This makes five Arthur Penn movies I've seen, along with The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde, The Train, and Little Big Man. So far, despite the efforts of a documentary short on the DVD, I can't find a pattern to his style. They're of different genres and moods, they have different major actors and themes, and there are no obvious signatures. Maybe that's why I've had trouble remembering who Penn is. But I don't hold that against him; the important thing is that he has a good track record, right?
LA PI Harry (Gene Hackman) accepts a case from a retired minor actress: finding her runaway jailbait daughter, Delly (Melanie Griffith). He tracks Delly down to the Florida Keys, but she resents her mom too much to comply right away. After coming across a sunken plane with a corpse inside, she wants to go home. Harry's not keen on remaining a PI after that either, but that won't be the last corpse he sees. And yes, both Delly and the plane are relevant to the larger case.
A side arc involves a more personal discovery for Harry: His wife is cheating on him. And unapologetic about it. She disrespects his choice of career, making it sound like a mockery of the romanticized detectives we typically see on screen. To be fair, Harry never does anything particularly admirable in ability or virtue in the course of the story. Maybe that mockery is intended on the filmmakers' part.
Despite the title (punning on a chess metaphor), most of the action takes place by day. Nevertheless, we might as well call the genre neo-noir, insofar as the mid-'70s are "neo." Absolutely no one comes out looking good. Or in good shape. For instance, Delly's mom apparently wants her around only to benefit from the trust fund, and Delly gets her revenge by making statutory rapists out of her mom's exes. (If you weren't already disturbed, be aware that Griffith really was underage while presenting full frontal nudity.)
It's very '70s—not only in its darkness, R-ratedness, and intellect but in general cultural trappings, like fashion and technology. Several fight scenes are accompanied by dissonant contemporary music. Penn even incorporated elements of The Stunt Man (there is a literal stunt man character), which he almost got to direct.
Does it work as such? Eh, more or less. It's believable enough, thanks in part to yet another award-nominated performance by Hackman, but it doesn't feel very tense or mysterious until more than half over, after which my head spun from piecing it all together. I've grown accustomed to slow-boiling dramas, but that doesn't make it easy to enjoy a pervasive sense of bitterness. The few moments that feel fresh also feel pretty awkward.
I consider NM about average for its kind. I might see another Penn pic, but he doesn't have a whole lot of promising ones left.
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