Prime Time: The Client (1994)

Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Renfro, Mary-Louise Parker, Anthony LaPaglia, J. T. Walsh, Anthony Edwards, Will Patton, Bradley Whitford, Anthony Heald, Kim Coates, William H. Macy, Ossie Davis, William Sanderson, and Dan Castellaneta. That list of names covers almost everyone you might recognise in yet another John Grisham adaptation making use of a stacked cast and a star director. The star director this time around is Joel Schumacher, which allows The Client to feel like a pleasingly different beast to the Grisham-based blockbusters of the previous year.

Brad Renfro plays Mark Sway, a young boy who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's a man about to kill himself, but he decides to confess one or two disturbing details to Mark before he does the deed. This puts Mark in a very difficult position when the DA figures that they can use his testimony to take down a powerful crime family. Trying to figure out how to avoid getting his family, and himself, killed, as well as avoiding any charges himself for obstruction of justice or perjury, Mark ends up hiring an attorney named Reggie Love (Sarandon). Reggie wants to do her best by Mark, but Mark expects all attorneys to be untrustworthy and manipulative. Like the team headed up by Roy Foltrigg (Tommy Lee Jones).

Adapted from page to screen by Akiva Goldsman and Robert Getchell, The Client is a decent mix of legalese and standard thrills, especially in the second half. The premise is very familiar, but the fact that the main witness is a street-smart kid who automatically distrusts most adults helps to make it a bit more compelling than many other films in the same vein. It also helps that Renfro is so good in his first film role (and he would build up one hell of an interesting filmography before his untimely death in 2008).

It's easy to forget how good Schumacher could be at the old directing lark, especially when his more memorable works aren't always memorable for the right reasons, but, like it or not, he would often let his directing style be dictated by the material. This is a restrained and straightforward tale (well . . . compared to some other Schumacher films anyway) and he treats it just so.

LaPaglia isn't restrained though. Neither are Coates or Patton. They're almost ridiculous in how the act around the young lead at times, but that adds some fun to what could have otherwise been a bit too dull and earnest. The heart of the film is Renfro and Sarandon, and both work so well together that they make it hard to be critical of the fact that Jones, Parker, Edwards, Davis, and a number of other great talents have relatively little screentime. That's not really a problem for Jones anyway, who can make use of the smallest amount of screentime to create an unforgettably strong impression, and every one of the supporting players benefits from the glow reflected from the stars shining as brightly as possible.

I wouldn't be disappointed if I never watched The Client again, but I certainly wasn't disappointed to spend a couple of hours rewatching it this week. All I could remember about it were the leads and how well they worked together, which turns out to still be the most memorable thing about it. It's a perfectly enjoyable and polished thriller, but it doesn't do enough to be anything more than that.

7/10

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Prime Time: Flatliners (1990)

Intense lighting in every shot, hidden wind machines blowing about the hair of the lead actors, Kiefer Sutherland floating through tree branches, Flatliners may have been released in 1990 but it is so ‘80s that it’s almost hilarious at times.

Sutherland plays a med student who comes up with a bizarre plan. He thinks that science can be advanced if you can spend some time exploring the world of death and then return to the world of the living. He enlists the help of others (Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, and Oliver Platt) in his quest to play god. People take their turn on the table, being killed and then brought back to life. But they don’t come back alone. Sins from their past cling to them like a rain-sodden jacket.

Director Joel Schumacher takes a decent idea and makes it a fun star vehicle for some hot properties. That’s absolutely fine, and there are also some light scares dotted throughout, but it’s not a film anyone should seek out if they’re after proper tension and scares. This is a gateway flick, I guess, a teen horror with very little bloodshed and only one character ever feeling in proper danger. And for those of a certain age, it has that glow of nostalgia. 

Peter Filardi doesn’t do a bad job with his first feature screenplay, despite the obvious relative restrictions of having some big star power involved. Everyone has a quick and easy “hook” (be it Baldwin’s character videotaping his sexual trysts, or the others carrying around deep-rooted guilt for actions, or inaction), and the main morality lesson at the heart of it, aside from the dangers of playing god, is a solid one.

Baldwin aside, because he is arguably the blandest of the Baldwins, the central cast here are fine company. Sutherland happily goes over the top, far too cocky from the very beginning and very shaken up by the most dangerous of the “visions” that the main characters have. Bacon and Roberts are wavering needles on a moral compass, and work well, although there’s no chemistry in the scenes between them that are supposed to show them growing a bit closer together. And then there is Oliver Platt, an actor who elevates everything that he works on. He is his usual excellent self here, commenting on the situation as a witness who hasn’t been on the same journey as the other characters. Joshua Rudoy is an entertainingly vicious spirit, dressed in a red coat that inevitably brings to mind an older horror movie many consider a masterpiece, and Kimberly Scott has a nice moment, playing an older version of a young girl who was horribly bullied by one of our leads.

None of the sets look like anything other than cool movie sets, the score by James Newton Howard seems designed to underline every scare and attempts at emotion, and Schumacher moves his stars through the story like, well, stars being moved through a story, as opposed to fleshed out fictional characters, but none of these things really matter. If anything, they make Flatliners as enjoyable as it is. The sense of every main scene being so obviously staged, the feeling of stars being selected to turn up and be stars, the stranger highs and lows of the journey, it’s all a strangely cosy way to put together a slick chiller. And it guarantees that the film itself never actually flatlines.

7/10

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Mubi Monday: Tigerland (2000)

A Vietnam war movie with a difference, this focuses on a group of soldiers who are being trained at an infamous area named Tigerland. Standing out from the group, Pvt. Bozz (Colin Farrell) is clearly not wanting to be there. He won't get himself out of the forces, however, but does annoy the higher-ups by helping to get some other solders their freedom. This makes him about as popular as a sneeze in a supermarket in 2020, as you can imagine, but he's tough enough to take all of the negativity aimed his way. He's not bulletproof though, which makes it a lot more difficult when one soldier (Wilson, played by Shea Wigham) has a building level of rage that would make it best for him to be kept away from all guns and ammo.

Directed by Joel Schumacher, this is the film that first sold Colin Farrell as a star leading man, basically. He would spend the next decade or so being misused in all kinds of roles that just weren't right for him (Farrell is actually an excellent character actor with the looks and charisma of a blockbuster star), but revisiting Tigerland allows you to see just what Schumacher saw in him. He's confident, charming, smart, witty, and elevates what is already an excellent premise.

A million miles away from his usual slick, over the top, approach, Schumacher relies on a cast of quality actors and a great script by Ross Klavan and Michael McGruther, both newcomers to screenwriting (in terms of credited jobs anyway). Klavan and McGruther know all of the standard war movie moments that we've seen so many times before, and they use the character of Bozz to navigate and subvert most of them, whether it's the angry instructor picking on someone who can't keep up the pace or a butting of heads between soldiers and a leader who seems to often make the wrong decisions while parroting the lines about duty and military ways.

I've already said enough about Farrell, and it's slightly unfair to let his performance completely overshadow everyone else, but the other cast members generally do just as well. Matthew Davis is Paxton, the one who observes Bozz for the majority of the runtime, and the one narrating the full story. Davis is a bit bland, but that's fine for how his character is used. He's the observer. Clifton Collins Jr. has a great character arc, playing Miter, someone who resents Bozz while he's trying to keep the rest of the squad in check, and Whigham is brilliantly loathsome for most of his scenes, moving from a standard nasty asshole to full-on "Private Pile" by the third act.

There are a number of unbelievable moments here and there, including a heart to heart between Bozz and a tough leader who gives him some time to explain his perspective (when you just know that time would have been spent with the latter chewing out the former), but the grounding of the drama, and the setting of the training area itself, makes it all feel a bit less cheesy and cliché-ridden.

8/10

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Filmstruck Friday: Falling Down (1993)

"I'm the Bad Guy?"
"Yeah."
"How'd that happen? I did everything they told me to. Did you know I build missiles? I helped to protect America. You should be rewarded for that. But instead they give it to the plastic surgeons, you know they lied to me."

Falling Down is a thriller/black comedy about a man who snaps. That's all it is. It shows someone who doesn't have the best temperament to begin with finally snapping on a hot day. That someone seems to be a regular guy (played by Michael Douglas, with a buzz-cut, glasses, and shirt and tie on) but he gets more and more dangerous as the film winds on, and more and more determined to reach his estranged wife (Barbara Hershey) and daughter. Robert Duvall is the desk-centred cop about to have a stressful last day, initially offering advice to his colleague (Rachel Ticotin) until he realises that nobody else will listen to them.

Written by Ebbe Roe Smith and directed by Joel Schumacher, Falling Down allows for yet another fine and unique performance in the eclectic filmography of Douglas (known for his star power, it's often easy to forget just how willing the actor is to take a gamble on roles that weren't in his typical leading man mould). It's a film that also does well to get great people who fit perfectly in their supporting roles - Duvall is the weary pro, Ticotin knows to listen to him, Hershey is worried but unable to get others to believe her, Frederic Forrest is a store owner who thinks he is the same as our main character, when he is just a horribly prejudiced piece of work, and you also get good work from Raymond J. Barry and Tuesday Weld (the former being the Police Captain, the latter being the over-anxious wife of Duvall's character).

I still like Falling Down. A lot. It's full of those great performances, and it's full of some superb set-pieces. The first scene of Douglas flipping out as he is overcharged for a cola when he just wants to get change for a phone call is brilliant, and it all becomes vicariously satisfying as he hits back at gang members, snooty golfers, harassing beggars, and road workers who are ruining the day for everyone.

Things escalate in a way that could be seen as videogame-esque. Douglas gets angry. Then he gets a baseball bat. Then he gets guns. He even gets a small rocket-launcher at one point. It's amusing, helped by the sharp script and pacing, and yet the undercurrent of darkness winds through every scene and grows bigger and bigger as we get to the finale.

My only main problem with the film nowadays is the fast food restaurant scene, a moment I used to love alongside all of the others when I first watched the film. Douglas wants breakfast, that is served up until 1130, and is told that menu is finished because it is a few minutes past that time. When he rages, and when he goes on about the customer always being right, I don't enjoy it as much this time around (although the small role for Dedee Pfeifffer is a plus). But anyone who has worked in the hospitality or service industry will know that he's wrong. The customer isn't always right, especially if they come in late for a window of service and that window has closed.

It's the set-pieces that stand out (especially the scene on the golf course) but Falling Down offers much more in between the big moments. Finding out more about the background of the character adds to the tension, seeing how his viewpoint starts from a place of reason and then turns around enough to become dangerous is fascinating, and you also have a great element of classic cat and mouse as Duvall starts to connect the dots and figure things out ahead of everyone else.

So, as odd a sentence as it may seem, Falling Down holds up well.

8/10

Get the disc here.
Americans can get it here.

The Number 23 (2007)

Jim Carrey has shown a good bit of range over the past few decades. I am not going to list all of his dramatic roles but he's moved quite effortlessly between comedies and dramas for some time now, whether you end up liking the movies or not. As far as I can tell, however, The Number 23 is currently the only thriller he has starred in since becoming a household name (although he has cropped up in thrillers before that time, perhaps most notably rocking out to a Guns 'n' Roses tune in the final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool).

That might be surprising, or maybe it just shows that Carrey knows how to play to his strengths. And thrillers like this one aren't what he is best suited to.

The plot sees Carrey as a man named Walter. He's married to Agatha (Virginia Madsen), he has a son named Robin (Logan Lerman), and life isn't too bad. But then he is given a book, "The Number 23", and starts to become obsessed with it. That number is everywhere, so ubiquitous throughout Walter's life that he starts to believe that the book is somehow speaking to him directly. He is either being pushed towards solving a mystery or being driven towards insanity. Maybe both.

Directed by Joel Schumacher, The Number 23 is just a drab and unexciting rehash of many better films. The script, a first main screenwriting credit for Fernley Phillips, plays things far too safe throughout, neither embracing the potential pulpy fun of the story within a story being read by Carrey's character nor making anything dark or tense enough. This leads instead to scenes of Carrey portraying the character he is reading about, sometimes doing an okay job of it and sometimes being cringe-inducingly unsuitable for the role.

When he's playing Walter in the here and now, Carrey isn't bad. He's an everyday kind of guy, believable when acting normally. The problems come whenever he's broodily playing the saxophone or starting to scribble the number 23 all over his face. Madsen and Lerman both do well in their roles, even if the former feels a bit like stunt casting, considering her most famous role on film could also be described as someone who starts to look deeper into a story until obsession consumes her. Danny Huston is ill-served by the script, although he does his best with his very limited screentime, and Lynn Collins and Rhona Mitra both help to flesh out the story within the film.

I didn't have a strong reaction to this film as the end credits rolled, and can only assume that I was previously passive when I first viewed it (although I can't remember, which shows how much of an impression this film made on me). As I began to write this review I figured that I would be polite and unflattering, and remind everyone that this is a decidely average piece of work. But it's not. The more I think about it, the more it has to be pointed out as a below average experience. Not a terrible film, although I know some who will disagree, it's just a competently made disappointment.

4/10

Buy 23 copies here.
Americans can get it here.