Fremde Schatten

Sometimes art imitates life and truth is stranger than fiction. I say that because last year four homeless women in Oakland, California squatted in a vacant house and refused to leave. They called themselves Moms4Housing and they made a mini-movement out of their theft. Instead of being summarily evicted from the house, the matter had to go to court. Their claim was that housing is a human right and since this home was vacant they had a right to it. The whole ordeal took about five months or so to be settled with the court ruling in favor of the company that owned the home. In this case, the owner of the home was a business that could afford to go to court and wasn't pressed for an immediate need of the house.

Which brings us to "Pacific Heights." A man by the name of Carson Hayes (Michael Keaton) simply moved into a vacant unit in a Victorian home in San Francisco without paying money and without permission. Due to the tenant-favoring laws, Drake (Matthew Modine) and Patty (Melanie Griffith) could not simply kick Carson out. They had to go through a lengthy and costly process to remove him which cost them all their savings and nearly their lives.

Carson wasn't a rent paying tenant whose rent just got jacked up by 50%, nor was he a rent paying tenant that was being evicted for some arbitrary reason, he was a slick con man that found a loophole in the system that protected his conniving con.

This was a tense movie in which you hoped to learn what Carson's motives were and what was his end game. The onion was peeled back a little, but I was never really satisfied with the explanation.

Michael Keaton was strong as the antagonist. This was back when he was crushing it on screen with movies like "BeetleJuice" and "Batman." Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith were weak castings. I must admit, I think Melanie is a weak casting in anything, but she was an especially weak casting in this movie.

The story itself and the pacing was good. I liked it as a suspense thriller, but whatever the intent of the writer was, I don't think the cities in the S.F. Bay Area heard him.

Pacific Heights works because of Michael Keaton. Pacific Heights is an underrated movie and has Michael Keaton playing a sinister role as the tenant from hell. Melanie Griffith and Mathew Modine play a yuppie San Francisco couple who rent out their sublet to others. Unfortunately Michael Keaton- a rich but shady customer enters the fray and immediately convinces them to let him stay. It's a psychological thriller with a nice setting. I suggest you go in with an open mind.

Pacific Heights is required viewing in all Apartment Management courses in San Diego County. It is a chilling tale of decent but uneducated and unprepared new owners with a dream unknowingly up against a seasoned player in the professional renter game. This viewing requirement is one of the tools used to introduce starry-eyed management newcomers to the harsh and not-so-easily apparent world of the sick, the dangerous and the sue-happy portion of the rental market who will try to get the management stripped of all their personal assets and possessions, fired and possibly jailed, who work diligently to get the owner's property away from him/her, and who have no objection to going down as long as they can take others with them. Great movie.

This is a carefully programmed yuppie nightmare, something to titillate the emotions betwixt the sushi and the creme de mint, something to remind the upwardly mobile that you have to keep your guard up at all times because there are animals out there waiting to take it all away from you.

Clever plot premise: Yuppie couple, stylishly unmarried, possibly for tax purposes, buy a painted lady in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco, a Victorian fixer upper for $750,000. It's the 1980's and everybody is getting rich in California real estate. They are now in yuppie heaven since there are two rentals on the property which take care of $2300 of the $3700 monthly mortgage, which leaves them responsible for only $1400, which is less then they were paying before, and now they have a huge tax write-off and hopefully an appreciating property. Of course they are margined to the gills, but what can go wrong?

How about the tenant from hell? Forget about your wild parties and your late-with-the-rent dead beats. This guy (Michael Keaton as a slimy, upper crust psycho genius) doesn't even pay the deposit. He just moves in, squats, and our yuppie couple is helpless to get rid of him since by law he now has possession. He changes the locks, cultivates big ugly oriental cockroaches, and pounds away at all hours of the night, and chases off the other tenant. Seems he has done this before. Seems it is an elaborate scam to gain total possession of the entire property. Next to go are the owners.

Naturally the cops and the law seem to work for him, not our adorable couple. (This is a little fictional reality to further excite the passions of the audience, call it poetic license, since we all know that the tenant/landlord laws in California are written by and for the propertied class, as they are anywhere else, as is only right.)

But this is a morality play. Could it be that our yuppies are undeserving of their wealth and are easy prey in the econ jungle because of their naiveté? Could be. But as this is a modern morality tale, you can be sure that the woman, played with worrisome lines under her eyes by the ever adorable Melanie Griffith, will turn the tables and kick some male butt despite the handicap of having a not too bright boyfriend, who is easily manipulated by our villain into some rather stupid male behavior that makes things worse for our heroine. Incidentally, he is played with such annoying exactitude by Matthew Modine that I can hear the rednecks in the audience screaming: "Die yuppie scum!"

It should be noticed that the adversary of the yuppies is not your standard ghetto dweller, but a wayward member of the upper class, a fitting adversary in this yuppie trial by fire.

I'll let you guess who wins.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

This movie begins with a man named "Carter Hays" (Michael Keaton) in bed with a woman when suddenly the door bursts open and two men enter and proceed to beat him with a baseball bat. The film then shifts to a man by the name of "Drake Goodman" (Matthew Modine) and his girlfriend "Patty Parker" (Melanie Griffith) buying a large Victorian house with the intent on renting some of the rooms out in order to help pay off their sizeable mortgage. Unfortunately, one of the first people to apply for a rent is Carter who convinces Drake to forgo the usual procedures and disregard the normal paperwork. Big mistake--as from that point on Drake's life quickly spirals out-of-control due to Carter's evil manipulations. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this is the type of film that is was an interesting movie for the most part which included a good performance by Michael Keaton as the dark and sinister villain. On the other hand, the repeated violent outbursts of Drake got a bit old after the first time or two and ruined any sympathy I might have had for him. Even so, although this isn't a film that I would want to see more than once or twice, it was good enough for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.