Pleine lune sur Blue Water

A bit on the slow side, well very slow actually, but it's worth sticking with it to the very end, but only just worth it. Great acting from all concerned and with a very interesting mix of very odd characters. I would not have liked to have paid to see this in the cinema as it's so slow that my interest in it would have lapsed well before getting to the end, it's an OK watch on TV however.

Even for fans of Mr. Hackman it not a must see film of his so if you are one you are not missing anything great by never seeing it.

I'm struggling a bit to get to the required 600 character so this is just filler to get there.

Just a few days after the news that Gene Hackman had passed away I watched this movie, strangely enough this movie was completely unknown to me, I can't remember ever seeing it in the video store.

Actually a kind of standard drama story without really getting too heavy because there is also some humor in it.

Floyd can't get over the death of his wife, his bar is a failing business and a real estate shark is after his company.

The roles are nicely filled with Burgess Meredith as his old father-in-law who is in a wheelchair and provides many comic moments, Teri Garr gets to play the new girlfriend and there are a few other characters like the sheriff and Floyd's assistant.

Nice light drama with some comic elements in it.

Lately I've been on a Gene Hackman 1980's kick. Hoosiers, many folks think is the best portrayal of a sports coach, maybe the best sports film ever made. Twice in a Lifetime is a middle-aged love story of betrayal in a blue-collar family and it ranks up there as the best of Hackman's work. Then there is a less successful film, Full Moon in Blue Water.

No one in the movies in the last thirty years portrays the middle-age everyman, the tough, and hard working, Joe like Hackman. He's certainly not a romantic idol, but he is manly enough to woe Ann Margaret in Once in a Lifetime and Teri Garr in Water. In addition, Garr is very good as a faded honky-tonk town girl with widower, Hackman in her sights. The trouble, Hack is still in love with his missing spouse. He spends most of his days watching old home movies of the lost wife while his saloon business goes to pieces. Also, he must deal with a stroke victim, the father-in-law, Burgesss Meredith, the quintessential old coot.

Somehow the viewer will not believe that a capable character like Hack would let a business go to sleazy Real Estate snakes without a bar brawl. The idea that Hack would moon about the ex for a year while busty Garr is all over him; well, it doesn't add up.

A wonderful little movie that got overlooked in the distribution mill at the time of its release, "Full Moon in Blue Water" is overdue for rediscovery. It has so many parallels to "Moonstruck" that one could mistakenly peg it as a copycat, but guess again: "Full Moon" was completed before "Moonstruck" was ready for previews; the similarities are merely coincidental; and there's no need to choose between the two, when both films are so easy to love. Gene Hackman leads as Floyd, the owner of a rambling, cozy restaurant-shack on the Gulf Coast of Alabama: he's a man emotionally stalled by the disappearance of his beloved wife. She disappeared while swimming and everyone presumes her dead, but Floyd can't accept this; he believes she was drawn away by an undertow and struck her head: that she's wandering now with amnesia but someday will return to him. Business is dwindling at the shack, but he refuses all offers to buy him out: he's keeping the place for Dorothy to come home to. In the meantime Louise (Teri Garr) keeps him company, and wants more, a real commitment from him - her frustration is touching and funny. She can argue down all of his high-flown romantic notions, and his practical objections too, but when he remembers his loss he grows wistful and drifts away where she can't reach him. Their sad-tinged love affair is played out with screwball logic. It's Jimmy (Elias Koteas), a mildly retarded young man who sweeps up around the shack and cares for Floyd's in-and-out senile father (Burgess Meredith), who twists the screw to its tightest, by doing something so ghastly - something that would be absurdly funny if it weren't too appalling for laughter - and then tops even that by springing the worst possible plan to resolve matters, at the worst possible moment. "Full Moon in Blue Water" takes a kidding approach to the "magic" of romance, but on some level believes in it too; that it's able to keep both attitudes in play at the same time may be the best of what it shares with "Moonstruck." Its special distinctions are worth discovering.

In Texas, Floyd (Gene Hackman) is the owner of a decadent bar nearby the coast. He misses his wife Dorothy (Becky Gelke), who disappeared one year ago, and does not pay attention to the business, giving credit to everybody. His senile father-in-law The General (Burgess Meredith) lives with him demanding care. He has two employees, the former inmate of a mental institution Jimmy (Elias Koteas) and the spinster Louise (Teri Garr) that has a love affair with him and has offered her saving to become his partner. Floyd has a huge tax debt and his pseudo-friend Charlie (Kevin Cooney) is forcing him to sell the place very cheap. However Louise finds that a bridge will be built soon and will increase the value of the bar.

"Full Moon in Blue Water" is a film where a great cast is wasted in a poor story. The excellent Gene Hackman is not tailored for a romance and despite the sweet and also excellent Teri Garr, there is no chemistry in their relationship. Burgess Meredith is totally wasted in the role of a senile old man. The absurd situations are too silly and in the end, "Full Moon in Blue Water" is a forgettable movie released only on VHS. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Lua Cheia em Blue Water" ("Full Moon in Blue Water")