The Hitcher (1986)

A young man gets framed for some gruesome murders all because his stupid brother can’t answer his goddamn phone, and after all these years I still have no idea what the ‘C’ stands for in C. Thomas Howell.

The Hitcher is a 1986 thriller directed by Robert Harmon and starring Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

There is a clue to what this movie's all about in a scene at the very beginning where Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) asks John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) "what do you want?" as Ryder holds a flick knife blade to his eye. Ryder replies "I want you to stop me."

Robert Harmon directed this thriller written by Eric Red (who penned the 2007 remake). It is simple and effective. Mark Isham's score is subdued and creepy, perfectly suited to the amazingly eerie Death Valley settings brilliantly shot by John Seale. Interestingly, Harmon made a film very similar to this (though nowhere near as effective) starring Jim Caviezel, Highwaymen, in 2002.

Jim is driving a Cadillac cross country USA. It's not his car, it's a 'driveaway', but that doesn't really matter. What matters is Jim doesn't have a great deal of common sense. It's rainy. It's dark. It's the middle of fucking nowhere, and he stops to pick up a hitchhiker.

Rutger Hauer enters the car with the cold air of barely contained menace. When, after some strange and eerie small talk, he casually tells Jim that he severed the extremities of a VW driver a couple miles back and he's going to do the same thing to Jim, you believe he is capable of doing just that.

After Jim manages to push him out of the vehicle, we see him slowly get to his feet against the slowly-rising sun. This is Ryder's game; getting picked up on desolate highways, killing whoever gave him a ride, then getting out and doing it all over again to the next unwitting driver.

But Jim ruins it. He pushes Ryder out before he can finish the job. So, Ryder comes up with a new game. And Jim is the unwilling player.

Ryder watches the car disappear along the highway. He's marked Jim. Jim is a dead man. Or at least that's what we're supposed to think. But Ryder doesn't want to kill. In fact, he gets a perfect opportunity to a few minutes later in the film. Yet he doesn't take it. Instead, he toys with him, and sets him up to take the fall for a few random killings. He's 'grooming' Jim, trying to force him to grow the balls to do what he must: stop Ryder.

The film stretches plausibility a number of times in the ensuing cat-and-mouse game Ryder and Jim play out against the backdrop of the lonely highways of outback USA. No-one is a match for Ryder - the highway patrol, the sheriff, the... um, other sheriff, his deputies, even a helicopter can't dent him. He brings it down with a couple well aimed rounds. He also manages to appear and disappear like a ghost, even through locked doorways and past fully conscious people. And this would all suck, if it wasn't for the great performances by the two leads.

Hauer is perfect as Ryder. His eyes have just the right amount of unhinged crazy. And I like the little touches - like Ryder wearing a wedding ring. It's such a subtle detail I didn't notice until watching the film again recently. I wondered if it was a trophy, or some detail of his past - some indication of a loss that drove him insane.

And C. Thomas Howell is great as the kid who got more than he bargained for. You really feel for him in a couple of scenes as Ryder thwarts all his attempts to contact the authorities and explain what's going on.

Jennifer Jason Leigh makes a brief appearance as Nash, the love interest who takes to Jim and tries to help him. I find it hilarious that she is very quick to abandon her normal life and become a felon. In one scene she's a small town diner waitress dreaming of 'one day' going to California. The next, she's hanging out of a car window shooting at cops.

Anyway, at it's core this is a two-man drama. It's this one-on-one aspect I really like about The Hitcher. Yes, we know how it's going to play out. But the fun is watching Ryder taunt, and Jim squirm. And then it's fun to see the tables turned. Though Ryder hardly squirms - he knows this is how it would go down.

The final scenes are haunting, mainly due to the sparse score and John Seale's fantastic photography. I like how Ryder seems to almost welcome death in the film's last moments. It's just the two of them, on a lonely stretch of highway. Jim has a shotgun levelled at him, but Ryder makes no move to get out of the way. We get the feeling this is just the way it had to be. By his own admission, Ryder is "tired." He wants this to be over. And in Jim, Ryder has found the perfect adversary. The only one who could ride this out with him to the grisly end. Ryder's orchestrated chaos has played out right down to this very moment. Game over.

Note: this is an updated version of a review I posted for The Hitcher on Best-Horror-Movies.com. The original can be seen here:
http://www.best-horror-movies.com/review?name=the-hitcher-1986-review

Rocky IV (1985)

Americans = Good. Commies = Bad. Got it. Now I just need the rest of my life to be this black and white.

Rocky IV is a 1985 movie directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone, and starring Dolph Lundgren, Carl Weathers and Brigitte Nielsen.
        
I normally don’t bother with plot descriptions in my write ups, but because the plot of Rocky IV can be summed up in ten syllables I figured what the hell.

Apollo dies. Rocky avenges him.

This was my favourite of the Rocky movies when I was a kid. Watching it now, I can safely say it still is, but for very different reasons. When I was a kid the aforementioned revenge plot (which back then seemed a lot more complex to my sugar-addled young mind) and the David vs Goliath showdown between Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) and Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) was thrilling. Now, it’s laughably over the top and all the more enjoyable because of it. As a kid, the subtle-as-a-sledgehammer Cold War allegory was completely lost on me. Now, it’s loads of fun to watch these actors try to make this moronic stuff seem sincere. As a kid, the incredibly cheesy moments between Stallone and his son gave me goose bumps. Now, they make me laugh so hard I nearly pass out.

What staggers me now is how oblivious I was as a kid to the homoeroticism in Rocky movies. It’s fantastic. After Drago pummels Apollo Creed to death we get a brilliant scene where Rocky drives his car (in the rain of course) and reminisces about his friendship with Creed. We are treated to a montage of scenes from the previous films of them sparring in the ring, frolicking in the surf wearing short shorts and dancing together in front of a mirror while so oiled up it’s a wonder they don’t slide across the floor.

And I love that the American/Commie references take a nose dive into absurdity more than once. My favourite is the requisite ‘training montage’ that Rocky movies are famous for. In this one, we see the Iron-Curtain himself, Dolph Lundgren training in a state of the art gym, aided by machines and steroids. Everything about his training is artificial and robotic, and thus FALSE YOU PINKO COMMIE BASTARDS. Whereas Rocky trains in the snowy wilderness, lifting massive tree trunks and slogging through the snow like a sled dog, because he is a REAL ALL AMERICAN MAN.

But what the hell is with comedic relief robots in 80’s films? I think people just got so excited about technology advancing they just wanted to stick robots in everything.

There's one strange moment at Paulie’s house when the robot interrupts Apollo telling Rocky that he's coming out of retirement. It sort of appears from nowhere, plays some music, chatters incessantly and then, hilariously, it disappears and the scene continues as if nothing has happened. This film doesn’t just throw reality out the window. It dropkicks it out and screams ‘Fuck off!’ after it.

And while we’re talking about reality or lack thereof, the climactic boxing matches in the Rocky movies are always hilariously ridiculous, but the one in this film outdoes all that came before it and nothing has topped it since. Not only does Drago basically use Rocky’s head like a speedbag, but a couple of times they actually seem to start doing wrestling moves. I love the over-emphasised punching sound effects too. It sounds like a guy smacking a wet bag of potatoes with a shovel.

And then of course to top it all off we get Rocky’s inspirational speech at the end. It really is tremendous. This writing launches so far into terrible that it comes full circle and becomes absolutely fucking brilliant. And just when you think it can’t possibly get any more ludicrous there’s a scene where the crowd slowly starts applauding and getting to their feet. Even the stalwart Russian leader guy who is basically Gorbachev without the birth mark seems to shed a tear. Jesus wept, either shoot me now or give me a US visa so I can emigrate. 100 minutes extremely well spent indeed.

American Sniper (2014)

Bradley Cooper buffs up and single-handedly defeats the terrorists all while raising a family and…wait a gosh-darned minute here… I don’t think that baby’s real!!

American Sniper is a 2014 war film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller.

Clint Eastwood’s films are very much like the old school, all-American cars that feature in a lot of them. They are reliable. They are big, bold, and dependable. There are no surprises. What you see is what you get. He is the Gran Torino of Hollywood directors. And I’d hazard a guess he’s not a Democrat.

An almost deific reverence for the US military permeates a lot of the films he has directed in the last decade. From the noble Marines in Flags of Our Fathers, to grizzled Korean War veteran Walt in Gran Torino, and now to a decorated Navy SEAL in American Sniper, it’s obvious Eastwood holds the American armed services in high regard. This is by no means a bad thing, it’s just that it makes for some very black and white films. There’s not a lot of grey in Eastwood’s American Sniper. It’s once again the heroic Americans against the evil terrorists. American Sniper is not a brilliant film. Like the cars I alluded to earlier, it’s dependable. It’s extremely well made. But there are no surprises. The battle scenes, while very well staged, filmed, and acted, are pretty much Whack-A-Terrorist. The villains, although apparently based on real people, are pretty stock standard Evil Terrorist Scum. The main bad guy even wears all black just so we're a hundred per cent clear this is a guy we're supposed to hate. And the Iraqi people in this film who are not the ‘bad guys’ even wear white in several scenes. Clint, dude, we get it. It’s nice to see that old age has made you no more subtle than when you were waving a 44 Magnum in people’s faces, but enough already.

The fact that Chris Kyle, the US Navy SEAL sniper this film is based on, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, is no surprise. The first human being he kills, seeing it close up through a high powered scope, is a small child. This is one of the film’s best scenes. The kid is running towards a Marine convoy carrying a grenade, so Kyle (Bradley Cooper) has no choice but to shoot him. This is the first scene it became apparent to me that Bradley Cooper has well and truly transcended being The Hangover guy, and can actually act. Eastwood lingers both on Cooper’s eyes, and his vision of the dead child through the scope. You can see all of Kyle’s training, patriotism, love of and need to protect his beloved America has come down to this single moment – the mind-numbing realisation that his job involves having to kill kids. 

This leads into another great scene later on, where a small boy retrieves a grenade launcher from a guy Kyle has just killed. I loved the agony on Cooper’s face as he realises he may have to do it again. He’s quietly begging the kid not to pick it up. And then when the kid finally drops it and runs off, he is so relieved he almost throws up. Again, it’s all in Cooper’s eyes. His mind was already stretched like a rubber band. If he’d had to pull the trigger on a little kid again, it would have snapped. It’s a really impressive performance.

A scene early on sets the tone for the entire film. It’s a flashback to Kyle’s childhood, where his little brother gets bullied and beaten up at school. Around the dinner table later, his father tells the boys that there are three kinds of people in the world. Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. It becomes obvious at that moment that Kyle took it upon himself to be the sheepdog. Becoming a sniper, able to protect other soldiers, was a natural fit for him. He even remarks later, when being counselled for PTSD, that it’s not the thought of people he killed that keeps him up at night. It’s the thought of the people he failed to protect.

The film reminded me a little bit of The Hurt Locker in the scenes where Kyle returns home and his wife (Sienna Miller) struggles to get him to communicate or stay home. He’s glad to be home, but at the same time it preys on his mind that while he is at home, he can’t be the sheepdog to his men anymore. I like the irony that he doesn’t realise he needs to be a sheepdog for his family as well.

Speaking of irony, I found the calls home really off-putting. Kyle has a satellite phone, and he repeatedly calls his wife back in the US. The problem is, he chooses really inappropriate times to do it. Like just as he’s about to snipe someone, and another time right as his convoy is heading into enemy territory. I kept thinking; why not just wait til you’re back at base? This leads to the strange irony of a scene where he says his wife needs to be ‘protected’ from hearing about his ‘work’, but then during these phone calls forces her to listen to him coming under fire. And he not once but twice leaves her uncertain as to whether or not he’s still alive by either dropping the phone or the signal crapping out. I’m surprised he was met with a hug when he returned home. I’d have expected a slap upside the head.

American Sniper is not a bad film. I think films like Lone Survivor and The Hurt Locker dealt with similar subject matter in much more effective ways, but it’s still a nicely executed war film with a strong central performance. And its proof that Eastwood still wields enormous talent from what must now be a pretty ergonomic director’s chair, even if he still has all the subtlety of a hydrogen bomb. Two and a bit hours well spent.