An analysis of the disturbing trend of movies with so-called protagonists who kidnap, assassinate, deal drugs, sell their bodies, rape and pillage, have sex with minors, and/or generally carry on in a manner our parents taught us not to admire.
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Around Christmas time of 1993, Kevin Costner appeared in a movie about an amiable kidnapper who also happened to be a murderer. A Perfect World was not your typical yuletide fare. Anything but. Making a clean break with the admirable, well-scrubbed, middle-American big-boys-next -door he had played in the past, Costner starred as a white-trash jailbird who busts out of prison, abducts a small boy, guns down his own accomplice, and then lakes the child on a violent rampage across Dixie until wizened law officer Clint Eastwood runs him into the earth. Costner's character is so unhinged that after one sequence in which he threatens to kill a black man who has taken him in for the evening and supplied him with a damned fine meal and impeccable lodging, the precocious abductee shoots him right in the guts. In crossing the line into the shadowy netherworld of justifiable manslaughter, the gun-toting tyke was clearly speaking for most Middle Americans, who generally don't warm up to this kidnapping stuff. Which is not terribly surprising, given that most middle-American moviegoers either have or still are children, and generally prefer to see kids in a pristine, cuddly, unkidnapped condition.
On the surface, the very notion of making a film whose central character is a violent low-life kidnapper seems unbelievably moronic. But when we look at the recent history of American filmmaking, we can see that the decision to cast Kevin Costner in this morally ambivalent role did have a certain logic to it. In 1992 Neil Jordan busted into the big time by directing and scripting an offbeat little number called The Crying Game, which starred Stephen Rea as a congenial member of the Irish Republican Army who helps capture a British soldier, befriends him, listens to his amusing anecdotes, and then flees the site of his murder, defects from the IRA and falls in love with the dead man's girlfriend, who turns out to be a rather well-hung man. In other words. Jordan was asking his audience to enthusiastically sympathize with one of God's rarest creations: the likable terrorist.
Next came Brian De Palma's film Carlito's Way. This action-packed tale invited the audience to commiserate with a 40-something heroin dealer and murderer who has recently been released from prison because of a minor legal technicality, and who is now trying to raise $75,000 so he can buy into a completely legitimate car rental company somewhere in the tropics. In other words, the audience was invited to sympathize with another of God's rarest creations: the likable heroin dealer.
In addition to the works of art already mentioned, Robert De Niro directed A Bronx Tale, an odious film about a mobster with a heart of gold; somebody directed Bad Girls, a movie about role-model prostitutes; and Neil Jordan came out with Interview With the Vampire, a movie about a likable if confused sucker of human blood. Just like A Perfect World, The Crying Game and Carlito's Way, each of these films invited audiences to sympathize, nay identify with, an array of morally deformed protagonists given to extravagant gestures of antisocial behavior.
At this point, many, perhaps most. Movieline readers are going to throw up their hands in exasperation and say, "All right, buster: so what's your goddamn point?" My goddamn point is this: Hollywood is not making films about congenial kidnappers, likable heroin dealers and charming terrorists because of some massive oversight, some hideous lapse of taste, some inexplicable faux pas. Hollywood is making films of this nature because it has run the numbers and determined that there is a market for these movies. By applying the peerless methodological techniques pioneered by Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich, Hollywood has determined that roughly 43 percent of the people living in the United States today are evil, and most of them are Democrats. In a nation of nearly 250 million people, that translates into a potential audience of roughly 107,500,000 ticket-buyers. Most important of all, Hollywood has established, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that evil people consume more popcorn per capita than any other segment of the population. And that's not factoring in the enormous retail potential in overseas markets like Thailand and France, where everyone is basically evil.
The way Hollywood has things sized up, the public is starting to develop a taste for maverick protagonists. And in casting social pariahs, revolting vermin or well-meaning vampires as heroic figures in a string of movies, Hollywood has tapped into some primal longing lodged deep in the dark recesses of the collective psyche of the American people. There-fore, as a service to these primal longers, I have compiled a list of morally repugnant movies featuring charismatic scumbunnies as sympathetic protagonists. Hopefully, this anthology of films can be used as the basis for a doctoral dissertation, a low-budget BBC special, a French film festival exploring primal longings lodged deep in the dark recesses of the collective American psyche, or yet another unreadable book by Michael Medved.
A Prayer for the Dying. Mickey Rourke plays a guilt-ridden IRA terrorist who comes to London to escape from his deeply conflicted past. Not to be confused with The Crying Game, where Stephen Rea plays a guilt-ridden IRA terrorist who comes to London to escape from his deeply conflicted past. In other words, A Prayer for the Dying is a movie about a likable assassin.
Bad Girls. Also known as Bad Actresses, Whores on Horses and Fools on Mules. Andie MacDowell, Madeleine Stowe, Drew Barrymore and Mary Stuart Master-son abandon dead-end jobs as prostitutes to enter the lumber business. At one point in the film, Stowe takes the opportunity to demonstrate her ability to speak Spanish, apparently saying, "Call my agent and tell him to get me out of this movie." In short, Bad Girls is a movie about prostitutes with hearts of gold, but brains of lead.
A Bronx Tale. Early in this film about an Italian-American kid growing up on the mean streets of the Bronx in the early 1960s, mob chieftain Chazz Palminteri gets on everybody's bad side by killing a man in a dispute over a parking space. But as the film progresses, the audience realizes that Chazz isn't such a bad guy after all. He's a snappy dresser, he has enlightened attitudes about dating black girls, and he's always more than ready to lend his nifty red convertible to his young protege. By the time he finally gets gunned down by the son of the man he killed in the parking dispute, the audience has come to love and respect this quirky capo di tutti Bronx caputi. In short, A Bronx Tale is a movie about a likable mobster.
Carlito's Way. Although he is a heroin dealer and a murderer, and thus would seem to be a not-very-nice person, Carlito comes across as a fairly gregarious sort, largely because Sean Penn is in the same movie. Also, in a clever scripting ploy, the audience is told that Carlito is a heroin dealer, but never actually sees him selling heroin to 12-year-olds. And while the audience is told that Carlito has killed a lot of people in the past, he assures Penelope Ann Miller that all the people he killed were bad guys. So that's OK.
What's more, the audience never actually sees most of the people Carlito has killed. The only people the audience actually sees him kill are two Hispanic criminals early in the film, and then three Italian-American gangsters. And, oh yeah, he does help Penn murder a mobster and yes, OK, OK, he does take the bullets out of Penn's gun so he'll be defenseless when the Mob comes gunning for him in his hospital bed after they screwed up by sticking a knife in his chest, but not sticking it in deep enough. So, fine, technically speaking, the audience does see Carlito participating directly in seven homicides, but it never sees him doing anything really unpleasant--like sending some-one a jar with a penis and a pair of testicles inside it like Jack Nicholson does in Hoffa. Carlito may be evil, but he isn't gross; thus, Carlito is indeed a likable drug dealer and killer.
Dangerous Game. Harvey Keitel plays the troubled director of a low-budget movie about spousal abuse, whose own marriage disintegrates when he chooses the day of his father-in-law's funeral as the ideal moment to tell his wife that he's screwed Madonna--the last thing any woman wants to hear on the day she's burying her father. In short, the central character in Dangerous Game is a likable director of creepy, sadomasochistic films, not totally unlike Abel Ferrara, the director of Dangerous Game.
Eight Men Out. Charlie Sheen, John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Rooker and David Strathairn star in John Sayles's 1988 costume drama about the 1919 Chicago White Sox, a bunch of disgruntled baseball players who accepted a bribe from a group of gamblers to take a dive in the World Series, and, by doing so, came very close to destroying America's faith in its national pas-time, the most perfect sport ever devised by mankind. In short, Eight Men Out is a movie about likable crooked athletes.
Geronimo: An American Legend. Although he was known to rape, pillage, rape, mutilate, rape, burn and rape; had a reputation as a person who would kill anything that moved; wasn't much liked even by his own people; and ended his life as a pathetic drunk, this politically correct 1993 film portrays the dreaded Apache renegade as a pretty swell guy, a Lancelot of the arroyos, if you will. In short, Geronimo is a movie about a likable bloodthirsty savage.
The Godfather, Part III. In this star-studded film, Al Pacino plays a congenial mobster who vainly attempts to erase the stigma of his murderous past. Not to be confused with Carlito's Way, a film in which Al Pacino plays a congenial mobster who vainly attempts to erase the stigma of his murderous past.
GoodFellas. In this 1990 film, directed by one of the greatest Italian-American directors ever to come out of NYU's Film School. Ray Liotta plays a charismatic mafioso who agrees to testify against his own con-federates in exchange for a chance to go into the Federal Witness Protection Program. Not to be confused with My Blue Heaven, the 1990 film in which Steve Martin plays a charismatic mafioso who agrees to testify against his own confederates in exchange for a chance to go into the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Hoffa. Danny DeVito's odious paean to the mobbed-up union boss Jimmy Hoffa. now widely believed to reside beneath the goal posts at Giants Stadium in the swamps of northern New Jersey, was not a box-office gusher. The day I saw it, the only other people in the theater were seven fat men in dark suits who all had cellular phones and beepers, and who did not seem to be in the communications business. How to explain the public's dislike of Hoffa? One problem with the film was DeVito's disastrous decision to include a scene where an overly enterprising news-paper editor is sent a package containing a set of male genitals pickled in formaldehyde, ostensibly as a warning to stop being so overly enterprising. After this scene, it was probably very hard for most audience members to empathize with the problems of Jimmy Hoffa, despite a fine performance by Jack Nicholson. Or put it this way: it's a safe bet that 50 percent of the people in the audience felt that this scene cut a bit too close to the bone.
Light Sleeper. This is a movie that must be seen to be believed. Willem Dafoe plays a middle-aged drug dealer who wants to get into another line of work because the pressures from his unorthodox profession are starting to get to him. because they're really isn't much of a future for middle-aged drug dealers and because he hates working nights. Also, his employer, Susan Sarandon, doesn't pay benefits. Most significantly, after decades of dealing downers and ludes--whatever they are--Dafoe starts to feel pangs of conscience about his career.
That most elusive of cultural archetypes--the Drug Dealer Who Cares--Dafoe talks with Sarandon about taking some sound-editing courses and perhaps getting into the music business--the very best place to escape from dangerous drugs--but his dreams are crushed when he ends up murdering a client who pushed his ex-wife, a lapsed cokehead played by Dana Delany, off a balcony.
"I am able to change: I can be a good person." Dafoe confides to his diary at one juncture. His diary doesn't seem to believe him. The crowning moment in this barmy yuckfest is the scene where Dafoe tells Delany--even more convincing as a coke-head than she was as a dominatrix in her recent Exit to Eden incarnation (I was so scared)--that he's changed his way of living and completely cleaned up his act since they'd broken up a few years before. That is, he doesn't do drugs anymore; he merely sells them. In short, Light Sleeper is a movie that invites the audience to sympathize with the plight of a likable drug dealer.
The Lover. In this lugubrious 1992 adaptation of Marguerite Duras's touching autobiography, Tony Leung plays a ne'er-do-well Chinese playboy who pounces on a fetching morsel of French jailbait--Maggie herself, I assume--and gives her the gift that keeps on giving: his unsheathed manhood. In short, this is a movie about a likable statutory rapist.
Mean Streets. The always appealing Harvey Keitel and the ever-so-charming Robert De Niro star as doomed hoods who can't seem to catch a break on the tough streets of Little Italy back in 1973, in part because Keitel has fallen in love with De Niro's epileptic cousin, and rigorous Sicilian-American social mores condemn such liaisons. In short, this film, directed by one of the greatest Italian-American directors ever to come out of NYU's Film School, is a movie about likable mobsters.
Midnight Express. In Alan Parker's harrowing 1978 film, scripted by Oliver Stone, the now deceased Brad Davis plays a twentysomething American suburban punk who is sentenced to no less than 30 years in a Turkish prison after he unwisely attempts to smuggle two kilos of hashish out of the country and into the United States. In short, this is a movie about a likable drug smuggler.
The Pope of Greenwich Village. Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts star as doomed hoods who can't catch a break on the tough streets of Little Italy back in 1984. The movie has one truly rewarding sequence in which Roberts gets his thumb sliced off by a Mob enforcer (in light of his hyperbolic acting style, his tongue would have been a better choice), and also contains an unforgettable moment when Daryl Hannah, playing an aerobically oriented creature of one sort or another, asks Rourke, "Why are you always one inch away from being a good person?" Daryl, as usual, is a bit confused. In short, this is a movie about likable dirtballs.
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.