a prize black horse shot during the day's critical seventh race. Does this make total-literal sense with the rest of the crime's plot? Is it a cross-film preview/clue that ends up involving, this time, to trump even the 1950 double-cross, a white poodle ?

I don't know, but I appreciate the respect given by Kubrick to John Huston's masterwork. A classy, auspicious way to launch a career.

John Heard's Cutter is a character straight out of Shakespeare. His over-the-top dramatics are more theatrical than filmic. The other central characters are more standard film characters. This effortless blending is a fascinating and curious aspect of the film.

The film's showing of California's dark side in edenic Santa Barbara is in some ways comparable to the darkness descending upon the paradise of Carmel, CA in Eastwood's PLAY MISTY FOR ME (1971). as well as the general disillusionment and darkness of Steinbeck's (Elia Kazan's) EAST OF EDEN (1954).

CUTTER'S WAY presents more questions than it answers, but remains firmly anchored in singular place. An unusual work of art.

... a la Sam Peckinpah: the end of a more honest- if not more violent- era, and the end of the individual. Walker is a raw, driven by emotion, or money, but driven- not cool and calculated and modern, not part of 'the program'. Walker is a lone cowboy in a suit with a glass and concrete urban desert to cross to win back what's justly his. He follows the old code: it's honor, rather than the $93, 000, that he really seeks- whether he knows this himself or not. He moves by instinct through the film- not much time for thought, or talk. Walker is violent, stubborn, brutal. Not admirable really, but he is a hero, out of a lost western.

This was filmed in 1972 when Sissy Spacek was 22, most probably before she filmed BADLANDS (released 10/73). It Includes a happy Mary-Tyler-Moore-like theme song by Sissy S. as well as a clever live song w/ guitar about marichino cherries sung while riding in a car after hitching a ride (and one other original song by Sissy S). Sissy shows some musical talent that would be on display later in COAL MINER'S D.

Sissy is uber-charming and charismatic and beautiful and lovely; but at this early stage she seems influenced (whether she knows it or not) by Jan Brady of The Brady Bunch, She seems like a teenager having a blast being among adults in a grown up movie (not to be cruel). That being said; this grown up movie is of the TV variety (feel, pacing, writing, writers, director, etc.); utilizing the freedom away from TV for some pretty ugly, dated male/ battle-of-sexes dialogue.

The color by CFI is not bad, and it is nice that the film is set/was shot in New Mexico providing an interesting landscape backdrop. It really is only worth taking a look at if you like Sissy Spacek, want to hear some original songs by her at 22, and/or feel like going back to the early 70's for a little visit.

NORTHFORK is above all a masterpiece of widescreen cinematography. For this alone the film is well worth one's time. The stark, wide open plains and badlands of eastern Montana are captured in the spare, muted earth tones of autumn or early spring. The gigantic grey cement Fort Peck Dam is the film's protagonist. The film comments both subtly and not so subtly on about a dozen issues of Western Landscape. The dialogue can be trying at times, yet the images and concepts are powerful enough to lift the film. The 1950's period works so well here and is executed so well. I think that the passing years will be kind to this film.

RED EARTH, WHITE EARTH or SNAKE TREATY (1989) is based on a novel by Will Weaver who also provided the story for SWEET LAND (2005).

Successful Los Angeles business owner Guy Pehrsson (Tim Daly) is summoned by his grandfather (Richard Farnsworth) to return to the northern Minnesota farming community of his childhood.

He arrives to find that his mother (Genevieve Bujold) has left his abusive father (Ralph Waite) and is now living with Tom Redfox (Billy Merasty) on the Big Forest Indian Reservation. She is teaching in the school there; having started on a new life after being picked up by Redfox and put through the reservation's detox program.

Guy also discovers friction between the white farmers of the area (including his family)- and a new potato chip factory- with the local Indians of the reservation- who now face the choice of selling or retaining their land- and are receiving great pressure to sell.

Guy's childhood friend (and mother's companion) Redfox is leading a vocal movement among the Natives to keep and preserve their land. (The land rights in the whole area are very complex: dating back to a decades old 'snake treaty' that ended up stripping the Indians of their land- which white farmers (including Guy's family) have now legally owned, occupied and farmed for generations).

Guy becomes reacquainted with his estranged parents and childhood friends- including some joyful, funny moments- against the backdrop of the ensuing land rights conflict which seems headed towards inevitable confrontation.

A good, imperfect film, worth a viewing. (it deserves to be seen by more people).