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List Price: $9.98
Features
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• NTSC
In Theaters : 11 May, 1991
Video Release : 07 August, 2001 |
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
the adrenalin rush of an amateur
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| Director Larry Elikann is a man of contradiction. He can tear your heart out with Mare Winningham as a homeless mother in God Bless the Child, but he also has an affinity with Armande Assante since he has used him so many times. Assante's macho swagger and don't-mess-with-me attitude may be Elikann's definition of masculinity but unfortunately in this HBO TVM either the director allows or insisted on Assante mangling his lines so that he is mostly unintelligible. I suppose real men like Assante and his ilk don't need to say much but this is definitely an obstacle to motivation, and his performance comes across as manically mannered. The extremity of Assante's act has an odd if not downright offensively homophobic parallel in Elikann's representation of his gay men as predatory prison inmates or black market peddlers. The first can be rationalised by men's need for sexual release, and the second as reckless playfulness, or one can take these portrayals seriously and not be amused. The setup here is that Assante has antagonised The Junkman in prison by refusing to be his "punk" so in retaliation the Junkman has his cohorts on the outside blackmail Assante when he is released by making a hostage of his former girlfriend, Marcia Gay Harden, now attached to Sam Neill. Since it doesn't look like The Junkman is going to be paroled anytime soon, you might wonder how much of an influence he can make from prison, but that given is probably explained by his gang all being pretty boys. Thankfully the kidnapping of Harden is delayed so that we have time to appreciate the casting against type, especially of Neill, as a bedroom stud and man who uncovers his own violent impulses. Harden's unusual look and edginess always makes her an interesting actress and she has been blessed by nature to be able to play sexy as well. Writer Larry Brothers tones up what is basically a triangle with obstacles, with Harden's mixed resistance to Assante's appeal, and I liked Brother's use of "the genie" being the granting of three wishes. Elikann avoids most of the action cliches and even comes up with the occasional memorable images - a cut from Assante's photo of Harden to her first appearance in closeup, a cut from her in profile to a boxed string of pearls, a pan from a wall to a night skyline, someone exiting a swinging door to giving Harden her first view of the returned Assante, and a flock of geese that act as guards to someone's home. |
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