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The Year of Living Dangerously
(directed by Peter Weir, 1982)
Twenty minutes into this movie, I was ready to turn it off and be done with it. Finally, when Linda Hunt, a little actress whom I always remember as Roseanne's friend and business partner in the movie She-Devil (and she was the principal in Kindergarten Cop, which I saw recently and loved but did not review) -- when Linda Hunt, portraying a MAN named Billy Kwan, gives a little shadow puppet show to Mel Gibson explaining, I dunno, ghosts or something, I finally started becoming interested.
Mel Gibson is in Indonesia. He's a foreign correspondent for an Australian network. Indonesia is basically a big mess -- a nightmarish government and so forth -- lots of poor and unhappy people, lots of mean Indonesian guys with guns. Other foreign correspondents are around - they all mingle with Mel. Mel befriends Billy Kwan, a short Chinese-Australian guy who works as a photojournalist. Billy is loved and respected by everyone. One of his good friends is Jill Bryant, played by Sigourney Weaver. Billy hooks up Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, who just happens to be leaving in a week. The movie is a love story surrounding one of those political unrest historical tales. I found the material regarding Mel Gibson, Linda Hunt and Sigourney Weaver very interesting, but the rest was not my cup of tea.
Early in the movie, I tried to change the plot of the story to suit me because it wasn't that interesting yet. First of all, in the beginning, I had a very hard time believing that Linda Hunt was a man. Many reviewers think it's such a remarkable and convincing performance, and later on it sort of was, but I was not sold from the beginning. I became convinced that the movie was nothing but this little woman pretending to be a little man in order to follow around Mel Gibson. She even stalks him and takes pictures of him -- she cuts his shape out of a picture -- she has a FILE on him. She writes about him constantly on her - HIS - typewriter. She/He keeps a file on all of her close friends. She seems very into astrology, as well, since she always notes what astrological sign they are. She believes in spirits and the spirit world being all around Indonesia. She's a little good spirited, devilish type. She even had the balls to ask Sigourney Weaver to marry her/him, we learn. There is no stopping this crossdressing woman, who reminded me of The Leprechaun from those Leprechaun movies oddly at times. The Year of Living Dangerously feels like a Leprechaun movie if The Leprechaun took some medicine to change into something more human and actually be a nice guy/gal who doesn't kill people. I'm sorry, Linda Hunt, but it does. It's Leprechaun in Indonesia.
I liked The Year of Living Dangerously, but I don't really love it. I didn't feel like it was very engaging. It had a good ending, though. Mel Gibson is also shirtless quite a few times. But the "living dangerously" stuff was boring. Linda Hunt's performance felt calculated to me -- like she was some sort of carnival freak show attraction put into the film to beef it up and make it a little controversial and exciting and interesting. It was a good move and she's certainly probably the best thing about the film, but I wish it had had something more. This was not a very good movie for Sigourney Weaver, really. She usually can bring down the house -- in this movie, she's very subdued. Maybe it's cause it's 1982 and she's not really - I guess, except for Alien, maybe - a huge, huge star. There's not a problem, really, with her being subdued, but I can almost count on her sometimes to pull a movie even if it's sinking -- well, no, that's not true with Vantage Point.
Mel Gibson is really good in this, but the material is so lackluster for him. At least he went on to bigger and better things - for awhile.
(directed by Peter Weir, 1982)
Twenty minutes into this movie, I was ready to turn it off and be done with it. Finally, when Linda Hunt, a little actress whom I always remember as Roseanne's friend and business partner in the movie She-Devil (and she was the principal in Kindergarten Cop, which I saw recently and loved but did not review) -- when Linda Hunt, portraying a MAN named Billy Kwan, gives a little shadow puppet show to Mel Gibson explaining, I dunno, ghosts or something, I finally started becoming interested.
Mel Gibson is in Indonesia. He's a foreign correspondent for an Australian network. Indonesia is basically a big mess -- a nightmarish government and so forth -- lots of poor and unhappy people, lots of mean Indonesian guys with guns. Other foreign correspondents are around - they all mingle with Mel. Mel befriends Billy Kwan, a short Chinese-Australian guy who works as a photojournalist. Billy is loved and respected by everyone. One of his good friends is Jill Bryant, played by Sigourney Weaver. Billy hooks up Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, who just happens to be leaving in a week. The movie is a love story surrounding one of those political unrest historical tales. I found the material regarding Mel Gibson, Linda Hunt and Sigourney Weaver very interesting, but the rest was not my cup of tea.
Early in the movie, I tried to change the plot of the story to suit me because it wasn't that interesting yet. First of all, in the beginning, I had a very hard time believing that Linda Hunt was a man. Many reviewers think it's such a remarkable and convincing performance, and later on it sort of was, but I was not sold from the beginning. I became convinced that the movie was nothing but this little woman pretending to be a little man in order to follow around Mel Gibson. She even stalks him and takes pictures of him -- she cuts his shape out of a picture -- she has a FILE on him. She writes about him constantly on her - HIS - typewriter. She/He keeps a file on all of her close friends. She seems very into astrology, as well, since she always notes what astrological sign they are. She believes in spirits and the spirit world being all around Indonesia. She's a little good spirited, devilish type. She even had the balls to ask Sigourney Weaver to marry her/him, we learn. There is no stopping this crossdressing woman, who reminded me of The Leprechaun from those Leprechaun movies oddly at times. The Year of Living Dangerously feels like a Leprechaun movie if The Leprechaun took some medicine to change into something more human and actually be a nice guy/gal who doesn't kill people. I'm sorry, Linda Hunt, but it does. It's Leprechaun in Indonesia.
I liked The Year of Living Dangerously, but I don't really love it. I didn't feel like it was very engaging. It had a good ending, though. Mel Gibson is also shirtless quite a few times. But the "living dangerously" stuff was boring. Linda Hunt's performance felt calculated to me -- like she was some sort of carnival freak show attraction put into the film to beef it up and make it a little controversial and exciting and interesting. It was a good move and she's certainly probably the best thing about the film, but I wish it had had something more. This was not a very good movie for Sigourney Weaver, really. She usually can bring down the house -- in this movie, she's very subdued. Maybe it's cause it's 1982 and she's not really - I guess, except for Alien, maybe - a huge, huge star. There's not a problem, really, with her being subdued, but I can almost count on her sometimes to pull a movie even if it's sinking -- well, no, that's not true with Vantage Point.
Mel Gibson is really good in this, but the material is so lackluster for him. At least he went on to bigger and better things - for awhile.