The year of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and for Trekkies, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but surprisingly little else that really stands out. Reviewed below are Missing, a political conspiracy drama based on real events, the moody sci-fi thriller Blade Runner, and Sidney Lumet’s courtroom saga The Verdict, with Paul Newman.
A starship dogfight. The plot may be two-dimentional, but for the fantasy-loving fanbase there is nothing better.
I did consider The Wrath of Khan, having seen it more times than I’d care to admit, but like certain other movie or TV franchises (M*A*S*H springs to mind), it has its own internal logic, which one has to grow up with to really appreciate. In isolation, it is an odd affair which must be a bizarre mystery to anyone seeing it for the first time. (5/10.)
Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon in Missing.
MISSING (12 February 1982) USA
Director: Costa-Gavras.
Cast: Sissy Spacek, John Shea, Jack Lemmon.
Plot: The father and wife of an American man who dissapears during the Chilean coup of 1973 search for answers, having to weave their way through maze of political and military misinformation.
The real Charles Horman.
Review: This is the story, based on documentary evidence according to the movie’s preamble, of the disappearance of Charles Horman during the bloody right wing coup in Chile, 1973. A ‘worthy’ movie, I suppose, making us feel like we’re doing something by watching it, but which is simply telling us something we already know, in spite of perfunctory official denials – that the United States supported the coup politically and militarily because of numerous vested interests, ignoring the fact that many ordinary lives would be destroyed. Unsurprisingly, the movie was banned in Chile, and official statements made condemning its production came from the United States.
John Shea plays Horman, but does not give a very convincing performance – he just doesn’t seem the type who clandestine military advisors would spill the beans to, necessitating his ‘disappearance’. Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon (as Horman’s wife and father) give high class performances as they try to find out first whether he is still alive, and later on to recover his body.
The story may be old hat, but there’s plenty going on around the world today that movies such as this are relevant to. A brave production, like The Grapes of Wrath reviewed earlier, in its time would have had greater impact than is apparent today.
Score: 7/10.
Rutger Hauer, trying to work it all out, in Blade Runner.
BLADE RUNNER (June 1982) USA
Director: Ridley Scott (a Yorkshireman, incidentally).
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah.
Plot: Harrison Ford has the job of hunting down four runaway psychotic androids who are roaming the streets of Los Angeles, at the same time contending with robotic issues of his own at home.
Review: Cultish sci-fi film noir, dark in character in many ways. This is Ridley Scott’s take on Los Angeles in 2019 – a dark, noisy, crowded, rain-soaked and grimy place, where English is very much a second or third language, and aerial advertising hoardings blare out their messages constantly. It is not a pretty vision.
A surprisingly small core cast, with Harrison Ford as the beatnick detective, Rutger Hauer as the chief android, and Daryl Hannah as Hauer’s comrade and girlfriend.
Los Angeles, 2019. The flaming towers are oil refineries.
The expression, ‘style over substance’, may well be applied to this movie, as the actual plot is very thin – a well-hashed one about artificial intelligence gaining self-consciousness – but the production is very stylish. With Vangelis’s atmospheric score grinding and banging its way in the background, it leaves a strong impression. It is consistently rated one of the best sci-fi features of all time. Not totally convinced myself, although if it wasn’t for the schlock-horror bits here and there, I might like it a little more.
Scott takes the ‘I think, therefore I am‘ theme a step further than similar movies, with Rutgar Hauer giving a closing speech demonstrating that he has not just developed self-consciousness, but also an understanding of empathy and a desire to communicate his experiences. (The final lines were allegedly improvised by Hauer.) However, I don’t think it’s necessary to read too much into the movie – Scott himself said that it was made for entertainment, not for philosophical discussion.
There are three versions – the original theatrical release, a ‘Director’s Cut’ which was no such thing, and a ‘Final Cut’ which was truly 100% Ridley Scott’s choice. The last is the best, although expect a bit of blood here and there.
Score: 5/10
Postscript: it is never made clear in the movie whether Harrison Ford’s character is an android. For the answer, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/825641.stm, but not before you see the movie.
Seeing things clearly? Paul Newman in The Verdict.
THE VERDICT (8 December 1982) USA
Director: Sidney Lumet.
Cast: Paul Newman, Jack Warden, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling.
Plot: A burned-out lawyer is given an opportunity to redeem himself when he picks up the case of a young woman harmed in a medical accident.
Review: It’s a movie where one is reminded that there are certain people who can really act the pants off anyone else. Paul Newman is dazzling as a burned out, ambulance-chasing lawyer, whose life is split between seedy bars and his decrepit office. He fools nobody, except the occasional gullible client.
More by luck than judgement, he lands a pocket-lining case of a young woman left in a coma after a medical accident. While taking Polaroid photographs of her as evidence, he has a sort of road to Damascus moment – when a passing hospital worker shouts at him that he’s not supposed to be in the girl’s room, he slowly sits down and growls, “I’m her attorney”, while staring into space. The question is, is he really just calculating how much he can make for himself, or has he decided to go after the real villeins, which is what the audience is now hoping.
In trying to build a case against the hospital, he makes one mistake after another, until a woman he picked up in a bar a few days earlier (Charlotte Rampling) tells him to stop being such a loser and to get his act together. Shocked by her stinging criticisms, he begins the case with a new energy, but it turns out that Rampling has ulterior motives of her own for wanting him to try his luck in court.
Sidney Lumet made 12 Angry Men a quarter of a century earlier, and this movie shows the opposite side of the courtroom – the task of those whose job it is to sway the jury. (Jack Warden, one of the more intransigent jurors in 12 Angry Men, plays Newman’s legal partner.) Newman is astonishing to watch, with just the subtlest changes in facial expression speaking volumes. When the verdict finally comes, one is just left thinking … that was amazing!
There he is … a few years to go yet before getting named parts and closer to the camera.
Score: 8/10.
Footnote: Look carefully behind Paul Newman’s head as the verdict is read out, and the head of a smiling Bruce Willis, in only his second movie appearance working as an extra, is visible.
So, the best movie of 1982 is …
THE VERDICT (8/10)
Paul Newman and Charlotte Rampling. A simple case of medical negligence finds everyone’s integrity put to the test, with it unclear who is acting in whose interests until the final verdict arrives.
… because of the stunning performances and craftsmanship of the movie – at least as good as another of Lumet’s masterpieces, 12 Angry Men, filmed 25 years earlier.
The next ‘The Best Movie of …’ will be the year 1975.
THE BEST MOVIE OF ... 