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Suspended between redemption and revenge, the frog turned prince in the New Orleans underworld. "Afraid of being normal?" The disfigured loser (Mickey Rourke) knows his way around a caper, his friend (Scott Wilson) is killed in a robbery botched by the hair-trigger stomper (Lance Henriksen) and his razzing blonde (Ellen Barkin). (An exploding car in the French Quarter sets off the baroque play of masks and pistols in a coin shop.) The hopeful glimmer in prison is a reconstructive surgery offered by the idealistic doctor (Forest Whitaker), a new start guided by the altruistic nun (Yvonne Bryceland). The police lieutenant (Morgan Freeman) remains skeptical: "You know, Johnny, you might fool this fucking quack and little sister over there, but I know you." Visceral abstraction is Walter Hill's forte, his Quasimodo anchors an astringent view of outer and inner life. (First contemplating the visage that's just been chiseled from his bulbous skull, Rourke touchingly oscillates between mirror and camera: "I still feel like I'm wearing a mask.") Rehabilitation means work at the shipyard and romance with the office accountant (Elizabeth McGovern), still vengeance won't be forgotten, the protagonist infiltrates his pal's dive now run by his foes. Sharp noir notes abound, Dark Passage, Hollow Triumph, The Big Heat... Location shooting finds a glimpse of a Vuillard river hidden in the industrial landscape, Rourke is framed with McGovern before an out-of-focus carousel and with Barkin encircled by red neon. ("Once a geek, always a geek," snarls Barkin, illustrating the director's taste for flashing caricature behind minimalist surfaces.) Hill sorts things out with a shootout in a cavernous garage, and returns to the turmoil under the skin in The Assignment. "I'll see you around... pretty boy." With David Schramm, Peter Jason, J.W. Smith, Jeff Meek, and Allan Graf.
--- Fernando F. Croce |