Mark Sullivan (AnonymeInc@webtv.net)
Sat, 31 Jul 1999 15:02:22 -0400 (EDT)
Okay, my turn.
The Hunter/Point Blank/Payoff is one of my favorite
hardboiled novels. And I will allow that the film Payback
probably sticks closer to the book's plot than Point Blank
did. That said, however, I could not stand Payback and loved
Point Blank. First of all, Lee Marvin's stoic determination
seemed to me to capture the character of Parker better
(this movie was one of the first pieces of evidence in my
theory that Lee Marvin was the coolest man alive; the title
has now passed to Chow Yun Fat). I found Mel Gibson's retread
buddy movie smart ass comments
(without even a buddy to say them to; I would guess this is
what was added to make Mel more "human") annoying,
undercutting and making light of some disturbing violence --
if you are going to have disturbing violence, like the
torture scene, let it stand for what it is, it should leave a
bad taste, not be wiped clean by "I stubbed my toe," or
whatever the inane comment was; Tarantino knew this in Pulp
Fiction. I also found the camp attitude of Payback annoying,
the Starsky and Hutch set, dressing and attitude. The movie
would only have improved if Antonio Fargas (Huggy Bear) had
walked around a corner, as I kept expecting him to. Worst of
all, though, I found the movie wildly inconsistent,
especially in its treatment of Parker. If Porter was smart
enough to get out of the many perilous situations in which he
found himself, he would not have been dumb enough to get into
them in the first place.
As I said, Point Blank plays much looser with the book. The
possibility that Walker might be an avenging angel, much like
Clint in High Plains Drifter, and the existential stuff is
purely young Boorman. But I thought the latter, at least, fit
well with what is essentially a work about work, what it is
to be a professional.
Mark
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Sat 31 Jul 1999 - 15:04:25 EDT