Review: "The Young Americans"
"Take a glass of that light brown ale / and a purple pill,
If the ale don't get you to / sure as hell the pill will,
Oh Mommy, Mommy / Please may I go downtown?
He's gonna walk on the water Put the money down (In a tin cup.)"
--Pete Townshend (and possibly Roger Daltrey as well)
The threads of an uneasy alliance between Britain and the US, youth, drugs, crime and family are woven in this magic carpet ride to hell of a film. Harvey Keitel is a DEA officer called to London to investigate a number of deaths among the London club scene that has confounded British police. Soon after he arrives, London police officers as well as nightlife/drug circuit kingpins start dying explosive deaths. All roads are leading Keitel to the mysterious Jack Frazer, played by Viggo Mortensen, the paths are strewn with bodies and yes, the mission is personal. Mortensen's Frazer is a walking testimony to why the strong, silent type is popular: he's drop dead gorgeous (duh!), but destroys that image the moment he opens his mouth, that is if he's not running some slick con. Even if the cons are slick and convincing, Frazer is unrepentantly reprehensible, so if you're a fan of Mortensen behaving badly, "The Young Americans" is a must-see. Craig Kelly and Thandie Newton are also memorable as young lovers in the wrong club at the wrong time.
While "The Young Americans" is a rather sadistic, by the numbers, neo-noir film that takes itself way too seriously, it provided a revelation for me. The revelation in this case is something you'll never find in a public
service announcement and maybe with all the films that have been made and the ink that's been thrown on the subject, it needs to be said: Cocaine is a boring drug. I'm taking a fairly objective view on an arguably 100% addictive drug that a substance that's effect lasts 15-20 minutes, numbs you out and makes you grind your teeth isn't worth the expense and risks (one of the reasons Mortensen's character habitually chews gum is most likely to mask that he grinds his teeth). Sure it can make you think you're funnier, more attractive or intelligent than you really are, but so can a lot of other substances, many of which are legal and not nearly as costly. Cocaine can make sex with a boring lover seem great and sex with a great lover seem run of the mill, it can also rot your septum (see Sigmund Freud) or blow a hole through your heart in your early twenties. Forget the dire warnings and horror stories and consider this: if shooting, smoking, snorting or pressing a topical analgesic against your gums or any other sensitive part of your body is the highlight of your day or night, you need to get out more and to different places. Then it's over, like Andy Warhol's fame concept, in 15 minutes; leaves you depressed and wanting more just to break even, which is where the 100% addictive issue factors into the picture. "The Young Americans" falls in somewhere between "Reefer Madness" and the Guy Ritchie films and would do well with some of the humor in either, whether or not it's intentional. There's a scene between Mortensen and one of the party girls that had excellent comedic potential, but just ended up being ugly and more disturbing than just about anything else I've seen him do. While Mortensen has claimed to find something to like in all his characters, I can imagine that Frazer was a hard case. I stuck with "The Young Americans" just to see how much street karma Frazer could rack up before he had to burn some, but won't reveal if or when that happens.
If you last used cocaine sometime in the eighties, are still grinding your
teeth and grumbling about how it wasn't bloody well worth it, "The Young
Americans" may offer a similar affirmation. So much of youth and life in fact is about sorting the profound from the profane (which are not always mutually exclusive) and learning to discern what's meaningful from the temporary hit that dissolves with stunning speed. So if the neo-noir genre is your thing, rent "The Young Americans;" if not, I've taken the risk, so you don't have to.
Colleen Wallace
Review: Deception/Ruby Cairo (1993)
Reviews by Colleen Wallace
Andie MacDowell and Viggo Mortensen are Bessie and Johnny Faro and seem the picture perfect, American-as-apple pie bride and groom during the opening credits, right down to Johnny's obsession with baseball. They have three beautiful young children and Johnny travels a lot, perhaps too much, with his airplane salvage company. What could possibly be wrong with this idyllic picture? Oh, plenty, considering that a wedding is not a marriage (no matter how pretty the partners) and the picture wound up being called "Deception."
The bubble is burst when Johnny appears to have gone down in one of his planes and Bessie sets out first to bury and then to find him. Liam Neeson plays a humanitarian spokesman Bessie meets and becomes intrigued with in her travels.
While both Mortensen and Neeson hold up their ends valiantly, this film implodes in the middle from a flimsy script and a leading lady who has more looks than acting talent. Everyone is reprising roles where they've appeared in other, more memorable films: MacDowell as the wronged wife seen in "sex, lies and video tape," Neeson as the world weary, reluctant hero in "Schindler's List" and Mortensen as the mysterious, dangerous working class anti-hero in "the Indian Runner." There's a whole subplot about Johnny's teeth and if you must know how Mortensen would look with perfect, movie star, blinding white teeth, "Deception" is required viewing. He earns his drop dead gorgeous bad boy virtuoso credentials here: there's even a small black cat he holds briefly who seems to think he's yummy, enthusiastically licking his hands. While that may have been one of the distractions of performing with animals, it's a rather spectacular metaphor whether or not it was intentional.
It will be difficult for women (and most likely a few men) watching to decide whether their desire is stronger to serve hard time for shooting Johnny between the eyes, or to throw their arms around his sweaty neck, but gratefully it's just a movie and all we have to do is watch. Had Mortensen or Neeson more screen time, either may have saved "Deception" from committing an unpardonable sin of a mystery/suspense film: Boring the audience. On the other hand, perhaps the reason Johnny disappeared in the first place was that he was in danger of Bessie boring him to death.
Review: "Fresh Horses"
So the brat pack, headed by Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy made a lot of box office bank in the 1980's and "Fresh Horses" was made around the time their respective stars began fading. It's a reprise of the "privileged boy meets working class girl" story told more successfully in "Pretty in Pink." "Fresh Horses" lacks the brilliance of Harry Dean Stanton (which "Pretty in Pink" had) and tries to be too many things, so it winds up lacking coherence.
There are moments of 80's brat pack pool partying, he-said/she-said intrigue and the difference between the way wealthy corporate/collegiate types in the city and poor folks in the country gather and let their hair down. Unfortunately, it's all constructed around a couple with limited acting skills and negligible screen chemistry, so it's hard to follow and harder to care about what happens to the by this time predictable pairing of McCarthy and Ringwald.
Ben Stiller (with big 80's hair) plays McCarthy's calculating best friend with a sense for marrying brilliantly that would make both the writers of 1992's "Metropolis" and Jane Austen proud. While Stiller, Patti D'Arbanville and Viggo Mortensen all do their level best in supporting roles, it's not enough to save "Fresh Horses" from a script that doesn't say much and lacklustre leads. A footnote to "Fresh Horses" is that Sean Penn saw Mortensen as a character named Green in this film and decided to audition him for the role of Frank Roberts in "the Indian Runner." If you're cruising the video store and have your pick, skip "Fresh Horses" and rent "the Indian Runner." It will be cash and time better spent.
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