1969 (1986)

Directed by: Ernest Thompson
Written by: Ernest Thompson
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Kiefer Sutherland, Bruce Dern, Mariette Hartley, Winona Ryder, Joanna Cassidy

Kiefer Sutherland plays Scott, a naïve and idealistic 19-year-old who attends college with his best friend Ralph (Downey Jr.) to avoid being drafted into the army and shipped out to Vietnam, the fate that has befallen his older brother. The film focuses on the boy's experiences during their last summer of innocence, but nothing much really happens. They go to San Francisco, sit in a bar, then come straight home again. Ralph has a bad LSD trip, while Scott falls in love with Ralph's younger sister (Ryder,) and grows increasingly adrift from his war-hero father (Dern) over the war in Vietnam. Even though the film takes place in 1969, nothing of that era is successfully captured here, and the presence of three young stars of the 80's doesn't help either.

Watching it, you sit there waiting for something meaningful to happen, something interesting that might make you give a damn about the people involved. You wait and you wait, and finally, five minutes from the end credits, the film pulls an 'inspiring' and 'uplifting' scene that is truly horrible to watch. I really mean that – it's horrible. I couldn't believe it was actually happening, or that a screenwriter of any merit would expect us to believe that the characters' deeply ingrained convictions about a subject as complex as that which he has tried to tackle could be swept aside so superficially.



Final Verdict: Skip It

Compulsion (1959)

Directed by: Richard Fleischer
Written by: Meyer Levin; Richard Murphy
Starring: Dean Stockwell, Bradford Dillman, Orson Welles, Diane Varsi, E.G. Marshall, Martin Milner, Richard Anderson, Gavin MacLeod

In this dramatization of the infamous 1924 Leopold and Loeb murder case, Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman play a pair of rich college students who decide that they can commit the perfect murder and get away with it. They kill a young teenage boy, off screen, but are soon arrested when police match a pair of glasses left at the crime scene to one of the men. Their wealthy parents hire renowned defense attorney Jonathan Wilk (Welles,) who is known for his passionate arguments against the death penalty. Both of the killers confess to the crime but Wilk pleads them not guilty. At the trial, they change the plea to guilty and Wilk argues passionately in favor of a life sentence rather than execution.

The first half of the film is great. We meet the two killers, see how they live, what makes them tick. It's all truly fascinating stuff that is acted very well by the leads. But the second half turns the movie into a shallow ad against capital punishment.

Firstly, we do not see the crime being committed. Perhaps seeing two grown men taking a child, killing him basically for fun, and then discarding his body like a bag of garbage would make a viewer think less of the two poor lads who go to trial.

Second, the little boy is treated more as a mentioned aside, rather than a real little boy. We do not see the huge impact that the murder has upon his family. We never even see the body. There are even subtle, basically unchallenged, references to him being a brat. Thus putting a little negative spin in the viewer's mind that the boy brought this evil upon himself!

Third, In the courtroom scenes, the audience is asked to question their beliefs if they happen to think the killers deserve to be executed for their cold blooded crime. During a long-winded speech made by Orson Welles (taken largely from actual courtroom transcripts) he goes on an on about how the two 'boys' shouldn't be put to death. I'm not going to get into what my beliefs on capital punishment are, but to ask an audience to feel some pity on two callous young men who murdered a boy for fun is absolutely ridiculous!

And we don't even hear any type of closing argument from the Prosecutor. As a matter of fact, everyone, even the judge, looks shamed by Orson's 'wonderful' speech about love, mercy, kindness, blah blah blah... It's a big fat cop out.

The acting and cinematography in 'Compulsion' is great, but the screenplay is just shallow liberal propaganda. (<-- And it really hurts me to say that.)



Final Verdict: See it for everything but the message.

Exposed (1983)

Directed by: James Toback
Written by: James Toback
Starring: Nastassja Kinski, Rudolf Nureyev, Harvey Keitel, Ian McShane, Bibi Andersson, Ron Randell

Every once in a while, you see a movie so dull and so stupid, you have to wonder if drugs were somehow involved in making the film. 'Exposed' is one of those films.

The plot of this film doesn't unravel, it oozes like molasses in January. Nastassja Kinski plays a Wisconsin farm girl named Elizabeth who leaves home and runs away to New York. After being discovered by a fashion photographer (McShane) she is whisked away into the glamorous world of fashion. Soon she's in Europe, and is recruited by a mysterious violin player (the awful corpse-like Rudolf Nureyev) to infiltrate a terrorist organization and kill it's leader. The leader is played by Harvey Keitel, who is given next to nothing to do.

The only good scene is at the very beginning when two terrorist babes blow up a Parisian restaurant. But it all goes downhill from there. In more capable hands and with a better cast, this film could have been good. But everything is a mess. The script is convoluted and boring, the acting is atrocious, the direction is flat, there is no suspense, and no characters that seem even human.

Oddly, so many people seem to praise Nastassja Kinski as a great actress. I've just never seen it. In every film I've seen her in she just seems vacant and bored, but this is Kinski at her worst, no doubt.



Final Verdict: Skip It

A Small Circle of Friends (1980)

Directed by: Rob Cohen
Written by: Ezra Sacks
Starring: Brad Davis, Karen Allen, Jameson Parker, Shelley Long, John Friedrich, Gary Springer, Richard Nelson

This film follows the lives of three friends (Davis, Allen, and Parker) as they attend Harvard in the 1960's. They meet, bond, fall in and out of love, and challenge the system during the time of social upheaval and student unrest. Their friendship is complicated when a love triangle develops, and it takes a senseless tragedy to bring them crashing back down to earth.

Like many films set in this era, most key events, from LBJ refusing to seek a second term to the rise of the far left terrorist groups, are seen through the eyes of the main characters. But unlike films like 'Forrest Gump,' the historical references feel more organic to the film, and not just points on a timeline.

The three leads are very good as well. Through the various ups and downs in their friendships and the world around them, Brad Davis, Karen Allen and Jameson Parker manage to communicate the changes their characters go through over the two decades this film spans. Even though some of the film borders on melodrama, there are enough interesting sections of the film that keep it from becoming trite.

But what I liked most about this film was that it doesn't romanticize the counter-culture. It shows the flaws in the idealism and that not everyone who was against the war was an enlightened peace loving flower child. But it also shows the good things. Like the sense of community, protest through art, and an embracing of love over violence. 'A Small Circle of Friends' manages to show that the hippies were individuals making their own choices and dealing with the consequences, and not some giant smelly organism that shared a collective consciousness.


Final Verdict: See It