La novena configuración

Everybody's got their own list of overlooked movies that they can't believe aren't recognized as classics. I have several contenders but this brilliant movie must surely top the list! William Peter Blatty of 'The Exorcist' fame adapted his own novel for his debut as writer/director and came up with a mind-bending classic. I only know a handful of people who have even heard of this movie, but everyone who gets to see it becomes an instant raving fan. Yes, it's THAT good.

Colonel Kane (Stacey Keach, 'The Long Riders', 'American History X') is sent to a top secret facility full of military personal suffering from breakdowns, delusions and other mental problems. While attempting to find some way to cure them he becomes particularly concerned with a tortured astronaut, Captain Cutshaw (Scott Wilson, 'In Cold Blood', 'The Way Of The Gun'), and the two form a special, odd relationship. However things are not what they first appear to be, and to give anymore plot points away would be criminal. All I can say is that you're in for one hell of a ride!

Keach and Wilson are both outstanding in two of the best roles of their careers, but what really makes this a must-see is the superb supporting cast of character actors who are all equally good, and spout some of the freshest, most memorable dialogue you'll ever hear. Some of them include Robert Loggia ('Lost Highway'), Jason Miller ('The Exorcist'), Tom Atkins ('Maniac Cop'), Moses Gunn ('Rollerball'), Neville Brand ('Eaten Alive'), Joe Spinell ('Maniac') and Richard Lynch ('Open Season'). This movie is heaven for b-grade film buffs, and I can't recommend it highly enough. An unforgettable experience.

Well, well, well. At last a rating I can fully agree with. Yes, the Shawshank Redemption was very good. But this is a hidden classic. If you're one of those people (like me) who loves to be taken completely by surprise by a movie, this is the one for you. The IMDB rating says it all: VERY few people know about this one, but those who do are nearly unanimous: this is outstanding storytelling. First time viewers, be warned: be patient. Let it happen. You won't know where it's going at first. Your patience will be rewarded, I assure you - it all comes together, culminating in a bar-room brawl that is an absolute textbook piece of tension-building. And then, you'll want to rewind it and watch it all over again, to pick out all the clues that slipped by you the first time through. Quentin Tarantino, eat your heart out: THIS is how it's supposed to be done.

The Ninth Configuration (1980) was William Peter Blatty's directorial debut. He adapts his own novel for the big screen in this bizarre film about an astronaut (Scott Wilson) who's reached his breaking point and a military doctor (Stacy Keach) who's trying to reach out to him. The cast has a who's who of Hollywood cast-offs (William Peter Blatty has a cameo himself as one of the patients).

This is a strange film that'll cause you to think (if you don't enjoy these type of films then I suggest you look elsewhere). An interesting movie about things that aren't as they seem, soul searching and seeking redemption through honor and self sacrifice. I liked the way these people have to look into themselves and see who or what they really are. I wished that William Peter Blatty made more movies and Hollywood should have gave Stacy Keach more film roles like these. He was quite impressive.

I have to to highly recommend this movie. But if you're expecting some mainstream popcorn nonsense then look elsewhere.

William Peter Blatty will be better known to most as the writer of 'The Exorcist', and here he makes his sterling directorial debut with what is (once the abomination of 'The Exorcist 2' is exorcised) the spiritual sequel to that consummate horror. Having said that, lest the reader get the impression that you're in for more supernatural shenanigans (and pea soup) it should be said that this movie is a million miles away from the horror genre. What's more, 'The Ninth Configuration' is virtually unclassifiable as far as traditional genre categories go and will leave you reeling from the barrage of bizarre images, comedic one-liners, theological debates, and a bar room brawl to end them all!

William Peter Blatty wrote 'The Exorcist' as the first part of a trilogy of novels, the other installments being 'Twinkle twinkle killer Kane' and 'Legion'. 'Twinkle twinkle killer Kane' was adapted to the screen by Blatty as 'The Ninth Configuration' and where 'The Exorcist' explored the argument for the existence of God through the palpable presence of evil, 'The Ninth Configuration' continues the argument through exploring the presence of good in a universe purported by science to be empty, blindly deterministic, and amoral.

At the start of the film we are introduced to a motley band of members of the military who, in the course of the Vietnam War, have all suffered various kinds of mental breakdown and for their treatment have been sent to a reconstructed European castle in some remote American mountains (the film was actually shot in Hungary). Chief among these is the astronaut Capt. Billy Cutshaw (Scott Wilson) whose illness is seen as somehow key in that it is clearly not feigned due to cowardice as he was never scheduled for combat. This introduction sets the tone for the first part of the film and the portrayal of mental illness is somewhat zany and comedic and continues as we are introduced to the other main character, the psychiatrist Colonel Kane (Stacy Keach). Col. Kane, with the support of fellow psychiatrist Col. Fell (Ed Flanders), then institutes an unorthodox treatment which indulges the fantasies of the inmates in an attempt to invoke a catharsis…which is when all (comedic) hell breaks loose and it is against this anarchic backdrop that Cutshaw argues with Kane for the absurdity of believing in God in a world in which undue suffering proliferates.

The light-hearted whacky tone gives way in the second half as Kane and Cutshaw's arguments become more penetrating (although not completely, as Cutshaw's choice of wardrobe to a Christian Mass will testify!) and the climax of the film is a double-whammy of a plot reveal that casts the performance of Ed Flanders as Col. Fell in a pathos infused light (which can only be fully appreciated with repeat viewings), as well as a bar room fight that will have you stuck to your screen as the tension builds and builds to an explosive finale.

Unfortunately, owing to the fact that a theological tragi-comedy is not the stuff the popcorn and soda crowd really go for, 'The Ninth Configuration' has fallen into the "cult" film category, which is a shame as another film with as fine a plot carried off by as fine a cast (not to mention a wealth of quotable one-liners) you are unlikely to see. However, while the film clearly deserves wider recognition (especially given it's conceptual relationship to 'The Exorcist'), those that seek it out, or fortuitously stumble upon it , are in for a real treat!

It's rare to find five films that offer as much combined intelligence, passion, visceral excitement, and uncontrolled belly laughs as this. "The Ninth Configuration" is the sort of film people either love or hate. Like many great works of art, it doesn't settle into any middle ground. It's my all-time favorite movie, not perfect but a real screen miracle all the same. This is the sort of movie they don't make any more, because they never really made anything like this. Just this one time. For that, and much else, it is unique.

Scott Wilson plays the despairing Capt. Cutshaw, who believes the universe is a random void based on suffering and cruelty. He is challenged in his atheism by Stacy Keach, a Marine colonel sent to command the institution where Cutshaw and other Army servicemen, many Vietnam War heroes, have been committed to after assorted acts of deviancy. Cutshaw's own madness culminated in his refusal to be launched into space during a final countdown, vividly pictured near the beginning in one of many arresting visuals when the horizon around the launching pad suddenly fills up with the sight of a ferocious, threatening moon, several times bigger than life.

Cutshaw and Keach's Col. Kane duke it out in a serious of probing yet riotous metaphysical dialogues. "I don't belong to the God-Is-Alive-But-Living-In-Argentina club," Cutshaw announces. "But I believe in the Devil alright. And you know why? Because the prick keeps doing commercials!" Kane's counterargument, much weaker at the outset but gaining intensity as Cutshaw's desire to be converted becomes more clear, is that if evil is as powerful and omnipresent as Cutshaw thinks, correctly, than why doesn't he also believe in the real, counterbalancing power of human goodness as something that has its origins beyond humanity?

Meanwhile, the other inmates follow their own neuroses, adapting Shakespeare for dogs and trying to train atoms to allow humans to walk through walls. There's also Neville Brand's Major Groper, a put-upon asylum keeper who finds himself victimized by such pranks as having his name attached to a love letter sent out in a mass mailing addressed to "Occupant." "I got phone call after phone call," he complains, adding bitterly that the female respondents he did contact were "ugly as sin."

People criticize the movie for being filled with such amiable nuttiness, but it relieves the heaviness of the central story and sets the right tone of anarchy and chaos to be sorted out as the picture develops. The third character in this film, after Cutshaw and Kane, is Ed Flanders' Dr. Fell, the medical officer who treats his hangovers with whisky and Alka-Seltzer and observes the lunacy around him with a bemused calm. But he has no small stake in the larger story being worked out between Kane and Cutshaw. In fact, he's more the central figure than anyone, and watching his reactions at key moments is one of the many treats of repeat viewings.

The acting is superb, particularly by the three principals. As we learn in the penetrating director's commentary that accompanies the DVD, the three leads were originally supposed to be Nicol Williamson as Kane, Michael Moriarty as Cutshaw, and Jason Robards as Fell. They would have been good, but not anywhere near as good as the three performances we have. Further proof of God's existence, for anyone who feels the "Ninth Configuration" argument advanced by Kane doesn't hold water, can be found in the fact Wilson and Keach were last-minute replacements in a low-budget film made only to help create a loss-leader for the producers. Unpromising origins to be sure, yet such a brilliant payoff. And how richly perverse: I love the way Kane makes his strongest case for man's goodness while dressed in full Nazi regalia. You don't even notice that the first time you see it, because the power of his words and the questing desperation in his eyes.

I'm dancing around the story itself, because a first-time viewer deserves surprises. Think of C.S. Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters" with a kick-ass bar fight, and you are in the right ballpark. Add to that the moody set design of an old castle in the Pacific Northwest (but actually shot in Hungary), an unobtrusive but powerful score, and surefire direction by screenwriter William Peter Blatty, who sets every scene as a sort of tableau of Cutshaw and Kane's inner turmoil.

Most of all, the film is amazingly quotable, particularly the canine Shakespeare adapter's (Jason Miller, sublime as Reno) unique take on "Hamlet," which takes the story in a whole new direction while offering a brilliant analysis of Shakespeare's great play. Even the little lines resonate with rare power. "Every kind thought is the hope of the world," Fell says at one point. Humble but true, as this film is proof.

You may not be converted into a belief in the divine, and the end does push things a bit harder than many would like (though with a blind courage rarely seen in film), but "The Ninth Configuration" will make you think a little more about the questions of our existence. And you will laugh a lot on the journey. Like I said, they don't make films like this anymore because they never did. This is a one-of-a-kind experience worth seeing.