For It Is Man's Number: roy huggins

Showing posts with label roy huggins. Show all posts

Tuesday, 27 May 2025

U. S. Marshals (1998)

Considering the success of The Fugitive, and the fact that a number of scenes were stolen by Tommy Lee Jones working the case with his colleagues, it was inevitable that people would try to come up with a sequel. You can't just frame Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) again though, so what do you do? You get someone else who ends up on the run while declaring that they're actually an innocent party. Tommy Lee Jones (as Samuel Gerard) and co. are all back, joined for a large chunk of their investigation by Robert Downey Jr., and Wesley Snipes is the fugitive being hunted.

Neither writer John Pogue nor director Stuart Baird have filmographies full of features that would inspire confidence in anyone knowing that they were given responsibility for this. While the first film took an enjoyably simple premise and interspersed the cat and mouse narrative with some truly brilliant set-pieces (set-pieces that hold up today as prime examples of superior blockbuster movie moments), U. S. Marshals makes things needlessly complicated, scatters around a trail of breadcrumbs that viewers won't care to see followed, and only has one moment that comes even close to anything in the first movie. Pogue makes the mistake of thinking that Jones alone can carry the movie (as much as I like him, he isn't up to that task), and that Snipes can make a decent replacement for Ford (as much as I like him, he also isn't up to that task).

The supporting cast provide all of the treats here, although I am not saying that either Jones or Snipes are bad. They're just stuck with providing a centrepiece for something that doesn't allow them to work at their best. Downey Jr. is fun though, although his character development is as predictable as you might expect Downey Jr. to be saddled with at about this time, and Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck, Tom Wood, and LaTanya Richardson remain a loyal and talented group working for the determined Gerard. They also seem to be having fun with their roles, in contrast to the two leads who seem far less comfortable working within the confines of the blockbuster requirements.

The best way to describe everything else her is lacklustre. From the plotting and dialogue to the editing and production design, from the cinematography to the Jerry Goldsmith score, there's just nothing here that feels as if it was made with care and enthusiasm. I'm not saying that's the case, it just isn't conveyed to viewers.

If you have recently watched The Fugitive and you are wondering what to watch next for the same mix of thrills, tension, verbal sparring, and spectacle, I would have to tell you to just rewatch The Fugitive. Or, as I have said before when reviewing it, be sure to make some time for In The Line Of Fire (which is a bit darker, but no less brilliant in terms of star-powered thriller fare). This sequel is probably already forgotten by most people anyway. If I have reminded you of it just now, and if you're now curious, then I can only apologise and encourage you to forget it again ASAP.

4/10

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Wednesday, 8 November 2023

Prime Time: Too Late For Tears (1949)

Another slightly lighter film noir, but not any worse for it, Too Late For Tears is a very enjoyable film that I have since discovered already has a decent fanbase already. I am, once again, late to the party, but I would argue that this remains a lesser-known title, partially due to the lack of many immediately recognizable names attached to it.

Lizabeth Scott plays Jane Palmer, a woman who sees a great opportunity to become temporarily wealthy when a bag full of money ends up in the car being driven by her husband, Alan (Arthur Kennedy). It’s the kind of monetary amount that must be needed by someone though, and those people will want to get it back. Danny Fuller (Dan Duryea) thinks he can handle the situation, seeking to intimidate Jane before realising that she may be tougher than she looks, and there’s also a man named Don Blake (Don DeFore) asking questions. Jane has to fend off these men, as well as questions from her sister-in-law, Kathy (Kristine Miller), and she soon shows that she’ll do whatever it takes to keep that money for herself.

While he does have a couple of great movies in his filmography, director Byron Haskin isn’t someone too familiar to me. The same can be said of writer Roy Huggins (despite me enjoying Pushover, also written by him, last week, and noticing that he helped to create a couple of iconic TV properties). Regardless of my own familiarity with their names, both me work together well to serve up an entertaining noir that keeps us in close proximity to an enjoyably devious central character who keeps getting cornered in ways that make them increasingly dangerous to those doing the cornering. While the runtime is just a bit longer than the average you’d expect for this type of thing, it never feels slow or plodding.

Scott is a formidable presence onscreen, her head turned so quickly by the money that you just know she had already spent a long time looking to pounce on any slight chance to change her life. She’s convincingly manipulative and tough, becoming bolder with each success. Duryea is a typical tough guy, but less typically worried when he realises exactly who he is dealing with, and his menacing turn becomes a bit more nuanced as the plot continues to twist and unfold. DeFore is a bit more pleasant, and gets to share a number of scenes with Miller, a ray of light in the murky noir haze, that show both of them hoping to find out exactly what has gone on between Jane and Alan (who is AWOL for most of the movie, leaving Kennedy only required for a few scenes in the opening act).

Making great use of the tropes, with a particularly memorable femme fatale at the heart of everything, Too Late For Tears is a gripping thriller that manages to sustain an impressive amount of tension for most of the runtime. Absolutely recommended to fans of noir.

8/10

Thursday, 2 November 2023

Noirvember: Pushover (1954)

A man and a woman meet in the kind of encounter that could lead to the 1950s version of a rom-com. She is having car trouble. He can offer her somewhere to stay while it gets fixed. But she may have another man in her life. And, as viewers find out in the next scene, her latest admirer is actually a cop.

Directed by Richard Quine, Pushover is an enjoyable film noir that pairs up Fred MacMurray (as Paul Sheridan, the cop) and Kim Novak (as Lona McLane), allowing them to struggle against their attraction as if both were magnets trying to join together as opposing forces keep showing how they should stay apart. McLane is a woman who is due a visit from her fella, a criminal who has hidden the money from a recent bank robbery somewhere, and Sheridan is one of the cops trying to ensure his arrest, but love complicates the whole situation. And greed. Love and greed. A classic film noir combination.

While not as dark and gritty as many other film noirs, Pushover is an excellent depiction of a man making one bad decision and then seeing events spiral way out of his control, causing the kind of damage that he soon realises there’s no coming back from. Apparently based on a couple of different source texts (“The Night Watch”, by Thomas Walsh, and “Rafferty”, by William S. Ballinger), the script by Roy Huggins continually builds momentum as everyone is dragged towards a tense finale. Quine ensures that everyone can see the pieces moving into place, and he does so without anything feeling rushed or illogical.

MacMurray does a great job of being the dependable guy we’ve seen him play in so many other movies (a man without malicious intent who is changed by the unfolding chain of events that he kickstarted), and Novak is already a shining star in her first credited feature role. If anyone is going to get themselves in big trouble then doing so for Novak feels like pretty good motivation. Philip Carey, Allen Nourse, and E. G. Marshall make up other members of the force who are focused on cracking the case, and all of them do well in very stereotypical roles, and Dorothy Malone stands out as a woman who inadvertently puts a spanner in the works of the unstoppable scheme.

This is never going to crack a list of top 10 film noirs, I doubt it would even crack a top 50, but Pushover is well worth your time. The leads have great chemistry, the supporting characters are all memorable in the right ways, and the tension keeps getting ratcheted up nicely as soon as one small error creates a tragic butterfly effect. I REALLY liked this, and hope others check it out.

8/10