User reviews

Weird, sloppy, self-indulgent, meta-physical, sometimes boring, sometimes hallucinatory: all these things describe this misfire from director Nicolas Roeg. Gene Hackman stars as a gold prospector in Alaska during the final days of the gold rush. Most of the people have given up and gone home at this point, but Hackman refuses. After a strange encounter with a meteor (I think) he receives some kind of lucky rock (I think) that gives him the extra push to find his gold strike. And does he ever. Cut to decades later, and he's fabulously wealthy, with a giant estate named Eureka. His grown daughter (Theresa Russell) has married a European playboy (Rutger Hauer) that dad doesn't approve of. There's also a shady consortium of some sort, headed by Jewish tough guy Joe Pesci (!) and represented by Italian lawyer Mickey Rourke (!), that needs Hackman's financial backing for some new endeavor.

The cinematography is beautiful, as it usually is in Roeg's films, but the plot is a mess of ham-handed symbolism and uninspired dramatics. The terrific cast, which also includes Ed Lauter, Joe Spinell and Corin Redgrave, is good, with Hackman the stand-out, as usual. Rourke looks scared and uncomfortable, which fits with his character, but he comes across more like he's fully aware of how wrong he is in the role. Russell and Hauer are both beautiful, and they both spend much of the film in various states of undress. There's also one of the most brutal, protracted murder scenes I've seen in a film in a long time. It's starts off shocking, but becomes rather ludicrous the longer it's dragged out. I can't really recommend this film to anyone except Hackman fans or fans of bizarre obscurities.

Rarely has a film had so much potential, that goes unrealized. Gene Hackman and his gold discovery is beautifully photographed, yet so unlikely and unrealistic, that it seems surreal. From the moment things shift to the island, the movie plays like a beautiful montage, with story continuity only an afterthought. It becomes merely a series of images strung together with philosophical messages, huge time jumps, flashbacks, and metaphysical nonsense. Yet, the images of ultra violence, nudity, snow, gold flakes, and the Victorian splendor, will linger long after the movie ends. From that standpoint at least some of "Eureka"s potential is realized, but not enough to grab the greatness that was within grasp. - MERK

Eureka is the kind of film you think you'll hate unless you give it a fair shake. It is a interplay between many characters, much like a soap opera. It works only if you take a general interest in the trivialities of each character. Jack McCann (Hackman) is the center of the film. His life is all about the gold he felt he earned, and the principle that he will never have any partners to share a percentage with. His life is ravaged by Mayakofsky (Pesci) and his henchmen. Charles Perkins, a friend of Jack's spent much of the movie trying to warn him that these men were dangerous. Jack's dilemma wasn't that he was waiting for his death, but the fact that he thought he was invincible. Being stubborn and set in his ways, Jack refused to give in to Mayakofsky. Jack was a man preoccupied with gold, but not loveless. He seemed to love all the women in his life. Also his daughter, Spacey Tracy. A loose young woman married to Claude (Hauer). Tracy had her head in the clouds, and wanted to live in a fantasy world. She did not provoke the fights between her father and Claude, but instigated them. She wanted Claude to fight as a proof of his love. Claude was most elusive. You never get his angle. If he loved Tracy or was just using her. She even used the witness stand as a way of finding out where Claude stood with her instead of pinning for the guilty ones involved in the tragic end of her father. (Claude did his own defense in court!) The movie has it's funny points. Like the dinner table scene at the McCann's where Jack makes some insulting remarks to the guests. Some of the best scenes involve Aurelio D'Amato, played by Mickey Rourke. He's cast in another glossed over film where he is perfect, but forgotten. D'Amato is a yiddish associate of Mayakofsky. And one of the main guys pestering Jack to sign the Luna Bay deal.(Mayakofsky wanted to build a casino on it.) There are scenes where D'Amato is begging Jack to sign. His baby face and soft voice should have gotten the devil to sign the document, but Jack wasn't so easy. Rourke's performance alone is reason enough to see this movie. And its not surprising he has a night with Tracy. Tracy loved Claude, but how could she resist D'Amato? Eureka is more of a film about the desires of man. Each character wants something, and they spend the entire film in pursuit of those things.

I too first saw this in London when it came out May 1983, at the Screen on the Hill. It was my O-level year, and I was a skinny, awkward 15-year-old, desperately trying to get into my first 18-rated film. It worked. But was it worth it? The film has an extraordinary opening section, as Gene Hackman finds the gold under the snow-encrusted earth, culminating in a spectacular, slow-motion explosion of rock and snow. Set to extracts of Wagner's DAS RHEINGOLD, it's unforgettable, thrilling cinema, and had my jaw dropping into my cappuccino. We also have the sight of a dying, half-frozen man blowing his brains out again and again, bringing to mind the disjointed, hallucinatory quality one recognises from the director of THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH and DON'T LOOK NOW. Stunning, disturbing stuff.

Unfortunately the momentum quickly slackens as we cut forwards in time to a rather dull, plodding melodrama about a Kane-like man who in his anguish says, "Once I had it all...now I only have everything." (Coming after the prologue, this also applies to the film itself.) There's some nasty scenes involving voodoo and Rutger Hauer doing something rather strange with a python, some gut-wrenching violence involving a blow-torch and the contents of a pillow, and a soap-opera court-room finale that feels as if it's wandered in from an entirely different film altogether. There are rumours of a different film lurking in this exuberant mess: one of the film's stars has hinted that it was not Roeg's final version that we saw. But I couldn't call this a success. Roeg fans should check it out as an oddity, but be warned: after the brilliant beginning, it's downhill all the way.

I remember watching this movie a couple of times on cable over a decade ago. I don't know if it was supposed to be a mystery or noir but one of the things that struck me was the poor picture (perhaps it was intentional to keep up the mystery) Generally, the actors did a very good job. I just feel the script was poor.

Young filmmakers, take notice. "Eureka" is a case study in bad filmmaking which could be used in filmmaking and/or film appreciation classes. The premise could have worked all right if the script had had about a half dozen additional rewrites and if the many cinematic tricks had been pared down. The story-line itself seems like it was recycled by out-of-work screenwriters dumped from "Days of Our Lives", barring the opening sequence. Part of the problem is the film throws more symbolism at the viewer than all of Orson Wells' films combined which we'll explore later. The scenes are also so overly directed the resulting cinematic experience seems more like a desperate film student trying to "prove" he is the next Orson Wells or Fritz Lang rather than allowing the characters and the scenes to tell the story.

In the 1920's Jack McCann (Gene Hackman) is a gold prospector in the arctic who finally hits it rich. He doesn't just become rich, but purportedly becomes the richest man in the world, so tally up silly problem number one. (If you examine history, almost no one became the richest person in the world from gold prospecting.) Fast-forward to the 1940's, McCann now owns an island in the Caribbean. He has a daughter Tracy McCann (Theresa Russell) who has given her heart to an emotional walking soap opera, Claude Maillot Van Horn (Rutger Hauer). Of course, Claude and Jack can't stand each other, although when we first meet Tracy, I thought she had had an affair with Jack, not that she was his daughter! Tally up silly problem number two. (They actually talk about having been in Paris, similar to Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in "Casablanca"!)

Hackman for about the next hour rants and raves about Hauer groping his daughter: tally up silly problem number three. For being the richest man since John D. Rockefeller, he seems unable to control these people! Couldn't he just hire some hit-men and off this irritant? At the same time, two Italian mafia-types played by Joe Pesci and Mickey Roarke are trying to finagle Hackman into starting a casino in Miami. Several times I couldn't hear what they were saying, but, more importantly, I didn't really care! Tally up silly problem number four.

Silly problem number five gets the silver medal: the shots. The shots were too innovative for their own good. Zooming in on characters when they do something "strange" or become emotional occurs ad infinitum. If a character is unhappy, zoom! If they're giving an endless tragic speech, as a fortune-teller/brothel madam does at the beginning, zoom! It's zoom in for this and zoom in for that, zooming down from above, zooming up from below. There was more zooming around than a typical Superman film. A strange episode at the beginning was supposed to be a dream sequence but there was so much zooming around and strange symbolism I didn't understand it was a dream or what it meant.

Which brings us to silly problem number six: the gold medal goes to the symbolism! Yes, this film is so chock full of symbolism applied with a sledgehammer I started forgetting why I care about the story! Explosions, candles and clocks get about as much screen time as the characters in "Eureka"! They also seemed to be overt homages to Orson Wells' "Citizen Kane" referring to the exploding crystal snow globe after Kane says "Rosebud". Explosions run rampant at the beginning of the film in the arctic, including a horrid blast-your-brains-out suicide which served no purpose at all. Later it's clocks and candles. And of course all the symbols are zoomed into again from all angles imaginable. Particularly, towards the last half of the film, we're zooming to clocks! Is the filmmaker running out of footage? Candles are also everywhere. People even walk around with candles as if we're in a bad Hammer Film from the 1950's!

The film is essentially a cinematic mess. For all the zooming and symbols, I couldn't get a hold of the characters. Hackman who often plays very resolved characters seemed strangely ambiguous. For a guy who has everything, he seemed to be in a real rut! Hauer is little better. He's won Theresa Russell, the most attractive character in the film, and even he doesn't seem very happy about it. Actually, Russell's character was the only one who was reasonably well-defined. But even she can't save this odd mess of a movie. Sadly it wasn't quite so bad that it was good. Essentially everything which should never be in a movie, and more.

Eureka is an undertaking where the director has a vision and, against all odds, follows it through.The downside was the woeful distribution of the film on completion, resulting in lack of audience participation due to a delayed release and scant showings (it played in just two London cinemas); just goes to show that certain distribution companies are flummoxed when they have a unique picture to promote. Eureka boasts a great across-the-boards cast, with Gene Hackman giving his customary all in a driven and committed performance, ably supported by Theresa Russell, Rutger Hauer, Joe Pesci and in a minor role, Mickey Rourke. Director Roeg's use of locations, his skill in cutting, the harnessing of atmosphere and the adroit use of music add up to an intriguing whole, loosely based on fact. It was made at the start of the 80's after an astonishing run of films by Roeg.

Actually, this is a very quirky film, immersed in other things; in this case it is the Kabbalah. (This is made clear when Rutger Hauer wears a shirt with the Tree of the Kabbalah drawn on the front to a formal dinner in the middle of the film.) I found this release of the film both impressive and a let-down. It is impressive because of its ambition as a film; it is a let-down because (the way it is edited) most sense of "suspense" is replaced by puzzlement; this is The Zohar meeting Hollywood and suffering from the meeting. In the end, I don't feel this movie has any grand message for the world, except perhaps the pointlessness of having so much wealth if you don't do anything with it.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Quite a cast isn't it? Gene Hackman, Rutger Hauer, Jane Lapotaire, Theresa Russell, Mickey Rorke, Ed Lauter and Joe Pecsi, all in one film. Directed by Nicholas Roeg, who masterminded the classic Walkabout and Don't Look Now. Based on a riveting true story about a mega-rich gold prospector, Harry Oakes, who was murdered in his plush Bahamian mansion. With credentials as mouth-watering as they are, Eureka is the closest thing you'd ever get to a surefire masterpiece. Yet somehow, the handling is so over stylized and so pre-occupied by meaningless artiness that the film emerges as a complete and utter failure. A mishap of a movie to rank alongside other "movies-that-couldn't-fail-but-did", like The Adventurers (1970) and Inchon (1981).

After years of gold hunting in the frozen Arctic wilderness, Jack McCann (Hackman) hits upon a massive gold claim in 1925. Immense wealth is thrust upon him. The story moves on twenty years, and McCann now owns a sun-drenched Bahamian island and has every luxury-in-life at his fingertips. However, wealth brings him little happiness. His wife Helen (Jane Lapotaire) has become an alcoholic; his daughter Tracy (Theresa Russell) has grown distant from him since marrying an ambitious playboy (Rutger Hauer); and he is being leaned on rather heavily by murderous Florida mobsters who want to build a casino on his island.

Featuring the most extreme and unwatchable murder scene from any film ever made, and a host of surreal sequences, Eureka is an ultimate example of The Emperor's New Clothes-Syndrome. You are asked to watch a long film about nothing, and tricked into believing that it is some kind of deep and meaningful masterpiece. Unfortunately, it is no such thing. Rather, it is a confused, cruel, over-sexed, violent and grossly self-indulgent bomb. The stunning cinematography merely adds to the sense of regret that such promising-sounding material has turned out so utterly, utterly awful.

Jack McCann (Gene Hackman) fights off his partner, witnesses a shocking suicide, and hallucinates about his wife Helen. During a long, harsh Arctic exploration, he stumbles into a cave where he literally unleashes a river of gold. Years later, he is filthy rich with his own island. He doles on his daughter Tracy (Theresa Russell) but dislikes her pick Claude Maillot Van Horn (Rutger Hauer) to marry. Charles Perkins (Ed Lauter) is his business partner. Mobsters Aurelio D'Amato (Mickey Rourke) and Mayakofsky (Joe Pesci) want to buy the island to build a casino but Jack refuses. It's WWII and everybody wants to kill Jack.

The first act has so many surreal touches which doesn't always fit the rest of the movie. There are also some weirdness in the rest including a voodoo orgy and a crazy kill. All the strange touches distract from a more tense thriller. Although I can say that I've never seen a blowtorch used that way. This does have a killer cast which keeps it interesting. This is a cross between Hitchcock and an experimental art-house film. The trial is extraneous and adds no tension to the movie. That's par for the course.

I had never heard of Ed Lauter until he died a few months ago, even though I had seen him in a number of movies; he simply hadn't registered in my mind. While watching Nicolas Roeg's "Eureka", I was surprised to see that Lauter co-starred. I had also never heard of Harry Oakes until I read about the movie. The movie had a good plot but seemed as though it could've been shorter. In the end, I think that the main point to derive from the movie is that prestige makes people go crazy. Gene Hackman's character struck gold and it made him rich, causing him to go nuts, and the insanity extends to his acquaintances. As shown in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Wolf of Wall Street", people will do anything for money.

Anyway, it's an OK not great movie.

The Latter-Half of Nicolas Roeg's Filmography. A Career that Started On-Fire and Slowly Fizzled. Critics and Fans Did Not Associate or Relate to "Eureka" Fringy-Style and Off-Kilter Tone...Despite Similar Roeg Movies that Created the Buzz for the Cinematographer/Technician Turned Director in the First Place..."Performance" (1970)..."Walkabout" (1971)..."Don't Look Now" (1973)..."The Man Who Fell To Earth" (1976)..."Bad Timing" (1980)...

This String of Successful Out of the Box Offerings from Director Roeg is a Remarkable (both Critical and Financial) of Consistency that Hit a Chord. But Starting with "Eureka (1980) His Charm, Suddenly, No Longer Did the Trick and the Remainder of His Output is Considered, with Few Exceptions, Mediocre or just Bad.

"Eureka" became the "Kryptonite" for Roeg and He Never Seemed to Attain the "Magic" Again.

It's More Over-the-Top Disturbing. More Violent, More Decadent, More Outrageous Behavior, More of Everything. It's Still Roeg, but Roeg On Steroids Losing His Mind...

Unrestrained, Far From Grounded in Reality. Shocking Scenes, Including a Voodoo Ritual that Pulls No Punches, Sex, Ultra-Violent, and Disgusting Images.

A Dream Cast,,,Including Gene Hackman, Theresa Russell, Rutger Hauer, Joe Peci, Jane Laprtaire...

that All Seemed to Capitulate to the Rogue Roeg's Vision, of a Surreal Early 20th Century and the Monied Elite that Literally Lives on Their Own Private Island.

Nicolas Roeg, perhaps Guilty of Over-Reach that Pleased No One, and the Movie is Unsettling and Disturbing to Watch...but it's a Train-Wreck that has that Train-Wreck Allure that is Magnetism of "Rubber-Necking" and a "Guilty Pleasure" Watching the Dark-Side of Humanity that Contains Very Little Light.

Sounds Like a "Cult-Movie' Personified, but it's Not a Cult Movie Yet and is Mostly a Forgotten Misfire that Never Made its Mark, is Virtually Unknown, a Mystery Considering what's On and Behind the Screen. As Joe Pesci says in Oliver Stone's JFK..."It's a mystery wrapped in an Enigma"...By the Way...Pesci Plays, What Else? A Gangster and Nemesis to the Unhinged "Richest Man in the World"...Gene Hackman

The Movie Deserves A Closer Look, just because of All the Talented Folks that Put Together this "Crazy Man's Quilt. A Fascinating, if Bizarre and a Turn-Off for Most Folks. But Nonetheless an Artistic Experiment that is... Worth a Watch.

If you're looking for a thriller or court drama , please go somewhere else . There is no murder mystery as the summary for the movie might suggest . "Eureka " is more of a soap opera . We have few stories here : about father who doesn't accept her daughters husband , about man from old generation that can't find his place in modern world , about wife and husband that can't communicate with each other . Unfortunately , the plot here is very muddled and it's hard to understand what this movie is all about .

Gene Hackman and Rutger Hauer both give good performances . It was good to see Theresa Russell naked . The beginning of the movie at the Arctic and the death scene are possibly the best moments of the movie . After that I've lost interest in the movie . Still , it's not bad . I give it 3/10.

The components for a great movie (maybe even three great movies) are all there, but by trying to be all three things AND trying to slather it all in discreet symbolism the movie tends to almost get going and then loses focus. A stuffed story like this could be well told if one were to jettison most of the symbolism, but that doesn't happen. The symbolism could make for a powerful movie if the focus of the movie is tightened, but roeg chooses not to do that either.

Likewise a bit of screenwriting help could have been used as..... especially in the later court room scenes... the entire dialogue enters overwrought soap opera territory. A terrific cast is mostly squandered, buried under the morass symbolism which only seems like ideas not thought through to their conclusion. I.e. Here's a story about a man who got everything he wanted in life and the psychological impact it had on him and those around him..... but were going to throw in stuff about the mob and an orgy and end up with an extended court drama, and a war that adds nothing to that premise.

Surprisingly the violence done in the movie is pretty horrific coming from roeg, a director not really known for violence in his movies. The cinematography at times wonderful is hemmed in by the constraints of the plot.

Taking the centerpiece of this movie would over the perfect opportunity for a well deserved remake now.

I've never seen a "normal" movie by Nicolas Roeg, but, even being a huge fan of his who has seen 4 or 5 of his films, this movie was...insane. After this, it's safe to say he is one of my favorite directors. His THE WITCHES (1990) is what I consider to be the greatest "children's horror film" ever made - it was one of the most influential films of my childhood, and only gets better with time. DON'T LOOK NOW (1973) featured one of the most eerie and stylish opening sequences I had ever seen, kept me almost more intrigued than I've ever felt by a film throughout, then shook me in a way I've never experienced before with it's finale - it was proto-Lynch, for one, and the whole film almost feels like a pre-cursor to Argento's SUSPIRIA (1977) to me as well, another one of my favorite films. Pure surreal horror in a way I'd never seen it before. It absolutely imprinted in me forever.

EUREKA came out between those masterpieces in 1983. It feels like a true mish-mash of film vibes and it's a smorgasbord unlike any I've ever seen. Similar to DON'T LOOK NOW, the whole expansive opening sequence feels like a bizarre nightmare but still maintains narrative cohesion - visually it's mind-bending and it grasps you with it's unique claws from the start.

Gene Hackman is a great choice for the lead as he brings a ton of viscera to this complex protagonist who isn't quite an anti-hero, but seems to be hated by just about everyone. The rest of the cast is made up of an unexpected and very intriguing blend. The legendary Rutger Hauer, who brings a ton of depth to this film as tends to whenever the script gives him the opportunity to do so, as well as Mickey Rourke, Joe Pesci in the earliest role I've ever seen him in, and more. Co-star Theresa Russell, who I was unfamiliar with previously, brings a very unique energy as well. While her performance feels the least genuine, it also colors the film with a very singular flavor of surrealism and old-fashioned drama. Often when the scenes focused on her get really intense, it starts to feel like a 40's or 50's film, which messes with your mind because nothing else in the movie feels like this aside from maybe the general plot and themes themselves.

The movie is really quite a rollercoaster. It's relatively lengthy at 130 minutes but it never really slows down and it always morphing and taking the viewer to unexpected places. I mean, after the first explosive 20 minutes, naturally the next half hour or so feels quite a bit slower in comparison, but it's an array of psychological ammunition from there on out. There's one over-the-top sequence in the second half that felt straight out of a Lucio Fulci film - it was BRUTAL, so stylish and nightmarish, and that REALLY threw me off - my jaw was dropped. Lord, I had to collect myself afterwards. Pick myself back up and put my pieces back together. Overall, it's really quite difficult to summarize what makes this film so unique using words - it simply has to be experienced to be understood. One thing is for sure though, only the legend Nicolas Roeg could have made this.

In the end, I really feel like one of the only flaws in the entire film was the epic courtroom monologue delivered by Russell towards the end of the film. It was mostly the writing, but the acting in combination just didn't work for me. It felt overblown, melodramatic, and just a little too off-kilter. I did think it worked somewhat well as an effective exaggeration of a woman having a manic breakdown, but even that just felt out of place in the context. That aside, even though the absolute ridiculousness of most of the movie, the film did conjure some serious emotional resonance throughout the second half. I was in tears as the credits began to roll. This is a severely under-looked and immensely unique movie, which all film fans should see. Do it. Roeg was a king.

Already in "Performance" and in "Don't look now",Roeg showed a pretentious,show-off and gaudy style.The latter film was saved,however,by Daphne DuMaurier-inspired screenplay ,Venice setting and Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland's skills.Here,absolutely nothing.The movie fluctuates with a complete incoherence from a genre to another.The first fifteen minutes recall some kind of remake of "Come and get it" ,an old movie(1936)by William Wyler and Howard Hawks.Then it leaves the adventure films genre for the soap opera,complete with grumpy rich man (It might be Hackman's worst movie)frustrated wife playing tarots,rebel daughter,and French son-in-law with frame of mind(Yes I am a coward!).Then the soap opera turns into a film noir ,featuring as a highlight,so to speak, a vaudou orgy.And finally what a surprise,a trial(You could have been an artist!,Russel says to her father's killer hubby)The colors evoke postcards,the interpretation is either theatrical (Russel and her mother)or inexpressive(Hauer,Rourke,the latter would do better with "Angel heart") As I said,a horrible,horrible,horrible movie.

A waste of time. My wife had the same opinion. It should never been released. I wonder if the actors ever looked at this picture and if they did what they though of it? The cinematography was interesting but the picture still should have stayed in the box.

I hadnt yet seen this Gene Hackman movie and I am not sorry that I missed it, because it is completely silly.

The bad: photography, editing, music score, direction. All the technical details of this movie are so incredibly cheap looking and amateurish. It even has got mono sound. In 1983!

More bad: but the worst is the script. This story is gibbledigook nonsense. Nicholas Roeg is a famous director, but only suited to be watched by filmstudents (perhaps), because his movies have become so terribly dated...

Not any good? No, it is truly unbearable to watch. It really looks like a cheap tv movie, with A list actors, who cant save this movie from going down under...