Movie Review: Borderline (1980)

A human smuggling thriller, Borderline features routine action in a story of border agents pursuing profiteers exploiting illegal migrants. 

Jeb Maynard (Charles Bronson) is the senior agent in charge of a US border patrol station located in the rough terrain between San Diego and Tijuana. With the amount of human smuggling activity increasing rapidly, agent Jimmy Fantes (Bruno Kirby) arrives to bolster Jeb's team, which also includes veteran agent Scooter Jackson (Wilford Brimley). 

Local rancher Carl Richards (Bert Remsen) hides behind a facade of respectability but is part of an elaborate for-profit human smuggling enterprise. Ex-Marine Hotchkiss (Ed Harris) manages all the dirty field logistics for Richards. Late at night on a desolate stretch of highway, Jackson stumbles upon a truckload full of illegal migrants, and is killed by Hotchkiss. Jeb has few clues to go by, but is determined to bring the murderer to justice.

A modest Charles Bronson vehicle directed and co-written by Jerrold Freedman, Borderline benefits by staying within itself. The action scenes are brief and restrained, with emphasis instead on following the evidence (in this case, distinctive footprints). Jeb tries different angles to uncover the conspirators, including going undercover to join a group of migrants being smuggled across the border.

The lure of profits from shifting "units" across the border is huge, and the plot follows the money to the swanky offices of tycoon Henry Lydell (Michael Lerner). He is interested in maximizing revenues by scaling up the business, pushing Richards to do more in a cold-blooded demonstration of supply and demand dynamics.

Bronson breezes through the drama with his usual unflappable presence, Freedman always finding refuge in his star's craggy face and squinty eyes. In his first notable big screen role, Ed Harris makes for an effective stony-faced villain, a Vietnam veteran now finding a money-making outlet for his military skills. The ever-dependable Wilford Brimley further enhances the cast.

The migrants themselves are reduced to faceless and nameless individuals sprinting across the desert terrain in search of a better future. The sole exception is one bright-eyed teenager who is provided a name and sketch story, but he drops out early to provide Jeb with an interaction pathway. Borderline never claims to possess big answers or narrative sophistication, but does complete the crossing with minimal fuss.



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Movie Review: The Freshman (1990)

A crime comedy mixing mobster satire with broad laughs, The Freshman benefits from a fine Marlon Brando performance riffing on his godfather persona, and an engaged Matthew Broderick. The film is astute and entertainingly frivolous in equal patches.

Clark Kellog (Broderick), raised by his wildlife-loving but otherwise obtuse step-father Dwight (Kenneth Welsh), leaves his rural Vermont home behind and heads to New York University to study film making. Within minutes of arriving in the big city, Clark meets the fast-talking Victor (Bruno Kirby), who offers Clark a ride but promptly steals all his money and luggage. Eventually Victor makes amends by introducing Clark to his uncle Carmine Sabatini (Brando), a businessman with a lucrative job offer that can't be refused.

Sabatini professes great admiration for Clark, who is intimidated into accepting a well-paid job as a driver tasked with transferring unspecified cargo from the airport to New Jersey. He also meets Sabatini's daughter Tina (Penelope Ann Miller), and with bewildering speed she professes her love for Clark and starts to talk of marriage. The cargo turns out to be a rare Komodo dragon being illegally imported into the care of the mysterious Larry London (Maximilian Schell), a flamboyant chef. Clark realizes that he has been sucked into an illicit and bizarre scheme involving gourmet meals featuring near-extinct species. He quickly wants out, but escaping Sabatini's web will be a complicated process.

The running joke in The Freshman is that everyone recognizes Carmine Sabatini as a spitting image of Don Corleone, but no one quite gets to say it. Brando mumbles his way through the role and has great fun recreating one of his greatest screen characters, but in this case the crime boss appears to be involved in nothing more serious than arranging over-priced banquets for air-headed rich guests.

The Freshman is filled with this kind of attractive asymmetry, where characters appear to be stereotypes but then step sideways into unfamiliar and quirky territory. Sabatini's pregnant pronouncements can be construed as either profound or simplistic, and his affection towards Clark may or may not be a real surrogate father-son bond, Victor oscillates between scruffy thief and resourceful potential brother-in-law, while Tina innocently combines mobster's daughter with a potentially genuine attachment to Clark. Larry London hints at a Nazi-laced evil past, but he could also be just an inventive cook.

Director and writer Andrew Bergman succeeds for the most part in threading the needle where Clark's ludicrous adventure stays on the right side of plausibly ridiculous. Broderick's fresh-faced, wide-eyed persona is a good match for Brando's dark and domineering boss, and the two create the film's best moments in several long conversational scenes. The Komodo dragon is also excellent and dominates a quite perfect comedy sequence as Clark and his film school friend (Frank Whaley) grapple with the reptile on an eventful trip from the airport to a hidden New Jersey zoo-of-sorts.

Some of the story details are less well constructed, and late on Bergman quick-fries a plot about corrupt conservation officers, while step-father Dwight reappears but is shortchanged into sitting in the back of a car and saying little.

The Freshman is a refined comedy which delivers a range of laughs without taking itself too seriously.

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Movie Review: Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

A Vietnam War comedy drama, Good Morning, Vietnam ignited Robin Williams' film career. His manic performance as Armed Forces DJ Adrian Cronauer showcases his genius comic talents, and director Barry Levinson surrounds him with a weighty story that satirizes war without undermining its gravity.

It's 1965 and the US troop build-up in Vietnam is gaining strength. The Saigon-based Armed Forces Radio Service broadcasts bland announcements, heavily censored news and anemic music. Airman Second Class Adrian Cronauer (Williams) arrives as the new DJ, and immediately shakes the place up. He launches into high energy and hilarious monologues, plays rock 'n' roll music, makes fun of the news and the military, and threatens to ignore the censors. His supervisors Lieutenant Hauk (Bruno Kirby) and Sergeant Major Dickerson (J.T. Walsh) are horrified, but the troops quickly become fans and the new DJ achieves celebrity status.

Despite the protestations of his assistant Private Eddie Garlick (Forest Whitaker), Cronauer spots local beauty Trinh (Chintara Sukapatana) and starts to romantically pursue her. He establishes a friendship with her brother Tuan (Tung Thanh Tran) and designates himself as an English language teacher to get closer to Trinh, and starts to understand the local culture and customs. But the war is getting more serious, bombings and bloodshed arrive in Saigon, and the military brass start to lose patience with Cronauer and his antics.

Good Morning, Vietnam is an often raucous comedy with a heavy heart. Director Barry Levinson constructs an anti-war film propelled by a counter-culture hero, but also manages to separate the soldiers from their superiors, and the politicians from the troops. The war is portrayed as both an idiotic policy and a massive troop deployment adventure, an army doing what it does in bumbling through a foreign land, while politicians blindly equate increased numbers with better odds of winning. Meanwhile there are civilians and families witnessing their land being torn apart, and its all playing out to a soundtrack of revolutionary rock.

After having struggled for several years to translate his undoubted talent into an appealing big screen presence, Good Morning, Vietnam is Williams' spectacular film career launch party. Once experienced, his performance as Cronauer is impossible to forget. He is a force of nature, his mostly improvised rapid fire delivery of sarcastic and biting humour from behind the broadcast microphone is unconstrained in content and intensity. Keeping up with Williams is exhilarating and exhausting, and the film derives boundless energy from his manic intensity.

But there is a lot more to the film than the central performance. The script by Mitch Markowitz, loosely inspired by the real Cronauer's experiences, mercilessly satirizes the military leadership, but in its second half is also a serious look at the US involvement in the Vietnam War. Cronauer's pursuit of Trinh, his brush with the culture, and his eventual wanderings within the labyrinths of Vietnam's jungles (he walks in circles) and Saigon's back alleys (he gets quickly disoriented) are unmistakable metaphors.

Like America, Cronauer may think he has all the answers, all the swagger and all the confidence to get what he wants, but the country, the city and the people are much more complex than he imagines, and with the best of intentions he stumbles into an unintended mess. Unlike the glib tripe served up by MASH, here war is of course a target, but the violence of war always hurts, and the conflict's long term implications are on display for those who wish to probe.

Williams needed straight men to withstand his barrage of humour, and the supporting cast deliver. Bruno Kirby and J.T. Walsh have rarely been better as Hauk and Dickerson, stiff military officers who suffer the most when Cronauer jerks their precious radio station towards pandemonium. Forest Whitaker represents the soldiers who quickly get and adopt the new DJ as one of their own, and celebrate his exuberance like a fresh breeze in the jungle heat.

Good Morning, Vietnam ends with revelations, hard truths, and a soft ball game. Some lessons will be learned by individuals on the ground, but there is less hope for the detached decision makers in offices. And as always, pieces of broken language and sports culture are left strewn on the dusty streets, sometimes the only useful legacy of warfare.

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The Movies Of Bruno Kirby

All movies starring Bruno Kirby and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Borderline (1980)

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Tin Men (1987)

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

When Harry Met Sally...(1989)

The Freshman (1990)

City Slickers (1991)

Hoffa (1992, uncredited)

Sleepers (1996)

Donnie Brasco (1997)

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Movie Review: Donnie Brasco (1997)

Based on the true story of legendary mob infiltrator Joseph Pistone, Donnie Brasco is a gritty journey into the belly of the Mafia. Al Pacino and Johnny Depp are captivating as the entrails of an organization at war with itself are revealed in bloody detail.

Posing as a shady jewel trader in the grimy New York City of the 1970s, FBI agent Pistone, operating under the alias Donnie Brasco (Depp), attracts the attention of Ben "Lefty" Ruggiero (Pacino). A low level but respected hit-man in the crew commanded by Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano (Michael Madsen), Lefty has always been passed over for promotions within the mob's hierarchy. With his own son a drug addicted failure, Lefty takes Donnie under his wing, introducing him to the family as a trusted associate.

Donnie gains the confidence of the various mob operatives in Sonny Black's crew, including Nicky Santora (Bruno Kirby). But as Pistone burrows deeper into the Mafia, his personal life begins to feel the strain, with his wife Maggie (Anne Heche) effectively leading the life of a widow, never knowing where her husband is.  Meanwhile, Sonny Black gives Donnie increasing responsibilities, including running a club in Miami, and Lefty realizes with growing resentment that his protege has surpassed him in influence. When an internal mob war erupts, Donnie finds himself at the hot end of the hostilities, and his FBI handlers have to find a way to pull him out before he kills or gets killed.

The script by Paul Attanasio, adapting Pistone's book, takes some artistic liberties, but in general Donnie Brasco recaptures the grim reality of the FBI's most successful mob infiltration. The six years that Pistone spent undercover resulted in over 100 convictions, and the film provides an immersive lesson on life within a criminal enterprise. While some drag creeps into the second half of the story, with a vaguely unsatisfying  highlight reel composition taking hold, the raw power of the events and the central performances help pull the movie through.

The New York City of the 1970s is always fertile ground for rampant criminality wedded to resignation, and director Mike Newell ensures that the clothes, cars, locales and dialogue do nothing to alleviate the overbearing sense of crime as routine business. "Fogettaboutit" is the most common phrase exchanged within Lefty's circles, and as Donnie explains in one humorous scene, it can mean anything, depending on the exact pronunciation.

Al Pacino and Johnny Depp both deliver hypnotic performances. Pacino's Lefty is a man looking in the rear view mirror at what might have been, holding on to a bit of pride but fully aware that his chance at glory, if he ever had one, has long since passed. With an economy of movement but a defiant face ready to switch from aggressive to aggrieved in an instant, Pacino effortlessly succeeds in making a multiple killer sympathetic.

Depp matches Pacino, as Donnie walks a tightrope between outwardly respecting Lefty while he comprehensively betrays him. Depp exudes a cool confidence mixed with just enough of a propensity for violence for Donnie to gain the confidence of Lefty and then Sonny Black, as he worms his way into the mob's business and ever deeper into an alternate reality. Depp's achievement is a masterful portrayal of a man whose mind is always racing ahead of the events surrounding him, since he is only ever one mistake away from death.

Donnie Brasco is a worthy addition to the long list of mob crime dramas, with the added shine of real people and events serving as the basis for a gripping narrative. Fogettaboutit? Not likely.

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Movie Review: When Harry Met Sally...(1989)

A delightful romantic comedy, When Harry Met Sally... established the new standard for the genre. Warm-hearted, funny and quirky, the film's two main star-crossed protagonists grow ever more likeable as they tentatively take their multi-year journey towards a cupid-defined destiny.

It's 1977. New graduates Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) share an 18 hour drive from the University of Chicago to New York, where they are both starting their careers, Harry as a lawyer and Sally in journalism. Prior to the drive they don't know each other, but during the journey they become sure that they don't like each other: Harry is an arrogant, fast-talking pessimist who is sure that he has the world already figured out. Sally is detail-oriented and a bit uppity. They argue about everything, including whether a man and woman can be just friends. Harry does not believe it to be possible: the sex part always gets in the way. Sally convinces herself that Harry is a creep because he seems to be coming onto her despite already having a girlfriend. They arrive in New York and coldly part ways.

Five years later, they accidentally meet again during a flight. Harry is mellowing a bit, now engaged to Helen, but still a motor-mouth with all the answers. Sally is in the throes of a deepening relationship with Joe, and optimistically love-struck. Although more civilized, they again part ways as soon as the flight lands.

Five years further on, they meet again at a New York bookstore. Both relationships have ruptured badly. Harry is heartbroken by the breakup of his marriage to Helen, while Sally is trying to hold herself together despite Joe leaving her because he did not want to start a family and she did. Gradually, Harry and Sally become best friends, sharing all the details, joys, and sorrows of their lives, supporting each other and developing a deep bond of dependence and affection while continuing to date other people. Sally's best friend Marie (Carrie Fisher) and Harry's best friend Jess (Bruno Kirby) also end up in a relationship together.

Sally is devastated when she hears that Joe is getting married and starting a family with a younger woman. When Harry comes to her apartment to comfort her, they end up making love, shattering the basis of their friendship. Harry and Sally have to decide whether or not to pick up the pieces and turn the wreckage of a friendship into the green roots of a romance.

The success of When Harry Met Sally... is based on a Nora Ephron script that works diligently to create two fully-rounded characters. The mannerisms, reactions, and emotions of Harry and Sally are established early on when they are brash graduates, and gradually evolve, soften and mature as life gently but surely scrubs away the edges. Director Rob Reiner guides the romance with a gentle hand, delicately adding New York City garnishings to create a perfect but understated feast.

Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan were both catapulted into deserved stardom for their performances. Crystal had earlier made an impression in The Princess Bride and Throw Momma From The Train (both also directed by Reiner), but his performance as Harry elevated him into a leading star as a sensitive comic talent. Harry's journey is the more pronounced, including a detour into a long friendship that threatens to disprove his theory about friendships between men and women, but he then has to endure a lot of pain and no pleasure when the inevitable intervention of "the sex part" indeed proves his initial belief to be true.

Meg Ryan was designated as America's sweetheart and leading romantic lady after her performance as Sally. Defiant yet vulnerable, argumentative yet appealing, and attractive yet down to earth, Sally is most memorable for being so real: she captures, with just a dash of comic exaggeration, deeply human traits found in most women. And her impressive fake public orgasm in a New York deli immediately entered the hall of fame of classic movie scenes.

The central theme of the film is the nature of friendship between men and women, and the movie's warmest moments portray Harry and Sally as friends. There is a magical emotional depth to the scenes portraying the couple becoming platonic soul mates, and the film provides a complex answer to its core conundrum: yes, a strong bond of friendship may be formed between a man and a woman, but perhaps such a deep connection is really a pilot light for a flame waiting to be lit.

It takes them a long time, but not only do Harry and Sally finally realize that they are meant for each other, they also join the distinguished ranks of most memorable movie characters.

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Movie Review: City Slickers (1991)

Three friends hit middle age in various stages of crisis: Mitch (Billy Crystal) is stuck in a dead-end job; Ed (Bruno Kirby) has never resolved issues related to his father; and Phil (Daniel Stern) hates his wife and is having an affair. The three head-off to a cattle-drive vacation in the southwest. The trio evolve from hapless city folks to hardened cowboys and are unexpectedly forced to take charge of delivering the cattle.

A comedy that mostly strikes a fine balance between laughs and exploring the meaning of life, City Slickers works thanks to the appeal of the three lead actors, and a sharp cameo from 73 year old Jack Palance, in an Oscar-winning role as Curly, the lead cowboy on the cattle drive. Curly is tough as nails but helps Mitch to rediscover what matters in life.

The film doesn't escape some poor cliches, including an over-the-top raging river scene, secondary characters that are firmly trapped in a single dimension, and simplistic syrupy resolutions to major challenges in the lives of the three men.

But the screenplay (Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel) and Ron Underwood's directing maintain a decent amount of forward momentum, the laughs are plentiful, and some of the cinematography revisits the vistas of the grand classic westerns.

Along with 1989's When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers helped to establish Billy Crystal as one of the comic stars of the early 1990's. He nails the jaded Mr. Everyman who has long since lost his spark, and he delivers an endless stream of clever one-liners with understated finesse. Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby are good in support, but less well-rounded.

City Slickers has a few stray heads of cattle, but the herd generally moves confidently in the right direction.

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