Huit millions de façons de mourir

I saw this film a couple of nights ago. I only bothered as it was a Hal Ashby movie & I'm a big fan. He didn't let me down. Ok it's not a masterpiece or even amongst his best but it's still a powerfully intense thriller. Superficially similar to Scarface it is less showy, more personal & more convincing. Garcia's stylised gangster with his 'Gaudi' affectations almost unsettles the realism but is compulsive. Bridges turns in another superb performance as the hard-boiled, ex-cop battling with alcoholism & other demons. Ashby's Chandleresque take on 80's LA is familiar but beautifully vivid nevertheless. What raises it above the plethora of dark 80's thrillers is it's old-fashioned 70's values like complex character and troubled hero not in control of the narrative over fast-pace, shallow action & irony. To the post-Star Wars generation '8 Million Ways' may look meandering and indulgent but this says more about their limitations as film fans than it does about the film.

Not convincingly performed, with a hell of a dramatic climax in that warehouse, which is the bit that this movie is mainly remembered for. Yes, I saw it decades ago, and tonight, on DVD. And what was good back then, now just seem ludicrous. But I'm RavenGlamDVDCollector@gmail.com and not here to discuss the action parts.

Alexandra Paul must have been desperate for an acting job. Gee, she plays somebody whom lieutenant Stephanie Holden of BAYWATCH fame would have loved to set straight. Hey, full-frontal nudity as 'the streetlights makes her pubic hair glow'... She does seem utterly, utterly miscast... This might be because of this hindsight.

But the main reason to watch glamor-wise is (cue the Toto song here: Ali I wanna do when I wake up in the morning is see your eyes, Rosanna, Rosanna): Lady Rosanna Arquette. And although the script literally has yucky moments, once she is thrown into the shower and the unnecessary makeup is washed off, wow, dudes! What a stunner!

I've cheered for this actress during the Eighties. She wasn't in successful big hit movies, real success eluded her, and I saw all that potential going to waste. Here's a good one though, to remember her by. That scene where she's clearly naked under the bedsheets, oh wow dudes! MY HEART PUMPS CUSTARD FOR HER, to coin a phrase.

To the prudes reading this: I'm just an old boy. If you saw this movie when it was on the cinema circuit, and you're waffling on about it almost 30 years later, of course you have to be an Old Boy. And Old Boys appreciate pretty girls. And get kinda silly drooling. Sigh.

If you're not into seeing these two actresses, and just want action action action this might not really be the movie for you. Lots of the action scenes are seriously flawed. Hell, he's out of work, ruins his car, yet it just stays roadworthy in the next scenes. And why don't the baddies just shoot him down in that stand-off scene?

Five stars go to Rosanna Arquette, the other star is for that glorious Clint Eastwood-y moment when Scudder fires his gun after coming to Sarah's rescue. Cinematic perfection!

I am a huge Hal Ashby fan - he was a brilliant editor (Oscar winner for In The Heat Of The Night) and an even better director (Being There, Coming Home, Shampoo, to name a few) but this film is a mess. I just read a book on Ashby's life and here was a lot of trouble on this film - the studio wanted a sleek Miami Vice type film and of course Ashby wanted a gritty movie closer to the author Laurence Block's books. You can tell there's huge chunks missing - the film is disjointed - Bridges does a nice job playing the damaged cop but in one of the worst pieces of miscasting - Alexandra Paul plays the sultry hooker who is supposed to lure Bridges and she is awful - about all she can play is flirty sorority girl and their scenes are dull and boring. Rosanna Arquette has nothing to play - a one dimensional another hooker with a heart of gold. Garcia does his best with what he has to play and there are some good scenes btwn him and Bridges. But overall, a schlocky mess with a terrible 80's synth score.

Jeff Bridges portrays author Lawrence Blocks' character Matt Scudder in this picture, and his able performance is one of its few virtues. Matt is a detective for the L.A. Sheriffs' Department who is also an alcoholic. Ultimately, his drinking costs him his marriage and his job. However, he is soon approached by a hooker named Sunny (Alexandra Paul) to remove her from her unhappy life, and when he gets involved, he incurs the wrath of a smug drug kingpin (Andy Garcia) and a powerful pimp (Randy Brooks).

Sadly, this was the final theatrical credit for editor turned director Hal Ashby. A recovering substance abuser himself, he had little to no creative control over the final product. He wanted something grittier and closer to the novel (which this movie barely resembles), the producers wanted a feature film version of 'Miami Vice'. But what really hurts it is the poor script (credited to Oliver Stone and R. Lance Hill (a.k.a. "David Lee Henry"), which moves at a snails' pace and doesn't encourage us to really care about the characters.

The lack of success is not for lack of effort on Bridges' part. He, the intense Brooks, and the amusingly slimy Garcia entertain the viewer sufficiently. But Paul is miscast, and Rosanna Arquette, as one of Sunny's co-workers, looks like she couldn't care less. Familiar faces in supporting roles and bits include Vyto Ruginis, James Avery, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, Rosalind Allen, and Loyd Catlett.

Absolutely gorgeous photography, good use of locations, an atmospheric score by James Newton Howard (one of his earliest), stunning helicopter shots, and some jarring violence work in the films' favor. But it goes on too long (especially that climactic confrontation in the warehouse, which becomes unbearable rather than tense), and has too much inane dialogue.

The man who made "Harold and Maude", "Coming Home", and "Being There" deserved a better theatrical swan song than this.

Five out of 10.

"8 Million Ways to Die" is a perfect example of why Jeff Bridges is one of my favorite actors. The overall movie might be muddled (even bad) but he always brings a laser focus to the job; more often than not, he keeps things alive and kicking. Here, he's playing an alcoholic cop who only really develops an interest in the case after he fails to keep his employer alive. And he really sells the self-loathing that comes with addiction.

This is one of those mid-'80s noirs, comparable to "Against All Odds" and "To Live and Die in L.A." (although not as good as either of those). The plotting is scattered throughout, but it starts out very nicely (a beautiful aerial opening) and sees a few startling lows (a snowcone negotiation and a frenzied warehouse shouting match). Trivia has it that the production was troubled by rewrites and studio interference, and that certainly shows in the final product. Ultimately, it just reminds me of better movies.

5/10