I just saw an indisputably good movie, The Great Silence AKA Il Grande Silenzio, but for all I know, it could well have been truly great. Why the uncertainty? Because the only version I could get hold of was dubbed.
The Great Silence is a spaghetti western, so obviously it was originally in Italian.
There are many […]
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Jan
29
Why Subtitles Rule
≡ Category: Loose Talk, News | ≅ Leave a Comment ≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus
Mar
10
Breakout - A Pleasant Surprise
≡ Category: Action, Comedy, Highly Recommended, Movie Reviews, Suspense, United States | ≅ Leave a Comment ≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus
Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Comedy/ Suspense
Director: Tom Gries
Year: 1975
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE
Many times, revisiting genre movies from the past can be dispiriting. The violence is no longer jarring, the pace seems lethargic, the acting is from an extinct style. On the other hand, Breakout is better than I remembered, and I enjoyed it the first time.
The plot is simple enough, a mere McGuffin. Jay Wagner (Robert Duvall), who owns a hacienda in Mexico, is in a position to embarrass the CIA and compromise North American business interests (that’s about as specific as it gets). Normally, that would make him a dead man, but his grandfather, Harris Wagner (John Huston) happens to be allied with those business interests. Harris doesn’t want the blood of a relative on his hands, so he arranges for his grandson to be railroaded for a crime he didn’t commit and sentenced to life in a Mexican prison. How merciful.
Anyway, Jay’s wife Ann (Jill Ireland, better than usual here) confides in Harris about her plans to help Jay escape and somehow, each time the Mexican police are miraculously well-informed and waiting to foil the plot.
Into this mess walks border rat Nick Colton (Charles Bronson). Initially, his motivation in rescuing Jay is purely mercenary, but he develops feelings for Ann. Colton, in the classic Bronson tradition, may not be terribly bright, but he is street smart, so he suspects fairly early on that someone close to Ann doesn’t want her husband to be rescued.
Doesn’t sound like anything special, does it?
Well, it’s all in the execution. Writers Howard B. Kreitsek, Marc Norman, and Elliott Baker create lived in, likeable, and believable characters. This creates a strong rooting interest. No one is superhumanly intelligent, strong or anything else. All of the events are plausible. This creates a great deal of suspense because we know that our heroes aren’t going to be rescued by a ridiculous coincidence or John Wayne heroics.
Director Tom Gries, who I am completely unfamiliar with, does a great job with the actors. In less sure hands, Charles Bronson can strike false notes. Here, not only is he believable, he’s quite funny. Jill Ireland is usually a terrible actress, but Gries protects her so that she comes off as brittle but kind of sweet. Randy Quaid and Robert Duvall are their usual dependable selves. Sheree North is a riot as Myrna, a good time girl who used to run with Nick, now married to a possessive and jealous cop.
But what about the action? Well, there isn’t much, really. A few shootings, a couple of chases, one beating, and a delightfully tossed off collision of a pedestrian with an airplane. What makes the action work is that we perceive that it’s happening to real people we care about instead of the standard action mannequins.
Surprisingly, Breakout works both as a comedy and as a suspense thriller. It’s modest in it’s scope, but with characters this engaging, who cares?