Left Field Cinema

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

How did anyone take it seriously?

There are certain scenes where you can see a twinkle in Al Pacino’s eyes, it’s like he knows he’s in trash but someone’s already whispered in his ear that he’s bagged the Oscar. It was a compromise. Not a Paul Newman style one, but because this is such Oscar bait I bet the jury were itching to award it best film, but alas, this was the year of Unforgiven and that would have been unforgivable. But why not give Pacino the award for Glengarry Glen Ross? He’s much better in that then in Scent of A Woman - he can’t even get his American accent right.

He plays Lt. Col. Frank Slade, a blind foul-mouthed war veteran who needs a carer whilst his daughter is away for thanksgiving. Charlie Simms, the rich-school boy who isn’t rich takes the job only to be dragged off to New York for a weekend of existentialism, good food, women, drink and suicide. You can write the screenplay yourself, trust me. And yes, that is Phillip Seymour Hoffman looking and sounding thirty-odd (actually twenty-five) playing a school boy. He just about pulls it off.

Charlie is a perfectly harmless character, although not particularly endearing. Frank is a good man with a hard exterior and Pacino is given lines that do most the work for him, but his character is sometimes too trying, too clichéd. Maybe it’s because in the days of Gregory House these characters are two-a-penny but didn’t Walter Matthau make a career out of such roles? Surely it was tired even in 1992.

He’s also well educated which gives the writer excuses to throw lots of cultured wit around, some of which hits, some of which goes over the head. He‘s also a woman-obsessed alcoholic who dances an amazing tango and has the keenest of smells, and is a perfume encyclopedia (does he just buy them then sit around in his hovel sniffing them?) Then ironically we’re led to believe that Charlie is Harvard material but he doesn’t use one iota of intelligence in the whole film and in one scene even lets the blind Frank drive a Ferrari around the streets of New York. As Mr. Trask, the Headmaster (James Rebhorn), Proudly says about Charlie’s school (of which he is a top pupil), “We are known around the world as the cradle of this country‘s leadership.”

There’s also an uninteresting conflict for Charlie to deal with, with Frank’s inevitable help, when he sees some students pull a prank on the Headmaster and is bribed to force him to snitch. He worries about what to do through the weekend but Frank with his magnificent perception predicts what will happen next and sympathizes with the rut that Charlie is in. But we don’t care, and it’s given life and death importance. Charlie may not be able to go to a top school, it’s the end of the world. It’s a shallow sentiment.

This is about as dangerous as the film ever gets. Frank wants to kill himself but the films director Martin Brest doesn’t have the guts to actually make him a full blown depressive, that would be too dark. The scene where Charlie attempts to talk him down from his suicide attempt lacks any dramatic tension and there’s just bawling and shouting and Charlie calls Frank a “blind motherfucker.” Such an outburst from a good and innocent boy shocks Frank, the audience on the other hand have spent the last hour waiting for him to get it over and done with.

Another scene that intends to shock in the “I can’t believe he just said that” manner is when Frank visits his brother who greets him icily. During dinner Frank and his nephew Randy (Bradley Whitford) get into an argument after Frank says he should go down on his wife more. Randy then proceeds to fill Charlie in on Frank’s past and cause of his blindness but it’s all a little too contrived, and it doesn’t provoke any reaction from the viewer. It’s awkward, and not in a good way.

The music (by Thomas Newman) consists of purely glucose, and every time it’s played to give us an emotional push it’s too much. It’s a pretty little ditty but the scenes are already too sweet and what they don’t need is extra icing. The film is shot in Danielle Steele T.V. film style, soft focus, mid shots, curtains closed to create mood, it’s a lowbrow lunchtime weepy technique that means there’s ironically nothing interesting on show visually. At two-and-a-half hours it’s also too long and it really feels it in certain stretches, and can test the patience of anyone who is lacking in willpower. It’s not truly awful, but it’s not good. At it’s best it’s amusingly entertaining, at it’s worse predictable tedium (and it’s always predictable).

So why would it have swept the Oscars if Eastwood didn’t come to the rescue? Well it’s the kind of mawkish schlock that Americans so love: life-affirming, a learning experience, a journey, tough hearts melting, characters growing and rousing speeches preaching justice. Martin Brest was nominated for best director for this comedy only no one was in on the joke. The end speech is pure farce, A Few Good Men set in the school from Dead Poets Society. Pacino bawling about integrity because Charlie won’t rat on his fellow students but they deserve to be ratted on. The writers have to add the whole bribe angle just to vilify the Headmaster and make Charlie‘s actions justified, even honorable, but it’s all just too silly. And then they all applaud. Do you get it yet?

Brest went on to make Gigli. O’Donnel played Robin for two Batman films. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was blessed with a role small enough to leave unscathed, if slightly mocked. Al Pacino was the only one who got it and I think I can still hear him laughing. His career survived Cruising, he’ll be ok.

Lewis Carter