Parenthood + The Rocketeer + Moving Violations

PARENTHOOD
(PG-13, Universal Pictures, 124 mins., theatrical release date: May 26, 1989)

Gil Buckman seems like a former latchkey kid frantically seeking out the door for his own young son. In his head, he still feels the disappointment of his own paterfamilias taking him to baseball games without the added element of bonding, except for when dad has paid off a stranger to talk to him. Decades later, and close to his own family in ways his father never was, Gil is happier, more confident and surprisingly well-adjusted, and he wants things to pan out similarly for nine-year-old Kevin, whom he coaches on the Little League team and who is exhibiting signs of abnormal psychology which Gil and his wife Karen cannot rationalize.

This is but one of several generational anxieties which unfold in Ron Howard's Parenthood, where well-meaning adults butt heads with the inevitable dysfunction practically hereditary in nature. Gil, not unlike his father (as well as Mr. Howard), has a family of four to his credit and his three siblings are also at loggerheads with responsibility. The youngest, Larry, is black sheep cloth all the way, chasing after easy money through schemes and wagers but with an illegitimate child whom he brings to Thanksgiving dinner as a sign of his supposed well-being. The two sisters, Helen and Susan, haven't run from their crises, whether it's concern over grooming a three-year-old as a hyper-intelligent prodigy or facing loneliness when son and daughter alike discover sex.

"It never, never ends," says Frank Buckman about the ties that bind. Luckily for Howard, Parenthood is far breezier and good-humored than the retiring head of the bustling Buckmans. Nowadays, Steve Martin has parlayed Gil Buckman into a new life as family movie figurehead and Ron Howard's done his own dirty work with the novels of Dan Brown. In 1989, Parenthood was a sign of growth for both these showbiz stalwarts. The young star of American Graffiti and Happy Days was at his peak a few films deep into his career as director, which began under Roger Corman's auspices (Grand Theft Auto) and encapsulated Night Shift, Splash, Cocoon, and Willow. Martin, meanwhile, saw his face-pulling legacy balloon into genuine stardom by 1987 thanks to Roxanne and Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

But Parenthood is an ensemble piece, with as much proven talent as well as rising newcomers across the board. Oscar-winners Mary Steenburgen and Dianne Wiest under the same roof as SCTV's mega-talented Rick Moranis and Tom (Amadeus) Hulce. Goonies standout Martha Plimpton acting opposite her Running on Empty co-star's kid brother Leaf (Joaquin) Phoenix as well as Keanu Reeves. Jason Robards on one end, Harley Jane Kozak at the other. Child actors who'd go on to the likes of 1990's excellent The Witches, John Hughes' final directorial effort and...erm, Problem Child 2. There's also Dennis Dugan and Clint Howard, for what it's worth, too.

Reeves is the most interesting of the bunch, his performance as "That Tod" (whom Wiest's Helen refers to derogatorily) completing the trio of hilarious breakout roles Reeves launched himself with. At first, Tod comes off like another cad boyfriend who can't balance allegiance to Helen's daughter Julie (Ms. Plimpton) and ambitions of stock car racing. He inspires a particularly blunt mother-daughter exchange due to his negligence, but turns out to have more noble qualities than even the supremely disappointing Larry (Mr. Hulce). Tod even breaks the shell of Helen's moody young son Garry (Phoenix), whose rebellious pastime is coveting porno tapes in defiance of both his eager, distressed mom and the absentee dentist dad who wants nothing to do with him. He's hep to the same spiritual awareness as Gil, but in his own recklessly youthful way.

Harley Kozak had previously done walk-on parts (Clean and Sober) as well as one vintage slasher effort (The House on Sorority Row), but proves to be a find herself as Susan. She's paired with Moranis' Nathan Huffner, an orderly intellectual who has taken to child rearing with scientific madness. "They're like sponges just waiting to absorb," he tells Gil after wee Patty (Ivyann Schwan) demonstrates her precocious mathematical skills. Nathan fills his pint-sized vessel with all manner of intellectual and cultural delicacies at the expense of his wife's restlessness over having a second child as well as training the firstborn to be more sociable. Nathan, like his wisecracking brother-in-law, is chasing blindly after his own ideals of parental perfection.

Parenthood in Parenthood is a game of extremes. If Gil succeeds in his own affections toward Kevin (Jasen Fisher), he grows up as a model college graduate ready to take on the world. Should Gil fail, Kevin is tomorrow's terrorist, shouting "You made me play second base!" as he picks off another of his campus mates from the bell tower. Gil is so hung up on his pride that in both imagined outcomes, his doting wife Karen (Ms. Steenburgen) is nowhere to be found, let alone the adult analogues of his other children. Not that Gil is totally selfish, as he rescues Kevin's birthday party when the cowboy balloon artist they've hired is waylaid by a scheduling snafu. He genuinely loves Karen as well as Taylor (Alisan Porter) and Justin (Zachary Lavoy), but as the school psychiatrists have it in for Kevin, Gil sees Kevin's adolescence as a one-man crusade to avoid the failures of father Frank (Mr. Robards).

And then there's the phenomenal Dianne Wiest (nominated here for an Academy Award following her deserving win on Hannah and Her Sisters) as Helen, a bundle of nerves and repository of the script's most honest dialogue. A single mother who cannot hide the scars from her divorce, Helen puts on a brave face even as her children out-sophisticate her and the advice she tries to offer gets subverted. A romance with Garry's biology teacher Mr. Bowman (Paul Linke) hints at salvation and satisfaction not battery-powered, but she needs to find common ground with teenage Julie as well as grade schooler Garry. Wiest's droll realism rivals Martin's own sardonic humor, whether Helen's flipping through photos of Julie & Tod's bedroom antics or putting the odds to their impromptu wedding and pregnancy.

Much like Patty, Parenthood is itself a sponge which collects all the foibles and neuroses between Ron Howard, producer Brian Grazer and Howard's frequent writing partners, Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel, family men all. Their success with Parenthood is one which most MOR filmmakers have since had the hardest time trying to replicate, the union of broad comic vignettes with hard-earned emotional honesty. Howard's deft touch with light/heavy-hearted character interactions is on constant display, especially whenever Frank alternates between protecting his youngest son Larry, who is the true chip off the old block, and revealing his own guilt to Gil. Rich with one-liners as Parenthood is, many of those mingle with moments of devastation and cruelty, particularly in the scenes between Helen and her children.

Episodic and sitcom-sterile as it may look, Parenthood's storylines have more than enough bite to belie the size. An ambiguity hangs over the many strained relationships Howard and his crew depict. Larry is desperately trying to recoup overdue gambling debts to the point where he sneaks out his father's 1935 Ford DeLuxe to get it appraised. Both he and Frank share more quality time together than they are willing to spare for Larry's son Cool (Alex Burrall), whose mother was an ebony showgirl with whom Larry had a one-night stand. Frank tries to set his reckless son on the straight-and-narrow with a well-thought compromise, inducting Larry into his plumbing supplies business, but it turns out to be a bitter failure. The circular drama which finds Frank essentially adopting the fatherless Cool is understated but powerful.

There are many strands like these woven throughout. Gil is disgusted when he is passed over for a lucrative partnership to a man with shady child support practices, and he quits his job hoping for a righteous allegiance to family only to discover Karen is bearing his fourth child. "Women have choices, men have responsibilities," he protests in a tense moment, although he will have an epiphany that will let him concede in peace in a way Larry stubbornly denies. Susan will leave the supercilious Nathan feeling that romance is gone, and Nathan's sincerely embarrassing atonement is endearing though not a proper resolution. Helen and Julie stand by each other as Tod makes his disastrous racing debut, and contrary to Frank's negative philosophy, Kevin does something on the Little League field that allows Gil the opportunity to do the rare "happy dance."

Triumphs are where you can find them, often small but immensely gratifying, which is certainly a characterization of real adulthood. This culminates in a waiting room finale which is also a touch pat but is best taken as a warm victory for one of the many expecting mothers in the movie, including Karen and Julie (and the biologically anxious Susan, who pricks holes in her diaphragm). It also feels like one more group portrait of unified contentment before the pain and pleasure waves start crashing down all over again. "It never, never ends," indeed. If you are as invested in the characters as I, there's bound to be more squabbles and soul-searching to match the many bundles of joy.

Steve Martin would finally become a father in his 67th year, but he fits well in Ron Howard's suburban surroundings. A lot of it is the reflexive wit and outrage Martin brings out in Gil, but there is also his priceless Cowboy Gil routine, dressed up in modified rugs and boasting kitchen utensils for spurs. He's always been a marvelous physical goof, and that side of Martin gets to play regularly, but like in his Hughes collaboration, Martin calibrates it to the moods of his character. He bounces well off the beaming Steenburgen (the inspiration for Randy Newman's "I Love to See You Smile") and has one choice moment with Moranis, his Little Shop of Horrors/My Blue Heaven companion. If the picture lost something in order to fit it into two hours, one wonders if it was more time spent between Gil and Nathan, who share kindred woman troubles that a nice double date could fix. 

Parenthood is a film of constant interactivity which has been calibrated very exquisitely by Howard and his team. You get the "Diarrhea" sing-a-long, improper bedtime attire and vomit gag early on to ease you into the more potent adult-oriented comedy which immediately follows and the unabashed gem of a birthday party set piece. It works on a level of true cross-generational appeal which doesn't trivialize the subjects it condenses and embellishes, a testament to the skills of its large cast as well as its creative hub. No matter how desperate the characters become or how pressing the situations, Ron Howard loves to see them smile. And so do I.

THE ROCKETEER
(PG-13, Walt Disney Pictures, 108 mins., theatrical release date: June 21, 1991)

Clint Howard turns up in Parenthood as the archetypical ballgame loudmouth mocking Coach Buckman from behind the fence, but apparently he also appears in Joe Johnston's failed blockbuster The Rocketeer. Having watched the movie three times, I can't place Clint at all. Either he's the frustrated day player dressed in friar's robes storming off a movie set or the diminutive mobster on the right side of the frame during the final act showdown. He doesn't have a single line of dialogue and his unmistakable mug never commands the camera's attention. Still, when Clint Howard turned up to play the Ice Cream Man, what was the name of the preteen clique he tormented? It sure wasn't called the Rugheads.

Johnston, an ILM visual designer who graduated to associate producer for Ron Howard's Willow and finally director on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, moulds The Rocketeer in the image of a Lucas/Spielberg adventure yarn. The time and place is southern California in 1938, taking off from the lavish recreation which kicked off Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom for feature length while incorporating tropes from Return of the Jedi and the inaugural Raiders of the Lost Ark. Cliff Secord, the Fearless Freep, tests the jet pack on his back in an attempt to rescue a drunken townie spinning out of control in the skies above only to skip across the pond once the device gets the better of him. When the forces of institutionalized evil come looking for Secord, the main threat turns out to be Nazis who covet the rocket for a marquee name spy.

Errol Flynn, W.C. Fields, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and Rondo Hatton (cf. "Tiny Ron" Taylor as the slope-faced assassin Lothar) are all clearly evoked amongst its cast, but not Bettie Page. In the original Dave Stevens creation which premiered in 1982, a year after Raiders modernized our Republic Pictures past, Cliff Secord's girlfriend was modeled after the pre-Marilyn sex symbol who was in reality 15 years old in the era favored by Stevens. Not that the new model love interest Johnston's film subs in is any less achingly sexy: Jennifer Connelly, a former child actress turned 20-year-old knockout in Dennis Hopper's The Hot Spot, could've been the queen of pinups herself in 1991 on the strength of both The Rocketeer and the shrewdly/lewdly-marketed John Hughes throwaway Career Opportunities, had these two films performed better. 

The Rocketeer harkens back to the antiquated Commando Cody serials in which a tweak of the nipple knobs (thanks, J. Elvis Weinstein) allowed for a homegrown Superman changeover. No purple nurples or star-spangled tights for Cliff Secord, a gum-smacking model of boyish fearlessness who sees "borrowing" the experimental engine as a chance to revive his flagging fortunes as a pilot. In just the opening scene, his test run of a prize airplane, the Gee Bee, is rudely interrupted on the ground by one of the Cirrus X-3 rocket's gangster smugglers, who fires his tommy gun in the air and takes out one of the plane's legs. Secord, who can be self-absorbed and klutzy at odd intervals, listens to reason and even considers returning the Cirrus to the FBI before the jeopardy becomes expectedly personal.

Joe Johnston's hero caper, alas, was produced by Disney during an inter-company backlash dictated by Jeffrey Katzenberg in the wake of the faulty Dick Tracy blitzkrieg. The Rocketeer, which isn't as opulent as Warren Beatty's own pulp throwback, unravels on a small scale plotwise as opposed to budgetary. It operates on a strange kind of cult movie disposability where it looks sumptuous but tastes unfulfilling, and thrice have I watched it with rapt admiration but no lingering affection. The elements are all there for a transcendent if nostalgic crowd-pleaser on the order of the decade-old (at the time) Raiders of the Lost Ark, but they don't gel as craftily as they should.

Bill Campbell, who was romantically linked to Connelly off set and on, plays the hotdog stunt pilot Secord without setting off sparks in the manner of Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill (it's more a problem with the script than the capable performer). Timothy Dalton, fresh off his double 007 duty, gleefully sinks his teeth into the role of swashbuckling warmonger Neville Sinclair yet minus the humor he got to demonstrate a decade later in Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz. Paul Sorvino, who was also in Dick Tracy, is the all-American mobster who holds his own against the vain Sinclair. And as Howard Hughes, presented as the brain behind the rocket pack which lands in Secord's hangar, Terry (The Stepfather) O'Quinn is as commendable as ever. 

The Rocketeer's true marvels are of the visual kind, however. Johnston, who'd later launch the Captain America franchise during the modern comic book superhero boom, orchestrates a few pips of set pieces as grand as anything past its $40 million price tag. You can't deny the brilliance of the production design whether its the small town Bulldog Café which Secord and his mentor Peevy (Alan Arkin) frequent alongside ole reliable William Sanderson or the more ritzy South Seas Club which the devious Sinclair takes Secord's day player paramour Jenny Blake (Connelly) to upon overhearing the true identity of the famous Rocketeer (his headline-dominating name coined by Jon Polito as Bigelow). And I loved the animated newsreel of doom which lays out the Third Reich's plans of jet-propelled conquest more convincingly than all of the dialogue which involves Sinclair. It reminded me of Brad Bird's The Iron Giant, which was more confident in its Spielbergian heritage than The Rocketeer. 

MOVING VIOLATIONS
(PG-13, Twentieth Century Fox, 90 mins., theatrical release date: April 19, 1985)

Moving Violations, alas, confirms the nagging suspicion I had about the writing team of Neal Israel & Pat Proft plagiarizing the blockbuster legacy of producer Ivan Reitman. In just three examples: 1) they still can't write a role worthy of the real Bill Murray, so this time, they've caved into nepotism and hired Bill's younger brother John for a deliberate imitation; 2) not content to rehash their own Police Academy, which was already coasting on borrowed Stripes, the finale of Moving Violations is a direct steal from National Lampoon's Animal House (there's also a motivational speech from John Murray that is clearly a half-assed echo of John Belushi's legendary "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!" spiel); 3) the Israel-directed Moving Violations demonstrates not only that the success of the same year's Real Genius was attributable to outsider Martha Coolidge, but that even Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment managed fresher comedy with a new creative hub as well as the unforgettable screen debut of Bobcat Goldthwait.

Bob Zemeckis regular Wendie Jo Sperber starred in the uproarious Used Cars five years prior to this, Sally Kellerman benefited as much as Rodney did by going Back to School the next summer and Fred Willard, who is the lone spark of comic life to be found in Moving Violations, was previously in This Is Spinal Tap. Brian Backer plays another lovesick dweeb as if to remind us that the worthier Fast Times at Ridgemont High would forever be his career highlight. Ned Eisenberg (who co-starred with Backer in 1981's The Burning) does the goofy gorehound shtick owned by Dean Cameron's Chainsaw in Summer School. James Keach was in Walter Hill's The Long Riders (opposite brother Stacy) and National Lampoon's Vacation. Jennifer Tilly would become a worthy comedienne on the basis of Let It Ride and Liar Liar.

I named all these actors and their past or future accomplishments to stress one simple point: You could see them all do much better than Moving Violations. I've already listed a dozen funnier movies, 13 if you want to be kind to Police Academy. At least that had some surefire R-rated set pieces, a more amiable batch of misfit stereotypes and the vocal talents of Michael Winslow as Larvell Jones, who I know can do a better Bill Murray impression than even his sibling can. I've read one reviewer compare the pudgy-cheeked John Murray to a teenage George Takei, but he's easily a dead ringer for a younger Bill Hicks, especially the one seen in Sane Man.

There. My baker's dozen of superior comedy is now officially complete. 

Moving Violations is a flunky starring James Keach as Deputy Halik, the bike cop responsible for busting John Murray's slobby Dana Cannon, who immediately retaliates by baiting Halik into a misdirected rage which costs the policeman a recent promotion. That particular punchline you notice in advance like a train you'd hear hurtling towards your stalling automobile perched atop the railroad tracks. Don't laugh (easy to do in regards to this film), but that very cliché turns up at one moment. Other hoary chestnuts include the inadvertent conjugation of jailbait, replete with mad dash out of the bedroom window, and a bumbling examination ride that doesn't even try to one-up a similar moment with Officer Hooks from the first Police Academy. And these happen to the same character, Brian Backer's hapless puppeteer Scott (Backer would go on to Police Academy 4 as a skater boy, opposite a pre-SNL David Spade). He, Dana and several others are thrown together in court-appointed traffic school taught by the disgraced Halik.

Wendie Jo Sperber is Joan , a dim hypochondriac who misconstrues the terminology of auto body doc Terrence Williams (Fred Willard, with a corn-cob pipe and seasoned straight man sincerity) as a regimen for physical wellness. Thus, when he advises Joan to lube up her rear end, it's not the Valvoline she reaches for. The joke is pushed further than Neal Israel can handle it when Joan turns up at his repair shop office and undresses for a supposed physical. Nadine van der Velde (Critters) plays the aforementioned underage love interest, closet punkette Stephanie. Nedra Volz (Lust in the Dust) is the requisite senior demolitionist who drives friend Clara Peller (of Wendy's commercial fame) onto an airport runway. Willard Pugh (The Color Purple) is on hand simply to say "My father's going to kill me!" Again, you could be watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High instead of this.

As for Jennifer Tilly, she is curiously unfunny as the requisite Stupid Smart Girl, known in this script as Amy. She looks like Julie Kavner and tries to sound like Julie Hagerty, and her love for Cannon is too much a placebo to even suggest Bad Medicine. There's one cute sight gag in an anti-gravity chamber, but the dialogue and performances don't justify it. Israel & Proft cram the movie with too many dud one-liners, musty innuendos and hackneyed anti-establishment sniggers. Sally Kellerman's Judge Nedra is an unflatteringly unsexy bondage case (seriously, I can't watch her leather-studded straw dog without hearing Fred Willard's Buck Laughlin) who conspires with the bitter Halik to deny the rejects their confiscated licenses as well as make a profit off their impounded vehicles.

Israel has effectively diluted the convivial anarchy of his forebears, thus resulting in a painfully episodic structure which emphasizes humiliation, banality and tangential dead ends. In his petty vengeance, Halik goes so far as to frame Cannon for a convenience store robbery, but at that point, throwing the book at the charmless jester is likely to be on the majority of people's minds. In any case, this development is worthless. A recurring joke is made about Halik's female partner, Deputy Morris (Lisa Hart Carroll: Terms of Endearment...really?!), being mistaken for a man because of her short, "butch" haircut (apparently, none of the manchildren has ever seen Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places). Wendie Jo Sperber and Brian Backer play characters who are nothing but objects of mean-spirited debasement, no different from the authority figures whom Israel & Proft code as authoritarian killjoys. Everything about Moving Violations tastes so much more curdled compared to not only Police Academy and Bachelor Party, but also Revenge of the Nerds and Ghostbusters.

And yet here I am reviewing it, having listened to charlatans and contrarians tell me it's some kind of discovery. That I'm supposed to overlook Neal Israel's pathetic direction, ripe with egregious continuity and ADR flubs, as well as the tired slapstick and tedious characters so as to appreciate it on the same level as Airplane! or Better Off Dead. I don't think so. If I had paid to see this theatrically, I'd have torn up my ticket like one would do any unfair writ. Even the Netflix DVD sleeve is steeling my hands for destruction: "Traffic school turns into a prison sentence in this comedy from Neal Israel, the director of Police Academy." If you're dumb enough to believe that, then Moving Violations is the perfect movie for you.

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey + Alive + Toy Soldiers + The Good Son

HOMEWARD BOUND: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY
(G, Walt Disney Pictures, 84 mins., theatrical release date: Feb. 12, 1993)

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey first roamed as a children's book by Sheila Burnford in 1961 before Disney commissioned a live-action adaptation two years later. Both Burnford's tome and Fletcher Markle's movie hew closer to something like The Journey of Natty Gann compared to the cutesier Homeward Bound, which shares more in common with The Adventures of Milo & Otis but with a Look Who's Talking! twist. Don Ameche, Sally Field and Michael J. Fox (reportedly recast from Donald Sutherland, Annie Potts and Jon Cryer) speak the animal characters' inner dialogue in this case, a trio of happy pets forced to traverse the Sierra Vistas to reunite with their young masters.

Bulldog Chance (Fox), in spite of being rescued by the Burnfords (the central family here named after the story's author, yes), isn't the least bit serious about loyalty and more interested in slobbering havoc. Golden retriever Shadow (Ameche) and Himalayan cat Sassy (Field) have their own solemn bonds to child companions Peter (Benji Thall) and Hope (Veronica Lauren) to uphold when they're not trying to keep rascally Chance in line. But when Peter, Hope and Jamie's (Kevin Chevalia) mother, Laura (Kim Griest), remarries to schoolteacher Bob Seaver (Robert Hays), the Burnfords have to uproot to San Francisco on business, leaving the animals behind at the ranch home of Kate (Jean Smart).

It isn't long before Shadow starts fearing the worst, and flees Kate's sanctuary with Chance and Sassy towing behind him. All of the all-natural wilderness pitfalls greet them, from grizzlies and porcupines to waterfalls and forest rangers, but the furry leads are steadfastly adorable and the name-brand voice stars taunt each other with glee, specifically the pugnacious Fox and prissy Field (Mr. Ameche, in his last hurrah, convinces us of Shadow's bountiful wisdom). Chance has been beefed up considerably from the original prototype in terms of breed (no longer the button-eyed Muffy the Bull Terrier) and presence, the screenplay from Linda (Beauty and the Beast) Woolverton and Caroline (The Addams Family) Thompson, with uncredited punch-up from Jonathan (The Sure Thing) Roberts, allowing Fox's hound to out-wisecrack Arnold Schwarzenegger, referenced in the presence of a mountain lion.

More surprising is the choice of director, Duwayne Dunham, a reliable editor for David Lynch who has momentum on his side as much as the locale and the cute animals. The movie can't help but lag whenever Dunham focuses on the humans, mostly because the writers simply trot them out for melodramatic relief. A late-inning stretch at an animal control center goes the other way just as roughly. But Dunham's knack for adversity does allow for a couple of raw heart-clenchers: Sassy is swept away by a raging salt river, and the aged Shadow suffers a crueler fate due to unstable woodworks.

By that point, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey does leave you whimpering like Chance for the prospect of a happy ending, which is delivered on pure family-oriented terms. Having spent a year in post-production repair, Homeward Bound is undemanding, to be true (this isn't a game-changer like Babe), but with a surefire paw up on Look Who's Talking Now! or any of the Benji films (watch out for Joe Camp's credit as "animal coordinator").

ALIVE
(R, Touchstone/Paramount Pictures, 120 mins., theatrical release date: Jan. 15, 1993)

Whereas the strays of Disney's Homeward Bound cure their hunger pains via a stream of fresh fish, the survivors in Touchstone's (and Paramount's) Alive dine on philosophical and primitive red meat. Piers Paul Read's literary document of the 1972 Andes flight disaster lends itself less to feel-good perseverance than The Incredible Journey, unless I missed the part where the golden retriever was devoured whole by the saucer-eyed kitty and the spotted mutt. Indeed, an ordeal like the one experienced by the Uruguayan rugby players, God-fearing alumni of Montevideo's Stella Maris, and their extended family would've been slightly improved by having Homeward Bound's critters scurry through the snow. Knowing my Touchstone Pictures, chances are they would've encountered Sidney Poitier and Tom Berenger instead.

Actually, the leveling of Flight 571 on Friday the 13th, October 1972, is more unsettling than any Jason kill. An unforgiving cloud blinds the pilots to craggy disaster, with both wings and the tail end clipped off on collision. The dismembered aircraft slides violently to a halt, all of the passengers' seats thrusting forward to suggest a flesh-and-blood highway accident. The aftermath doesn't skimp on visceral images of women's legs pinned down by metal rods or the accompanying mania brought on by "altitude sickness." By the time the food and drink supply is rationed, only 27 out of the initial 45 boarders remain, the pilots and a dozen-plus others dead. The mantle of leader eventually shifts from team captain Antonio Balbi (Vincent Spano) to the revived Nando Parrado (Ethan Hawke, embodying this very film's technical advisor) as the situation grows further desperate.

Indeed, it is Nando who declares his budding stewardship with the immortal line: "Well, then I'll cut some meat off the pilots. After all, they got us into this mess."

Director Frank (Arachnophobia) Marshall and writer John Patrick (Moonstruck) Shanley downplay grisly sensationalism in favor of a rousing emphasis on perilous endurance. When one poor hiker sinks into the snow and the ground falls away right in front of him, it's got a charge above and beyond the call of Rene Cardona. Alive doesn't hack it as a group portrait, given the cast is predominantly nondescript even while their numbers are thinning, but Marshall and Shanley do convey the plight tougher than most disaster movies have been known to muster. For a while at least...

...Because what they cannot do is reconcile the tactful horror of the situation with the pronounced spirituality of the characters. Portentous wraparounds featuring John Malkovich as one of the athletes (we're never clear who) speak of enlightenment in the eeriest of tones. Even though guilt and "innocence" are queried as sacrificial, the direct connotation made between cannibalism and the Communion has the effect of making those corpse cuts take on the significance of altar bread. As the lone female survivor, Illeana Douglas takes no place at this Donner Party until she whimsically decides to be fruitful, but given that the one agnostic of the bunch pays for his refusal to pray, tragedy is inevitable, and curiously weightless. Collapsing in on itself despite the technical finesse, Alive makes like an Outward Bound expedition convinced it's a vision quest.

TOY SOLDIERS
(R, Tri-Star Pictures, 111 mins., theatrical release date: Apr. 26, 1991)

Ethan Hawke may be nobody's image of South American machismo, but Andrew "The Djinn Genie" Divoff is a native Venezuelan with the same hot-blooded grit as Robert Davi's Sanchez from Licence to Kill. Toy Soldiers wants to position him as Hans Gruber in this particular hostage crisis, but first-time director Daniel Petrie Jr. is frustratingly adept at cannibalizing proven action flick tropes in as perfunctory a manner possible (cf: Shoot to Kill). Co-scripting this time with David Koepp, Petrie's own "triumph of the spirit" is a Red Dawn Reform School where the unruly sons of privilege outwit heavily-armed Latino and Aryan thugs under the volatile lead of Luis Cali (Divoff), whose biggest crime is loving his own cartel-kingpin daddy a bit too much.

Sean "Goonie 4 Life" Astin, Wil Wheaton (angstier here than he was in Stand by Me) and Keith Coogan (the twice-babysat misfit, inheriting Mikey's asthma) play a thrice-expelled discipline case, the bitter progeny of a Mafioso (Jerry Orbach) and the gawky offspring of a Republican figurehead. These self-described "rejects" of the Regis academy fall in line once Luis arrives; having arrived too late to single out a judge's son for vengeance in his father's imprisonment, he blockades the campus with remote-controlled plastic explosives, rooftop snipers and all manner of military-grade firepower. Cali also devotes hourly intervals to head counts where for one missing student, five are to be executed.

Billy Tepper (Astin) leads the kiddie insurgence and manages to deliver crucial information to the authorities within one recess period. But both parental attention and Special Forces tend to stifle (in this case, fatally) young minds, so Billy and his buds, as well as two preteen electronics whizzes, risk a do-or-die attempt to diffuse the bombs and defeat the terrorists. But the only real urgency resides in Michael Kahn's proficient editing, brisker than it was in the equally-lengthy Alive so as to be on the level of his Indiana Jones assignments. Despite the ventilation shafts, clandestine confrontations and adrenaline-fueled heroism, Die Hard, this movie's closest forebear, packed a meatier punch. The youthful hunks tend to spend their free time sans pants, and it apparently made no sense for Petrie & Koepp to damage the merchandise even slightly. 

Toy Soldiers, adapted from a novel by William P. Kennedy, bears no relation to the '84 film of the same name nor does it utilize Martika's hit ballad ("We all fall down...") as Eminem eventually would. Aside from Kahn and Divoff, the film's major assets include dependable supporting turns from Louis Gossett Jr. as the stern but lenient dean and Denholm Elliott's wryly funny headmaster. And I would be remiss if I didn't say that Sean Astin does the best he can with his overbearing delinquent hero, who in one moment is subjected to corporal punishment by Cali, once a private school attendee in his teens. Spare the rod, as they say, but spoil the child by seeking out Class of 1999. Lil' Petrie still needs to learn some discipline himself.

THE GOOD SON
(R, 20th Century Fox, 87 mins., theatrical release date: Sep. 24, 1993)

What's trashier than Toy Soldiers, grimmer than Alive and fraught with more behind-the-scenes turmoil than Homeward Bound? The Good Son. Novelist Ian McEwan whipped up the screenplay in 1986 as commissioned by 20th Century Fox, but the studio balked until 1991, during which time it reached pre-Blacklist levels of curiosity. With Michael (Heathers) Lehmann attached to direct and a cast including Jesse Bradford and Mary Steenburgen, McEwan watched with growing disillusionment as Kit Culkin blackmailed Fox into casting his golden boy son Macaulay in the titular role and Lehmann was traded for Joseph Ruben, no stranger to iconoclastic star vehicles thanks to Sleeping with the Enemy, who unceremoniously brought in a friend to rewrite McEwan's script. McEwan fought to claim sole writing credit, keeping distance from the finished product on his own terms.

His is not the only disgrace. The same Joseph Ruben who crafted 1987's low-budget creeper sleeper The Stepfather only has formalism going for him here; thus, he's prematurely interchangeable with John (Pacific Heights) Schlesinger. Cajoled into rewiring his endearingly bratty image, the distressingly humorless Macaulay Culkin doesn't seem to be having as much fun as his wicked Henry Evans suggests we should. So numbingly interested in death Henry is that he seems to have stumbled out of River's Edge rather than The Omen. The adults are mindless pushovers devoid of any psychological investment, cheating us out of a revelatory performance on a par with Terry O'Quinn, Margaret Colin (cf: True Believer) or Kevin Anderson. And no matter how effectively it is lensed, Maine is so synonymous with Stephen King as to invite unfair if educational contrast (watch out for Daniel Hugh Kelly, of the movie version of Cujo, as another father on a poorly-timed business trip).

Only Elijah Wood, who for all intents and purposes is the focal character, assures us of McEwan's sullied integrity. Cousin Mark's guilt-addled devotion to his deceased mother, which he projects onto the similarly mournful Aunt Susan (Wendy Crewson), is a solid hook for a psychological fable that declares a tyke war. The mind reels as to how Joseph Ruben could've handled the material back when The Stepfather showed he could deconstruct the idea of a nuclear family, resonantly pitting '50s idealism against '80s cynicism. Repackaged for Macaulay, whose burglar-bashing Home Alone fame could have been subverted in surer hands, every malevolent misdeed, spot of profanity and vindictive overture is patently calculated. The antagonism Mark endures from Henry and his blind protectors is ludicrously contrived. And the cliff top showdown is the only point where the film spills over with juicy camp.

More than any post-Bad Seed celebration of adolescent sadism in the first degree (or even the excellent Nick Cave song written sympathetically about Cain), The Good Son stirred within me memories of David Keith's The Curse. In it, Wil Wheaton acted alongside his own real-life sibling Anne, who in her only film credit is remembered for being attacked by a coop of homicidal chickens. Macaulay's sister Quinn Culkin experiences a similar fate, as Henry tries to dispose of his last biological rival, 8-year-old Connie, by tossing her onto thin ice. Had Joseph Ruben enjoyed himself in this case, the latent dysfunction would've made for some sprightly (or is that spritely?) mischief. Alas, that old adage of resignation sets in early and never gets lifted: "Playtime's over."

The Hard Way

THE HARD WAY
(R, Universal Pictures, 111 mins., Mar. 8, 1991)

Last year from around the time of this review, NBC took Michael J. Fox and his titular sitcom nationwide, only to renege on their investment the very next month. And that was heavy. Although the show's lukewarm critical reception and disappointing ratings seemed to reflect its early death, there was something refreshing about seeing Fox's return to showbiz, especially comedy. And it wasn't just his Family Ties/Back to the Future heyday which prompted such sentimentalism, but going as far back to 1991 and the buddy cop goof The Hard Way.

This modest Hollywood attempt at culture crash meta-humor from Stakeout director John Badham got a lot of mileage from Fox's insider position as a superstar. In The Hard Way, Fox plays a pampered blockbuster actor named Nick Lang, his net worth $1.2 billion dollars on the back of cartoonish capers like "Smoking Gunn," whose sequel is on the verge of premiering and is being heavily advertised across the country. "I'm the only one who wants me to grow up!" Lang bemoans in the midst of a temper tantrum that just saw him chuck his People's Choice Award at the TV screen which aired the trailer for "Smoking Gunn II."

Of course, the truth was that Fox himself had experienced such a desire to stretch out his range in the wake of lightweight star vehicles like the Back to the Future trilogy and The Secret of My Success. Fox registered a lower-key turn in Paul Schrader's Light of Day and followed them up in the next couple of years with Bright Lights, Big City and Brian De Palma's Casualties of War. The public image of him as Alex P. Keaton/Marty McFly continued to dog him despite his solid character work, especially in that De Palma film where he had to share scenes with Method-y steamroller Sean Penn. Penn is compelling, to be sure, but you couldn't imagine him anchoring something as whimsical as Doc Hollywood or sending up his own ego as Fox does in The Hard Way.

He may not have any Elvis in him, as Mojo Nixon doth protest, but Michael J. Fox has his own star quality and a healthy sense of self-effacement. And to me, that matters a whole lot in terms of establishing a solid presence.

Getting back to the set-up, Lang has his eyes set on a coveted role as gritty policeman Nick Casanov in an unnamed project (only glimpsed subtly before the end credits), though his agent Angie (Penny Marshall, sardonically sweet) doesn't see him as viable a candidate as, say, Mel Gibson. Lang's solution: to ingratiate himself into the life of a real hard-boiled cop and attain the necessary knowledge and motivation to give him the advantage. Just who is his mentor?

That would be Detective John Moss, NYPD, a live wire of a loner played by James Woods, as committed as ever but not above flashing his own witty credentials like a badge of honor. The film opens on Moss as he is rushing to meet a hot date whilst navigating the congestion of Times Square traffic, going so far as to break out his siren to clear a path. Alas, if it's not one thing, it's another, as Moss receives a bulletin related to the case of the Party Crasher (Stephen Lang), a quasi-vigilante thrill killer who assassinates various types in plain sight. His latest mark is a drug dealer at a disco, and he makes sure to phone 911 in advance because, as Moss states, "he craves attention."

Moss and his partners fail to prevent the murder, and the Crasher makes a break among the panicking crowd. When his vehicle is chained to a tow truck, he commandeers it for his getaway, though not without Moss hanging madly on the driver's side door. The Crasher makes quick work shaking off the squad cars and finally Moss, slamming him into an oversized cigarette.

And Nick Lang's face is puffing on it.

So you can imagine Moss's dismay at having to give up chasing the Crasher to break in Lang as his partner. "Not if you tied my tongue to your tailpipe and drove me 80 mph naked through a field of broken glass." Lang, in his best Serpico costume, awaits and admires the verisimilitude of the station: "It's like a movie, it's so real!" This eager beaver shadows his reluctant coach as he resumes the investigation against the orders of Captain Brix (Delroy Lindo), interrogating a street crew called the Dead Romeos (among them teenaged Dante Smith, aka Black Star rapper Mos Def) in hopes they'll rat on the gun manufacturer who sold the Crasher his hi-tech piece. Lang attracts the attention of a rival Hispanic gang and barges in on Moss, thus instigating a shoot-out.

Along the way, Lang desperately tries to convince Moss to let his guard down so he can glean some pertinent wisdom from this "Yoda among cops." The instinctive, embittered Moss rebuts this "Dickless Tracy" prima donna with some hard-hearted gravity of the situation. This is not an acting exercise, after all, and lives are constantly in the balance. But Lang sticks around, whether at the frog dog stand, at Moss's apartment or even the pizzeria where Moss meets prospective girlfriend Susan (Annabella Sciorra, the predecessor of Marisa Tomei) and her daughter Bonnie (10-year-old Christina Ricci).

Woods and Fox prove equally zesty in their conflicting commitments, reaching their joint apex in a riotous moment where Moss has gone to a bar to get the disastrous date, which saw him roughing up a quartet of obnoxious bankers (among them irascible comedian Lewis Black), out of his mind. The student tries to teach the confused, crusty romantic on how to best express himself to a lady. Lang gets into the role of Susan, with his legs crossed and shirt unbuttoned, and thus tries to engage Moss into conversation. It's a play-acting gig which mirrors the male duo's own contentious pairing, but is handled with superhuman precision from both leads, and the scene emphasizes character details (particularly Moss's unfounded jealousy and divorcee frostiness) over cheap laughs.

The script from Lem Dobbs (who co-wrote the story with Michael Kozoll) and Daniel Pyne is rich enough with bickering zingers and Hollywood satire. The opening mock-trailer for "Smoking Gunn II," a cross-pollination of Indiana Jones and James Bond adventures, is sharper than anything from Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder. And two key action sequences are well woven into the fabric of this fish-out-of-Evian commentary, first a shoot-out in a crowded theatre showing "Smoking Gunn II" and a "top of the world" final showdown utilizing a mechanical billboard for Lang's film, heralded by his warning about the "third act" in a vindictive plot. A lot of quirky satire is mined from the act of smoking cigarettes throughout and it culminates in spectacular fashion in the end.

The chemistry between Jimmy and Mikey is just as unexpectedly deft as the Dreyfuss/Estevez coupling from Stakeout, perhaps even more so given the vast gulf between their warring knowledge of reality. But John Badham also wants to preserve the film's more violent edginess, so the Party Crasher is presented as a grinning fanatic who justifies the murder of innocent civilians in his sanctimonious super-villainy. A crucial divide between Moss and Lang stems from the instillation of post-traumatic stress, testing their limits through the danger of wrongly spilled blood. And Lang's manic desire to establish his movie star commitment is lent gravity by a couple of sobering circumstances.

Badham tempers such distressing elements with the kind of pop culture savvy which dominated his Short Circuit, leading to the ultimate realization that for all his commitment, Lang's claim to adulthood is just him doing a Bruce Willis parody. There is a heavy Hitchcock hand to that aforementioned rooftop squabble, which calls attention to life imitating art even more bluntly. And in poking fun at Lang's narcissistic insularity, there is a gag involving subway riders which sticks one to the post-Bernie Goetz, post-Death Wish craze for ordinary outlaw heroes.

The essence of The Hard Way is just the pure entertainment value afforded to and delivered in spades by "hambone" savants Michael J. Fox and James Woods. This is their Midnight Run, albeit a less intriguing variation in terms of criminal antics, and they juice the screenplay for all its quippy, incompatible liquid gold. Coming at the end of a genre that was about to be the domain of lone wolves instead of the bumbling duos, Badham sees this trend off with more energy and efficiency than he would demonstrate in his straight sequel Another Stakeout. The Hard Way is easy going, to be true, but at least it's persistently, procedurally hilarious.

The cast also includes Conrad Roberts (The Serpent and the Rainbow) as the wheezy-voiced gun runner Witherspoon and, among many in Moss's precinct, John Capodice, Luis Guzman and LL Cool J, whose "Mama Said Knock You Out" inconspicuously opens and closes the film. Me personally, I prefer James Woods dusting off the old Max Renn wardrobe for his big Dirty Harry moment in the subway. "See you in Pittsburgh, punk."

Body Parts

BODY PARTS

(R, Paramount Pictures, 88 mins., release date: August 2, 1991)

Bleeding heart criminal psychologist Bill Crushank has been tasked with rehabilitating a 20-year Death Row inmate, but confides to his loving wife Karen that he's become disillusioned with his profession. With his career in doubt but his family life in perfect stability, Bill drives to work one snow-capped morning only to dodge a swerving car with a popped wheelie on the freeway. A Mack truck fails to brake in time, and Bill is rushed to the hospital with a stump where his right arm used to be. Enter radical, reserved Dr. Agatha Webb, who persuades Karen into signing a waiver which will allow Bill to receive an immediate replacement limb. The last thing the unfortunate shrink sees before he's anaesthetized, in an operating room under armed security, is Dr. Webb severing the head of his donor with a bone saw...

It was inevitable that during the current horrorthon which has kept me productive, I would decide to focus on a movie by one Eric Red, the enigmatic writer of two seminal desert-based shockers in The Hitcher (1986) and Near Dark (1987), the latter a collaboration with future Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow and one of my all-time personal favorite films. Based on the novel Choice Cuts by the French fiction duo of Boileau-Narcejac, who inspired the suspense classics Diabolique and Vertigo (as well as scripted the immortal Eyes Without a Face from 1960, a nightmarish alternative to the Nouvelle Vague), the noirish Frankenstein riff Body Parts is equal parts psychological descent and medical paranoia in which an inquisitive scholar of violent impulses becomes his own worst case scenario through the miracles of modern science. Eventually, the movie implodes after an hour's worth of brooding, inquisitive self-doubt and relies upon a batty, bloody showdown between Bill and his benefactors. If Red's hands-own approach were not so assured, this conflict transplant would be harder to take than any stitched-on appendage. But still, you might want to buckle up, which is good advice Bill Crushank (Jeff Fahey) himself apparently forgot to heed.

Bill's new arm proves more than serviceable, demonstrating reflexes and stamina that make him a better father and husband than ever before. But this is truly a "devil in the flesh" situation, and frequent images of grotesque violence begin to overcome his mind. During a session with jittery convict Kolberg (Paul Ben-Victor), Bill learns that the tattoo on his wrist denotes "helplessly homicidal" and descends into further research. A thumbprint scan reveals that his arm once belonged to Charley Fletcher, a proud psychopath who butchered women and cops for kicks. As mild-mannered Bill continues to endure aggressive mood swings and physically terrorizes Karen (Kim Delaney) and their children, Bill seeks out two more of Dr. Webb’s (Lindsay Duncan) patients, the formerly wheelchair-bound Mark Draper (Peter Murniek) and the recipient of Fletcher's left arm, Remo Lacey (Brad Dourif), a self-professed hack painter who translates Fletcher’s murderous memories into grisly gold.

Eventually, Bill’s animus side becomes too consuming and he has to isolate himself from those he loves, going into self-imposed exile and impotent rage as he demands Dr. Webb take back the arm. Inevitably, he's reduced to drinking to his despair with the company of Mark and Remo, who echo the consolations of anima figureheads Karen and Dr. Webb ("That arm can’t do anything you don’t want it to"). But he still can't fully control himself, and Bill finds himself under the custody of Detective Sawchuck (Zakes Mokae). The stakes have to get higher, so the head of Charley Fletcher is recycled to further haunt Bill and instigate a particularly tense car chase which eventually stirs Bill into reconciling the darkness within.

Jeff Fahey was a rising star in the early 1990s, having made his big splash in movies directed by former partners Clint Eastwood (White Hunter, Black Heart) and Sondra Locke (Impulse). This 1991 mainstream horror effort from Friday the 13th series producer Frank Mancuso Jr. was a non-starter, though, infamously gaining controversy after the Jeffrey Dahmer killings stalled any promotion in Wisconsin. The mediocre if moderately-lucrative The Lawnmower Man followed before Fahey's enduring prolificacy in direct-to-cable and direct-to-video fare. Nowadays, he has gained some popular traction thanks to TV's Lost and Robert Rodriguez casting him in both Planet Terror and Machete. The blue-eyed thespian with the drawling, disturbed voice does some understated if ferocious character acting in Body Parts, preserving Bill's intelligence and compassion even in the face of mounting dread and self-preserving madness.

The film's most puckish element is in the ever-reliable presence of Brad Dourif as Remo, whose childish pretension and flashes of wit liven up his encounters with Bill and establish him as more offbeat than off-kilter. The performances as a whole are top-notch, from a smoldering Kim Delaney to the icy determination of Lindsay Duncan and Zakes Mokae, best known as voodoo gangster Peytraud from Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow, as the reasonable officer who aids Bill even when he’s forced to drive him downtown. And Eric Red matches his careful attention to actors in terms of composition, fashioning some legitimately unnerving moments with a lurid efficiency comparable to Brian De Palma, chiefly in the hospital sequence where Bill prepares to be operated on and in that aforementioned chase scene, which works like gangbusters despite a familiarity to Maniac Cop 2.

Another component of surprising elegance is the cinematography of Theo van de Sande, perhaps best remembered previously for lensing the apocalyptic love story Miracle Mile (1988) but soon to become a mainstream cameraman currently over-saturating dreadful Adam Sandler comedies. The movie’s lighting scheme almost seems to follow the deterioration of Bill's firmness, getting grittier and darker as it goes along, reaching a clinically creepy peak when Bill returns to the operating room looking for resolution and discovers a grisly literalization of the film's title.

Body Parts is one of those films whose inherent ludicrousness (think of the killer toupees and eyeballs seen in both The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror IX and John Carpenter Presents Body Bags) is kept at bay thanks to assured style and skill from those involved. The build-up is consistently intense, thanks to Jeff Fahey's grounded, guilt-addled charisma as Bill Crushank as well as Eric Red's undervalued sense of economy. And though sum of its parts might not be all that amazing taken as a whole, with the finale indeed sticking out like a severed thumb, it's just as much engrossing as it is just gross. The best way to watch this movie is through Paramount's unfortunately OOP DVD edition, a bare-bones affair which nevertheless presented a stellar remaster of the movie in its intended 2.35:1 aspect ratio and a solid Dolby 5.1 surround mix.