Blue Thunder (1983) dir. John Badham
Starring: Roy Scheider, Malcolm McDowell, Candy Clark, Daniel Stern, Warren Oates

***1/2

One of the great directors of the 80’s is John Badham, and one of the best action films of that decade is “Blue Thunder”. The title might conjure an impression of a film capitalizing on the 80’s trend of machinery as basis of high concept screenplays, but “Blue Thunder” is NOT Knight Rider, nor “Airwolf”, not even its own lame TV show spin-off. Badham’s film in invisible to its age, an expertly executed actioner with a surprisingly astute social commentary which feels as relevant today.

The perfect everyman star Roy Scheider, plays Frank Murphy, an LAPD pilot in the urban aerial patrol unit. He’s also a Vietnam vet, with latent post-traumatic stress and those annoying recurring ‘Nam flashbacks (I know, it was already a cliché then). But he’s the best of the PD pilots, and when a new high tech military-style surveillance copter is introduced, Murphy is chosen to fly it.

Nicknamed “Blue Thunder”, it’s a high tech beast of a vehicle, capable of capturing infrared video, long distance sound, full PD computer connectivity, stealth abilities and with a badass phallic rotating machine gun at its chin. After a city councilwoman is murdered Murphy stumbles upon a conspiracy involving the same people who have brought the copter to the force. When Murphy discovers a more nefarious intention for the vehicle, Murphy goes rogue in order to set things right.

If you ever thought “Blue Thunder” was an 80’s high concept hackjob, you just have to look at its writing team once of which is Dan (“Alien”) O’Bannon who knows his way around tense genre action. O’Bannon takes his concept very seriously. While the helicopter is central attraction of the picture, overriding themes of police corruption and public privacy does not take second fiddle.

The year 1984 was like a shadow on much of pop culture – the arrival of George Orwell’s the prophetic year and title of his seminal 1950’s work of speculative fiction. Fears of the future and technology were in the air. And it’s no coincidence one of the other great thrillers of the decades is John Badham’s own “War Games”, which, like Blue Thunder, captures the fear of computer technology as accessible mainstream entertainment.

As piece of action cinema, John Badham directs with the heighest order of skill. Badham’s aerial photography is simply the best-ever put to screen. Badham takes great care to use as little blue-screen as possible, finding clever ways to mount his camera on the actual helicopters with the actors at its controls. A number of visually stunning aerial scenes are staged – the finale being the finest aerial combat sequence I’ve ever seen. There’s not fakery in the choreography of the battle between the Scheider’s “Blue Thunder” and Malcolm McDowell’s sleek military gunship. Astonishingly Badham stages the scene in around the high rise buildings of Los Angeles, complete with full gunfire, rockets firing and the destruction which would likely ensue. Of course, there’s no CG to be had, instead clever use of scale models and good old fashioned practical effects.

Badham’s cast does their work diligently without being upstaged by the cool machinery. Roy Scheider rarely made bad movies, and like his other cop roles fits naturally in the uniform. Malcolm McDowell hams it up as the foil, Murphy's smug British rival with his own catch phrase – ‘Catch ya later.’ Candy Clark, like always, exuded warmth as Murphy’s dedicated wife, Daniel Stern as the affable rookie cop, whom we know by the rules of buddy cinema will likely die horribly. And of course, there’s Warren Oates, in his last role, as Murphy's gruff yet loyal captain.

A film like Blue Thunder would never be made with as much realism as Badham did it. CG would certainly be employed – a lazy device, which gets director’s off the hook for actually being creative. John Badham hasn’t made a feature in a while, instead taking paycheques from TV series’ like “Heroes” and “Crossing Jordan”, “Las Vegas”. He’s 68 now and thus earned his right to relax and take the money and run. His legacy of pictures from “Saturday Night Fever”, “War Games”, “Blue Thunder”, "Nick of Time" and more should keep his reputation intact. Enjoy.

“Blue Thunder” is available on Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Saturday Night Fever (1977) dir. John Badham
Starring: John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gomey, Donna Pescow, Barry Miller

***

Thirty plus years after the fact, there’s much to regard in “Saturday Night Fever” and much reproach as well. The film which absolutely defines the disco-era does mostly everything right to transcend the pop culture fad which made it a success in 1977. Writer Norman Wexler and hired hand director John Badham seem to have a unique awareness of the film's time and place and as such manage to deconstruct the era through the singularity of its main character.

Tony Manero (John Travolta) is a typical 19 year old working class Bronx neighbourhood kid. Emotionally immature, underachiever who enjoys the company of his fellow underachieving friends. He freely admits he works at the paint shop so he can spend all his money on Saturday nights at 2001, the local nightclub where he’s the king of club, picking up women with his impeccable disco dancing skills.

When he starts hanging out with Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gomey), a sophisticated older woman whom he pines after as a dance partner, a new world is opened up to him. Through Stephanie, Tony sees a future and goals to achieve and an integrity to his passion for dance. While the film moves towards a dance competition at 2001, the film is about Tony’s struggle to escape the stunting activities of his friends and his depressed disapproving father and find the ambition to succeed in life and grow into a real man.

Thirty years later it's still the dance sequences and club scenes which energize the film. On Blu-Ray the multicoloured, glitzy, reflective nightclub scenes burst out of the screen like a pop-up book. Disco has long since passed its time wearing the scarlet letter, and whether you like disco music or not the Bee Gees music pump up these scenes with maximum energy. The choreography is electric and hypnotic. Take the first club scene which ends with the familiar group dance, the hustle. The sequence isn’t announced with a sudden change in music or camera angle, it evolves and grows as more people join in, eventually taking over the whole dance floor. John Badham directs the scene like a dream sequence, floating the camera over the heads of the actors and through billows of dry ice smoke. And his gentle dissolve to Tony’s bedroom the next day slowly brings us back to Tony’s reality.

“Saturday Night Fever” is entirely Travolta’s film. Going through the supporting credits, none of the other key players went on to careers even remotely close to Travolta’s - in many ways to a fault. The scenes with Tony and his boys carousing around town are hampered by the often atrocious performances from his pals. At home, Tony's relationship with the father and mother are never adequately realized because of the base and stereotypical dramatization of the working class Italian-American family. The famous dinner time where Tony eats his dinner with a towel wrapped around his clean disco shirt is humourous for some, but for me the exaggerated blockhead performances are like nails on a chalkboard.

The most endearing relationship in the film is Tony and his brother Frank Jr. (Martin Shakar), the former priest who returns whom to the disappointment of his family. There’s genuine love and emotion in those scenes, which unfortunately get wrapped up midway through the picture.

The third act is hit and miss. The dance competition is well written, with Tony not accepting his win and loathing the bigoted attitude against the Puerto Rican team. This sets Tony’s frustration with his friends and his neighbourhood over the edge. Unfortunately the same can’t said with the treatment of Annette, the innocent hanger-on who just wanted some attention. She gets gang raped in the car to the amusement of Tony’s friends, an especially cruel and misogynistic scene which always makes me a little sick watching it. While this scene may have worked in the second act, where it stands in the final film the assailants go unpunished for the crime, which leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Nonetheless, cinema history seems to have glossed over these failings and crowned it an era-defining film. So be it.

"Saturday Nigh Fever" is available on Blu-Ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment

War Games (1983) dir. John Badham
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Alley Sheedy, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Barry Corbin

****

“War Games” that underappreciated techno-classic has all the hallmarks of early 80’s cinema: fears of computer and artificial intelligence, late cold war paranoia, and of course kids vs. adults. “War Games” stands out of the pack, because it never caters to be simply entertainment, its message is a powerful reminder of the dangers of the technology we create and the speed with which we create them. It's also great entertainment.

“War Games” opens with a lengthy but important sequence. We watch the mind-numbing procedure of a pair of military operatives as they go about their daily routine at a NORAD missile launching station. It must be a painfully boring job, forced to go through the same procedure day after day, in case they are asked to actually throw the switch for real. Well, on this day the unthinkable happens. They receive authenticated orders to launch their missiles. But after all the training and rehearsing the human factor fails them and one of the men (the late John Mahoney) refuses to launch the missiles.

And so is established the moral conundrum of the film and of the nuclear age. Should the fate of the world rest with the decision-making of one man? Should a military decision like a launching of nuclear warheads be executed by a computer? This is what advisor John McKittrick (the great 80’s character actor Dabney Coleman) proposes and implements. A Hal-like computer called WOPR replaces the execution procedure we saw in the opening scene. It’s an impressive piece of machinery but not everyone is convinced the computer is right for the job.

Enter high school wiz-kid David Lightman – a Bill Gates like Seattle teen who skips school and changes his grades with his elaborate home computer system. One day, while trying to hack into a software company to play games he accidentally hacks into the WOPR computer and thus the NORAD defensive grid. He starts a game of Biothermal Nuclear War, which Lightman thinks is only a game, but in reality turns into a world-threatening nuclear simulation. Lightman is in big shit and is taken into custody. The only person who can exonerate them is the reclusive designer of the WOPR computer.

From a screenwriting perspective Lawrence Lasher and Walter F. Parkes have crafted the perfect techno-thriller script – big ideas are told through great characters and accessible point of view storytelling. The pacing and dialogue are sharp, with just enough humour and romance dabbled in lighten the seriousness of the subject matter. They even have the ticking clock, the classic screenwriting device to remind the audience of the stakes. Usually this device is masked as a metaphor but the writers are confident enough to use a literal countdown display on the WOPR computer which they cut to from time to time.

Lightman’s computer set up is a great piece of production design. Designer Angelo Graham constructs a reality-based bedroom set-up of machinery, printers, speakers, monitors, which is certainly antiquated, but something which a clever teenager could have at the time. Lightman’s research and hackings are shown to us in procedural detail like the opening of the film. OK, so it’s impossible to actually type in a colloquial phrase and have it recognized as an command, but Matthew Broderick’s handsome yet geeky innocence sells all the mumbo jumbo to the audience with ease. Graham also creates an enormous NORAD set rivaling Ken Adam’s Dr. Strangelove set. Graham fills the huge space with authentic-looking giant computer screens, global maps, and hundreds of fancy computer and flashing lights. Within the space, John Badham expertly crafts his utterly suspenseful climatic battle with the computer.

Director John Badham, a relative unknown in today’s cinema circles, is one of the great mainstream directors of the 80’s. He even directed “Saturday Night Fever”. Other hit films of his include, “Blue Thunder”, “Short Circuit”, “The Hard Way” and “Nick of Time”. Arguably “War Games” is Badham’s crowning achievement, which stands out over all other Reagan-era Cold War films and can proudly be compared favourably to many of the great 60’s films: “Fail Safe”, “The Manchurian Candidate” and dare I say, “Dr. Strangelove”. Enjoy.

“War Games: 25th Anniversary” is available on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.