Film Pairings — Gambling As A Means To A Bad End, Or Not

When I propose these double features, I’m not necessarily recommending them — at least not for every one. I mention this now because I have vey mixed feelings about both Killer Joe and Rounders. Both have fine casts; reason enough to see them, perhaps. The directors are experienced, and the story premises are promising.

However, Killer Joe, with its perfect noir plot, is nonetheless filled with gratuitous violence and prolonged humiliation. I felt this way before I read about director William Friedkin’s battle to keep it from getting the dreaded NC17 rating.  He lost that battle and a similar one in the U.K.  In the end, Friedkin did not make the cuts that would have made the film an “R’ and more profitable in general release.  Good for him.  But while I wholeheartedly support the director’s refusal to give in to censorship, I found myself censoring it on my own by fast-forwarding through scenes when the camera lingered far too long on scenes of little more than torture. Without spoiling the artful twists in plot, here’s the story: A sleazy, mentally disturbed Houston cop, Matthew McConaughey, is hired to kill a woman by the woman’s son, daughter and ex-husband. The son, Emile Hirsch, has a crushing gambling debt and is mere days from extinction.  He has exhausted all alternatives, except the one that brings Joe into their dysfunctional family.  With a common purpose — killing mom — gives family members reason to unite.  Juno Temple, Gina Gershon and Thomas Hayden Church, who brings depth to the depthless, make the characters and story all too real.

John Malkovich and Matt Damon

If Killer Joe suffers from some horribly misplaced exuberance, Rounders may be flawed by too much restraint.  John Dahl, director of one of my favorite, darkly comedic films — The Last Seduction — focuses on a promising young gambler played by Matt Damon in Rounders.  The problem for our protagonist in this film, like Killer Joe, is that when you gamble, sometimes you lose and sometimes you lose to the wrong people.  We spend most of the film as bystanders to poker games as Damon tries to climb out of deep debt the way he got into it — by gambling some more. Even for a poor poker player like me, this was more interesting than I would have imagined.  Each game brings with it its own drama.  However the central drama is the choice Damon’s character must make.  Should he, a smart law student, go straight or, as the devil on his shoulder, Edward Norton, counsels, “go pro” in the exciting world of high-stakes poker.  I stayed with the film for its promise.  Here was John Turturro, John Malkovich and Martin Landau. With all these great characters and the danger hovering over Damon’s genuinely decent character, what great surprise, what profound irony are we going to experience?  I have no idea.  He makes a choice.  If that’s it, it’s not enough.

This is definitely a beer night — the cheaper the better.

Film Pairing — The Young William Petersen, Signs of Things To come

William Friedkin directed the low-budget film To Live and Die in L.A., based on the novel by Gerald Petievich.  It’s a fast moving, stylish piece of cinema — with the notable presence of the music of Wang Chung — about secret service agents and the pursuit counterfeiters. A largely unknown and svelte William Petersen was cast as the primary secret service agent, supported by a cast that included Willem Dafoe, John Turturro and Dean Stockwell.  This is a great Friday night escape, with visually riveting, tense action, but with little to tax the mind.

The success of this film and especially Petersen gave the future CSI principal a second film in which to shine — Manhunter, directed by Michael Mann.  Like To Live and Die, there is what some might say is an overriding sense of style.  It may only have been a little ahead of its time.  The film ages well and is gaining increasing support as a cult DVD hit.  Manhunter, oddly enough foreshadowed two other cinematic events — the first appearance of the character Hannibal Lecktor* and the extensive use of crime scene technology to solve crimes long before Petersen, many years later, starred in a show that would set the bar for such forensics-centered crime-solving drama in the hit series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its impersonators and incarnations. 

Manhunter was based on Thomas Harris’ first book about Hannibal Lecter*, Red Dragon.  According to Wikipedia, Harris was not thrilled with the film, so the book was made into a second film, Red Dragon, in 2002. Anthony Hopkins reprised his stunningly scary Silence of the Lambs role in the remake, which is essentially a prequel to Silence. Brian Cox nonetheless made a fine psychopath as the imprisoned Hannibal in Manhunt, and Tom Noonan, also does a fine job as the current madman and Hannibal wannabe, who must be stopped before he kills again.

The 2002 version (Red Dragon), probably riding on the box office and critical success of Silence of the Lambs and the chilling performance of Hopkins, was a more successful film than Manhunter at the times of their respective releases.  However, time is more than redeeming the earlier version.  There are many who regard Manhunter as the best of the Hannibal Lecter* series even though it not part of the “official” collection.  Petersen, however, did not go on to be a major Hollywood lead. On the other hand, fame did not escape him. As many people know of Petersen’s Gil Grissom on the highly popular CSI for nine seasons as they do of Hopkins’ Hannibal. 

While I am tempted to suggest fava beans and a nice Chianti for the evening, that should be saved for Silence of the Lambs.  However, a hearty red is not out of the question nor is sipping some Scotch on the Rocks.

*The spelling of Lecktor is used for Manhunter.  Lecter is used in subsequent movies