Reach the Rock

Definitely worth the rental bucks, despite the occasional but forgivable schmaltz at points. Good soundtrack, evidence of John Hughes III and his friendship with Tortoise-guy John McEntire, and a very atmospheric, hazy look to the whole picture. Wonderful moments of quiet, and shots held longer than I'm used to seeing in a Hollywood film. Oddly casual, and quite enjoyable.

After having watched "Two for the money" and talked about Pacino and inspiration, I can't help but thinking how important something inspiring is in the film industry. Mostly in Hollywood, where inspiring films are locked in a shelf and only come out if the right people allows it and so on. There's still people who wants to leave a message to the viewer; people who has something to say.

A few years ago, a man named William Ryan directed his first and only film to date, called "Reach the rock". The opening shots of the movie and the movement of the camera let us know that we're going to see something common in detail; something simple but with a lot of meaning. "Reach the rock" can be a forgettable film if you don't pay close attention. Ryan cares for his simple environment, and he cares for the meaning and the message.

If you take a look at Ryan's producing credits, you'll see "Miracle on 34th Street" (one of my favorite films), a picture with message and meaning, listed. You are allowed to think that I'm talking a bunch of nonsense here, but I've got to make a stand for a movie like "Reach the rock"; a sensible, heartfelt tale that went completely unnoticeable when it came out.

At first I wanted to see this film because Alessandro Nivola was in it. Nivola, a talented but still not recognized performer (stole the show in the blockbuster "Goal!" and brought grace alongside Amy Adams to "Junebug"), stars as Robin, the most rebellious kid of a small town which is no longer a kid but still does the mischief a teenager does when he wants to get attention. Quinn (William Sadler), the town chief of police, blames him for the death of his nephew Danny, a friend of Robin who wanted more than the life expectations of a little town.

"No one cares about you no more, Robin", Quinn tells him as he puts him in a cell. Robin picks the phone and calls a girl, asking her to pick him up. This is Lise (Brooke Langton), the daughter of the most important man in town and once Robin's girlfriend. He loves her and she loves him too, but she went to the University and he never finished high school and still doesn't know what to do with his life. And what's the problem with that? Some people just don't know.

But he is clever, probably more than Quinn because he destroys various stores of the town and steals a police car in the same night as he is in jail without anyone being able to blame him. Lise goes to visit Robin and denigrates him morally. However, she still wants to do things with him but he is no fool. Meanwhile, Quinn looks at the pictures of his nephew's death. Robin remembers he was with Danny and he wanted to reach the rock; a big rock in the river that represented more than the small town life.

During that night, lots of revelations see the light of day and the viewer finds himself surprised more and more as the time passes. The screenplay by John Hughes is perfect, because there's a charm in the simplicity of the tale accompanied by Ryan's direction. There's a perfect mix of the drama and the comedy; there's a silence in the images that we get to hear because of the little number of actors and their more than good performances.

"Reach the rock" had a lot more to say…A lot of movies these days have; it's just that nobody sees it.

The beginning recalls Nicholas Ray's "rebel without a cause"(1955) .What follows is very static and is not unlike a filmed stage production:with its hints at the past and its somewhat tortured characters ,it reminds me of very lite Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller.Never really funny ,and never really absorbing,in spite of good actors.The brunette character is eminently questionable :it's not the return of Natalie Wood in the movie I mention above.It seems that after a bout of rebellion against daddy ,she returned to his-father-who-owns-the -whole-town apparently without tears.

Does not reach anything.

You can probably use the old Woody Allen line, "I like your earlier, funny ones" in describing the ENTIRE career of writer/director John Hughes.

The list rattles off like 80's Night on TBS: from "National Lampoon's Vacation" and "Sixteen Candles" to "Pretty In Pink" and "Planes, Trains & Automobiles". Hughes was a filmmaker who literally caught lightning in a bottle - a former advertising copywriter who had the marrow of moviegoers' funnybones and could write smart dialogue and smart situations like nobody else at that time. Hughes literally cranked out some of the most hilarious, most loved films of the 1980's, ones that will stand the test of time.

Over time, Hughes also seemingly asked himself that, in the movie biz, why improve on a good thing when you can just repeat it. His canon of work ALSO includes "Some Kind Of Wonderful" (a hollow sex-reverse of "Pretty In Pink"), "Career Opportunities", "Home Alone 2" (awful), "Curly Sue" (incredibly awful), "Baby's Day Out", "Dutch" (a "Planes, Trains..." ripoff) and others.

By finally, completely tarnishing his former luster by cranking the same few movies out, he cruised into a lazy write-o-bot/photocopier mode by catering to snot-nose "Home Alone" kids instead of speaking to his fan base that followed him from the promise of his articles in National Lampoon Magazine through to smaller pix like "Nate & Hayes", "National Lampoon's Class Reunion" and the hit "Mr. Mom", into his 'teenage' phase, and then onto more adult-themed projects like "She's Having A Baby".

Let me put this as forwardly as possible: I like John Hughes' work. He fueled some of the happiest movie-going experiences in the 80's, and even after burning audiences with (very) lesser efforts, his former glories made makes us look forward to the next "A John Hughes Production" title credit. And then he dropped off the face of the earth. Secretly, under various pseudonyms, he cranked out scripts for low class fare as "Beethoven" and more recently "Maid In Manhattan", and was frequently subjected to the scourge of being rewritten by others.

So, it was with great trepidation but certainly a great bit of interest that I recently took in the 1998 (basically) direct-to-video feature, "Reach The Rock". The film is another John Hughes-penned-but-not-directed youth tale, occurring over the course of just one hot summer night in Hughes's fictional "hometown" of Shermerville, Illinois. It's the simple, straight-forward story of a young "punk" (Alessandro Nivola - later of "Jurassic Park 3") with nothing much to do and not a lot going for him. When he crosses paths with town top cop William Sadler ("Die Hard 2"), the showdown is set for a quiet, chatty battle of wills between two very headstrong characters.

The film takes a very leisurely approach in the showdown between these two characters - the lion's share of the plotted dialogue slowly unfolds between each in the town's jailhouse, and the two cross wits, barbs and truths over the course of the film's running time.

Sound familiar?

That's right: Hughes is at it again, repeating former glories, going back to the same well. He has taken the showdown/confessional/plot points between Judd Nelson and Paul Gleason from Hughes' touchstone, "The Breakfast Club" and expanded that conflict into this picture. But guess what? It works! Perhaps the passing of time (say, 13 years) has allowed the prolific writer an opportunity to revisit that dogeared script and "stretch" well under the radar of film criticism (this Universal-backed film never received anything approaching a limited release by its distributor).

The film is SLOOOOOOOOW, but director William Ryan makes the timing work in the picture's favour. Over the course of one night, lives are changed, people are changed and attitudes are changed. And there's a LOT of talk. It's like a play - a showdown between the (conveniently) whip-smart kid and the cop who isn't the clichéd hardass.

The action on-screen is cerebral, and Hughes' writing is crisp and assured. Taking place over the course of the middle of the night, the movie has a great sense of time and small-town place. A subplot involving chief Sadler's horny deputy is prefunctory, and serves as a sluggish diversion to the main attraction. "Reach The Rock" is absolutely nothing special for the casual viewer without a modicum of patience, but for fans of the same John Hughes that wrote some of the smartest, funniest and most thoughtful pictures of 80's, we extend a warm "welcome back".

I was channel hoping when I caught the start of this film but it was one of those gems that really had me hooked. Everything was superb, from the performances, script, editing etc. It lets you into the lives of the people concerned in a most enlightening, thought provoking way. I believe the true measure of a film is how it leaves you and how it remains with you. Again this is a gem, catch it if you can.