Scumbunny Cinema

The Professional. Phantasmagorically unappetizing, but not nearly as bad as it should have been, in part because neither Dana Delany nor Penelope Ann Miller is in it. Luc Besson took some of the harsh edges off his hit man character (Jean Reno) by depicting him as a lactophillic simpleton who only kills people who are worse than himself, who really doesn't understand that what he does for a living is bad. who befriends a 12-year-old tartlet whose entire family has been wiped out by renegade Drug Enforcement agents headed by a demonic Gary Oldman, and who lovingly nurses a house-plant throughout the motion picture. Many, perhaps most, people viewing this film for the first time have erroneously assumed that the houseplant merely symbolizes the assassin's childlike desire to put down some permanent roots of his own. But this is too narrow a reading of Besson's subtle cinematic and metaphorical vocabulary. In fact, the killer's assiduous devotion to the mysteries of the botanical universe actually symbolizes his heartfelt desire to turn over a new leaf. Still, inescapably, this is a movie inviting us to empathize with the growing pains of a likable hit man.

Reservoir Dogs. In Quentin Taranti-no's ebulliently sadistic 1992 directorial debut, the always appealing Harvey Keitel plays an easygoing gangster who pro-vides welcome comic relief from the exploits of Michael Madsen, a lunatic who slices off a policeman's ear with a straight razor while dancing to a crummy pop tune that was popular back in the 1970s. In short, this is a movie about likable gangsters.

The Silence of the Lambs. The enormous popularity of Jonathan Demme's 1991 film is a perfect expression of the American public's mixed feelings about cannibal ism. As far as I can tell, no one in this country was especially broken up at the news that mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer had gotten his head staved in by a fellow inmate who thought he was an emissary of God in a Wisconsin prison bathroom last November. But when Demme's movie was released, the American moviegoing audience seemed to feel that Hannibal Lecter was a pretty suave fellow, an intellectually stimulating sort of chap who didn't really deserve the appalling treatment that had been meted out to him by the callous, insensitive, untrustworthy prison authorities in The Silence of the Lambs. In short, this is a movie that seeks, and actually succeeds in eliciting, compassion for a likable cannibal.

Three of Hearts. In this 1993 ball of fluff, Billy Baldwin plays a charismatic stud who makes his living by screwing rich Park Avenue matrons whose husbands cannot get it up. In short, this is a film about a likable gigolo.

True Romance. Christian Slater steals $500,000 worth of cocaine from the Detroit mob. then has trouble marketing it on the streets of Los Angeles because he, unlike the Cosa Nostra, does not have the necessary merchandising infrastructure in place. In short, this is a movie about a likable drug dealer.

Wilder Napalm. This peculiar film, released to almost universal silence in 1993, stars Dennis Quaid and Arliss Howard as feuding fraternal firebugs with telekinetic arsonous powers whose adult lives are destroyed by their unresolved feelings about a childhood prank which cost a man his life after they set his cabin on fire. "The movie concludes with a scene where the now rehabilitated Quaid, at long last reconciled with his brother, does a guest stint on David Letterman's late-night show. In other words, arson is OK if you get to meet Paul Shaffer. Or so we are to conclude from this repugnant film about likable pyromaniacs.

Purists may object that this list is incomplete without such classics as M, a film about a likable infanticide, The Informer, a film about a likable stool pigeon. The Eagle Has Landed, a movie about a likable Nazi, Bonnie and Clyde, a movie about likable bank robbers, Nuts, a film about a likable whore. Pretty Woman, a movie about a much more likable whore. Tequila Sunrise, a film about a likable drug dealer, Natural Born Killers, a film about likable serial killers, and Pulp Fiction, a film about virtually all of the above. The purists, as always, are right. But I don't want to write another word about Barbra Streisand, Oliver Stone or Quentin Tarantino, ever. And besides, whores are likable. So let me conclude this essay with a few words about 1993's smash hit, Mrs. Doubtfire, the film in which Robin Williams dresses up as a daft English nanny in an ill-conceived attempt to stay close to his estranged children.

The varied responses of the American viewing public to this film vividly illustrates the yawning chasm that divides those who enjoy movies that lionize somewhat unnerving protagonists from those who find such films completely repulsive. When I screened this movie for my two children, age 7 and 10. they were repelled by Williams's appearance in drag, particularly the sequences where he struggles in and out of that queen-sized brassiere. They found the cross-dressing Williams to be lewd, leering, predatory, hideous, frightening, revolting and creepy.

On the other hand, they really liked Hoffa.

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Joe Queenan wrote about architects in the movies for the May Movieline.

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