056 - Cutter's Way

Synopsis: Vietnam vet and friends try to track down killer

Director: Ivan Passer

Actors: Jeff Bridges, John Heard, Lisa Eichhorn

Date: 1981

How viewed: Lovefilm rental

Rating: 5/5

David Meyer says:

Everything in the film .. is soaked in ambiguity. Credit the many simultaneous moods of the screenplay, which manages to be spellbinding, funny, bitter, hopeful, and tragic without ever becoming self-important or manipulative. 

I say:
Yet another film of which I had little expectations. Another film I recall seeing around the time it came out, which had not lodged in my brain as anything noteworthy. Another film that arrived from Lovefilm and sat around for a week or more. And yet, and yet, another film which turned out to be a minor (perhaps even a major) classic. On the surface it's about 2 friends (Bone, a Californian drifter, and Cutter, his disfigured (1-eye, 1-arm, 1-leg) Vietnam veteran) obsessively tracking down and trying to prove the guilt of the local bigwig oilman who they suspect has killed a girl. On a deeper level I think it's about the post Vietnam, post hippy, post equality era, where the rich have taken over and can do what they want, and the poor are looking for someone to blame. It seems remarkably modern (apart from Bridges' moustache!), the performances are great (especially Heard's), the dialogue fizzes, and the tension builds. Possibly the best film I've seen in this trawl through 101 films. However looking at the reviews people either love it or hate it - when it was re-released a couple of years ago, the Guardian's John Patterson admitted he'd watched it around 30 times, that it might be his favourite American film, and called it a masterpiece. Not sure about that, but it's certainly up there!

055 - Bob Le Flambeur

Synopsis: Big time gambler down on his luck plans to rob a casino

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

Actors: Robert Duchesne, Isabel Corey, Guy Decomble

Date: 1955

How viewed: Lovefilm online

Rating: 3/5

David Meyer says:
Melville is interested in atmosphere rather than crime, in young lust and old folly, in style and its power.

I say:

Widely acknowledged as the first French new-wave film and as the inspiration for Ocean's Eleven (without the laughs) this tells the story of Bob, an ex bank robber, who now is addicted to gambling, in the bars and back-rooms of cafes around Pigalle - the Soho of Paris. We join him when things seem to be going badly - but he drives a big American car, and has a swish flat with picture window views over Montmartre so he's clearly had better times! Despite having gone straight for 20 years, being friends with the police, and having a certain code of honour (not lending money to a pimp who's beaten up one of his girls), his eyes light up when he hears that there's 800m (french francs) in the Deauville casino safe the night before the Grand Prix (the big horse race held there). He assembles a gang, and makes detailed plans (I liked the way they draw out the plan of the casino in a field - see photo), but one of the gang tells his girl, who tells another lover, who owes the police a favour, and so grasses, and it ends in a rather hurried and unconvincing shoot-out. Bob, however, as always, emerges smiling. Quite gripping, the scenes of Paris and Deauville are great, and you never know quite how it will end, but would I bother to watch it again? Probably not!

054 Performance

Synopsis: Gangster on the run holes up in fading rock star's house

Director: Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell

Actors: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg

Date: 1970

How viewed: Lovefilm rental

Rating: 5/5

David Meyer says:

.. Jagger plucks a funereal boogie on an acoustic guitar .. it's eerie, sexy and cool, just like the film. Mind-blowing in more ways than one.

I say:

Yet another completely unexpected treat! This popped through the letterbox from Lovefilm a couple of weeks ago and I just didn't have the energy to watch it. I was sure I'd seen it around the time it came out, and that I hadn't been impressed, and was expecting it to be something of a vehicle for Jagger. I couldn't have been more wrong! The first half concerns a sort of London mafia protection racket, in which James Fox plays an enforcer who eventually takes things a bit too far, and has to disappear. By chance he holes up in the house of a faded rock star (Jagger) and his lover (Pallenberg) and their interaction, along with the sex and drugs, slowly unwinds Fox, until his identity start to become confused with Jagger's. Actually I don't know what it's all about - the reviews talk of identity and sexual proclivities - but it's both gangster film and psychedelic trip - and there's enough sex, drugs, and rock n roll, and violence, to keep everyone happy! Jagger is fantastic, the editing (especially the first 15 or so minutes) is wild, there's no concessions to the audience to explain anything, there are some completely strange aspects (the housekeepers seem to be a couple of children) and evocative ad hoc images (street scenes of late 60's London), and you have no idea what's going to happen next. Excellent!
PS worth noting that Big Audio Dynamite's great song 'E=MC2' (which was inspired by Nic Roeg films) contains lots of references and sound clips from Performance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%3DMC2_(song)

053 - Prince of the City

Synopsis: Consequences suffered by a corrupt NY policeman trying to do the right thing

Director: Sidney Lumet

Actors: Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, Lindsay Crouse

Date: 1981

How viewed: Lovefilm rental

Rating: 4/5

David Meyer says:

It's a bleak study of class brotherhood, shot with simplicity and acted to the highest level.

I say:

This is a long, complex film (based on a true story) about a detective in the NY Narcotics Squad, who, along with his team, break up numerous major drug gangs, but do so by supplying drugs to informants, stealing money from dealers, and generally operating outside the law. When approached by 2 prosecutors charged with weeding out corrupt police, lawyers, and judges, he decides to co-operate, so long as he isn't asked to rat on his partners. The boy does good, but slowly more pressure is placed on him to reveal more and more, and as he starts to unravel mentally, eventually he admits to all the scams  he was involved in. The film is long (nearly 3 hours) and comes on like a TV min-series (with chapter headings), there's a huge cast, and much of the dialogue is in street slang, so it's hard to work out the detail, although the bigger picture is clear. It raises very interesting questions about where police draw the line (remember this team was extremely successful, whilst underpaid and risking their lives almost daily). I struggled with the film a bit at the start, but it drew me in as it went along, and the only jarring feature was Treat Williams, who just seemed too young, and too clean-cut, though I admit, he put in a tremendous performance.