andrew7
Joined Nov 1999
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Reviews62
andrew7's rating
If you haven't seen this film, go out and rent it right now. Just sit back, relax, have a beer, and watch a terrific movie. It has drama, humor, great acting, a great story, and an ending that hits you right in the gut.
A few weeks from now, maybe a few months, see it again. There is so much of what I like to call "meat" in this film. It's a true story, and a compelling one, but look beneath the immediate to see what this film tells us about the culture of New York City, of America, in the early 1970s. American society was sick and rotting from the inside. Watergate was festering, but had yet to explode into the orgy of political pus which destroyed the Nixon presidency. Vietnam was still being fought in the jungles of Asia and on the streets of America. Generations were clashing, and American culture and society was divided against itself.
None of this context is directly provided by the film, but it is all relevant. Look at the attitude of the mob to the whole situation. That mob is the most fascinating character of the picture. First, they totally support Sonny. They make him a celebrity. He's the classic noble outlaw. Robbing the bank, sticking it to the man, and making the police look at the same time inept, ridiculous, and utterly corrupt. But when a shot is fired, the crowd realizes, for the first time, that their celebrity misfit criminal could be dangerous, and things begin to change. Mulvaney, the bank manager sees it. "That was a foolish thing you did, back there." When it is revealed, shockingly, that Sonny is a homosexual, the mob divides against itself. A small, vocal core of homosexuals begin supporting him, while the rest of the mob, the "mainstream" of American society, turn viciously against him. By the time he is escorted to the airport when the siege is over, the crowd has turned wholly against him, and the cops protect him from the public, rather than the other way around.
The mob is America. Sonny is crime. Not just any crime, but crime born of desperation. Sonny is an outcast from society. He has worked all his life (so we are told), but has never been able to provide adequately for his family. He talks frequently about the pressures he is under (and the pressures he faces on screen mirror the pressures that drove him into his predicament in the first place). He is trapped by a hopeless, helpless urban nightmare, and he's being drowned by the expectations of wife, lover, children, parents, and society itself. He is a Vietnam veteran, and still there is nowhere he can turn for help.
So, he robs a bank and takes hostages. Suddenly, everyone cares about him. The Establishment, suddenly, becomes terribly interested in Sonny's problems. Oh, they despise him, to be sure, and they want him dead. Sonny knows that. But suddenly, he is being listened to. Imagine what might have been if someone out there had been interested in Sonny's problems *before* he robbed the bank.
Imagine that.
A few weeks from now, maybe a few months, see it again. There is so much of what I like to call "meat" in this film. It's a true story, and a compelling one, but look beneath the immediate to see what this film tells us about the culture of New York City, of America, in the early 1970s. American society was sick and rotting from the inside. Watergate was festering, but had yet to explode into the orgy of political pus which destroyed the Nixon presidency. Vietnam was still being fought in the jungles of Asia and on the streets of America. Generations were clashing, and American culture and society was divided against itself.
None of this context is directly provided by the film, but it is all relevant. Look at the attitude of the mob to the whole situation. That mob is the most fascinating character of the picture. First, they totally support Sonny. They make him a celebrity. He's the classic noble outlaw. Robbing the bank, sticking it to the man, and making the police look at the same time inept, ridiculous, and utterly corrupt. But when a shot is fired, the crowd realizes, for the first time, that their celebrity misfit criminal could be dangerous, and things begin to change. Mulvaney, the bank manager sees it. "That was a foolish thing you did, back there." When it is revealed, shockingly, that Sonny is a homosexual, the mob divides against itself. A small, vocal core of homosexuals begin supporting him, while the rest of the mob, the "mainstream" of American society, turn viciously against him. By the time he is escorted to the airport when the siege is over, the crowd has turned wholly against him, and the cops protect him from the public, rather than the other way around.
The mob is America. Sonny is crime. Not just any crime, but crime born of desperation. Sonny is an outcast from society. He has worked all his life (so we are told), but has never been able to provide adequately for his family. He talks frequently about the pressures he is under (and the pressures he faces on screen mirror the pressures that drove him into his predicament in the first place). He is trapped by a hopeless, helpless urban nightmare, and he's being drowned by the expectations of wife, lover, children, parents, and society itself. He is a Vietnam veteran, and still there is nowhere he can turn for help.
So, he robs a bank and takes hostages. Suddenly, everyone cares about him. The Establishment, suddenly, becomes terribly interested in Sonny's problems. Oh, they despise him, to be sure, and they want him dead. Sonny knows that. But suddenly, he is being listened to. Imagine what might have been if someone out there had been interested in Sonny's problems *before* he robbed the bank.
Imagine that.
This is the final nail in the coffin of the Bond series. Sure, it would have bright spots now and then in the years to come, but this film firmly established once and for all that, by and large, Bond was utter crap and no one wanted it any different.
It's unfortunate that George Lazenby, star of 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", was considered a liability to that film and not given a chance to continue in the role. The true weaknesses of OHMSS was a strong script, believable characters, and a more three-dimensional Bond. Bond fans, conditioned by the slow but steady descent from "From Russia With Love" to "You Only Live Twice", had long ago pledged allegiance to plotless, artless action/spy films. OHMSS was simply too good a film to be accepted as a Bond movie. Fortunately, the producers gave the fans exactly what they wanted: Sean Connery in a dumb, poorly plotted, embarrassing excuse for a feature film. Thus the Bond franchise was saved.
There is not one good thing about this movie. The script is awful. Mr. Wynt and Mr. Kidd are the most absurd homosexuals I've ever seen on film (and yes, I've seen "The Birdcage"). Jill St. John is horribly miscast, and if not for the numerous other flaws of the film, could have ruined it single-handedly. Charles Grey makes a weak and boring Blofeld, but the script undermines (and actually derides) the character all the more. The script never seems to be able to decide if it is pure camp or a tough-guy, gritty action movie. Sean Connery's Bond is utterly the wrong vehicle for camp (though Connery himself excelled at the more consistent and unself-conscious camp of "The Avengers").
"Diamonds are Forever" marks the low point of the Connery era, and one of several low points of the franchise as a whole. The Bond films frequently failed to achieve even a basic level of cinematic quality, but rarely has it produced a film as outright bad as this one.
It's unfortunate that George Lazenby, star of 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", was considered a liability to that film and not given a chance to continue in the role. The true weaknesses of OHMSS was a strong script, believable characters, and a more three-dimensional Bond. Bond fans, conditioned by the slow but steady descent from "From Russia With Love" to "You Only Live Twice", had long ago pledged allegiance to plotless, artless action/spy films. OHMSS was simply too good a film to be accepted as a Bond movie. Fortunately, the producers gave the fans exactly what they wanted: Sean Connery in a dumb, poorly plotted, embarrassing excuse for a feature film. Thus the Bond franchise was saved.
There is not one good thing about this movie. The script is awful. Mr. Wynt and Mr. Kidd are the most absurd homosexuals I've ever seen on film (and yes, I've seen "The Birdcage"). Jill St. John is horribly miscast, and if not for the numerous other flaws of the film, could have ruined it single-handedly. Charles Grey makes a weak and boring Blofeld, but the script undermines (and actually derides) the character all the more. The script never seems to be able to decide if it is pure camp or a tough-guy, gritty action movie. Sean Connery's Bond is utterly the wrong vehicle for camp (though Connery himself excelled at the more consistent and unself-conscious camp of "The Avengers").
"Diamonds are Forever" marks the low point of the Connery era, and one of several low points of the franchise as a whole. The Bond films frequently failed to achieve even a basic level of cinematic quality, but rarely has it produced a film as outright bad as this one.
Wow, what a great line that is. In this film, Woody Allen again creates a character not entirely dissimilar to himself, and surrounds him with characters to hate him. Some have suggested that this film is a grand, public "mea culpa". Others that it's a middle finger in the face of his critics. As for me..., well, I just don't give a damn.
Deducing facts about a man's life from his movies is a bizarre kind of modern anthropology that doesn't interest me much. I'll leave that to the biographers. What interests me is merely the film. I don't care about Woody Allen at all. I only care about Harry Block. The extent to which Harry and Woody are similar.... I just don't care.
What Woody's fashioned here is an acerbic, acidic, vitriolic powerhouse of a film. He creates the most odious, wretched, hateful anti-hero I've ever encountered. But, in a brilliant move, Woody gives the sharpest, harshest criticisms of the character to the character himself. When he is attacked by one of the many people he has hurt, betrayed, alienated, or simply used, he offers no defense, or a defense so feeble that we know even he is not convinced by it. He agrees with every criticism levelled against him, and takes it another step. Ultimately, in the films hilarious climax, he takes on the Devil himself, proclaiming himself more powerful by virtue of the fact that he's even more despicably evil than Lucifer.
How could a movie this dark be so damn funny? That's what I can't understand. But it is. The technique of blending the line between Harry's reality and Harry's fiction is the freshest, most effective of Woody's directorial flourishes since "The Purple Rose of Cairo". Even the editing, much maligned here on IMDB, is an integral part of the character. It's so rare to see a flashy, attention-grabbing editorial technique actually used for a legitimate artistic purpose. Woody even gives it to us on a silver-platter in the last scene, yet so many seem to miss the point.
The script rambles along in an anarchic jumble. One minute we're seeing the "present", then a flashback, then a fiction. Then, fictional characters begin appearing in the "present" and the lines of demarcation are warped, twisted, blended, and eventually discarded entirely.
If it weren't for the fact that this film is so good on its own merits, I'd be tempted to call it a Woody Allen "Best of" film. There are so many nods to previous films. No Woody Allen fan can see Muriel Hemingway without thinking of "Manhattan". The sister-switch, of course, brings up memories of "Hannah and Her Sisters". We have another take on the "Wild Strawberries" scenario first plummed in "Stardust Memories". We have another famous writer warning a star-struck fan not to fall in love, only to fall in love himself and lose her. The irreverent blending of realities can't help but conjure images of "Annie Hall". It's almost a distillation of all of the quirks and eccentricities that define the public Woody Allen persona.
I consider this film a bookend in Woody's career. His films since "Deconstructing Harry" seem to be moving in a slightly different direction. In a sense, you can see many of his classic films from the late 70s through the early 90s as a grand, gradual build up of pressure, which finally burst forth in this bitter, brutal, vulgar, ugly, distasteful, childish tantrum of a film. It's brilliant. And hilariously funny.
Deducing facts about a man's life from his movies is a bizarre kind of modern anthropology that doesn't interest me much. I'll leave that to the biographers. What interests me is merely the film. I don't care about Woody Allen at all. I only care about Harry Block. The extent to which Harry and Woody are similar.... I just don't care.
What Woody's fashioned here is an acerbic, acidic, vitriolic powerhouse of a film. He creates the most odious, wretched, hateful anti-hero I've ever encountered. But, in a brilliant move, Woody gives the sharpest, harshest criticisms of the character to the character himself. When he is attacked by one of the many people he has hurt, betrayed, alienated, or simply used, he offers no defense, or a defense so feeble that we know even he is not convinced by it. He agrees with every criticism levelled against him, and takes it another step. Ultimately, in the films hilarious climax, he takes on the Devil himself, proclaiming himself more powerful by virtue of the fact that he's even more despicably evil than Lucifer.
How could a movie this dark be so damn funny? That's what I can't understand. But it is. The technique of blending the line between Harry's reality and Harry's fiction is the freshest, most effective of Woody's directorial flourishes since "The Purple Rose of Cairo". Even the editing, much maligned here on IMDB, is an integral part of the character. It's so rare to see a flashy, attention-grabbing editorial technique actually used for a legitimate artistic purpose. Woody even gives it to us on a silver-platter in the last scene, yet so many seem to miss the point.
The script rambles along in an anarchic jumble. One minute we're seeing the "present", then a flashback, then a fiction. Then, fictional characters begin appearing in the "present" and the lines of demarcation are warped, twisted, blended, and eventually discarded entirely.
If it weren't for the fact that this film is so good on its own merits, I'd be tempted to call it a Woody Allen "Best of" film. There are so many nods to previous films. No Woody Allen fan can see Muriel Hemingway without thinking of "Manhattan". The sister-switch, of course, brings up memories of "Hannah and Her Sisters". We have another take on the "Wild Strawberries" scenario first plummed in "Stardust Memories". We have another famous writer warning a star-struck fan not to fall in love, only to fall in love himself and lose her. The irreverent blending of realities can't help but conjure images of "Annie Hall". It's almost a distillation of all of the quirks and eccentricities that define the public Woody Allen persona.
I consider this film a bookend in Woody's career. His films since "Deconstructing Harry" seem to be moving in a slightly different direction. In a sense, you can see many of his classic films from the late 70s through the early 90s as a grand, gradual build up of pressure, which finally burst forth in this bitter, brutal, vulgar, ugly, distasteful, childish tantrum of a film. It's brilliant. And hilariously funny.