Someone To Watch Over Me. (15.)
Directed by Ridley Scott. 1987.
Starring Tom Berenger, Mimi Rogers, Lorraine Bracco, Tony DiBenedetto, Andreas Katsulas and Jerry Orbach. Out on Blu-ray from Indicator Film on May 17th. 102 mins.
From a certain perspective, this late 80s thriller is the defining film of Ridley Scott's career: it's the one that made you realise he wasn't a genius. At the time of his second and third films, Alien and Blade Runner, there was excited talk of him being the John Ford of sci-fi films. His fourth film in 1985, the unicorn and demons fantasy Legend, was a horrible mess and a complete flop, but as absolutely nobody saw it then, or later, this was effectively his follow up to Blade Runner. A slick glitzy thriller about a New York cop (Berenger) falling in love with a rich socialite murder witness (Rogers) that he has to protect from a psychotic mobster, it is something far more disappointing than Legend: adequate and competent. And it set the course for the rest of his career: slick, spectacularly well made but largely unremarkable films. It's like Kubrick following up 2001 with The Tamarind Seed.
Over thirty years on, I can still feel the sense of being totally underwhelmed after coming out of the cinema. Still, that was a long time ago, feelings change. The film's opening credits are a beautiful aerial shot of the Chrysler building and the New York skyline at night, accompanied on the soundtrack by a version of the title track – performed by Sting. Well, I guess you should appreciate a film that gets its disappointment in early, that doesn't dally with your hopes.
(How do you make a film called Someone To Watch Over Me with three versions of the title song and not one of them be Ella Fitzgerald's?)
The film is more romance than thriller. There are four suspense scenes, the best of which is a hall of mirrors shootout in her plush apartment that is inspired perhaps by the one in The Lady From Shanghai. The rest of the film is focussed on their tentative across-the-social-divide romance: he's a little bit NYPD Blue; she's a little bit Bonfire of the Vanities. This is extended out into a love triangle with his wife Lorraine Bracco.
Now the performances are really good. A Big Ron spotter's badge for whoever saw the potential in Bracco and gave her a first leading role in a movie. Berenger is convincingly New York coppish: big, broad and not too smart. He can get a bit too wide-eyed innocent in the romantic moments; a puppy dog with a badge, a heart too easily bruised. Mimi though, is a sparkling presence, as she always was. This woman was a star, that somehow went unborn.
But the characters they are playing are so flat. It's bearable when they are framed looking pretty in plush interiors but anything resembling real life is almost painful. The film was Ridley's first in a contemporary setting, his move away from fantasy to reality but it has the set Ridley Scott look and feel: rain on windows, billowing smoke, shafts of light cutting across the image and the Flower Duet from Lakme on the soundtrack and it renders everything superficial. He cinematographies all the life out of the film. Roger's apartment is so lavish, so meticulously designed you can't imagine anyone actually being able to relax there. The cops turn up for guard duty, have classic music blasted at them and it looks like they are on duty at a museum. His 1982 vision of 2018 Los Angeles in Blade Runner is more believable, more real, more lived-in, than his 1987 version of 1987 New York.
This was Scott's attempt to show that he could make a film on schedule and on budget. Spielberg attempted something for the fifth film of his career, but that turned out to be Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Respecting a budget and a schedule should be a primary aim of any director and the idea that profligacy is some kind of artistic integrity is nonsense. But, just sometimes, it would be helpful to let yourself go a bit. Scott keeps churning out movies, usually pretty good ones, but how long has it been since you last had any expectations for one of his films being something special?
Directed by Ridley Scott. 1987.
Starring Tom Berenger, Mimi Rogers, Lorraine Bracco, Tony DiBenedetto, Andreas Katsulas and Jerry Orbach. Out on Blu-ray from Indicator Film on May 17th. 102 mins.
From a certain perspective, this late 80s thriller is the defining film of Ridley Scott's career: it's the one that made you realise he wasn't a genius. At the time of his second and third films, Alien and Blade Runner, there was excited talk of him being the John Ford of sci-fi films. His fourth film in 1985, the unicorn and demons fantasy Legend, was a horrible mess and a complete flop, but as absolutely nobody saw it then, or later, this was effectively his follow up to Blade Runner. A slick glitzy thriller about a New York cop (Berenger) falling in love with a rich socialite murder witness (Rogers) that he has to protect from a psychotic mobster, it is something far more disappointing than Legend: adequate and competent. And it set the course for the rest of his career: slick, spectacularly well made but largely unremarkable films. It's like Kubrick following up 2001 with The Tamarind Seed.
Over thirty years on, I can still feel the sense of being totally underwhelmed after coming out of the cinema. Still, that was a long time ago, feelings change. The film's opening credits are a beautiful aerial shot of the Chrysler building and the New York skyline at night, accompanied on the soundtrack by a version of the title track – performed by Sting. Well, I guess you should appreciate a film that gets its disappointment in early, that doesn't dally with your hopes.
(How do you make a film called Someone To Watch Over Me with three versions of the title song and not one of them be Ella Fitzgerald's?)
The film is more romance than thriller. There are four suspense scenes, the best of which is a hall of mirrors shootout in her plush apartment that is inspired perhaps by the one in The Lady From Shanghai. The rest of the film is focussed on their tentative across-the-social-divide romance: he's a little bit NYPD Blue; she's a little bit Bonfire of the Vanities. This is extended out into a love triangle with his wife Lorraine Bracco.
Now the performances are really good. A Big Ron spotter's badge for whoever saw the potential in Bracco and gave her a first leading role in a movie. Berenger is convincingly New York coppish: big, broad and not too smart. He can get a bit too wide-eyed innocent in the romantic moments; a puppy dog with a badge, a heart too easily bruised. Mimi though, is a sparkling presence, as she always was. This woman was a star, that somehow went unborn.
But the characters they are playing are so flat. It's bearable when they are framed looking pretty in plush interiors but anything resembling real life is almost painful. The film was Ridley's first in a contemporary setting, his move away from fantasy to reality but it has the set Ridley Scott look and feel: rain on windows, billowing smoke, shafts of light cutting across the image and the Flower Duet from Lakme on the soundtrack and it renders everything superficial. He cinematographies all the life out of the film. Roger's apartment is so lavish, so meticulously designed you can't imagine anyone actually being able to relax there. The cops turn up for guard duty, have classic music blasted at them and it looks like they are on duty at a museum. His 1982 vision of 2018 Los Angeles in Blade Runner is more believable, more real, more lived-in, than his 1987 version of 1987 New York.
This was Scott's attempt to show that he could make a film on schedule and on budget. Spielberg attempted something for the fifth film of his career, but that turned out to be Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Respecting a budget and a schedule should be a primary aim of any director and the idea that profligacy is some kind of artistic integrity is nonsense. But, just sometimes, it would be helpful to let yourself go a bit. Scott keeps churning out movies, usually pretty good ones, but how long has it been since you last had any expectations for one of his films being something special?
