Movie Review: Winter Kills (1979)

A conspiracy thriller with satirical elements, Winter Kills boasts a superlative cast but fails on all other counts.

Nick Kegan (Jeff Bridges) is the half-brother of Tim Kegan, the ex-president of the United States who was assassinated 19 years prior in Philadelphia, supposedly by lone gunman Willie Arnold. Tim's rise to power was engineered by his wealthy industrialist father Pa (John Huston), who resents Nick's lack of interest in politics. The Kegan empire is managed by a technology and information hub under the watchful eye of the mysterious Cerruti (Anthony Perkins).

Now Nick witnesses the deathbed confession of assassin Fletcher (Joe Spinell), who reveals he was part of the multi-rifle hit squad that killed Tim. Nick retrieves Fletcher's rifle as evidence, and immediately his life is endangered. He seeks the help of his girlfriend and journalist Yvette (Belinda Bauer) to delve into the case, while Pa arranges for Nick to meet with a variety of shadowy characters including eccentric power broker Z.K. Dawson (Sterling Hayden) and mob boss Frank Mayo (Tomas Milian).

Nick learns about the history and Cuban connections of small-time hood Joe Diamond (Eli Wallach), who was hired to kill Arnold. But the more Nick investigates Tim's death, the less sense the entire case makes.

Having overcome a bizarre three-year production history involving drug and soft-core porn money, a murdered producer, and multiple shutdowns due to financial problems, Winter Kills is still a lavish production with a gorgeously rich aesthetic. Director William Richert and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond create grand sets suitable for the unconstrained wealth of the Kegan family, including mansions and private hospital and hotel rooms consistent with the rewards of infinite income backed by hidden corruption.

And the luxury surrounds a cast brimming with talent. Almost every role is occupied by a recognizable name, with none other than an uncredited Elizabeth Taylor making a silent appearance in a couple of key scenes late on. Toshiro Mifune, Dorothy Malone, Richard Boone and Ralph Meeker are among the other performers adding depth and interest in every corner.

But unfortunately, the adaptation of Richard Condon's book falls short where it matters. Winter Kills is intended as a satirical jab at Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories with an added layer of thrills and shocking moments, but never gets the balance right. Too often Richert's script plays straight, dour, and dumb, people dying all around Nick, his life endangered at every turn, and every revelation erasing what went before it. What may have been intended as dry humour contracts into emotionless crustiness.

The self-defeating foolishness of various overlapping and contradictory conspiracy scenarios is the point, but Richert never pauses long enough to properly celebrate the moment. The film blurs into a succession of irrelevant names from the past and present pointing the finger at each other, then dying, with no consequence or impact.

Meanwhile John Huston as Pa is given free rein to munch the scenery with an exhibition of absolute power filled with absurdist winks. Huston appears to be in a movie all his own, none of the other characters sharing the twinkle in his eye.

With Nick maintaining a fast investigative pace and Jeff Bridges shirtless about 50 percent of the time (and sometimes altogether nude), Winter Kills maintains a wacky watchability, but only as witness to the curiously constructed narrative carnage.

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Movie Review: The Mackintosh Man (1973)

A cold war spy story set in England, Ireland and Malta, The Mackintosh Man is one of the more curious examples of the genre.

With legendary American director John Huston at the helm, Paul Newman playing a pretend Australian criminal working for British intelligence, French actress Dominique Sanda as the strangely cold daughter of a senior British spook, and the action hopping to the islands of Ireland and Malta, The Mackintosh Man has a high weirdness quotient, but all the unexplained accents do contribute to the sense that the global espionage game is afoot.

In London, as member of parliament Sir George Wheeler (James Mason) rails against weak-kneed government officials who are not doing enough to protect national security, Joseph Rearden (Paul Newman) flawlessly carries out a diamond theft at the behest of spy master Mackintosh (Harry Andrews) and his daughter Mrs. Smith (Sanda). Rearden is nevertheless apprehended and thrown into a high security jail.

Due to Rearden's perceived diamond wealth, he is a prime candidate to be busted out of jail by a shady criminal organization in exchange for a fat fee, and his fellow escapee is Slade (Ian Bannen), a communist spy. The break-out lands Rearden and Slade in an isolated Irish mansion as a staging point for points beyond, and that is where Rearden's true identity as an agent is betrayed. Mackintosh's real mission is to expose the shady politicos providing support for spies like Slade, but they turn out to be more ruthless than he expected, leaving Rearden and Mrs. Smith having to fend for themselves and battle the traitors.

Co-written by Walter Hill, The Mackintosh Man succeeds in creating a grim le Carre cold war ambience, aided by a rather depressed London of the early 1970s. Huston and Newman ensure that the film is always engaging, and Sanda is interesting to watch if only to monitor how far her temperature dips below zero. Andrews, Bannen and Mason bring beefy British heft to the secondary roles.

The Irish landscape and the Maltese setting add an element of freshness, but ultimately The Mackintosh Man doesn't succeed in ever really taking off, and the final chapter regresses from an intelligent spy story to a routine action flick. It's a film that with plenty of thoughtful density but insufficient airflow to sparkle.

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Movie Review: Chinatown (1974)

From the pen of screenwriter Robert Towne and the vision of director Roman Polanski comes a modern film noir that brings back to life the glory days of dark, complex and slow-boiling detective stories filled with seedy and shady characters, all of whom are more dangerous and desperate than smart.


Los Angeles, 1937. Private investigator Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), who formerly worked for the police department in Chinatown, is hired to confirm the infidelity of Hollis Mulwray, the Chief Engineer with the city's water company.  Los Angeles is in the middle of a drought; there is a pressure to build a new dam; Mulwray is uncovering a midnight plot to inexplicably dump large amounts of water from the city's reservoir; Jake snaps photos of Mulwray with a young woman; and soon Mulwray is very dead.

As Jake noses around one of the city's water reservoirs to untangle the web of Mulwray's murder, his nose is sliced open by a knife-wielding thug hired to scare him off. In next to no time Jake finds himself unwittingly drawn into a large complex conspiracy involving a simulated water crisis being played out for a few powerful individuals to gain control over huge amounts of real-estate and shape the future of the city.

Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), the widow of Hollis, is caught in the middle between her late husband's legacy and her powerful father's pure evil, and turns to Jake for help. As another murder is committed, the police, including Jake's former partner in Chinatown, start to crawl all over Jake, and he slowly becomes aware that Evelyn is hiding a devastating secret that threatens to destroy her and anyone standing too close.

For Chinatown, Polanski re-creates a depressed Los Angeles as a small town filled with the thin veneer of respectability, but with a rotten core almost punching through to the surface. Jack Nicholson portrays Jake Gittes as a smart mouth happy to make a good living cruising through the underbelly of LA, who nevertheless soon realizes that he is facing events much bigger than he can handle. Faye Dunaway oozes, in turn, power, mystery, danger, seductiveness, and ultimately sheer vulnerability as she loses her husband and finds her life hurtling towards sudden destruction.

And in a majestic nod to the golden era of film noir, John Huston makes an appearance as Noah Cross, the mastermind behind the plot to regain the power he once held over the entire City. In 1942, Huston wrote the screenplay and directed The Maltese Falcon, one of the foundation stones of the noir style.

Towne's Chinatown script allows the film to gather the dust of depression and doom as the story unfolds. Every time Jake learns more about Hollis, Evelyn, or Noah, he realizes how little he knows about what is going on, and how much bigger the conspiracy unfolding around him really is.

With Jake trying but unable to control the overwhelming forces conspiring around him and Evelyn, the film slowly but surely edges towards a grim ending, inevitably in Jake's old Chinatown turf. In the aftermath, with no part of Jake's plan having worked out, Towne nails down in movie history the film's defeatist final line: "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."

Jake will not forget the events of that night, just as Chinatown is a brilliantly unforgettable experience.

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