Bitterly cold Moscow murder mystery

 GORKY PARK (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Icy with the accent on cold, frigid, any synonym you can think of to describe "Gorky Park." The atmosphere of Martin Cruz Smith's complicated murder mystery novel is there but hardly any characters that inspire much in the way of empathy. 

William Hurt, perfecting a British accent rather than a Russian one, is Renko, a Moscow police inspector who is investigating the heinous murder of three young people. It is purely a sadistic murder with each of the three people found with their faces and fingertips cut off. Why? No one can be sure but Renko finds this leads to a rabbit hole of KGB agents, potentially his own supervisor and an enigmatic American businessman, Osborne (Lee Marvin), who sells sable fur coats (Guess what they do to the sables in making those coats? They skin them of course, in ways that remind Renk of the murdered victims). Renko goes deep into a world that includes a desperate New York City cop (Brian Dennehy), a brother of one of the victims; a pair of skates belonging to a wardrobe girl on a movie set (Joanna Pacula), and of course, Gorky Park itself, the amusement park with the ice rink and a LP player that hauntingly plays Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake."

As I said, the cold, brutal winter of Russia and the cloudy skies permeate the story of "Gorky Park" and it is all evoked as well as you can imagine. I was soaked in by it (you really feel the bitter cold) and the intricate police procedural (including the reconstruction of the victims' faces from their bone structure) yet everyone in this film seemed standoffish to me. Renko is a bit difficult to warm up to, no pun attended, and though William Hurt is a compelling actor in his own right - he doesn't convince as a Russian officer. Every character look ashen-faced and untrustworthy. Lee Marvin gives the most solid performance as a cold, calculating man whose very presence gave me the shudders - his dialogue is often cryptic. Yet the whole ending feels anticlimactic despite an intriguing first half and, in the end, I felt more sympathy for the largely unseen sables than the aloof depiction of its characters. 

Party loyalty

 EMINENT DOMAIN (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Donald Sutherland's towering, keen presence always makes for compelling viewing in any film. A half-hearted though still fascinating thriller like "Eminent Domain" doesn't suffer because he is there - he is present in every scene and makes it count. Someone else wouldn't have made it nearly as compelling treatment of a Kafkaesque political tale as Sutherland does. Still, I was left wanting by the end of it.

Set during the pre-Solidarity Poland of 1979, Sutherland is Jozef Burski, an influential Politburo member (known as Number Six) who has the good life - a spacious apartment full of books, a wife (Anne Archer) who cherishes him, and a young, naive daughter (Jodhi May). It is a loving family and a loving marriage in a Communist country, so what could possibly go wrong? One day, Burski is told he has no security clearance and no job, not to mention a now "closed" office. Burski needs answers but is never told why he lost his position. He procures the help of his friend (Paul Freeman), a bug expert, who finds that the Burski's apartment is bugged. Still, no answers. 

If "Eminent Domain" continued along those lines and prolonging the agony and the paranoia, then it would've become a classy Kafka political nightmare. As it stands, the movie is at its best within the confines of the unknowing, the ambiguous nature of Burski's membership - did Burski do something wrong? Did he bribe someone he shouldn't have? Or does the Politburo just want a new member in his place? Instead we are saddled with a tragedy in the middle of the narrative, and an explanation that emerges prematurely dealing with party loyalty. Huh? I expected a lot more than that considering that the co-screenwriter Andrzej Krakowski based this story on the true experiences of his own father, a Communist party member. I doubt that Krakowski's own father had exactly the same experiences that Burski has since much of the film seems melodramatic and there's a forced happy ending.

"Eminent Domain" has some chilling speeches about party loyalty but not enough grit to make this a showstopper of a political thriller  - it just falls short. The film is watchable and often tinged with suspense and occasional verve by director John Irvin - you keep waiting to see what the denouement will be. The answers, though, are far more underwhelming than the setup. 

We Will Meet Again

 THE HIT (1984)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Hit" should've been a winner. It's got John Hurt as a sullen, virtually silent hitman with oil-slicked hair. It's got Terence Stamp as a career criminal and gangster who is on John Hurt's hitlist. It's got some amazingly gorgeous Spanish locations and British director Stephen Frears who has sparked many films with his directorial flair later in his career. Beautiful to behold, yet a trifle of a crime movie with more offbeat touches than any narrative tissue worth caring about. 

Stamp is Willie Parker, a former London gangster who outed his associates in court and lives comfortably in a Spanish villa. The villa is an intimate place with plenty of bookcases and a typewriter and various rooms that you make you almost feel the coziness and relaxation of such a surrounding. Trouble brews immediately as a bunch of seeming hooligans invade the home space and wait for Willie to return. It turns out that Willie couldn't remain in hiding forever - John Hurt is the assassin, Mr. Braddock, who has located him and is going to kill him. But Mr. Braddock can't just kill him anywhere - he has to bring Willie to the kingpin who is waiting in Paris. But why bring him all the way to Paris? Why can't Mr. Braddock just shoot him, take a picture as proof and be done with it? Well, that would take away the potential excitement of a road movie with a killer and his assistant, along with Willie who frequently and inexplicably smiles. For rather contrived reasons that only the screenwriter could explain, Braddock intends to stay in a supposedly unoccupied Madrid apartment where they instead find the owner and his 16-year-old Spanish hooker (Laura Del Sol)! Oh, but why? As, perhaps collateral, they take the hooker with them on the road to Paris, but why? And why does Mr. Braddock, a killer with excellent aim, need Myron (Tim Roth, in his acting debut), a younger, peroxide blonde assistant or apprentice or both? 

The only character of any real worth and understanding is Terence Stamp's Willie, who accepts that his life is coming to an end. He quotes from a book about death and it comes a little too late in the film yet we feel that he has accepted his eventual demise. Stamp has one solid scene with Hurt's Braddock where one senses Braddock might not want to go through with the hit. Yet "The Hit" never quite takes flight as an exciting, humorous suspense thriller or even as an astute character study. It exists through the engineering of chaotic, violent situations and one too many extraneous characters. Save for the electrifying flamenco guitar score by Paco de Lucia and terrifically framed compositions of the beautiful Spanish countryside, "The Hit" seems to waste the talents of its cast by giving them a story that doesn't amount to much other than to suggest that death is always around the corner.   

Takes a grump to know a grump

 A MAN CALLED OTTO (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

It wouldn't matter if "A Man Called Otto" was a remake of a popular Swedish film because everything that happens in it can certainly be anticipated. It is a Hollywood formula picture of a grumpy old man who has his set of rules to live by until new neighbors ignite something in him, some measure of humanity and positive feelings. Think "Gran Torino" minus the gunplay and racism. Or think of a wonderful, underrated film "Bread and Tulips" which had Bruno Ganz as a similar, suicide-prone grump. Still, despite such predictability, Tom Hanks rules "A Man Called Otto" in every scene and shows him at his very nuanced best playing an older man who is actually easier to get along with than say Clint Eastwood's character in "Gran Torino." On the other hand, he's not the friendliest neighbor so let's not split hairs here. 

Otto is a long-standing Pittsburgh steel factory worker facing forced retirement (due to cutbacks, something quite commonplace nowadays) and a meaningless existence. He lives in a gated, almost dour-looking community where he insists people follow the rules of the street - don't pass through or park unless you have a parking sticker. I say dour because the painted shades of gray in these houses is less than colorful - why do people want to paint building facades with gray colors nowadays? Now I sound like a grump. Otto is looking to commit suicide to join his wife Sonya, who was paralyzed from a bad bus accident and had passed on six months earlier. The running gag is that each time he attempts suicide, he's interrupted. First it is his new Spanish neighbors, a young married couple named Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), where Tommy has trouble parallel parking a U-Haul. Then it is a social media journalist who's looking for Otto since he was caught on iPhone cameras saving an older man -  Otto initially thought of jumping in front of a train until he rescued someone who may have wanted do the same thing! This Otto can't catch a break and is further dismayed by young people who can't drive, who can't do simple arithmetic at a department store cash register and so on. Yet it is especially the warm-hearted Marisol who cuts through Otto's own self-made facade of guilt and anger and finds a man who can care for others - he just has a funny way of showing it.

Tom Hanks and writer David Magee find a way of not sentimentalizing Otto - we know he is not just a rude, unforgiving man who calls people idiots. He genuinely cares and wants to do the right thing - he just misses his Sonya. In acutely timed flashbacks, we see the insights into a younger Otto (Truman Hanks, Tom's actual son)and his initial meet-cute with Sonya (she drops a book at a train station and he fetches it for her). This man had ideals but he also had an irreparable health problem - an enlarged heart (this leads to some comical one-liners from Marisol). His bitterness grew over his wife's accident and the loss of their unborn child. His bitterness extends when he's forced into retirement and all the factory has to show for it is a cake with his face on it! Yet Hanks doesn't make it easy for us and doesn't overact - he suppresses his emotions but sometimes a simple smile or taking Marisol to a bakery where he used to take his wife says enough.

Mariana Treviño as Marisol in "A Man Called Otto"

"A Man Called Otto" is a refreshingly pleasant and tear-jerkingly emotional time at the movies and nothing it in feels forced or out of synch. As I mentioned earlier, everything can be predicted yet I have not felt this deeply involved and in love with such wonderful characters in a film of this type in a while. Maybe I am at the age that I can understand Otto and know where he's coming from - takes a grump to know a grump. Aside from the spectacular Hanks, Mariana Treviño is one of the most engaging, beatific presences I've seen in quite some time. In many ways, she becomes the heart and soul of the movie and of Otto's life. Otto knows it too, he just doesn't let on. 

Bored me out of my skull

 RE-ANIMATOR (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A gooey, gross-out variation on the Frankenstein theme supplying only the barest of shudders and only the slightest hint of black humor, "Re-Animator" is an uneven mess, a simple-minded and lifeless comedy-horror movie adapted from an H.P. Lovecraft book. Accent on the horror, to be sure, and light on comedy but the movie takes an eternity to go anywhere with its story. 

We get a one-dimensional mad medical student from Switzerland, Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs), who continues to study medicine at a Massachusetts hospital. West turns on his professor, claiming plagiarism based on the studies of West's previous professor who met a grisly end at the beginning of the movie. Meanwhile, there is Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), another medical student who is seeing the university dean's daughter (Barbara Crampton, who gives the only animated performance in the movie). Cain allows West to rent a room at his small house. West, though, has a medical breakthrough he wishes to continue to pursue - the reanimation of dead tissue. First, it is Cain's cat who becomes a rather evil feline after reanimation (the poor thing allegedly had its head stuck in a jar and died) and both Cain and West try to catch it and kill it. The scene itself runs on and on to the point of tedium, with West reanimating the cat twice! Needless to say, West's next guinea pig for reanimation are the corpses at the morgue. How does he do it? There is some neon green substance that needs to be injected at the brain stem and within minutes, it will be alive.  

Another example of scenes running on too long includes Dan as he wheels one corpse to the morgue towards the beginning of the film, and the moment runs on forever. Tightness in pacing and editing are sorely needed for this train wreck of a ghastly horror flick but that might not have been enough. I hardly elicited much interest in the characters and that includes the iconic Jeffrey Combs, who is good at playing a maniac but that is it - he's never quite present as a real character and has too few comic lines. Bruce Abbott is practically a robot in this movie, and acts no differently after having his noggin thrust against the wall. 

There are bloody entrails and severed heads that talk (when the severed head starts licking the naked Crampton's nether regions who is strapped to a table, well, just don't say I didn't warn you), but most of "Re-Animator" bored me to my skull. Or maybe I needed some of that neon green substance to reanimate my interest. 

An end-in-itself

 FOLLOWING (1998)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Christopher Nolan's astonishing directorial debut, "Following," is all the more incredible because it has been made by assured hands. You feel that every key moment, every notable scene, every line of dialogue has been implemented and punctuated to make what could have been a standardized noir tale of a writer in and over his head in trouble into something poetic and dazzling. Its nonlinear narrative helps make the case for it as well, something adopted into Nolan's later works.

The Young Man known as Bill (Jeremy Theobald) is a wannabe,scraggly writer who is searching for characters to write a novel about. Every day, Bill wanders the streets of London and follows one person to their destination, and then another and another. His rule is to follow people up to a point and not get involved with their lives, only to observe. The rule is broken when one mysterious man with a duffel bag, Cobb (Alex Haw), catches on to being tailed by Bill. We discover Cobb is a small-time burglar who wears gloves and seems to want to disrupt people's lives more so than steal anything (placing panties from another burglary into a man's coat pocket for one). Bill is a hirsute mess who tags along with Cobb on these burglaries, with Cobb resembling a well-groomed, smooth criminal. Or is Cobb really much of a criminal? And what about the blonde woman (Lucy Russell), a semi-femme fatale, whose apartment they burglarize - could she have a boyfriend who is some sort of gangster? 

Due its nonlinear structure, we see Bill looking like a burglar in one scene with long stringy hair and in another scene, he has short hair, shaven and looks as well-groomed as Cobb. Sometimes we see him after he has been visibly beaten in the face, and then we go back to his scraggly appearance and so on. This keeps us on edge and makes us wonder about Bill's involvement and how far he might have gone in these burglaries. "Following" begins with Bill being interrogated by the police which we assume would be the ending of the film, yet it keeps us guessing at every turn. 

Unpredictable, contemplative and existential in its black-and-white imagery and its notion of following unknown people as an end-in-itself , "Following" is grade A neo noir though it is more of a hark back to the French minimalist noir of the 1960's, specifically Robert Bresson's remote and indifferent though no less fascinating "Pickpocket" from 1959. "Following" is a few notches above "Pickpocket" but both would make a great double-feature for showing how futile and miserable small-time thievery really is. An end-in-itself. 

N.Y. hotel dwarfs Amityville's hauntings

 HELL HOUSE LLC (2015)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Found footage horror movies are made by the boatload so a new one doesn't exactly entice me. A friend of mine told me to check out "Hell House LLC" so I did - I am glad I did! Just when you think you have seen enough docu-style horror movies (they grew steadily after "The Blair Witch Project" success and "Paranormal Activity"), here comes "Hell House LLC" which is terrifically nail-biting fun and has a few scares to keep us riveted. Yes, Virginia, (or in this case, New York), it is that good.

A crew known as the Hell House crew remodel an old hotel in a town 20 minutes away from New York City. It is certainly a haunted house and its twisted history includes the owner hanging himself and alleged Satanic ceremonies. The abandoned hotel is called the Abaddon Hotel and the crew is a group of twentysomethings who feel they can make a killing by turning a real haunted place into a decorated haunted house attraction on Halloween. Alex (Danny Bellini) is the CEO of this event and he does not reveal to the other crew members what had happened in this hotel. His girlfriend Sara (Ryan Jennifer Jones) is easily spooked as they discover bibles and a pentagram in the basement. The found footage is courtesy of horny Paul (Gore Abrams) who hopes they hire sexy female actresses for the attraction. As the film unfolds, creaky noises are heard, faint screams, and silhouettes of figures are captured in the background. 

As I am writing this, I realize that we have seen this sort of thing repetitiously (turning the haunted hotel into a haunted house attraction is the only novel touch). Truthfully, as the film started with a documentary crew arriving at his freaky hotel, my heart sank because I sensed this was another in the long line of films for a dead-on-arrival genre. When the documentary crew interview the sole survivor, Sarah, which frames the narrative of the film, my interest jumped 100 percent. There are a couple of more talking head interviews and then we see the footage of the crew's first day at the hotel and the subsequent weeks that follow. Once it gets around to the clown mannequins, the strobe light tests and some ghostly manifestation in Paul's room, I must say that my goosepimples started and I wanted to cover my eyes.

The spooky sound design works wonders, not to mention what we may or may not see in every room of this hotel. Of the characters, Sarah and Paul stand out the most and we feel for their safety and want them to get OUT! Though Alex got on my nerves after a while, nothing prepared me for what happened on the opening night of this hotel (that cavernous basement will leave you haunted by basements in general). Spine-tingling and often scary, "Hell House LLC" is one hell of a ride and the ending is haunting beyond belief. The moral seems to be that if a house is already haunted, don't turn it into an attraction for the public. You are just asking for trouble.