While I often spend my time trying, hopelessly, to catch up on many of the bigger movie titles that I have somehow avoided over the years, some of those films feel a bit more notable than others. Night Moves was something I have been aware of ever since knowing the term “neo-noir”, but I just hadn’t ever got around to watching the thing. That has finally changed now, and (as is so often the case) I wish I had seen this years ago.
It’s an absolutely classic premise, in many ways. Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a detective tasked with locating a young woman named Delly (Melanie Griffith). This brings him into contact with Delly’s troublesome boyfriend (played by James Woods), a couple of stunt performers, before he eventually finds her living with her stepfather, Tom (John Crawford), and his girlfriend, Paula (Jennifer Warren). Things become more complicated as Harry investigated further, and the case he has been hired for may actually lead to him stumbling on to something much more dangerous.
Written by the immensely talented Alan Sharp (I haven’t got time to list everything in his filmography but I highly recommend the two most recent feature films that he worked on, for starters), Night Moves is an entertaining crime drama that leads viewers, slowly but surely, into increasingly dark waters. The first half is full of cynicism and bitterness laced with humour, but the finale removes any of the mirth. Viewers will root for Harry, mainly because it is always easy to root for Gene Hackman (even when he isn’t being a very nice guy), but it’s also easy to see that things may not lead to a satisfying conclusion for many, or any, of the main characters.
Director Arthur Penn also has a filmography well worth your time, although maybe focus on the ‘60s and ‘70s when exploring his back catalogue, and he makes great use of all his assets here. The script, the cast, the cinematography that moves between sunshine and shadows with equal clarity, the pacing of the unfolding plot, and a third act that cuts through everything that preceded it with unwavering commitment.
Hackman has always been superb onscreen, but this is one of his best roles. He’s a smart man who may sometimes be too smart for his own good, but he’s also quite selfish and blinkered (in a way that he feels is necessary for his job). Griffith is a delightful presence in her few scenes, and Warren has a chemistry with Hackman that has you sensing an extra complication due to arise. Crawford is fine, Woods perfectly embodies the kind of young guy that Hackman would dismiss as a punk, and there are excellent supporting turns from Susan Clark (playing the neglected wife of our “hero”), Anthony Costello and Edward Binns (two stuntmen who may be involved in something suspicious), and Janet Ward (the woman who hires Harry to find her daughter).
One of the films often mentioned by people who revere the seventies as the greatest ever decade for cinema (it’s undoubtedly great, and with a notable sea change at certain points, but every decade has highs and lows), Night Moves is a gritty classic, more effective because of the lightness of touch throughout the first half of the movie. I would highly recommend it to everyone, but I also suspect that everyone else has already seen it.
10/10
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