The Hunter and Point Blank

Donald E. Westlake was an extremely prolific writer; he wrote something like eighty-eight books, not counting juvenilia and "paperback original trash" like Campus Doll. There have been many writers more proficient than Westlake - Georges Simenon, for example, wrote two hundred books and had time to sleep with Josephine Baker (amongst dozens of other women). What's notable about Westlake is that, like Simenon, he was actually a very good writer. Though he could be very funny, many Westlake fans say his best books are the Parker novels, which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark. Parker is a criminal, thief, murderer, and possibly sociopath. He's very good at what he does, but what he does is rarely good. In The Hunter, the first Parker book, our protagonist is out for revenge against his wife and her lover, who stole his (ill-gotten) money and left him for dead in a burning house. Parker, despite killing one cop, an innocent woman, and a few mob types, somehow manages to get his revenge and get away. He never gets caught for long, and since Westlake died on the last day of last year, he'll never stay caught.

The Hunter has been in the news again lately. The University of Chicago Press has begun to reissue the Parker novels; they're up to book nine (The Rare Coin Score) as I write. Slightly more high-profile, acclaimed comics writer and illustrator Darwyn Cooke has released a graphic adaptation of The Hunter; he plans to adapt three more Parker stories. I have not read Cooke's Hunter yet - it came out jut a few days back - but it is apparently fantastic. A longish preview (twenty pages) is available online. Cooke is a very talented man, and the Parker novels offer so much noirish atmosphere and violence that I can't imagine Cooke's adaptation being anything short of great. Still, The Hunter graphic novel is hardly the first adaptation of the original Parker novel, which has been filmed twice, once with Lee Marvin as Point Blank and once with Mel Gibson as Payback. The latter film shows up on cable all the time, but it's the first movie I want to talk about here. It's a minor masterpiece of crime cinema.

Aside from introducing a love interest and adding an ambiguous ending, Point Blank follows The Hunter's plot fairly closely, yet the film and the book have entirely different styles. The New York of The Hunter could be the city in any decade from the forties to the early sixties (when the book was written). The film relocates the action to Los Angeles and has a very sixties look, with psychedelic night clubs, kitschy billboards, and all the era's signature couture. And where The Hunter is fast-paced, Point Blank often seems meditative - there are lots of very short flashbacks in the film, such that one gunshot will be followed by a shot of an earlier gunshot or one woman lying in bed will lead to another (this time dead) woman lying in bed. There are also a few touches of surrealism, especially near the beginning of the film. The DVD case mentions the movie's "New Wave" technique, but for all its technical finesse and directorial oddities, Point Blank doesn't share the New Wave interest in subverting its genre. Point Blank, for all its affectations, remains a crime film, not a parody of one. The movie's title might sound a trifle cliche and generic, but the finale of the film fully justifies the title. What seems lazy at the beginning of the movie seems brilliant at the end.

Lee Marvin is perfect as Parker, though he's actually called Walker in the film, as Westlake would only let a filmmaker use the Parker name if they planned to make a series. Marvin doesn't talk much, though his silence can - and does - speak volumes. Walker is not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but the film cuts some of his more brutal crimes, most notably the murder of a policeman and the inadvertent killing of a sickly hostage. And while the book has a few morbidly funny moments, Point Blank thrives on understated black humor - Walker's foes tend to die in embarrassing ways, not that our (anti)hero ever laughs. He's too much of a professional to do that, the bastard.

I mentioned Point Blank's surrealism earlier; I think it's 0ne of the films strongest points. In an early scene, Walker has a fistfight behind the scenes at a jazz club. There's a singer, but the song he sings doesn't have much in the way of lyrics. In fact, it's almost all screams. In another scene, Walker throws several bottles of perfumes, oils, and soaps into a bathtub. The camera lingers on the shattered glass and the mixing red and green fluids. Shortly thereafter, Walker leaves the room and enters a living room from which all the furniture (which we have seen earlier) has vanished. Walker, the hard man, sits down in the corner of the room and holds his head. It's a small moment that says a great deal about our protagonist's mental state - Whether or not the furniture has really vanished from the room, Walker is desolated by (small spoiler) the death of his wife, who lived in the apartment. He is a bad man and a cold one, but he's still (mostly) human.

My friends know I generally prefer books to films, but in the case of Parker, I think the movie is better than the book. The book may be more hardboiled and brutal, but it (intentionally) lacks the style and humor of Point Blank. If you can, read the book, then watch the movie. You'll get two very different, if complementary, takes on the same story. The Hunter is short and action-packed; it will take you about two hours to read it - you could easily read the book and watch the film in the same day. I'm not sure I would recommend that particular course of action, but if you have any interest in stories of crime, you should really experience both Point Blank and The Hunter. Hell, if you find you really like Parker, you could even watch the Mel Gibson version. It has its moments.

And now I discuss the most important difference between Point Blank and The Hunter. Major spoilers ahead.

The Hunter ends with Parker escaping from the police and the mob and New York; the book ends with Parker taking part in a new heist. Point Blank ends where it began, on Alcatraz Island, site of Walker's betrayal by his wife. Everything has come full circle; Walker has returned with a coerced and threatened mob leader, who guides Walker to the money he is owed. There's some violence, but Walker escapes. The camera then pans up from Alcatraz and in the distance we see... Alcatraz. The implication is (as Walker's girlfriend puts it after an especially cold act) "You really did die on Alcatraz!" If the entire movie is just Walker's wish-fulfillment dream of revenge, all those surrealistic touches and flashbacks make sense: we are watching the hallucinations of a dying man. We no longer have to suspend our disbelief that Walker, shot multiple times, could swim away from Alcatraz. It's a pretty neat ending, and one that was probably more original in 1967.

On the other hand, there are quite a few problems with this ending. For one thing, it rather rules out a sequel. This is a shame, as Marvin does a wonderful job with his character, and we'd like to see further adventures. Furthermore, there are several parts in the movie where the point of view doesn't belong to Parker. It already stretches belief that Walker would have such a detailed and coherent dream; belief breaks when you begin to consider all the scenes where Walker is not present. If I were dying on Alcatraz, I don't think I would dream of long meetings between mobsters. The ending of Point Blank, in short, is really cool until you begin to think about it. It's a shame the film stumbles at the end, because most of it is so good.

Yes, Dammit, I Liked the Movie: "Taken"

Taken may be the best bad movie that I have ever seen. This may take some explaining. The script and acting are generally mediocre, the plotline is pandering and the violence meaningless. And did I mention how many clichés the film evokes? Despite being shot in Paris by a Frenchman, the filmmakers managed to work in a gutless Frenchman out of an anti-Vichy propaganda film.

And yet Taken is one of the most satisfying films I have seen in years. The plot is simple: Ex-CIA “preventer” of bad things Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) has moved back to the United States to get back in touch with his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who lives with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen). Kim goes on a trip to Paris. Kim gets kidnapped. Mills has ninety-six hours in which to shoot, throttle, torture, and beat various Very Bad People to get his daughter back from the sex slavers who have taken her.

The most famous scene in Taken occurs near the beginning of the film. Liam Neeson’s character is talking on the phone to his daughter, who hides under a Parisian bed as a group of kidnappers look for her. The kidnappers find her, and Neeson gives a stirring speech into the phone, a speech that ends with a vow that “I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.” For the rest of the movie, he does exactly that. Thankfully, Neeson’s speech, featured in all the film’s trailers and on the movie’s poster, is not the coolest portion of the film. Bryan Mills’ vengeance lives up to his vow – In the next seventy minutes, dozens of heartless and nameless criminals get hit by trucks, electrocuted, knifed, shot, and otherwise liquidated.

Taken was not a particularly expensive film to make; the budget was apparently less than $30 million. I think this actually works to the film’s advantage; director Pierre Morel couldn’t go overboard with the explosions and set pieces – though Our Hero at one point claims he would “tear down the Eiffel Tower” (!) to get his daughter back, there aren’t too many buildings collapsing in our hero’s wake. Indeed, I only recall one or two explosions in the entire film, and even those fireworks are fairly small. Instead of burning down half the city with CGI, Taken emphasizes brutal fist- and gun-fights. Though there’s not too much blood, Taken nevertheless feels like a “hard” PG-13. The movie, after all, features, amongst other things, sex slavers, prostitution, drug abuse, torture, and quite a few bullets to heads.

Liam Neeson really makes Taken. He’s lean and gruff enough to be believable as the cunning and brutal killer Bryan Mills, but he’s also a good enough actor to be believable – and even endearing – as a father trying to get back into his daughter’s life. He makes us wince at the faux-pas he makes in civilian life and cheer when he dispatches the bad guys.

A lot has been made of Taken’s resemblance to the TV series 24. Both Taken and 24 feature US government operatives forced to torture, maim, and kill to save their pretty daughters named Kim. Yet Taken’s departures from the 24 formula are what make it so much more enjoyable than the TV show. For one thing, Taken is fast-paced and focused; the film has no equivalent of 24’s tedious side plots (Taken’s Kim never runs into a mountain lion). I don’t think Neeson ever utters that irritating 24 catchphrase “within the hour.” Bryan Mills is also much more efficient than poor Jack Bauer, who never really seems to resolve anything until the last episode of the season. Jack’s enemies tend to escape and initiate new plans; once someone ends up in Mills’ clutches, they are generally as good as dead.

Perhaps the biggest departure from 24, however, is Taken’s lack of moral ambiguity. Mills does some nasty things, to be sure, but he never seems to feel guilt or ambivalence about what he does. He even makes a few morbid jokes as he’s about to torture one of his daughter’s kidnappers. The audience gets to cheer for the violence without ever considering the morality of that violence. There’s one scene where Mills hurts an innocent, it’s true, but the film makes it clear that such injury was a necessary evil and that the person in question will suffer no long-term physical damage.

Spoilers coming up.

I know some critics have praised Taken for its “traditional” values, but there are a few aspects of the movie I think one really must take exception to. For one thing, the hero of the film, though generally likable, is disturbingly cold-hearted at times, most notably when he tortures one of the slavers with electric shocks. Once he gets the information he needs, he turns the electricity back on and walks out of the room while his victim screams. On some level, all revenge movies are built on the audience’s sadistic and vindictive tendencies, but this particular scene was particularly unpleasant.

The other issue I have with Taken involves the hero’s daughter Kim and her ill-fated traveling companion. The daughter, the script reminds us at least twice, is a virgin. Given this is a wish-fulfillment film, Kim stays that way to the end of the film. The daughter’s traveling companion Amanda seems fairly promiscuous; she ends up a dead of a drug overdose. If they hadn’t spent so much time establishing Kim’s virginity, perhaps Amanda’s death wouldn’t have played like an eighties’ slasher film, where anyone horny must die. The whole “Kim, Amanda, and Sex” subplot is by far the most awkward part of the script.

End of spoilers.

As I hope my review has made clear, I had some major issues with Taken. But for all its flaws, I still really liked the movie. It may not change the way you look at cinema or even reinvent action movies, but it is a lot of fun. It’s not an enduring work of art, but it’s a fine piece of craftsmanship.

So, should you see Taken? My advice: Watch the trailer. If it gets you at all pumped, put it at the top of your Netflix queue. There’s a lot more awesome where that came from.