Sci-Fi September: Silent Running (1972)

One of a handful of movies directed by special effects whizz Doug Trumbull, Silent Running is an impressive, influential sci-fi movie that gives viewers an unlikely eco-friendly message in the outer space setting.

Bruce Dern plays Freeman Lowell, an astronaut who has made it his personal mission to look after the botanical areas on the large spaceship that he's living on. The other crew members don't really care for, or respect, his lifestyle choice, but they leave him to it. Well, that all looks set to change when orders are received to destroy the greenery and head back home. It's an order, unsurprisingly, that Lowell doesn't want to obey. But how far will he go to preserve a small patch of nature?

Written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino and Steven Bochco, Silent Running is a very optimistic, almost naive, film for the time in which it was made. That's what makes it such a pleasure to watch, yet also such a chore at times. The motivation of the lead character is a bit hard to stay on board with, but you have to admire the fact that everyone involved with the movie keeps the focus on the perceived purity and nobility of his thinking.

Dern is fantastic as Lowell. He's a sweet, frustrated man, best in the company of silent plants and vegetation than the company of his human colleagues. While Cliff Potts, Jesse Vint and Ron Rifkin all share the screen with him for a while, and give solid performances, the other main characters aren't human at all. They are the robots that Lowell uses to help him in his daily duties - Huey, Louie and Dewey. Okay, people were inside the costumes (casings?) but you'll be thinking of them just as robots for every moment that they're onscreen. They feel like real creations, with just enough personality to make you also care for them.

Trumbull directs capably enough, but there are flaws that you can't help thinking may have been minimised/removed by a more experienced hand on the tiller. Despite running for just under 90 minutes it feels overlong in places. Then there are the soundtrack choices, with a couple of songs performed by Joan Baez taking away from the effectiveness of the visuals by making everything feel ever so hippy dippy in a way far too easily mocked (for those so inclined).

This is sci-fi at its sweetest. It's a film that uses the sterile, cold setting of space to remind people of how valuable the natural resources so abundant on Earth really are. Exploring space is all well and good, but let's also look after our home planet in the meantime. That's the main lesson here. Well, apart from the reminder that Bruce Dern is always well worth watching.

7/10

THIS is the disc to get, if you can play it - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silent-Running-Masters-Cinema-Blu-ray/dp/B005DE1G2Y/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1411306864&sr=1-2&keywords=silent+running

Extreme Prejudice (1987)

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Walter Hill makes movies so manly that if you were to melt them all down and form a shield then you would then have the one viable protection against any attack from Chuck Norris. The man knows how to put a bunch of great actors together and then heap on the violence with the eye of a world-famous dance choreographer. Just watch any one of his movies and try to deny it. Well, okay, most of his movies can be put into that category. Maybe not every single one.

Extreme Prejudice can certainly fall into that category. Crackerjack cast? Check. Great characters and a selection of great lines scattered throughout the script? Check. Violent set-pieces mixing some major bloodletting with moments of beautiful camerawork? Check.

The film, in the first act, feels like two completely different storylines. Nick Nolte plays Sheriff Jack Benteen, a man trying to keep drugs and drug-runners out of his local area. Unfortunately, the main drug baron is Cash Bailey (Powers Boothe), a man who used to be his best friend. Elsewhere, Mighty Michael Ironside leads a team of soldiers in a plan to rob a bank that stores most of Bailey's drug money. These two storylines soon intertwine, with the soldiers affording Benteen an opportunity to hit back, and hit back hard, at Bailey's operation.

As well as Nolte, Boothe and Ironside, Extreme Prejudice has room for Rip Torn, William Forsythe, Clancy Brown and Maria Conchita Alonso in its cast. While their names may not be as recognisable, the likes of Larry B. Scott and Dan Tullis Jr. also do a very good job, easily holding their own alongside some of the heavyweights onscreen.

The script by Harry Kleiner and Deric Washburn is based on a story from John Milius and Fred Rexer, which helps to further solidify those tough credentials, if anyone still had any doubt at this point.

Hill draws great performances from everyone here, with Nolte and Boothe in especially good form, and once again mixes the visceral and strikingly cinematic amongst a varied cast of characters who don't just feel as if they've been shoved into the movie to be shot at.

Fans of the director will have seen this one already, no doubt, but if you've somehow missed it until now (as I had) then do make it a priority. And anyone new to Hill's filmography, all I can say is that you have so many treats ahead of you. Extreme Prejudice is one of them, and as good a place to start as any.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Extreme-Prejudice-DVD-Nick-Nolte/dp/B002TS15K0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391202128&sr=8-1&keywords=extreme+prejudice