← Back to Reviews
in
Albert Finney in this movie gives off the aura of a walking hangover. Surly, frown-faced, grizzled, the kind of person who might as well be using stale booze as cologne. And there’s a reason for that. Because he’s a not quite recovered alcoholic cop who’s returned to the force after personal troubles. I think one could step back from this character and see their background as a shortcut to giving the movie gravity, but there’s an undeniable lived in quality to his performance. Anytime he takes a sip as the case gets stranger, it carries a certain weight. (Apparently Dustin Hoffman lobbied for the role, but I think Finney was exactly the right choice.) And I think that’s pretty essential to the power of the movie, where we see a murder case take turns that begin to challenge his preconceived notions, and shake him to the core. The movie devotes an unusual amount of attention to the subject of Native American politics and identity, and in part this is the story of Finney’s character evolving how he engages with these, from a studious law enforcement perspective (he rattles off bullet points about the American Indian Movement) to coming to terms with a belief system that upends his own. I admit I’m not the most knowledgeable around this subject, but I was compelled by the movie’s curiousity about this subject.
And while this would likely be a good movie were it just the Albert Finney show, I think there are a number of very good supporting performances. The best is Gregory Hines as an animated coroner, who may seem like he’s having too much fun with this case, but makes a nice lively counterpoint to the more sullen Finney, and if you squint, you can see that he’s using humour to cope with what’s otherwise a pretty grim job. This is a movie with a very heavy atmosphere, but seeing these two work together is a lot of fun. Also, he shows off his karate moves, which pushes this into automatic good movie territory even if we put aside all the movie’s other virtues. There’s also Tom Noonan as an eccentric zoologist whose expertise is key to cracking the case, but whose curiosity maybe gets the better of him. I also perked up when I saw James Tolkan, who has a more jovial demeanour than usual but otherwise is his expectedly flinty self. There’s also Edward James Olmos as a Native American ex-con, who challenges Finney with his resolve. This is not a werewolf movie, but Olmos briefly pushes the movie in that direction, going beast mode as he runs around buck naked and flailing in the middle of the night. If anything, Diane Venora as Finney’s partner is saddled with the most thankless role, as she’s a bit of a sounding board for Finney, but I still found her performance pretty engaging.
This is directed by Michael Wadleigh, best known for another hairy classic, Woodstock. One might be tempted to draw his sympathetic hippie portraits in the earlier movie with the offbeat character detail and sense of cultural flux, but what’s really surprising about this movie is how surely he takes to the horror genre. Much of the movie is set in ruined sections of New York intended to be cleared for new development, and the sense of decay creates a certain graveyard atmosphere, where death hangs over the proceedings. It’s interesting to see pre-cleanup New York provide a very different sense of atmosphere than the crime-infested sleaze movies often mine it for. But this also feels in sync with the rhythms of the city, where one wonders how much stranger these events are than what usually goes down here. (It feels similar to Q: The Winged Serpent, another recent viewing of mine thanks to the Criterion Channel’s ‘80s Horror series.) But lest we think this is just slow and brooding, this is also coloured with a pleasing sense of forward momentum, punctuated by roving tracking shots with a thermographic effect that anticipates the Predator movies (this is basically a less racist Predator 2), a pleasing amount of gore, and a climax with maulings, severed body parts and a very satisfying explosion.
Wolfen (Wadleigh, 1981)
Albert Finney in this movie gives off the aura of a walking hangover. Surly, frown-faced, grizzled, the kind of person who might as well be using stale booze as cologne. And there’s a reason for that. Because he’s a not quite recovered alcoholic cop who’s returned to the force after personal troubles. I think one could step back from this character and see their background as a shortcut to giving the movie gravity, but there’s an undeniable lived in quality to his performance. Anytime he takes a sip as the case gets stranger, it carries a certain weight. (Apparently Dustin Hoffman lobbied for the role, but I think Finney was exactly the right choice.) And I think that’s pretty essential to the power of the movie, where we see a murder case take turns that begin to challenge his preconceived notions, and shake him to the core. The movie devotes an unusual amount of attention to the subject of Native American politics and identity, and in part this is the story of Finney’s character evolving how he engages with these, from a studious law enforcement perspective (he rattles off bullet points about the American Indian Movement) to coming to terms with a belief system that upends his own. I admit I’m not the most knowledgeable around this subject, but I was compelled by the movie’s curiousity about this subject.
And while this would likely be a good movie were it just the Albert Finney show, I think there are a number of very good supporting performances. The best is Gregory Hines as an animated coroner, who may seem like he’s having too much fun with this case, but makes a nice lively counterpoint to the more sullen Finney, and if you squint, you can see that he’s using humour to cope with what’s otherwise a pretty grim job. This is a movie with a very heavy atmosphere, but seeing these two work together is a lot of fun. Also, he shows off his karate moves, which pushes this into automatic good movie territory even if we put aside all the movie’s other virtues. There’s also Tom Noonan as an eccentric zoologist whose expertise is key to cracking the case, but whose curiosity maybe gets the better of him. I also perked up when I saw James Tolkan, who has a more jovial demeanour than usual but otherwise is his expectedly flinty self. There’s also Edward James Olmos as a Native American ex-con, who challenges Finney with his resolve. This is not a werewolf movie, but Olmos briefly pushes the movie in that direction, going beast mode as he runs around buck naked and flailing in the middle of the night. If anything, Diane Venora as Finney’s partner is saddled with the most thankless role, as she’s a bit of a sounding board for Finney, but I still found her performance pretty engaging.
This is directed by Michael Wadleigh, best known for another hairy classic, Woodstock. One might be tempted to draw his sympathetic hippie portraits in the earlier movie with the offbeat character detail and sense of cultural flux, but what’s really surprising about this movie is how surely he takes to the horror genre. Much of the movie is set in ruined sections of New York intended to be cleared for new development, and the sense of decay creates a certain graveyard atmosphere, where death hangs over the proceedings. It’s interesting to see pre-cleanup New York provide a very different sense of atmosphere than the crime-infested sleaze movies often mine it for. But this also feels in sync with the rhythms of the city, where one wonders how much stranger these events are than what usually goes down here. (It feels similar to Q: The Winged Serpent, another recent viewing of mine thanks to the Criterion Channel’s ‘80s Horror series.) But lest we think this is just slow and brooding, this is also coloured with a pleasing sense of forward momentum, punctuated by roving tracking shots with a thermographic effect that anticipates the Predator movies (this is basically a less racist Predator 2), a pleasing amount of gore, and a climax with maulings, severed body parts and a very satisfying explosion.