Prime Time: Hickey & Boggs (1972)

If I remember right, some technicality means that you cannot label Bill Cosby as a rapist nowadays. That didn't stop me from feeling no small amount of reservation, however, when I realised that Hickey & Boggs starred Robert Culp alongside the definitely-not-rapey Bill Cosby. I debated how to get the review done, and then I remembered that movies are chock full of people that I wouldn't necessarily want to say good things about, personally, and so I'd have to go on with business as usual. There may even be other movies I watch one day that feature the definitely-not-rapey Cosby, and I would just do the same thing. I won't use any images of him, and I won't feel great about it, but he is one of many threads woven throughout the fabric of cinema.

Culp is Frank Boggs and Cosby is Al Hickey. Both of them work together as private investigators who end up tasked with tracking down a missing woman. What begins as a simple case soon turns into something a bit more complicated, and much more dangerous. Everyone involved in the central investigation starts to die, and both of our leads eventually figure out that the missing woman is at the heart of a very sticky web.

Written by Walter Hill, this is a strange film, but I can see why it has retained a cult following throughout the decades since it was released. Things start off fairly light, and the chemistry between Culp and Cosby is as you would expect, but they soon spiral into much darker waters. The third act is about as bleak and nihilistic as can be, with the typical fight back from our heroes given no fanfare or cool edge. Yes, you get men holding their ground while also holding huge hand cannons, but it's ultimately dissatisfying when so many lives have already been ruined.

Culp does well in his role, Cosby less so. I'm not sure I can blame the leads for that though. The script doesn't quite know how to keep things consistent, and clearly lures viewers in before dragging them towards an abyss. Culp's direction is solid, if a bit flat, and there are a couple of set-pieces that struggle to impress while weighed down by that darker tone.

Elsewhere, both Rosalind Cash and Isabel Sandford get a couple of good moments, and Robert Mandan, Michael Moriarty, Vincent Gardenia, and Ed Lauter help to populate the cast with interesting and watchable characters.

While it's certainly not a bad film, Hickey & Boggs feels worse in comparison to most of the other films that have gone for a similar vibe. The mystery element never feels as intriguing as it should, the occasional moments of shocking violence are toned down by the shot choice and editing, the interplay between the two leads starts to fade away as the bodies pile up, and it all plays out like a neo-noir presented by people who aren't really all that keen on making a neo-noir. Everything is there, but none of it fully works.

6/10

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Undisputed (2002)

Written and directed by Walter Hill, fans of the director may be completely unsurprised to hear that Undisputed is a tough, entertaining, action movie. It's a bit more low-key than many other releases in his filmography, but it certainly holds up as a Walter Hill movie.

Wesley Snipes is Monroe Hutchens, a prisoner in Sweetwater, and the number one boxing champ for ten years. The prison has a major boxing match every few months, with plenty of money to be won and lost, and Hutchens is given due respect because of his fighting prowess. Ving Rhames is George "Iceman" Chambers, a boxing champ who is imprisoned after being found guilty of a rape charge that he denies. Chambers immediately starts to try and throw his weight around, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the inevitable showdown in the ring between the two pugilists.

Despite the prison setting, this isn't really a prison movie. You get very few of the familiar tropes there (no tense shower scenes, for example), but it is also a way to heighten the atmosphere and veritable need for these two men to fight, and decide an ultimate winner.

Snipes is on good form here, and certainly brings his A-game with the physicality, but it is Rhames stealing a number of scenes, giving a performance that feels very much inspired by a troubled boxing talent that rhymes with Schnike Schnyson. Peter Falk is good to see in a supporting role (an old mobster without the memory and wits he once had, but with the right connections), Michael Rooker is impressive as a tough guard who isn't also unnecessarily sadistic, and both Wes Studi and Fisher Stevens do well, each aligned with a respective fighter.

Hill directs with his usual good eye for some solid action beats (there are few people who have more consistently made manly movies that successfully blend bone-crunching violence with real art), but things fall down slightly in the script, which he co-wrote with David Giler. It is hard to know who we are really supposed to be rooting for, and what they might have done to deserve any extra support. Okay, a revelation about why Snipes is inside helps to show him in a better light, but he's still a prisoner serving a long sentence. And Rhames is still in there on a charge of rape, with his character doing himself no favours in the way he maintains a cocky and unapologetic stance.

Quality throughout, if inessential, Undisputed is worth a watch. If only to get through it and on to the sequels, which are allegedly more fun. I will be finding out soon.

7/10

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Streets Of Fire (1984)

A rock and roll fable, apparently, from director Walter Hill, Streets Of Fire may seem like a bit of an anomaly when compared to the many other movies from the director, but it doesn't take long to see just how many familiar elements are in place here.

Diane Lane plays a rock star, Ellen Aim, who is kidnapped one evening by an unruly biker gang led by Willem Dafoe. The biker gang have been revving into town whenever they like, causing trouble and not coming up against anyone who can teach them to behave a bit better. Kidnapping Ellen, however, leads to a young woman named Reva (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) writing to her brother, Tom Cody (Michael Pare). Tom used to go out with Ellen, and he's the kind of guy who can stand up to the bikers and sort out the mess that's been created.

Bookended by a couple of bombastic rock tunes (think Meatloaf meets Bonnie Tyler style), Streets Of Fire isn't a full-on musical, but it has a few moments that pause the action for the sake of a song or two, and is all the better for it. In between the songs we get a number of fights, plenty of corny dialogue, and a few scenes that allow Bill Paxton to make you laugh with the best hairdo that he's ever had.

^^^^^^^^^ Seriously? Who styled his hair?? ^^^^^^^^^

The lone hero going against the baddies, and possibly helping to clean up the town. The motorbike engines tearing up the screen in a way that almost allows you to smell the exhaust fumes. The neon-lit streets that serve as the backdrops for the main action. In many ways, this often feels like a natural successor to The Warriors. There are youngsters trying to overcome some big odds, and most of the scenes could be broken down into comic book panels (but don't remind Hill of that, unless you want some ridiculous tinkering a la the director's cut of the aforementioned 1979 classic), and both movies are about gangs and territory, in a number of ways.

Cast-wise, Pare isn't the best leading man, but he grows into the role as required, and Lane is as gorgeous and cool as the character needs to be. Dafoe gives the kind of performance that you'd expect, making for an enjoyably fierce villain. Rick Moranis and Amy Madigan are two people who end up helping out our hero in very different ways, with the former portraying a businessman with little backbone and the latter a tough woman who values loyalty above potential cash. Paxton makes quite an impression, Rick Rossovich and Richard Lawson are a couple of fairly ineffective police officers, and Van Valkenburgh does well enough with her small role, even if her character does little more than kickstart the main plot.

Dafoe in full-on mad villain mode.

However, this is Hill's movie all the way. As well as directing, he also co-wrote the script with Larry Gross, and each sequence is planned out in line with his uncompromising vision. It's a fantastic achievement. Some may call it an exercise in style over substance, but I would argue that the style helps to create the substance. The motorbikes, the rockers, the love story at the heart of it all, the dialogue that eschews reality for the sake of sounding cool, the gruff (anti?) hero - all of these things are ripped straight from numerous rock ballads, and that's what this is. It's one big rock ballad turned into a movie. As it's described, and as I mentioned at the very start of this review, it IS a rock and roll fable. And it's a bloody fantastic one.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Streets-Fire-Blu-ray-Diane-Lane/dp/B00F0R0FY4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405077781&sr=8-1&keywords=streets+of+fire

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