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Richard Jordan who has played a number of really psychotic villains is the main reason to see The Mean Season. He quite steals the film from Kurt Russell a crime reporter and Mariel Hemingway who is Russell's girlfriend and the last woman Jordan stalks.

Russell has truly grown to dislike his job on a big city paper in this case Miami where he's gotten a specialty in crime reporting, the more lurid the better. He's considering an offer from a small town Colorado paper to take over as editor.

That's when things get interesting. Jordan is a serial killer who Russell has been writing about and in his twisted way considers Kurt to be some kind of personal publicist for him and his peers. Now he starts calling to give him heads up exclusives knowing that this will lead to Mariel's own abduction.

That's the one thing about criminals of the psychotic mind. They don't reason like the rest of us. It sounds wild and improbable the notion that Jordan has, but that's the hard part for FBI and local profiler's jobs, getting in those sick minds to see how they work.

Jordan is one sick and twisted puppy. The rest of the cast is fine, but he really stands out in The Mean Season.

This was a pretty good movie. Its got good suspense towards the end but it will never top BREAKDOWN, which is his ultimate suspense movie. Mariel Hemingway was a good choice, she hasn't been in much lately. I think she is still pretty. Well, Kurt does a good job. This is worth seeing and its from 1985. It has violence, language and nudity.

****SPOILERS**** Superior crime drama set in South Florida during it's "mean season" when the winds pick up and the storms and hurricanes come rolling in and with them rolls in a serial killer who's more interested in publicity for his crimes then his victims who are a result of them.

Coming back from a vacation in Colorado Miami Journal reporter Malcolm Anderson, Kurt Russell, is assigned to the murder of teenager Sarah Hooks, Tamara Jones, who was found dead by the beach that morning. A few days after filing the story Malcolm gets a phone call at his desk at the Journal from someone claiming to be Sarah's killer.

Told by the caller a fact that is not known to the public about the crime Malcolm as well as the police officials Ray Martinez & Phil Wilson, Andy Garcia & Richard Bradford, that he got in touch with who were on the case realize that the caller is the real McCoy and begin to tape Malcolm's phone at the newspaper to identify and capture the killer. The killer, in his calls to Malcolm, tells him that he's duplicating a number of killings that he did some time ago and got no recognition for.It's later found out by someone who knew him Albert O'Shaughnessy, William Smith, that his name is Alan Delour, Richard Jordan, and that those killings were in Chicago a number of years ago.

The serial killer wants Malcolm to be his link to the outside world, via his newspaper to prove that he's the one who committing those crimes and tells Malcolm that there will be, like those that he didn't get credit for, five more killings before he's finished. As his murder spree continues it's Malcolm who's getting all the publicity and the killer feels cheated and takes it on on Malcolm for his failure to get him the recognition that he wanted. That leads in the killer kidnapping Malcolm's girlfriend Christine, Mariel Hemingway, and threatens to murder her.

One of the better crime dramas that came out of the 1980's thats smoothly paced and finely acted as the serial killer gets bolder and bolder with each killing to where he unnecessarily exposed himself, to Malcolm, in order to get his ego enhanced.

Malcolm's life becomes a horror as the killer starts to take it out on him for his overshadowing his actions which lead to Christine's kidnapping. Tense suspense murder drama with an unsuspecting ending makes "The Mean Season" a modern Film Noir classic.

THE MEAN SEASON (1985) **1/2 Kurt Russell, Mariel Hemingway, Richard Jordan, Richard Masur, Richard Bradford, Andy Garcia. Not bad suspenser with Russell as a newspaper reporter suddenly caught up in the story of a serial killer and himself in harm's way. Surprise ending.

Decent enough movie, with an absolutely menacing performance by Richard Jordan as the sick, deluded serial killer.

Kurt Russell was...just okay. I couldn't quite figure out what he was getting at. He was burnt out in his job with the newspaper in Miami. He seemed to be craving just the situation that he found himself in. Conversing with a serial killer, and writing about it; Having a literal front row seat at the story of the year; being the central figure in a national story; "approaching pulitzer territory". However, Russell erupted into attitude with just about everybody he came into contact with. At one point, he's smugly satisfied to have found himself to be so deeply involved in an emerging story of a sadistic serial killer, then he snaps at the killer when events aren't turning out favorably. This doesn't seem like the emotional response you would expect from a seasoned reporter. A serial killer is doing something like this just to play with the heads of authority. To expect him to behave rationally is naive and foolish.

However, Russell gamely does generally well with the character, and there are effectively troubling and suspenseful aspects to the film. The subject of newspaper ethics is broached and discussed, although I'm not sure all that effectively.

Andy Garcia, Richard Bradford and Richard Masur were excellent.

Mariel Hemingway was absolutely terrible. She either was giggling, looking completely bewildered, or hysterical. Granted, the script gave her little else to do, but a creative actress could have made something out of it. She completely distracted me every time she was on screen. Just a terrible job.

All in all, a decent, flawed movie with a first-rate performance by Jordan. He made the movie worth it.