|
The bear and the snake in a tale of "assets and liabilities." Stuck with writer's block since his wife's death, the police detective cum author (Brian Dennehy) is sought out by his new subject, a corporate hitman (James Woods). (The assassin materializes by his side in the middle of a waterfront chase, he might be a spectral projection except that the two crossed paths fifteen years prior in a heist subsequently elaborated in Bigelow's Point Break.) A responsible chronicler checks his sources, the mismatched duo travel across the country for proof of the executions that propped up a politician (Paul Shenar). Throughout, the killer insists on a fraternal bond, evinces an unexpected neediness. "Am I coming off lovable?" "Why don't you buy a copy of the book and find out?" Just as the Fifties boasted a Sam Fuller script directed by Phil Karlson, so are the Eighties gifted with a similar dialectic of gonzo subversion and no-nonsense classicism via a Larry Cohen script directed by John Flynn. "Non-fiction" is the sturdy cop's realm, his opposite number slashes a cabbie's throat before singing "Plaisir d'amour" in a lounge bar, puts out a cigarette on his own hand and then invites the flatfoot to a threesome with the nympho he's just picked up. As the camera takes blunt stock of the site of one of his old rubouts, he reminisces about the victim: "His only sin was he didn't want to be rich." "A man can be dangerous when he doesn't care about money." A straightforward treatment of a satirical concept, a punchy treatise on violence and capital and art. Nothing left for the protagonist in the end but turn the darkness he's experienced into a consumable product, cf. De Palma's Blow Out. "Just don't expect Hollywood to bail you out." With Victoria Tennant, Allison Balson, George Coe, Anne Pitoniak, Mary Carver, Sully Boyar, Kathleen Lloyd, and Charles Tyner.
--- Fernando F. Croce |