Walter Hill’s Cajun siege picture, for a long time barely registering on the cultural radar, for cinephiles now sits nicely in the highly influential late 70’s-early 80’s period of Hill’s filmography. At once a retelling of the wolfpack themed pictures Hill nearly perfected around this time ('Alien', 'The Warriors', 'The Long Riders'), but also sharp allegory to American foreign policy, 'Southern Comfort', like all of Hill’s films resonates on multiple levels – historical and social commentary, cinematic legacy and a good old fashioned movie thrills.
Showing posts with label 1980's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1980's. Show all posts
Monday, 7 March 2016
Tuesday, 2 February 2016
The Hunger
Overwhelmingly beautiful but cold, Tony Scott’s The Hunger, once dismissed back in the day, now resounds as a seminal film of the vampire genre. Consciously aloof, Scott seemed to be striving for what Ridley Scott strove for in his early days, expressive, moody and supremely visual tone pieces. For better or worse Scott would never make a film this again, quickly moving into the Bruckheimer brand of cinema.
Friday, 29 January 2016
52 Pick Up
This underseen Elmore Leonard-penned project about a prominent LA industrialist blackmailed for his infidelity cruises through the seedy LA crime underworld in the same way Chinatown and other LA-based noir films before it. But as a time capsule of the decade, for better or worse, it’s also burdened with the vulgarities of 1980’s cinema.
Thursday, 15 May 2014
Crocodile Dundee
The story of the rustic Aussie cowboy Michael J. “Crocodile” Dundee character brought to the vacuous Manhattan lifestyle in the height of Reagan-era 80’s decadence milks every ounce of comedy and charm from this scenario. It was an unlikely megahit in 1986, but even today the film remains highly watchable thanks to the easy-going naturalism and uber chemistry from its two newbie stars Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski.
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Saturn 3
There’s very little to praise in Saturn 3, the much-maligned Razzy-nominated science-fiction film from 1980, which appears like a stain on Stanley Donen’s ('Singing in the Rain', 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers') esteemed filmography. At the time, we could admire Donen’s desire to step into another genre, similar to Robert Wise’s success with 'Star Trek The Motion Picture' a year prior, but even with relaxed expectations today, the film never rises above a mere curiosity-piece for the talent involved.
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Raise the Titanic
Thursday, 14 November 2013
Born on the Fourth of July
With the exception of JFK’s stunning cinematic bravura, arguably Born on the Fourth of July is Oliver Stone’s most accomplished film. The remarkably told story of Ron Kovic, all American boy turned war activist, exemplifies Stone’s ability to create American period nostaglia with impeccable tonal accuracy and also eviserate it with bold uncompromising cinematic force. With expert help from other giants of cinema Robert Richardson, John Williams and editors Joe Hutshing/David Brenner Born on the Fourth of July resounds, argubaly, as the foremost film on the subject of Vietnam.
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Though only an effort as producer, the much-maligned, persona-non-grata entry in the Halloween series has all the fingerprints of horrormaster John Carpenter. Featuring one of the most disturbing kill-concepts in the genre Season of the Witch fits in well with the trend of 70’s paranoia filmmaking as well as Carpenter’s career-long obsession with omniscent mental control and thus resounds as one of the most chilling underappreciated horror films of the decade.
Friday, 19 July 2013
The Elephant Man
The Elephant Man endears as one of my favourite films of all time because it exemplifies what makes a great film – taking traditional stories, themes and genres told in unconventional ways. Here David Lynch’s marriage of his avant garde peculiarness with the weepy triumph of the human spirit story of John Merrick, the physically deformed circus performer who went from circus freak to Victorian celebrity, is as an inspired cinematic concoction as there ever has been.
Thursday, 11 July 2013
Shoah
The masterful comprehensive examination of the Holocaust never fails to mesmerize on all levels of cinema, history and humanity. Though never having seen Claude Lanzmann’s lauded and landmark 9-hr film on the Holocaust until now, the effect of watching it today is probably more powerful than it was first released, and likely will become more revelant and revelatory with each passing year.
Monday, 8 July 2013
Rumble Fish
There’s no doubt Mr. Coppola like many other 70’s mavericks suffered to achieve the success and admiration in the 80’s. That said, there’s much to admire in the Coppola ouevre of this decade. In particular Rumble Fish, a difficult film for sure, cold, austere and considerably weirder than the literary treatment of The Outsiders, but astonishing and eye-poppingly brilliant nonethless.
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
They Live
John Carpenter’s late blooming fanboy fave most memorable for its lengthystreet fight scene between wrestler Roddy Piper and Keith David as its wicked story reveal of an alien race living among us only visible through specialized sunglasses, deserves to graduate from ‘cult’ status to a genuine masterpiece of science-fiction.
Monday, 7 January 2013
Qatsi Trilogy
Even as much as our brains have been desensitized to the time-lapse cinematography the film pioneered and even after two other entries in the trilogy, not excluding Ron Fricke’s own documentaries Baraka and Samsara, 30 years hence, Godfrey Reggio’s original ‘Koyaanisqatsi’, is still a visual and aural marvel. Reggio images in the first film, as shot and cut by Ron Fricke in time with the grand music compositions of Philip Glass, are as potent and powerful visual essay of sorts, but surmounting the didactic connotations of an experimental ‘essayist’ film.
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Heaven's Gate
Expensive – who cares? Egotistical director – who cares? At the end of the day, what miraculously rises from the ashes of time is the superlative cinematic splendour of Cimino’s picture. Heaven’s Gate is the comeback picture of the last 30 years and a terrible cinematic injustice now vindicated with its glorious high definition restoration by the Criterion Collection, and before that an open vault festival screening at the Venice Film Festival.
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
Terror Train
At a glance this rarely discussed slasher film from the 1980s featuring libidinous teenagers getting hacked up by a masked villain, revenge for a fraternity prank gone wrong years ago, in the context of the sociopolitical significance of horror cinema, which is now a fully analyzable genre, is fascinating and admirable for reasons beyond pure entertainment.
Terror Train (1980) dir. Roger Spottiswoode
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner, David Copperfield
By Alan Bacchus
This film has the distinction of being the first horror film I ever saw. And as a 6- year-old, the experience of watching a sadistic murderer kill innocent teenagers dressed up as Groucho Marx had a palpable imprinting effect on my life. I’ve never forgotten the fear and sheer terror this film caused me. Years later I was distraught to find out that most of the critical world didn’t feel the same way.
But the idea of a pristine Blu-ray version (via Shout Factory) of this highly personal film was akin to unearthing a time capsule from one's youth. I certainly wasn’t expecting a diamond in the rough. In fact, I had the opposite expectations, which had me even question whether re-watching this movie would tarnish my selective and biased childhood memories. Alas, no, I had to watch it.
Indeed, the film is not great. But it is fascinating.
The story can be summed up in a sentence or two. In the preamble we see Jamie Lee Curtis roped into participating in a cruel joke from her fraternity friend/jerk extraordinaire Doc Manley (Die Hard's Hart Bochner). Of course the prank goes wrong, the poor naïve kid is humiliated and for years he's treated for mental trauma. Cut to three years later, Curtis and the same group of pre-med students are partying it up on a New Year's Eve train ride full of booze, pot and heated sexual libidos. When one of the students is killed before boarding the train, and whose costumed identity is assumed by the killer, we assume it’s the same poor kid and that there’s going to be a bloodbath.
Curiously, the film is spare with its blood. Most of the kills are hidden from us, like a consciously PG version of the traditional slasher film. This point specifically is interesting to examine from the point of view of horror film history. Terror Train was made in 1980, thus it was one of the first of the modern teen slasher films. And if you look at Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) explicit gore had yet to become a prerequisite for the genre.
As forgettable as the plotting and characterizations of the story may be, for genre enthusiasts the narrative deconstructs perfectly into the genre formula - the Inciting Incident: a community of people responsible for an immoral act against the villain in the past; Location: An isolated environment disconnected from the outside world; Villain: a masked avenger burdened by the trauma of the past; and a Twist: a whodunit mystery with misdirected cues and red herrings about the killer’s identity.
From a political point of view, this film was made in the heyday of the Canadian tax shelter, produced entirely in Canada with American money but independent of the studio system - though 20th Century Fox would later acquire the film for US distribution. Production values are surprisingly strong, especially the cinematography lensed by the great John Alcott (famous for shooting Kubrick films such as Barry Lyndon and The Shining). It also happens to be Roger Spottiswoode’s first feature, and his ability to choreograph suspenseful action within the tight space of a real train shows remarkable talent. And even the performances manage to surmount the rickety material. John Ford and Sam Peckinpah stalwart Ben Johnson as the heroic conductor is the heart of the film and lends immeasurable credibility to the action. And Jamie Lee Curtis, as usual, oozes screen charisma from her pores. David Copperfield also does a surprisingly good turn as a magician aboard the train who becomes the audience’s main suspect for the murders.
The Shout Factory Blu-ray/DVD disc holds deep reverence for the picture, as evidenced by the four well produced and informative featurettes centring on the production reminiscences of the then-young production executive Don Carmody, US producer Daniel Grodnik and the fine work of production designer Glenn Bydwell and composer John Mills-Cockell. Each of these men, while not claiming to have made fine art, take their work seriously. Their candid enthusiasm is refreshing and infectious, aiding in the appreciation of this picture in the context of the genre.
***
Friday, 28 September 2012
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) dir. Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, Amrish Puri, Philip Stone
By Alan Bacchus
As we all know, the story begins before Raiders of the Lost Ark in Shanghai in 1935. The Paramount logo fades into a giant metal gong, which sounds the beginning of an elaborate Busby Berkeley style musical number featuring American singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) singing “Anything Goes”. Our hero, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), is also in the bar making a deal for the lost remains of Nurhaci – last emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Fighting and action ensues, which finds Indy fleeing the scene with Willie Scott and Indy’s young protégé, Short Round (Ke Huy Quan). Next thing you know, they’re on a flight across the Himalayas before they’re forced to abandon the plane using only a yellow dingy for a parachute. After a rollercoaster ride down the mountain, off a cliff and through treacherous rapids they settle down and are found by a kindly old Indian man.
At the man’s village, Indy is tasked with finding a lost Sankara stone, a rock with magical powers, which Indy thinks can bring him 'fortune and glory'. The trio travel to Pankot Palace where they soon find themselves battling sword-wielding warriors, a shaman with the power to rip a man’s beating heart from his body and a young Maharaja who uses voodoo dolls to subdue his enemies. In addition to rescuing the magic stone, Indy frees the children from the village and wins the heart of the nation. Breathe.
If it’s even possible, this second entry of the series moves at a pace more blistering than Raiders. In fact, the film is one long journey from one place and event to another with no time for thought or decision making. It’s as if a supernatural force of nature is blowing Indy and his troops to the Indian village and compelling them into their mission.
Again, as with Raiders, Indy goes through a series of trials and unbelievable obstacles. There’s a greater undercurrent of evil through this journey. In Raiders it’s the physical and transparent threat of the Nazis, but in Doom the enemy isn't revealed until the middle of the film, when Mola Rum (Amrish Puri) rips the heart from the shell-shocked slave. Throw in brainwashing elixirs and enslaved children and you have a really dark and violent film.
Among the great set pieces is the fantastic opening musical number, which teased us at the thought of Spielberg revitalizing the classic Hollywood musical (it hasn't happened yet). In fact, the next scene showing the exchange of the Emperor’s remains is a wonderful sequence cleverly using the table’s ‘Lazy Susan’ for suspense (Hitchcock would have been proud). There’s a rollercoaster/theme park action scene which feels like just that – a theme park ride, and the glorious finale – the rope bridge confrontation - is shot with David Lean-like perfection.
Spielberg, Lucas and the boys certainly didn't set out to make a culturally responsible film. In fact, it's a series of egregious racial and cultural clichés and stereotypes. Is there anything vaguely close to “Chilled Monkey Brains” or “Snake Surprise” in the Indian cuisine? Has the Indian culture ever had a history of ritualistic human sacrifices? And voodoo dolls are not even in the right hemisphere. But really, who cares? The dinner scene is now a classic from the series – completely ridiculous and hilarious in its excess.
How could Temple of Doom match Raiders? It couldn't. Watch this film as pure fantasy - even more over-the-top and self-reverential than the first film - and rediscover a great adventure. Enjoy.
***½
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
ET: The Extra Terrestrial
It would be hard to argue against 'E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial' being Steven Spielberg’s best film, the one film that fulfills all the promise of the once wunderkind youngster whose childlike viewpoint of spectacle cinema resulted in a monumentally successful and influential career. Looking back, E.T. is a culmination of all of Steven Spielberg’s skills, the man firing on all cylinders, delivering a film so silly, corny, unhip and yet impossible not to be moved by.
E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982) dir. Steven Spielberg
Starring: Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace, Robert McNaughton
By Alan Bacchus
The fact is E.T. represents the perfect storm of creative inspiration. It would seem everything in Steven Spielberg’s career had been leading to this point. The personal story of a young boy, burdened with the divorce of his parents, who finds solace in another forgotten soul - an alien botanist accidentally left on Earth by his extra terrestrial colleagues - is told with a lean and energetic directorial style and filled with beautiful backlights, elegant camera moves, naturalistic comedy and magic realist wonder.
To say Spielberg doesn’t emphatically push his emotional buttons would be denying the inherent joys of this picture and its whole purpose of being. Spielberg, who like his idol Alfred Hitchcock always made ‘point of view’ a conscious thematic touchstone, is more explicit with this than in any of his previous films. Spielberg views the world through a child’s eyes. It's not only his camera placement, as he composes his adult actors at the waist and never shows their faces, but the dramatic treatment of the story. This was the first film of the adults vs. kids theme of '80s family cinema, and at every turn Spielberg presents the world from the mindset of the children. Whether it’s the childlike logic of using Reese’s Pieces to make first contact with E.T., or camouflaging him amongst the various toy dolls in Elliot’s bedroom, Spielberg is remarkably consistent in tone.
There was also something marvelous about Spielberg’s dialogue in those days – a spark of naturalism not present in his movies today. And certainly the performances he gets from Henry Thomas, the precocious Drew Barrymore and the teenaged Robert McNaughton are one of a kind. Even a small role from C. Thomas Howell and his BMX cronies made an impact. And Allen Daviau’s cinematography and John Williams’ aggressive music score, as if directed by an energetic child with an expensive toy box, are amplified for maximum impact.
E.T. would not be made as well by Spielberg today. Think about how risky this venture is for a filmmaker at the height of his career: a story about a space alien who befriends a young boy going through the pains of a divorce, a film with no stars, hung on the performance of a 10-year-old and a goofy-looking rubber alien that doesn’t talk. And so in spite of its obstacles, E.T. hangs on the unique singular unabated vision of its director, free of the safety net of the older mature filmmaker he is today. Only the spark of Walt Disney in the 'Golden Age of Animation' can compare.
Sadly, there was a palpable shift in Spielberg’s career after this. He just wasn’t the same. There were two lesser Indiana Jones pictures later in the decade, a couple of admirable but equally flawed ‘mature’ films in The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun and a failed return to the awestruck magic realism in Hook. And although Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and his other varied films of the 2000s were well crafted, exciting in parts, sometimes moving, and critically and commercially successful, he was never the same.
The spark in Spielberg had gone out after E.T.. This is not uncommon with artists and filmmakers. Francis Coppola’s career can easily be defined as before Apocalypse Now and after. For Spielberg the shift was palpable, as if he exhausted all of his creative energies into E.T., the end of one phase of his career and the beginning of another.
****
E.T. is available on Blu-ray from Universal Home Entertainment. It's chock full of extras, including those from the 20th Anniversary Edition. But thankfully, aside from a digital restoration in picture and sound, the film edit has reverted back to its 1982 state. Excised are the deleted scenes inserted into the special edition from 2002. Gone are the CGI E.T. and those pesky 'walkie talkies' that digitally replaced the guns from the original version. Thank you, Mr. Spielberg, for coming to your senses.
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Outland
Peter Hyams' fantastic directorial eye and superlative visual design make this obvious 'Alien' clone one of the more underrated, if not one of the best, science fiction films of the early '80s. Often referred to as 'High Noon' in space, Hyams, as writer and director, indeed borrowed heavily from the minimalist Western showdown films such as 'High Noon', but also from Budd Boetticher and most certainly the working class ‘trucker in space’ concept of Ridley Scott’s 'Alien'. Hyams’ thoroughly modern stylized visuals elevate this film above a mere copycat picture though. It's a riveting and beautiful-to-look-at sci-fi yarn.
Outland (1981) dir. Peter Hyams
Starring: Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen, James B. Sikking
By Alan Bacchus
Sean Connery plays US Marshal William O’Neil, who is stationed for a one-year tour as chief policeman on the Io mining colony outside of Jupiter. He immediately butts heads with the station manager, Mark Sheppard (Boyle), who wants O’Neil to look the other way from the shady social discretions of his workers – namely rampant drug use and prostitution.
But when a number of workers inexplicably commit suicide or take on aggressively violent tendencies, O’Neil steps in to find justice, thus pitting him against the big corporate interests of the mining company that feeds its employees dangerous amphetamines to get them to work more efficiently.
The first two-thirds of the film build wonderfully to the final act, which fulfills the comparisons to High Noon, a taut homage to Gary Cooper’s dramatic confrontations with the three assassins en route in that film. Hyams’ builds up the tension of this fight not-so-subtly referring to the countdown to the arrival of the next passenger transport ship from earth. Armed with only a shotgun and his guile, and aided by the wily and inventive scientist played by Cheers’ Frances Sternhagen, Hyams’ crafts a terrific Western-style shootout in the bowels of the near-empty space ship.
While the production design of the ship’s interior is indeed intricate in its details, Hyams is not content to lock his camera down and admire the view. He moves his camera elegantly through the space, in and out of corridors and across the stacks and stacks of living quarters, which resemble shelves at a big-box store. Hyams' lighting scheme using primarily visible light sources in the frame certainly doesn’t predate Ridley Scott’s look from Alien, but certainly influences the later work of David Fincher and other fluorescently lit trend films of the '90s. The result is part and parcel to the mood and tone of the film. Watch the inspired design of the space helmets for instance. Each character’s face is lit by a circle of lights inside the helmet, enhancing the drama of the story.
Hyams was also one of the masters of the chase scene. He engineered a marvelous car chase in 1978’s Capricorn One. And despite being in the confines of a clunky tin can in space, Hyams choreographs an even more thrilling running chase through the base station.
If anything, the optical effects show its wear and don’t rise to match the film’s bigger budget contemporaries such as Alien and Star Wars. But for good old fashioned production design, lighting and visceral sci-fi thrills Outland overachieves admirably.
***½
Outland is available on Blu-ray from Warner Home Entertainment.
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Clue
Twenty-seven years on from this picture, 'Clue' survives wonderfully as one of the best comedies of the '80s, the black comedic farce based on the Parker Brothers board game featuring six equally great performances as the famed house guests and murder suspects, and a commanding comic performance from Tim Curry as the venerable butler. 'Clue'’s wicked mixture of dead-pan wit and wicked slapstick feels like Mel Brooks lampooning 'Rules of the Game' as an Agatha Christie mystery.
Clue (1985) dir. Jonathan Lynn
Starring: Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Eileen Brennan, Christopher Lloyd, Madeline Kahn, Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull
It’s 1954 New England, an Agatha Christie set-up, a rainy night and a group of strangers gathering for a dinner party at a gloomy hill top mansion. Dramatic crashes of lightning and other delicious music stings establish a heightened sense of mystery and intrigue, and the dreamy early rock and roll music cues as a counterpoint to the delirious murder and mayhem to come.
The affable but secretive butler, Wadsworth (Curry), welcomes the guests who are given six fake names, known to us by the charcters in the board game; Prof Plum (Lloyd), Miss Scarlett (Warren), Mrs. White (Kahn), Mrs. Peacock (Brennan), Mr. Green (McKean) and Col. Mustard (Mull). The six deadly weapons are also cleverly integrated into the mix when Mr. Body, the nefarious host who is revealed to be blackmailing all the guests for the various indiscretions, gives each guest a weapon to kill Wadsworth. Of course, it’s Mr. Body who winds up dead and everyone is a suspect.
Jonathan Lynn’s direction is unstylish but effective, choreographing his action using wide shots to put as many characters in his frames as possible. Lynn’s camera moves invisibly throughout the space to capture the reactions of all the characters to the zaniness of the action all at once. And so, it’s the rhythm of dialogue which sets the pace of the scenes. Cast mostly by supporting actors, no one particular character stands out. Each complements the other, bringing their own comic flavours to the table - an ensemble in the best sense.
The actors are just as comfortable timing their witty one-liners as performing pratfalls and other traditional slapstick material. Tim Curry's performance is the most inspired, as he sells gags like the quick insults aimed at the slow-witted Col. Mustard and controls the pace with his remarkable manic physicality.
As written by Lynn (with John Landis), the script could not be any tighter. It only takes an hour or so before Wadsworth proclaims to know who the killer is. The entire third act is a delirious sequence, featuring Curry as Wadsworth retelling and re-acting the entire film we just saw with the aggressive franticness of the Marx Bros.
Equally inspired are the three endings shot for the film and released as three separate movies back in its theatrical release. It was a terrific marketing hook, which to my knowledge hasn't been repeated since. Since it's only been on home video we get to watch all three endings at once, adding one last marvelous post-modern comedic gag to cap off this terrific film.
***½
Clue is available on Blu-ray on August 7 from Paramount Home Entertainment, presumably timed with the release of another board game adaptation, 'Battleship'. The results couldn't be any more extreme.
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
Down By Law
The '80s were not kind to American indie cinema. For the most part, gone were the 1970’s mavericks, and with them the distributors and studios willing to bank them. And so, smack dab in the middle of the American conservative cinematic establishment stood the fiercely idiosyncratic and subversive Jim Jarmusch, revelling in the piss and vinegar of life. How remarkable and ironic it was for the director whose creative peak was this decisively uncreative period. 'Down By Law' sits right on top of Jarmusch’s creative peak, a beacon for the future Steven Soderberghs, Quentin Tarantinos and Paul Thomas Andersons.
Down By Law (1986) dir. Jim Jarmusch
Starring: John Lurie, Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni
By Alan Bacchus
Like Jarmusch’s previous Permanent Vacation and Stranger than Paradise, Down By Law sympathizes with the lost souls of the '80s, the weirdoes who couldn’t fit into Reagan’s America, the ones left behind by the sanitization of an extreme free market capitalist mentality. What an inspired trio of actors who fit together in the most unconventional of ways. John Lurie and Tom Waits, for instance, communicate more with their charismatic and intense faces, and Roberto Benigni is a comic sparkplug who lights up every scene he’s in.
There’s only a whiff of a story, the opening scenes of which show how petty criminals Zack (Waits) and Jack (Lurie) – similar names which makes for a great gag with Benigni – fall victim to unfortunate circumstances and find themselves unlawfully in prison. Their days languishing in the jail consist of playing poker, waiting for the guards to light their cigarettes and arguing. Enter Roberto, a naïve tourist who also finds himself in prison inexplicably for manslaughter. Without Roberto, Zack and Jack are like oil and water. But with him in the room they are in harmony. It’s Roberto who hatches a plan to escape (with relative ease), which has them on a Tom Sawyer-like journey through the Louisiana bayou to freedom.
The joys of Down By Law exist in the silences. Jarmusch features long static takes skewed with wide angle lenses. But even in these most undramatic of moments it never feels like dead air. It’s the faces and attitude of his characters that create the pulse of the film. John Lurie in particular, the standout from Stranger than Paradise is interminably watchable even when he’s not doing anything. Even as a pimp trading women on the street he’s a loveable doofus. And Tom Waits brings a laid back coolness, as he's unaffected by anything that crosses his path.
Without being a rock and roll movie, Down By Law has the spirit of the lifestyle without the music. Certainly Tom Waits' presence helps create this feeling, but the key is Jarmusch’s distinctly slacker mentality even before there was such a term. The characters simply exist without any dramatic artifice. Zack, Jack and Roberto are the genuine article oddballs whom we simply want to observe being themselves fighting their way through a conformist sterile world.
***½
Down By Law is available on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection.
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