Going Home

When Jimmy Graham (Jan Michael Viencent) was six years old he witnessed the aftermath of his father, Harry Graham (Robert Mitchum), murdering his mother. He was forced to testify against his dad, and after his conviction he was passed around between foster homes and boys' schools. Thirteen years later, and Jimmy Graham is a kid with a mighty case of PTSD, a chip on his shoulder, and a case of smoldering anger against his dad.

When Jimmy makes one of his infrequent trips to the prison, he discovers that dad was paroled months ago and didn't bother to get in touch with him and tell him he is out. He looks dad up and sees dad is getting on with his life - living in a trailer park, working as a mechanic, he even has a steady girl. Not that Harry seems to know what to do with their relationship. He alternately acts friendly towards his son and then out of the blue rejects him. At least, though, we have some of that Mitchum laconic coolness on display where I get some idea of where he is coming from.

Jimmy, however, has as close to a resting b**ch face that a man can have, and wanders around mute and behaving largely in a passive aggressive fashion. Sometimes he acts like he wants to get close to dad, other times he is complaining to the parole board about the fact that Harry is even out, another time he scratches a BEWARE OF HARRY GRAHAM message on the men's room wall. Towards the end, however, Jimmy does a deed so foul that no amount of childhood trauma can excuse it. At that point I just wanted Mitchum to show up and go all Cape Fear on this unlikable person.

The editing is not great either. Jimmy seems to have no life at all when he decides to decamp and go meddle in dad's life. Yet at the end of the film he shows up at some house of ill repute where people see him and say "Quitters are not welcome!". Jimmy calls his dad and tells him where he is, and dad says emphatically "I told you never to go back to that house!" and feels so strongly about it he has to go drive over and get him. What is this house? Until these scenes it has not been shown and I have no idea what it is doing in this film.

The 3 stars are for Mitchum, who is a presence even in a bad film with a bad script and bad editing.

Awkwardly directed throughout, with crappy TV music, this movie's clumsy editing brings down a wonderfully nuanced performance from Robert Mitchum. In fact, some of the acting by all the actors is solid but undermined by a lifeless atmosphere, almost stagey at times.

I'm a big fan of Robert Mitchum and also of Jan-Michael Vincent, but I was disappointed with this father/son drama. The film has an interesting set-up, with Vincent reaching out to his recently paroled father, who had been put away for killing his wife, Vincent's mother, many years before. What doesn't work as well is that Vincent is such an unpleasant character and in terms of narrative seems like he should be the character the audience needs to want to follow and identify with. Mitchum is excellent as the father who is happy to help his son and to reconcile, but who avoids pushing himself on his son given his past actions. Vincent is an underrated actor, but this character is so damaged and hurtful that it makes the film an unpleasant experience. And it's not that I can't appreciate or enjoy challenging familial dramas, but they at least need to interesting characters or solid narrative, both of which this film lacked. Overall, this film was only made watchable thanks to a nuanced performance by Mitchum. Brenda Vaccaro, Sally Kirkland, and Josh Mostel appear in supporting roles and an uncredited Audrey Landers appears as a teenage Arby's customer.

Going Home (1971)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This rather bizarre drama features Robert Mitchum playing a man who gets released from prison after thirteen years for killing his wife in cold blood. His now adult son (Jan-Michael Vincent) comes to stay with him in hopes of reconnecting as well as finding out what happened that night. GOING HOME seems to be trying to be one of those dark dramas that were starting to take over the decade. Think FIVE EASY PIECES but in this case the movie was serving as a comeback for star Mitchum who ended his brief retirement for this picture. This is an extremely bizarre film and from what I've read it was one of several pictures that MGM cut and re-arranged so that they could avoid an R-rating. I'm not sure what the complete history is and there are some really strange plot points but the film is still worth seeing for the performance of Mitchum. It's really a shame that the film didn't match the excellent performance because we're given an interesting story but very little is done with it. The thought of a kid witnessing his dad kill his mom and then trying to reconnect with him was something that should have worked but the film never makes too much sense in what it's trying to do. You'd think that we'd have sympathy for the kid but we don't because he's a complete weirdo and a creepy. You'd think we could understand this because of what happened to him as a child but the movie doesn't even try to play that angle and instead he's just shown as a very bad person and especially after a plot twist that happens towards the end. Again, I've read that in the original version this made more sense but by cutting the picture it really does seem that the studio hurt not only the film but whatever they were going for with the character. Again, Mitchum is excellent in his role and you could say it's one of his more memorable performances from the later part of his career. He was quite believable in the role of the father and made you care for the guy and want to see him get his life in order. Brenda Vaccaro is excellent as his girlfriend and she certainly helped carry the film. Vincent is good in his part but I just wonder what else the film had to offer his part. GOING HOME is still worth seeing for the Mitchum performance but there are just so many unanswered questions remaining.

"Going Home" explores a potentially interesting premise: a child who witnessed his mother's murder at the hands of his father grows up and confronts his parolee father. Where this movie fails is in its execution, which becomes progressively more confused and convoluted often leaving the viewer unsure as to where a scene is actually taking place. Frustratingly, most of the lead characters, especially Jimmy, come across as erratic. Their behavior at times seems entirely unrealistic and whatever motivations they might have are never really explored.

About the only thing that saves this movie from a lower rating is Mitchum's characteristically strong performance considering the confused story and direction he has to contend with.