The Dead Pool (1988)

The 411 on the 415

In this star-studded fifth and final Dirty Harry movie from Clint Eastwood the central case concerns a morbid game, called the dead pool, where the players try to guess which celebrity will die next. Horror movie director Peter Swan (Liam Neeson) is one of the participants, but when the star of his music video, and coincidentally one of the names on his list, rocker Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey), suddenly dies from an overdose, he becomes a suspect. Along the way Harry runs into dedicated reporter Samantha Walker (Patricia Clarkson), who takes a kind eye to his unkind face, while struggling with the media's role in the violent modern world.

Word on the street

(Placeholder for funny or memorable line from movie.
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Rap sheet

It's five years later. 1988, the year after the universe gave us another iconic hardcore cop: RoboCop. Dirty Harry is starting to look fairly burned out, and it's reasonable to wonder if there's still a place in the world for these movies. That feeling will not dissipate during the opening of The Dead Pool, which comes across like an alternate credit sequence from The Streets of San Francisco.

Then we get into more pressing issues: Why is Jim Carrey miming to a Guns N' Roses song? Why is he acting like he's in Batman and Robin? (The only Batman movie worse that the one he was actually in.) And why is Oscar Schindler directing an Exorcist knockoff!? It's all very mysterious. Of course, we're on the set of a music video, so it's all just fun and games. The question is, do you really want fun and games in your Dirty Harry movie?

Once again the script is the major issue here.

So there's a dead pool. People are betting on what celebrity will die next, but suddenly the people on that list are being murdered. Could somebody be trying to rig the game? That's plot 1. Then it turns out that there's a killer trying to frame one of the dead pool players, because of some unknown vendetta. That's plot 2. Then Harry's name shows up on the list, and simultaneously a gangster boss is trying to kill him. That's plot 3, and a bit of plot 1, but mostly irrelevant to plot 2. Then we have the reporter trying to get the scoop on Harry's story, while struggling with the way modern media is obsessed with blood and death. That's plot 4, but also ties into plot 1, but again, it's completely irrelevant to plot 2. And guess what plot strain turns out to be the true plot of The Dead Pool? Yup, number 2. The one plot strand which is always at odds with all the other potentially interesting stories.

The dead pool story is dull, but it could have worked, if we were introduced to the participants and they turned out to be cool, interesting individuals. Then we could start to suspect which one of them is trying to rig the game. Instead The Dead Pool turns out to be about an obsessed horror fan, and the actual dead pool part of the story is more or less irrelevant.

There's also potential in the connection between Harry and the female reporter. Jumping into bed with enemy no. 1, the media, is almost worse than sleeping with a suspect! Of course, this is inexplicably the one and only film where Harry suddenly has good press, which directly works against that conflicted cop/reporter love story.

Meanwhile the film flirts with the media's (and the public's) fascination with blood and gore. Another interesting angle, especially when it's tied into the cop/reporter story. She's conflicted about the media providing these bloody stories, Harry is conflicted about dating her, meanwhile he's the one supplying the bloody stories she's conflicted about covering. Look, it all ties together. That story would have made for a great movie, because it would force Harry to take a good look at himself. The drama would reach its crescendo during the scene where Harry is called out to a situation where a man wants to set himself on fire, unless he gets on TV. Harry plays Samantha's cameraman and suddenly the two would-be lovers are standing side by side, literally facing her professional dilemma.

Unfortunately every good element in The Dead Pool is a red herring. None of the stories play out the way I've laid out above. The film only uses these wonderful interlocking conflicts to distract itself from the real plot: An obsessed horror movie fan with a restraining order trying to kill a director, who doesn't want to read his script. Funny how those raving madmen with no connection to reality, suddenly become very apt at navigating the real world, when they have a murder spree to unleash, by the way.

Oh, lest we forget: This week's disconnected-pointless-look-how-cool-Harry-is scene comes 22 minutes into the story. It features Harry reading a fortune cookie for a robber in a Chinese restaurant ("It says... You're shit outta luck!"), and some kung fu from Harry's new Asian partner.

I'm getting tired complaining over Harry's incompetence, so here's the quick lowdown, before we wrap this up: In The Dead Pool Harry's almost killed in a mob hit because he doesn't realize two cars following him might be a bad thing. And he manages to get blown up by a toy car filled with explosives, after failing to make his getaway during a 20 minute car chase. Let me reiterate: We're talking about a chase between Harry in a real car for humans and a FREAKIN' TOY CAR! And he LOSES!

But the Coup de grâce, the most disheartening moment, comes during the final showdown when the killer orders Harry to drop his gun, while he's threatening to kill a woman with a knife. What does Harry do? He complies. Dirty Harry Callahan drops his gun at the command of a madman with nothing more than a knife.... Guys, why you gotta do me like this? It's like you don't even know Harry any more.

Final report

The Dead Pool, despite being the shortest of the Dirty Harry movies, is a chore to get through. It's a dull, unfocused story, with a dull ending, full of wasted potential. An embarrassing finishing to a decidedly shaky franchise.

Sudden Impact (1983)

The 411 on the 415

It's 1983, the year of Return of the Jedi, and the Dirty Harry franchise has come out of retirement to tell the story about a series of brutal murders. A young woman is wreaking revenge on the punks who gang-raped her and her sister, by seeking them out one by one, and shooting them in the head and in the balls.

Word on the street

"Go ahead, make my day."

"Listen, punk. To me you're nothin' but dogshit, you understand? And a lot of things can happen to dogshit. It can be scraped up with a shovel off the ground. It can dry up and blow away in the wind. Or it can be stepped on and squashed. So take my advice and be careful where the dog shits ya!"

Rap sheet

Two lovers are getting it on in a car parked by the bay at night. Suddenly, in the middle of the moaning and rustling of clothes there's the distinct sound of a gun being cocked. Moments later two shots ring out, and just like that we've got another case for Dirty Harry.

Pop quiz, hotshot. What follows next? Is it A) time for Harry to get right to it, take on this case, wrap it up in a quick, and be home in time for cornflakes? Or do we B) once again need establish Harry's badassery in an unnecessary show of force?

That would be B. Not only that, but we start the film with a trial, where the judge throws out clear evidence of murder, because Harry didn't have proper cause for a search. He didn't even beat anybody up this time, he just had a hunch, and it turned out to be correct! Maybe San Francisco's problem isn't Harry's excessive use of violence, but the utter ineptitude of the city's prosecutors? So after that lengthy scene, including a confrontation between Harry and the recently released punks, we get the Harry-is-a-badass scene, when he walks into a half empty diner to disturb a robbery in progress. Four heavily armed men have inexplicably decided to rob the cash-register of this small establishment, plus steal from a handful of patrons. What's the score going to be? $15 and a Junior Mint? Anyway, it allows Harry to burst into the place and say his famous "Go ahead, make my day" line, which everyone thinks is from the first film, and kill everybody. Then Harry walks into the middle of a mob-wedding to give the bride's father a heart attack (Hey, that's Frank Pentangeli from The Godfather II). And after ALL that, Harry finally shows up at the crime scene from the cold open, which fells like an hour and a half ago (it's 17 minutes).

Most of this feels completely redundant. This is simply NOT efficient storytelling. The whole point of this opening act is to establish the initial murder, and send Harry off on a BS assignment to a safe little town, where he can't make trouble. Of course, by coincidence, he ends up right in the middle of a hornet's nest, with several murders connected to the first one. Beautiful, let's do it! It takes the film 45 minutes to get to that point! I haven't even mentioned the obligatory the-captain-yells-at-Harry scene, or the two different attempts on Harrys life, before he's despatched to Redneckville.

Why not tie the whole thing together? Harry disturbs a robbery. He kills the culprits, and one of them turns out to be the gangster boss' son. The gangsters put a price on his head. The captain sends him off to a small town. He says goodbye to his partner, who must now investigate a new murder on his own, but not before giving Harry a few details he can use later. Boom, done. 20 minutes max. What we have now is SO cumbersome. It's like Dirty Harry can't get out of his own way to tell a real story.

The only thing keeping me really interested in Sudden Impact is the subplot, where we follow the ice-cold, determined blonde. This is our killer, we know that early on. She visits her catatonic sister, she talks about "an event", and we see flashbacks to what happened years ago. It's pretty hardcore, and fairly intriguing. Although the lack of scope makes this neat little revenge story feel like something Colombo should handle in a quick episode. Of course, given the sexual implications of the story, and Harry's involvement with the killer, that wouldn't be appropriate.

For me the real heart of the story, and where it becomes interesting, is the potential relationship between Harry and the killer. Perhaps it had been better, if we didn't know this girl to be the killer quite as early. It would have been fun to see a version of this story, where Harry is genuinely reconsidering his life as a cop (perhaps he was wounded in an attempt on his life, before he left San Francisco), and at this crucial moment, he meets a kindred sprit. He falls in love, and only then do we discover she's the killer. That would create an interesting conflict for the character. As it stands now, the film is in too much of a hurry to build that scenario, it's got too many cartoonish moments, and too much overconfident grandstanding from Harry. Less clutter, and a bit more focus on Harry as a person would have allowed Sudden Impact to fully explore the potential of the setup. You could even tie it into him reconsidering his sexist ways after having lost a female partner in the previous film, which would add even more dimension to the current killing spree.

Alas, that is not the kind of film we're dealing with. Rather, it's the kind of film where - after those 45 minutes of crap I complained about earlier - we get this scene: The moment Harry arrives in Hick Town he comes across a bank robbery in progress. The robber flees on a motorcycle, and Harry hijacks a bus full of senior citizens to take pursuit - in a stunning display of slapstick that wouldn't feel out of place in The Benny Hill Show. All this to let the Chief in town know that Harry is a lose cannon, which let's them pick up right where Harry and his captain left off. Oh, great.

I'm being a little harder on the film than it really deserves. Truth be told, Sudden Impact is pretty entertaining, in a trashy way, and I guess back then - with the previous Dirty Harry movie a faint 7-year-old memory - it was necessary to reestablish the character and his faults. So even though the film is top-heavy, features some off-key moments (the bus-chase), and some absurd overacting (from Pat Hingle as the Chief, and Paul Drake and Audrie Neenan as two of the rapists, in particular) it's not a complete disaster.

Final report

For the first time in the franchise Clint Eastwood picks up the megaphone and finally directs himself. Like so many other movies from Eastwood the result is a decent-looking, fairly entertaining, but not great film. It's more fun to watch than the first one, and the story is better than the main plot of the third film, but the second one remains my favorite. Still, I feel they haven't quite created that perfect Dirty Harry film yet. Maybe fifth time is the charm?

The Meaning of Life (1983)

THE BIT BEFORE THE THING

They say "analyzing a joke is like dissecting a frog. No one is that interested, and the frog dies." Luckily, as we embark on an examination of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, I can say two things up front: There will be no dissecting and the frog is already dead.

Most people are probably familiar with the "gluttony-sketch" from this movie. It's the one where a grotesquely obese man sits down in a restaurant, projectile vomits all over the place and then eats until he bursts. The sketch perfectly encapsulates the problems with the film as a whole: Most scene have one joke. It's crude. There's no cleverness or thought provoking satire behind the madness. And it's overlong.

THE BIT AFTER THE BIT BEFORE THE THING

The original Monty Python TV-series (henceforth called The Show) was a rambling string of barely connected sketches that barely made any sense. Barely. And it is the best TV-series ever created. When Monty Python moved to movies, they became a lot more focused, even though the sketch format to a large extend still defined their work. The Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979) both stayed more or less within their designated themes, and they both worked exquisitely.

It's ironic then that despite going back to the nonsense that defined them The Meaning of Life fails both at being focused and rambling. It's something altogether more mundane. Python mundane, but mundane nonetheless.

A big intro song with Terry Gilliam animation promises that the film will discuss the meaning of life. Most sketches do relate in some way to life, but then again that could be said for almost anything in life - that it relates to life, I mean. So, would renaming it "random sketches about life" fix this film? Nope. The problems run deeper.

THE THING (OR THE BIT)

The film opens with The Crimson Permanent Assurance. A 16 minute isolated short, clearly the brainchild of Terry Gilliam. Gilliam often created his own worlds within the Python universe, so it makes sense that he should be allowed to do that here as well.

The short looks absolutely gorgeous. It's cleverly shot, with fantastic production design and impressive (for the time and budget) model work. Unfortunately this is a rather dishonest start. It has virtually nothing to do with the film, except for a brief return of the pirates in the main feature, and yet it suffers from the same problems as the rest of the project: It's one joke. It's too long. And it doesn't say much.

Then the feature presentation begins.

We open with two sketches about "the miracle of birth". First a clumsy doctor sketch, which quickly turns out to be a fairly toothless indictment of the medical system, with doctors being more concerned about financing than helping patients. That's it. Again, there's only one layer here, and it's a fairly predictable one too.

Then we move to Yorkshire for a sketch about a family with about a hundred kids. Cue jokes about Catholics not using condoms, which explodes into an admittedly impressive song and dance number. While the sight of little kids singing "Every Sperm Is Sacred" is delightfully disturbing and destined to produce a chuckle or two, once again, the sketch is too damn long, and it's one joke, with one layer. I could go through the whole film and repeat myself endlessly, because I'm afraid the trend outlined by the first chapter of the film continues.

The Meaning of Life is just not zany enough. It's too obvious. It almost pains me to say so, because when the hell was Monty Python ever predictable? Even when the setup is completely obvious and the punchline is a sitting duck (or sheep), the boys still found ways to surprise. One thing is certain: You could rarely, if ever, see the end of a sketch coming. That's not the case in this film.

Even more disturbingly, The Meaning of Life is nowhere near as clever or as searing as The Show. The Pythons take aim at all the familiar targets - religion, the education system, and the sexual frustrations of the middle and upper class - but they appear to have nothing to say. The result is often crude or just over the top, in an unfunny way. Like the "Live organ donation"-sketch - which is way too bloody and gruesome. Taken out of context some of the moments in that sketch would not read as jokes. And what's with making so many stupid characters American? Since when did Python pick so low-hanging fruit?

Despite the slow pace and the general lack of jokes, a few sequences surprise by being completely joke free. Like the restaurant sketch, where a couple struggles trying to find a conversation subject, or the completely useless "Death visits"-bit near the end. Many of these sequences seem to exists in lieu of Terry Gilliam animated bits, which would normally provide the transition from one sketch to the next, and give us something funny and nonsensical to look at along the way. In The Show these transitions enhanced the sketch format by allowing us to skip the boring bits, jump straight into the good bits, and get out before the joke gets dull, or before we get to the punchline. That last one is particularly useful if there isn't any.

When a sketch was abandoned in The Show it never felt like a cop out. In The Meaning of Life many jokes simply peter out, and it feels almost as if the Pythons lose interest along the way.

Despite this rather harsh critique of the film The Meaning of Life is not completely without familiar Python antics. Like the fact that the film is introduced by some talking fish in an aquarium at a restaurant, waiting to die, like their friend on a plate nearby. Or the break in the middle of the film called "the middle of the film", discussing the fact that we've reached the middle of the film. There's the grotesque sight of a teacher demonstrating the act of intercourse in front of a room full of kids, and a war sketch, where a group of soldiers desperately try to celebrate the birthday of their commanding officer before the final raid, which is as close to the old magic as the film gets.

Sadly these few scattered moments of funny, only serve to put the shortcomings of the rest of the endeavor into sharp focus.

THE BIT AFTER THE THING (AKA THE FINAL THING, OR POST-BIT)

I find myself in a peculiar situation: I love Monty Python and everything they do, but I can't stand The Meaning of Life. It's just not funny to me. I almost wish it didn't exist.

The Meaning of Life is a sad swan song for the Pythons. When Graham Chapman died in 1989 - the inconsiderate bastard! - he single-handedly ruined the chance of a proper reunion, but that's okay, he was always the weak link and who likes bloody gays anyway? (<---joke) But that's beside the point. We'll always have the old shows, we'll always have the other films. And every time there's a partial reunion of the troupe we're reminded of the wonder that is Monty Python. And that is all we need.

The Outsiders (1983)

REVIEW

I will try to be brief this time. Yes, I know, contain your amazement if you can. The thing is, this is the first time I've seen The Outsiders. I feel like I haven't earned the right to fully appreciate it yet. I also feel terrible that it didn't enter my film vocabulary sooner. Especially considering who directed it, and who stars in it, but there we are.

The Outsiders takes place in the '60s, in a small town somewhere in America. We follow the Greasers - the guys from the wrong side of the track. Leather jackets. Torn jeans. Hair shaped to within an inch of its life by overzealous application of hair product. Their enemies? The Socs (as in the first part of the word "social"). Those are the kids from the right side of the tracks, and don't they know it. One fateful night a young Greaser accidentally kills one of the Socs, trying to defend his buddy. This is the drop. There will be a rumble. And it won't be pretty.

There's more to the story than this, obviously, but if you're familiar with the film or the book it was based on, you know that already, and if you're not, you should approach it knowing as little as I did.

The overall feel of the story will be familiar to most, at least parts of it. Think Romeo & Juliet, without the lovebirds. Think Grease, sans the singing, the humor and the doe-eyed leads. You will also know every single face in the little group of Greasers. Every single one of these actors went on to bigger and better things. Some of them didn't get that far. Some of them went too far, but you will know them.

There's C. Thomas Howell from Red Dawn and The Hitcher. Ralph Macchio, The Karate Kid himself. Matt Dillon, who never really found a proper place in film history, but who curiously pops up in Beautiful Girls, playing a part that could have been his The Outsiders character 10 years later. There's Rob Lowe, from the Brat Pack, who took a lot of wrong turns and a few right ones, and ended up in The West Wing. Patrick Swayze of Dirty Dancing fame, who left us too soon. His rumble against cancer ended less well than the one against the Socs. We wont forget Emilio Estevez, whose legendary turns in legendary movies The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire are truly the stuff of legends. And last, but not least, Tom Cruise shows his face in a few scenes, complete with baby fat in his cheeks. He would next make Risky Business, and the rest is history. I also need to mention one of the Socs: The girl named Cherry, played by an impossibly young and adorable Diane Lane. There's nothing more to say about her. No words could do her justice.

It boggles the mind to look at these talents and think that they were once in the same movie. Imagine stepping onto the set of this movie, looking up and finding these hungry faces, waiting to challenge anything you say!

I'll admit, some of the performances are rough. Sometimes too rough. But they're not rough, like a reality star trying to capitalize on undeserved fame, or a singer taking "the next natural step" into a movie career. They are rough, because these actors are unpolished diamonds. They are young, hungry, and one-hundred percent honest. That's what the fame-whores of today will never understand. You just can't fake this kind of honesty. The camera simply reveals too much. It will look deep into your heart and reveal the color of your soul. Unfortunately too many people these days have gone color-blind, incapable of spotting the fakes.

Francis Ford Coppola directed this film after the nightmare that was Apocalypse Now and the utter failure that was One from the Heart. I hope he truly treasures the making of this film. The Outsiders is a giant piece from the cherry pie of nostalgia. It so perfectly captures the period that only the familiar faces - and a bit of math - prevents you from thinking this was actually shot in the '60s. It makes me long for a time I haven't even experienced!

If I was really cheeky I might say: It makes me an offer I can't possibly refuse.

BLURAY

The quality of the transfer on this Blu-ray from Studio Canal in England is stunning. The images are perfect, the colors are brilliant. This simply looks like a new film. The almost flawless images lead me to believe that some Digital Noise Reduction has been employed, simply because there's not a grain in sight anywhere. Maybe that's something some people will complain about, but how can I complain, when the movie looks THIS good? I could not imagine a better way to see The Outsiders for the first time.

The Blu-ray features the full director's cut version of the film, adding some 22 minutes to the original theatrical version. I can't report intelligently on the differences, since the extended cut is the only one I've been exposed to.

I need to watch this film a few more times, before I dig into the extras, but let me just quickly sum them up: Two audio commentaries - one with Coppola, one with the cast - a 26 minute making of program, plus several small items, including: A news segment, cast members reading the original novel, deleted scenes and something about the casting. The high point here will undoubtedly be the audio commentaries, but this is still a very nice package.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I absolutely treasure a limited selection of Francis Ford Coppola's films. You really do have to word any appreciation for this maverick director as carefully as that. Coppola is not an easy director to be a fan of. For every Godfather, there's a Peggy Sue Got Married, and for every Apocalypse Now there's a Jack.

The Outsiders reminds us why we must love him anyway, despite his countless flaws.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to StudioCanal and Edith Chappey for making this review possible.