Only now does it occur to me... NEXT OF KIN (1989)

Only now does it occur to me... that NEXT OF KIN ('89)––which is not to be confused with Atom Egoyan's debut feature, NEXT OF KIN ('84), an excellent arthouse tract about found family––should just be a run-of-the-mill, direct-to-video hillbilly-sploitation flick starring, at best, a Chuck Norris or a Michael Dudikoff. However, in a spot of brilliant work by a trio of casting directors with an eye for ensemble [Shelley Andreas (MIDNIGHT RUN, CHILD'S PLAY, FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF), Jane Alderman (CANDYMAN, THE COLOR OF MONEY), and Mindy Marin (CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, MYSTERY MEN, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE–FALLOUT)], they've assembled a well-rounded troupe who are somehow capable of elevating a film which was surely pitched as a "redneck revenge" thriller.

For starters, the lead is Patrick Swayze, who lends genuine sincerity and sensitivity to a part that's about as well-written as the Chuck Norris role in INVASION USA. As a tuff Chicago cop from a Kentucky holler who dresses like a Wild West lawman and has a mullet which sometimes masquerades as a ponytail, you could say that Swayze must animate a character with "not enough" and "perhaps too much" to work with.

He displays both the pathos of GHOST and the hot-blooded fervency of RED DAWN, as well as a large helping of "dignity-in-the-face-of-kitsch" which he demonstrated so well in ROAD HOUSE (which had come out earlier that year).

This is one of those films which acts as if "hillbillies" are the most persecuted minority in the United States, a quality which certainly elevates its paracinematic value, at the very least.

The "hillbilly wacko" in question is the excellent Ted Levine––"Buffalo Bill" in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS––who decides to turn his single scene into a craft workshop/an audition for the next Sam Shepard play.

Next, we have Helen Hunt playing one of only four named female characters, and the only one to deliver more than three lines. She plays Swayze's refined, concert violinist girlfriend, a sitcom-style development which is never properly mined for its inherent highbrow vs. lowbrow comedy value.

Her character only really exists to be threatened by mobsters and therefore unleash Swayze's ire, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Nonetheless, she does an excellent job with the material, considering, and gets to work alongside her eventual TWISTER costar...

Bill Paxton!

Paxton plays Swayze's little brother, another Kentucky transplant living in the big city. He's not in the movie for very long, since his murder (at the hands of mobsters) is the inciting incident of the movie. He does that likably nutty "Paxton thing" and the bulk of his performance is contained in a scene wherein he discusses rap music with a black co-worker. 

Truly a moment for the annals of film history. The mobsters in question are also well cast––

On the left is baby Ben Stiller as the Don's nerdy son who is dragged along for the murderous ride. In the center is Andreas Katsulas (THE FUGITIVE, EXECUTIVE DECISION) who plays the Don. On the right is Adam Baldwin (FIREFLY, "Animal Mother" in FULL METAL JACKET), who plays a gleefully murderous psychopath and the principal villain of the picture. Sorta strange to see Stiller in the 1980s, and in a serious role,

but he gives it the proper "rich kid twerpitude" as well as some degree of childish vulnerability.

Paxton's murder brings the third brother, "Briar," to town, the eldest, who never forsook his Kentucky identity and is only coming to Chicago for revenge purposes. It's Liam Neeson!

He brings the proper gravity and badassery, but boy, he can't seem to lose that Irish accent.

Being as this predates even DARKMAN, this feels like the ur-Badass role which has defined the latter-half of Neeson's career. There's a great scene where, in order to intimidate some mobsters, he shoots up a bunch of pinball machines.

 

Check out Gorgar, over there 

 

BONNIE AND CLYDE's Michael J. Pollard shows up in a weirdly delicate performance as a "flophouse owner sympathetic to Neeson's cause."

This is the sort of thing you really don't expect in a movie like this. He pounds a lot of Old Styles, too, which reminds us again that this film is set in Chicago, like every other '80s movie.

Anyway, the whole thing ends with a Swayze vs. Mobsters showdown in a graveyard where Swayze wields a bow and arrow like he's John Rambo.

In all, this is way more watchable than it has any right to be, and due to the nature of its success, I can't think of anyone to thank beyond the casting directors. So... thanks!

Film Review: FORCED TO KILL (1994, Russell Solberg)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Michael Ironside, Corey Michael Eubanks, Clint Howard, Rance Howard, Mickey Jones, Don Swayze.
Best one-liner: [Ironside shoots a man dead.] "GET UP!!!"

A great start to any weekend is some Ironside, so here we are. On a previous Ironside week, I showcased the trailer for this fine flick, which made such redunkulous claims as "one of this year's most critically acclaimed and explosive pictures," "without a doubt, one of the most exciting, action-packed feature films to ever come out of Hollywood," and "a must-see guaranteed to to THRILL audiences...everywhere." More appropriate might have been "more Ironside angry face and more cars hurtling through the air and exploding per capita than any comparable film."






The drinking game inclined can do whatever they wish with that information, but I cannot take responsibility for the consequences. Now for the review:

Grab a #2 pencil, and join me for a brief survey: Do you like silly, clichéd action flicks; villains with Sides of Iron, Swayzes that aren't Patrick, or the extended family of Ron Howard? When you see a van, are you unhappy until it's flying through the air en route to a fiery, fiery demise? When you see two men, do you pray that they'll soon be covered in mud and roundhouse kicking each other to death while surrounded by a relentlessly fist-pumpin', hollerin' crowd that looks culled straight from the background loop of an old STREETFIGHTER game? If you answered 'yes' to any of the above questions, then allow me to write you a prescription for FORCED TO KILL. That way, if anyone catches you watching it, you can say, "Oh, it's doctor's orders."

The film is made with genuine affection, and the proof is in the pudding- it was written, directed, and starred in by seasoned stuntmen. Sure, nobody's giving F.W. Murnau a run for his money or anything, but they've certainly perfected the art of 'bodies blasted from helicopters into the wakes of speedboats during high-speed chases.'

I'm fairly certain that even F.W. Murnau would concede that this is pretty effin' schweet.


What is this? Was Herzog somehow involved?

Corey Eubanks (son of Bob, writer of this, stuntman in everything from PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE to MULHOLLAND DR.) is our repo man/martial artist hero who’s kidnapped by a cadre of hicks to compete in their hayseed fight club. Eubanks possesses a profound awkwardness- the stilted line delivery of Keanu Reeves (“Can I get you anything?…an ambulance?”), the loopy élan of JCVD, and the constant facial indicating of a community theater actor.

Needless to say, I liked him right away. Seriously. He’s got a certain, rare energy that should’ve led to a more substantial acting career, at least in B movies.

Michael Ironside's real-life best friend Mickey Jones:

and Don Swayze:

(the fact that he never played Patrick’s evil twin is one of film’s great disappointments) lend us some bumpkinny street cred.

Michael Ironside lets loose with some redunkulous villainy (and here in his second Solberg/Eubanks flick- the first being PAYBACK in '91).

What is Mike drinking there? Can anybody I.D. it? (Doesn't look like Labatt Maximum Ice.)

He plays the small town's extremely put-upon sheriff:

I'd rather be....CHAINDANCIN'.

whose only joy in life is submitting fighters for this backwoods battle royale.

'Hey! I don't have to wear a cardigan!'

Of course, Corey Michael Eubanks is the fly in the ointment, but Ironside has got a few tricks up his sleeve-

“I guarantee you she will die the slowest, most painful death I can come up with.”

Shit! The worst that IRONSIDE can come up with?! Hot damn! I’d rather take my chances with Torquemada!

In all, this is a pretty great "kith n' kin" flick (also see: HUNTER'S BLOOD, THE LONG RIDERS, or anything with Frank Stallone, Joey Travolta, or Baldwins that aren't Alec) as we've got Bob Eubanks' son, Patrick Swayze's brother, and Ron Howard's pop and brother.

Clint plays a sad sack 'Nam vet.

I guess you could say that this movie is extremely relative. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: RED DAWN (1984, John Milius)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 114 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Directed by John Milius (writer of APOCALYPSE NOW, EXTREME PREJUDICE, parts of DIRTY HARRY; director of BIG WEDNESDAY, DILLINGER, CONAN THE BARBARIAN). Starring Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey, C. Thomas Howell, Harry Dean Stanton, Powers Boothe, Ben Johnson (DILLINGER), Darren Dalton (THE OUTSIDERS), Brad Savage (SALEM'S LOT), Vladek Sheybal (Mr. Boogalow in THE APPLE). Cinematography by Ric Waite (THE LONG RIDERS, COBRA). I must note that about half the cast had just 'graduated' from working with Francis Ford Coppola (on the OUTSIDERS), and, likely as a result, are completely 'on' and connected to the material. Harry Dean Stanton manages to emit more pathos in a few minutes of screen time than most can aspire to in an entire career. Powers Boothe's brief appearance is similarly weighty.
Tag-line: "A full scale military invasion by foreign troops begins. Total surprise. Almost total success . . . ."
Best exchange: "What about Europe?" –"I guess they figured twice in one century was enough. They're sitting this one out."

Outside a rural classroom window, paratroopers gracefully drift down from between the clouds. A schoolteacher, hypnotized by the sight, staggers outside- and the cracks of rifles rudely interrupt the reverie.

RED DAWN has entrancing imagery, worthy of Ford or Malick: children huddled on rocky crags, eating canned beans and evading capture; a world of rape, occupation, fathers in cages. You can choose to see this film through many lenses- a student's survivalist daydream, a cautionary tale for a country gone soft, THE BREAKFAST CLUB meets SALVADOR, or a parallel dimension where the Cold War plays out like Philip K. Dick's THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.

It's a film that focuses on teenage awkwardness- not at sex, but at war. Like WARGAMES, released the previous year, it features marketable young actors forced to accept our world's destructive horrors. But while WARGAMES' terror was confined to one side of a computer monitor, RED DAWN buries your face in the dust and forces you to watch your neighbors as they're shot in the street like dogs.

It puts you in the shoes of an insurgency and in the beleaguered minds of the occupying force. Jingoists can claim that the film gives legitimacy to Reagan, the Military Industrial Complex, Red-Baiting, or what-have-you, but instead, it only demonstrates the impotence of a System that promises safety but has never experienced true loss.

If a situation such as the one in RED DAWN were to arise, the saviors would not be those who wear flag pins and shit-eating grins, nor the blue blood a-holes who, in the film, roll over like so many Rocky Mountain Pétains. It will be the downtrodden, those who have lost the most, those who have witnessed injustice and nurtured their righteous anger like a precious resource.

Che was a medical student, Georges Bidault (of the Free French) was a history teacher, Lech Walesa worked in a shipyard, Nelson Mandela was a clerk at a law firm, and here, the Wolverines were just some high school students in Anywhere, U.S.A...

Five stars.

-Sean Gill