This is the second film directed by Lee Tamahori. In the debut film, he showed the viewer that a great power once lurked in all of us and the most difficult thing was to be able to feel it again in yourself and remain human, in circumstances that distance us from this achievement. This tape was the first work of the director in a big movie, released to the mass audience. Stylistically, the tape is close to ' Secrets of Los Angeles' and the best films of the noir genre. I got to the film only in this decade, and therefore managed to experience the joy of acquaintance with the tape. Now I am ready to share my impressions of what I saw and some thoughts on this film.
A narrative criterion or narrative. A detective unfolds before us, slow but interesting. There's a crime, there's an alleged villain and some evidence. Which will lead the hero along with the audience to the point of disclosure. In this tape, the main catching element is not so much the detective and the investigation, as the relationship within the unit. Four guys have been given permission for some abuse of power. Therefore, crimes other than the main one are not presented here. Max Hoover's character is also ambiguous, his kindness with fists and love to the grave. But without the skeletons in the closet, it wouldn't be so interesting. Drama is well written, it is easy for heroes to empathize. The bearer of the superidea here is General Timss and from his mouth the thought of the death of hundreds for the life of thousands sounds. The cycle of biological life in nature. And on a simpler level, cheating is not good.
Visual criterion or technical support of the tape. This tape has a rather conservative visual range, without unnecessary computerization. It's all life-size. Operator Haskell Wexler works well with the camera, building in the frame alternation of plans and transitions from one location to another. Also beautifully removed survey plans with views of the desert, the city, the interior and the environment. All this is important when trying to fill the story with the right atmosphere and visual content. Some of them are worthy of designing your desktop. Dave Grusin’s compositional work is also worth mentioning, since the music from those years not only works for the general atmosphere, creating an emotional background for the events taking place, but also in itself can become an excellent addition to your music collection. The pluses of the tape still record a good stylization for the fifties. I am not sure that many could boast of it then, but the graininess of the picture, together with the appropriate music and the selection of costumes for artists, were able to ultimately immerse in the atmosphere, in the times when we did not live, but would like to visit there.
The acting here is kept at a good level. Nick Nolte looks good for his character. Monolith, lump, speaks rarely, but to the point. It's good at giving you emotions in the right scenes. His opponent was John Malkovich, who also has to behave tactfully, having a fig behind his back. Or I thought so. Jennifer Connelly is beautiful, not many, but she is beautiful. Melanie Griffith works well with drama. In the background, Chazz Palminterri also showed himself well. He's not a villain here for the first time in a long time. This is the second film in ninety-fifth year in which he does not play a gangster or a bandit. Whether he had such a great year, or he got a little tired of this role. In general, I tried to feel lighter notes in my characters. Each actor, not without a strong guiding hand of the director, was able to penetrate the way of thinking and mood of his character, sometimes giving out his best role, but within the circumstances proposed by the script, they all existed convincingly. And female characters were remembered also due to their charm and charm.
As a result, Cinema turned out well. The plot is simple, but not stupid, there are even good thoughts and ideas that are interspersed with the story being told. I liked the acting and I didn’t expect it to work in the third act. I advise fans of the genre and everyone who set a goal to get acquainted with the filmography of Tamahori. The rest of them taste and desire. All health, peace and pleasant viewing.
The first thing that draws attention to this film, directed by Lee Tamahori, is of course the cast. With a budget of 29 million, the New Zealander managed not only to qualitatively work on the recreation of the atmosphere of Los Angeles of the sample of the 40s and 50s, but also to charge the film with a recognizable cast in full! Yes, Kyle Chandler may not have been so well known at the time, but the names of John Malkovich, Nick Nolte, Chris Penn, Michael Madsen, Jennifer Connolly, as well as Bruce Dern, Trit Williams, Chazz Palminteri and Daniel Baldwin were not just on the hearsay, but were “famous enough to be called.”
By the way, the cast could be even more fantastic if Jack Nicholson accepted the role of police chief Bill Parker. But it was he who recommended Bruce Dern for this role.
The film tells the story of a squad of police officers who were given serious powers to fight organized crime in the City of Angels. Max Hoover (Noltie), Ellroy Coolidge (Palminteri), Eddie Hall (Madsen) and Arthur Relia (Chris Penn) are not shy about coping with criminals - they act violently enough that anyone dares to disobey them and are a "horror flying on the wings of the night" for anyone who transgresses the law. Their next case is the investigation of the death of a girl found in a desert area.
Her body is mutilated, as if all her bones were broken, crushed into the sand, and her face disfigured beyond recognition. Nevertheless, Max Hoover recognizes his former mistress in her features and to some extent considers solving the murder a matter of honor for himself. However, as befits in films of this kind - neo-noir thrillers and detectives telling about criminals and the police of the middle of the last century, everything is not so simple and the perpetrators of the death of the girl sit in too high positions to go on trial.
So, the film “Mulholland Rock” although it tells about a fictional crime, nevertheless tells about the real police force that existed at that time, which was called “Gangster Hunters”. And here, of course, the viewer can understand that the film by Ruben Fleischer with exactly the same name, reflects the activities of the same squad. Only in these two films completely different cases are investigated and members of the squad are completely different people.
In its stylistics, "Mulholland Rock" is also quite identical to "Secrets of Los Angeles", although it is probably more appropriate to say the opposite, because Lee Tamahori made his film before Curtis Hanson did it. Anyway, in both films there are several cops, and the investigation is tied to the murder of women.
Maybe "Mulholland Rock" lacked a certain eventfulness - the film sometimes develops in a viscous manner and the viewer has to see the sorry face of Nick Nolty (for me, he did not particularly fit into this role - he has too square a face... a man who punches the wall with his head, but does not appear to be a hero-lover). The shortage of bright scenes, although observed, is not critical - the film is not in the spirit of a gangster action movie, but a detective with elements of a thriller and much of the picture is tied to the final scenes, which shed light on the mysterious death of a girl in a desert area.
Of course, the director gives certain tips to the viewer, and it is not by chance that one of the few evidences turns out to be a piece of glass similar to the one that the hero of Nick Nolty then picks up. But if you haven’t seen this movie, you might be surprised at how the girl was killed.
Tamahori's film turned out to be quite attractive. Of course, its strong side is the cast. The plot also looks whole, without any plot inconsistencies. Although I personally would like more screen time for Madsen, Penn and Palminteri - still the plot is focused only on Nolty, while such venerable guys were pushed into the background and the viewer does not know anything about their personas.
The director also showed the confrontation between, say, two law enforcement agencies endowed with certain powers, which, however, do not work everywhere. We are talking about the army and the police and what their rules and regulations are. The neonuarity of “Mulholland Rock” here is well intertwined with the conspiracy theory, which clearly does not protrude outward, but due to the footage shown, it allows the viewer to roughly understand in which direction the plot will develop further.
But look at you. I do not impose my opinion on anyone.
If you're afraid, don't do it.
Do not be afraid, do not be afraid.
Don't regret it.
Genghis Khan
The monumental “Buick” of 1949 in the color of rotten cherry famously braked at the shining lights of the club. Falling out of the convertible four strong men in strict suits and hats out of habit brazenly pushed the doorman and headed to the richly served table. A lover of cultural leisure, who fled Chicago in the hope that the police in Los Angeles are lazier, and in a terrible dream could not imagine how cruelly wrong he was. Special detachment of Maxwell Hoover with the authorization of the authorities for the most shameless restoration of order did not ceremony and this time. As if the annoying weed of the mafia was pulled from the table, taken to the top of the cliff, popularly explained that in their city with bandits do not almighty, and gave maximum acceleration to the very foot. It was Max’s next victim, and the last thing an undaunted cop could think that night was that another case could bring his own downfall closer. In every sense, and especially in the moral sense.
The Hollywood debut of New Zealand commercial director, freelance photographer and gullible dreamer Lee Tamahori is able to make more than one pair of hands reach for a headscarf to brush off nostalgic tears. Mulholland Rock was both conceived and realized as a homage to classic noir, the adventures of Sam Peckinpah's Wild Gang and Don Siegel's Dirty Harry. The standard set of types - a cynical detective, a faithful retinue, an influential security officer and, of course, a femme fatale - played in the modern era with a spectrum of well-known colors. In terms of stylization, you can not dig into the tape, this is the work of a keen enthusiast who grew up on films of a certain genre and purposefully preparing to say a weighty word in it. A tough policeman is drawn into a dangerous business, realizing with displeasure how deep his personal interest is, because the deceased libertine gave him many hours of passion. But the fact that in her vicious list were gentlemen from the military department, and set the film bandwagon.
The “black” cinema revived in the early 80s in about the same years showed that it is not enough for a director to be a sincere fan. It is highly desirable to have reliable supports at hand - dizzying intrigue and a couple of unpredictable twists. And if Lawrence Kasdan in “Body Heat” brilliantly played the prepared trump cards, then Tamahori, like the devil from Butusov’s song, did not have them at all. The New Zealander had at his disposal the alluring entourage of gangster Los Angeles, a scattering of magnificent actors with a black diamond - a young and terribly desirable Jennifer Connelly, witty dialogues and original humor, but the plot itself is squat and shallow. The tooth on the victim, as is usual in noir, sharpened in many, and no one would like to get compromising records about love pleasures, but the status of the designated culprit, and most importantly his motivation - to an offensive petty and absurd. Much more interesting are the pathetic speeches of the voluptuous general, played by John Malkovich, and the theory of responsibility for the destinies of those who do not possess it. And Max Hoover himself, and other “masters of life”, real and false, used to deal with unwanted, without hesitation crunching on them heels, but as an invisible loop of a stranglehold approaches their necks – they are no better than defeated “lokhs”.
In the episode, claiming to be the most juicy, courageous Nick Nolte hangs cracks and kicks handsome Daniel Baldwin - this is how the police explain to the FBI that there is nothing to stick in someone else's garden. Max himself is also attacked by many, and he ironically shares the fate of Al Capone: invulnerable to bullets and handcuffs, burned out of absurdity. In the choice of Tamahori embodied the fear of retreat from the strict canon. Paradox: in a film full of scenes of violence, death is devoid of charm, which significantly impoverishes the picture itself. It feels like the director was afraid to go all-in and squeeze the adrenaline pedal to the end. In the end, he recalls, as after a hint, that noir should not have a happy ending, but the naturalness of the final alignment is not much more effective than the culmination with the announcement of the true criminal. Naturally, with amorous affairs, the director did not ask: Melanie Griffith as Max’s wife played on the Golden Raspberry (though she did not), and all the charm of Connelly fit into flashbacks.
The pompous declaration of the burden of leadership, to Lee Tamahori’s chagrin, proved prophetic, and his subsequent career at the Dream Factory was a testament to that. It was he who almost became a gravedigger of “bond”, removing the computerized suck “Die, but not now”, and he could not squeeze the maximum out of a good “Prophet” with Cage and Julianne Moore. According to Senka, the hat, and there is nothing surprising that the “Rock Mulholland” disappeared behind the edge of the promoted movie, becoming a spectacle purely for connoisseurs. Not the worst outcome, but the beginning and skillfully selected aesthetics favored more. His burden as a good director as he could - endured, and perhaps not his fault, that he did not turn into a second Roman Polanski, who gave "Chinatown" a new impetus to the periodically bending, but always rebelling "black" genre.
Los Angeles, early 1950s. The organized crime police unit led by the charismatic Max Hoover receives special powers from his superiors. In fact, four cops become untouchable. But when the body of a prostitute Ellison is found in the vicinity of the city, and the truth about Max’s relationship with the deceased girl comes to the surface, his situation is noticeably complicated.
It turns out Max secretly dated Allison almost every day for six months. In addition, it turns out that she was also the mistress of General Timms, engaged in experiments with nuclear weapons. Despite the blackmail - Max's dates were filmed - he continues the investigation, which leads him to a secret military base run by Timms.
Despite the fact that other events sometimes look not entirely plausible, and the plot design gives a certain artificiality, Li Tamahori quite successfully stylized here under the "black film", although fundamentally departs from its basic rule, according to which a cop by definition could not be the main character. But it is the sense of style that atones for all other sins here.
In fact, the director, who came from New Zealand, passed his first Hollywood exam with dignity, which cannot be said about his next American film. However, academics ignored this work of his, in just a year to amicably raise on the shield “Secrets of Los Angeles” Curtis Hanson, which in genre, and plot, and theme, and time of action strongly echoes “Mulholland Rock”, not quite rightly left out of business.