Only now does it occur to me... SNIPER (1993)

Only now does it occur to me...  that SNIPER (1993) might be the live action movie with the most sequels (eight, and counting!) of which I had never before seen a single installment (discounting, perhaps, some Republic serials from the '40s or the deepest cuts from the Full Moon catalogue).

 

Instead of the dopey, straight-to-video-style shoot-em-up I expected, the tone is much more dignified and even has designs of being a moody and artistic "two in the chamber" piece about a morally grey veteran sniper (Tom Berenger––excellent, as usual) who has seen too much death, and his new, underprepared civilian partner.

 

It's about stolen valor, PTSD, indiscriminate killing, civilian blowback, Herzogian madness, and disastrous foreign policy. In essence, it's trying to be more APOCALYPSE NOW than RAMBO III––a point driven home by Berenger looking with disdain at a bus with a RAMBO III mural on it.

 

 

Does it live up to these lofty goals? Well, not exactly. But it's a hell of a lot better than you'd expect. The first five minutes alone are of higher quality than any scene in Clint Eastwood's laughable, fake-baby-wielding Oscar bait, AMERICAN SNIPER (2014).

 

The film's Peruvian director, Luis Llosa, makes a few off-handed critiques about covert CIA military obtrusions in Central and South America,

mostly by using J.T. Walsh as a glib politico-military operator named "Chester Van Damme" (!), but in the end, the film flattens a bit and sides fully with the snipers who are facing off against nuance-lacking, mustache-twirling Noriega and Escobar-style heavies. 

 

Slick and stylish cinematography by Bill Butler (JAWS, GREASE, ROCKY IV) and rousing music by Gary Chang (UNDER SIEGE, MIAMI BLUES) & Hans Zimmer (credited as "additional music by") make this seem much more like a prestige project than its budget and theatrical poster ("One shot... one kill... no exceptions") would imply.

 

To put it in context, it was semi-buried among January 1993 junk like BODY OF EVIDENCE and NOWHERE TO RUN, in a year whose box office headliners would be JURASSIC PARK, CLIFFHANGER, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, FREE WILLY, and THE FIRM.

But there's one element in particular which really takes this movie over the top. This element is an actor, the one playing Berenger's aforementioned and underprepared partner on this mission––an Olympic sharpshooter who has never been involved in a military operation. Someone whom the Toledo Blade might describe as a... "psycho hunk."

That's right––to my ama-Zane-ment, this movie features meaty roles for both Billy Zane and his  withering gaze. Before THE PHANTOM let us know there was no smoking in the Skull Cave, and before his expressive, Svengali-ish, and immaculately waxed eyebrows let us know who was really the "king of the world" in TITANIC, Billy Zane served bitch from the corridors of power in Washington, D.C.

"If looks could kill..."

to the jungles of Panama.
 

"...You'd be lyin' on the floor"

If you think we don't get an extended scene of Billy Zane carefully applying Max Factor camo makeup to the true stars of this movie, you've got another thing coming.

They must've blown their lace-front wig budget in the opening D.C. scenes, because for the rest of the movie it's all hats and Little Edie headscarves.

"Completely covert?"... except for that eyebrow action, maybe

"I'm scared to death of doors, locks, people roaming around in the background, under the trees, in the bushes, I'm absolutely terrified."  ––"Little Edie" Bouvier Beale in GREY GARDENS

Yep, Billy Zane gonna smolder all over this thing. There's an incredible scene when Tom Berenger calls him out for having designer camouflage called... wait for it...

..."Gucciflage." (What is this, the Berlusconi-produced, Zane-starring, spaghetti soap opera, MILLIONS?)

Anyway. Come for the sniper scope... stay for the Psycho Hunk™lookin' through it?

Only now does it occur to me... CHASERS (1994)

Only now does it occur to me... that Dennis Hopper slides a nice little homage to his friend and collaborator David Lynch in his "THE LAST DETAIL-reimagined-as-a-90s-comedy" road movie, CHASERS. The homage in question is an extended shot of a logging truck, just like in TWIN PEAKS.

That's not all: this thing is packed with Lynch collaborators, including BLUE VELVET and DUNE's Dean Stockwell as a car dealership owner:

"Here's to your fuck, Frank!"

WILD AT HEART's Crispin Glover as a put-upon sailor who's been pushed around for too long:

"I'm making my lunch!"

and LOST HIGHWAY's Gary Busey as a marine who clearly is improvising all of his dialogue:



Hopper himself appears as a lingerie salesman with a fake-Karl Malden nose, for some reason:


"Heineken? Fuck that shit!"

Anyway, what we have here is an episodic, charmingly rambling, critically maligned road movie that is better than I expected it to be. Tom Berenger, doing kind of a whisky-ravaged Tom Waits/BEETLEJUICE voice is a hardboiled career member of Shore Patrol, transporting Navy prisoners across the country.

William McNamara (a likable man-génue who deserved a better career––you may have seen him in SURVIVING THE GAME, DREAM A LITTLE DREAM, EXTREME JUSTICE, or Argento's OPERA) plays a young sailor on his last day before discharge. 

 

He's enlisted to help Berenger out with a prisoner transport––though due to a clerical mix-up, the prisoner is unexpectedly a woman.

Played by Erica Eleniak (former BAYWATCH cast member, UNDER SIEGE cake-jumper, and co-star of BETRAYAL and BORDELLO OF BLOOD), she actually brings pathos and humor to a role that could have easily been a caricature. As the unlikely trio crosses the country and bonds with one another (again, THE LAST DETAIL is the point of origin/departure), we meet the whole host of character actors I have already detailed, as well as zany waitress Marilu Henner (TAXI, PERFECT):

and creepy-ass trucker Frederic Forrest (APOCALYPSE NOW, FALLING DOWN):

Born to play a creepy trucker

In the end, CHASERS was Dennis Hopper's final feature as a director, and it's a weird, pleasant relic of the "EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS" era, worth a look for character actor and Americana aficionados. I can probably sum it up best in guessing that Wim Wenders probably loves the shit out of this movie.

Film Review: THE SUBSTITUTE (1996, Robert Mandel)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 114 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, William Forsythe, Luis Guzman, Diane Venora, Marc Anthony, Cliff de Young, and the director, Robert Mandel, directed one of the best episodes of LOST ever, "Deus ex Machina."
Tag-line: " He has a lesson to teach. And nobody's going to have a problem with it."
Best one-liner: The educational setting lends itself perfectly for scads of one-liners. I really can't choose one. If I had to choose two, they'd be: "Shh. No talking in the library," and "You don't teach history anymore, Smith. You ARE history!"

You think Tom Berenger is scared of war? Think again. Dude made a meal out of WILLEM DAFOE in 'Nam during 'Platoon.' You think Berenger is afraid of a karate-choppin' Ernie Hudson? Hell, no. The last time Ernie kicked bum, he was playin' second fiddle bustin' ghosts to Dan 'Big Enchilada' Aykroyd. You think Berenger is scared by a bunch of drug-runnin' high school kids with guns? It's certainly within the realm of possibility, but no. He's not scared of 'em. In fact he's SO not scared-of 'em, that he decides to take over their class, smack 'em around a little bit. Take their weapons and knock 'em in the head with a crushed-up soda can.





All's going well until something happens that DOES scare Berenger. And that's when he starts gettin' through to them. They bond over similar scars from 'Nam and drive-bys, respectively. One of the kids slowly raises his hand and asks, "Yo, Mr. Smith, you lose any homeboys?" Berenger wistfully replies: 'Yeah, Jerome...I lost a few homeboys." And it is brilliant. Unfortunately, the movie then swerves into some more familiar action territory, but for a moment there, for the briefest of moments, I think I saw Berenger scared. As he says, "I noticed something strange was happening...I looked back, and they were listening to me..."

-Sean Gill