Film Pairings – Two Classic Buddy Movies, Crime Included

Davis & Sarandon

This is Women’s History Month.  And even if it weren’t, Thelma and Louise is history-making cinema and a cause to celebrate.  Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon are magnificent in this 1991 Ridley Scott film.  Best friends, the two of them. A waitress at a diner and a submissive housewife decide to take a mini-vacation together – just let loose for a while.  Things don’t go well. Thelma (Davis) is assaulted in the parking lot of an Oklahoma roadhouse and Louise (Sarandon) shoots and kills the determined would-be rapist. But that’s only the beginning.  Thinking no one would believe them, the buddies go on the run.  An empathetic cop, Harvey Keitel chases them.  Brad Pitt complicates things, provides comic relief and more than a little eye candy.  Damned and praised as a tribute to the feminist movement, it is a damn fine movie and worthy of the praise heaped upon it.

Redford &  Newman

Country-western gives way to pure western in in one of the most popular buddy movies ever made, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. There are definite similarities.  Both are filmed in big-sky country. But instead of two women fleeing the law in a Thunderbird convertible, the two men do so on horseback.  In both, there are lots of guns, lots of drinking, some sex, some explosions and a constant chase, making sure our eyes stay riveted on the screen. While there is more substance just below the surface in the wonderful tragi-comedy of Thelma and Louise, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid is played more broadly, though very well. No message, pure adventure. Producer John Foreman brought top talent from all disciplines to make this 1969 classic. Veteran George Roy Hill directed. William Goldman wrote the screenplay. The music (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”) came from Burt Bacharach. Paul Newman played Butch and Robert Redford was Sundance in a pairing that electrified the media at the time.

Usually crime films are male dominated. This is a perfect double feature for those who want equal time for men and women. 

Film Pairings — Two You Might Have Missed

Getting in over your head is the theme that makes The Counselor (2013) and Easy Money (2010) a natural pair in the noir genre. What I particularly like is the sense of reality the filmmakers establish. While there is violence and suspense, nothing is over the top. A sense of “this could happen” permeates the atmosphere. 

The Counselor has the help of genuinely heavy hitters in the talent department. Ridley Scott directed the story created by Cormac McCarthy. Primary roles were filled by Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Javier Barden, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt, some of them giving better than usual performances.  Supporting roles were also given to serious talent — Rosie Perez, John Leguizamo, Reubén Blades among them.

The story, largely set in Mexico, involves a huge shipment of cocaine. The smuggling is ingenious, and certainly profitable.  Everyone could walk away from a cleverly planned drug deal with a nice piece of the action and live happily ever after.  However one guy thinks he has a better idea, and greed — sin or not — turns out to be as deadly as people say it is.

In Easy Money, the cast is Swedish.  This may be why we don’t have to overcome the celebrity that is so prevalent in The Counselor.  The acting is just as good.  And we in North America are becoming somewhat familiar with the talented Joel Kinnamen. (He was in a remake of Robocop and in “The Killing.”)  The Kinnamen character is living above his station but longs to be accepted by a snobbishly rich clique. His expensive role-playing is difficult to maintain on the income of a part-time taxi driver.  He decides to step up his income by engaging in cocaine trafficking and then, because he is quite clever, he helps a Yugoslavian mob boss launder the profits.  He almost finds a way to fit in with those born into wealth. And he believes he’s indispensible to the drug lord he serves. But he’s as much out of his league with the long-landed gentry as he is with professional thugs.  As it turns out he’s a decent guy, a quality that hinders his full access to the worlds he wants to enter.  Daniel Espinosa directed Easy Money, based on the novel of the same name by Jens Lapidus.  Matias Varela and Dragomir Mrsic co-starred. On a funny but all too-true note, one critic praised the Swedish film for not including a “tired old inspector” in the cast of characters.

For an accompaniment to the evening, you can choose something to enhance the warm climate of Mexico.  Tequila perhaps or a Corona.  If you are more inclined to think Swede, why not have Sweden’s vodka, Absolut?  Or some cider?

Film Pairing — What We Do For Love Or What's Love Got To Do With It?

They call it a “mockumentary.” Nicole Kidman, in one of the best roles of her career, plays a character who narrates her own shameless path to fame. When she discovers that not only is her husband not the least bit ambitious but also has a desire to have a real family, she realizes he is a drag on her career. Something has to be done. Whether you love or hate Kidman, the movie will work for you, I promise. And in this era devoted to people who will do anything to be famous — and second-rate cheesy stardom is acceptable — To Die For (1995) seems to anticipate our sad, Kardashian world. This smart, dark comedy was written by Buck Henry and was directed by Gus Van Sant. The film also features excellent performances from Matt Dillon as the all-too-average husband and Joaquin Phoenix as the lovesick puppy who would do anything for the woman he loves.

True Romance, 1993, was written by Quentin Tarantino. And there’s no question that director Tony Scott went with the flow. The film reflects the Tarantino spirit. It is funny and brutal. Gratuitous violence? Oh yes. It’s Tarantino’s stamp and there’s plenty of it here. There is also plenty of star power, though many of the big names — Dennis Hopper, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Samuel L. Jackson, James Gandolfini and Gary Oldman, have only brief, but richly rendered appearances. The scene between Walken and Hopper is worth the price of admission alone. At first, I thought Walken was stealing the scene…but Hopper almost evens the playing field. Brad Pitt is hilarious. However, the film is primarily about the characters played and played well by Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, who like Kidman in To Die For, narrates the story.

In a sense, both films are about what people will do for unqualified love or what they do when they are the objects of that kind of love. And in that sense, even though they are both dark comedies told from the point of view of beautiful blondes, these two films are very different. And after last week’s gruesome twosome, this pairing is lots of fun.

To accompany the first film, my suggestion is have a light beer — maybe pale ale. For the second, go with a Sicilian Red, perhaps a Primitivo.

CAPTION: Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette in True Romance

Film Pairing — The Gruesome Twosome

Many of us find stories about hit men and women interesting. In Bruges is one of my favorites. But serial killers? Less so, I think. Perhaps its because hired killers usually involve interaction between evil and lesser evil. Maybe even murder with a moral purpose. We know why this person is being killed. Dexter is a serial hit man and, as such, seems to get some sort of exemption. He kills bad people. We can argue the morality of it. But serial killers, people who kill for unknowable or unimaginable reasons, are another story. If this kind of motiveless killing, this kind of random victim selection, this kind of darkness exists in human souls how can any of us imagine we are safe from evil? Ever? This makes many viewers uncomfortable.

If you are willing to cross that line, here are two dark, but dissimilar films with this uncomfortable premise. They promise an edgy night at home.

Mr. Brooks exemplifies the notion that a pillar of the community can have, for some unknown, perhaps unknowable, reason a desire to create art with death as the medium. Kevin Costner plays the killer pillar and Demi Moore plays the cop. Many twists and turns here. Some say too many. However, for me the 2007 film holds together. One fascinating twist is that the fastidious killer has an admirer, a stalker. I suggest you make this the first feature of the evening. It is gruesome, but far less viscerally so than the second feature.

Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt are magnetic in this extremely dark tale about a serial killer taking it upon himself to punish those who have engaged in one of the seven deadly sins. The cinematography is magnificently depraved — rain, dimly lit and distressed interiors. A general sense of rot, decay and despair permeate the film. And while Seven pretends to pose a certain philosophical question, the answer will certainly not cheer you up. The story is tight, well constructed and diabolical. The end, even if you should guess it, is ingeniously and disturbingly fitting. Released in 1995 and directed by David Fincher, the film also features Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey.

What’s a good drink to accompany a night of serial killers? Something warming and reassuring, maybe. Cognac. By the end of Seven, you might want to move on to something stronger.