Back to the Future Part III (1990)

THEY’VE SAVED THE BEST TRIP FOR LAST... BUT THIS TIME THEY MAY HAVE GONE TOO FAR

And so we come to the final chapter in the temporal displacement hi-jinx factory that is the Back to the Future trilogy. We’ve seen Marty get up to some very crazy stuff, haven’t we? Over the course of two movies, he’s lived a little over a week, spanning 60 years, and all within the space of a couple of days. During that time, he’s been hit by a car, stopped his parents from meeting, inadvertently caused an alternate 1985, made out with his mother, invented skateboarding and rock n’ roll, and saved his own son from jail. And Doc, well he’s… been there, too. Come to think of it, Doc has never had much in the way of development, other than getting to see that his life’s work towards travelling through time would indeed be realised. He’s always just been an agent of the plot, someone to keep things going in the background. In that case, it seems only right that we now look to him for our third time out – Back to the Future Part III.

Stranded in 1955, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) received written word from Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) that he is in the Old West, 1885. Instructing him as to where he can find time machine, he asks to be left where he is and for Marty to return home. However, a discovery about Doc’s fate prompts Marty to go travel back to 1885 and save his friend from local bad guy, ‘Mad Dog’ Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson). As Marty tries to bring him back, Doc falls for the new schoolteacher, Clara (Mary Steenburgen). Doc then must choose whether to stay or return home.

Have you ever had to answer the question, ‘if you could visit any historical time period, when would that be?’ If not, you need to get some more imaginative friends. Well, back when the first Back to the Future film was still in production, Zemeckis apparently asked Michael J. Fox this very question. His answer was that he would like to visit the Old West, meet some real cowboys. When the call came for there to be some sequels to follow up the huge success of that first film, this seed of an idea stayed with Zemeckis and Gale. Another seemingly throwaway line was placed into Part II, along with the odd subtle hint, that this would perhaps be a direction to go in. When Doc decides in Part II that the time machine should be destroyed, he mentions that his biggest regret would be that he never got to see his favourite time period, the Old West. He goes on to say, “time-travelling is just too dangerous. Better that I devote myself to study the other great mystery of the universe… women.”

It’s important that these words that form the basis of the third Back to the Future film come from Doc because, as I said before, we’ve never got as much of a journey from him as we have from Marty or George or Lorraine. It’s only down to how well the character is written and performed that you don’t seem to notice that he spends most of his time acting simply as a functionary of the plot. But it’s about time we got to know him better. We know he’s got a crazy passion for science, and that his home is littered with bizarre half-finished contraptions and framed pictures of great scientists of the past, but what else is there to him? Why does he have such a strong urge to pursue science as a career? Does he have anything else he would like to pursue? We get a sort of answer in those couple of lines from Part II, but it’s about time he got the spotlight.

Doc’s initial decision to remain a blacksmith in 1885 becomes compromised because Marty finds out that, not long after sending his letter to 1955, Doc is killed by local gunman Buford ‘Mad Dog’ Tannen. As such, Marty goes back to save him from this fate. Doc is willing to go along with it, mainly to help Marty get home, until he rescues Clara Clayton from a runaway wagon. The two instantly spark and Doc finds it harder to leave, knowing that Clara is perhaps the Jennifer to his Marty. Doc and Marty have a few days until they are set to leave, so Doc spends as much time with Clara as he can, the two clearly in love with each other, brought together by passion for science and a love of Jules Verne. Earlier, 1955 Doc mentions that when he read Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, that was the moment he decided to become a scientist. Not only does this act as a commonality between Clara and he, but also it completely opens up so much about Doc. The giddy scientific enthusiasm, the completely off-the-wall theories and pursuits, the sheer awe at the nature of the universe. It all comes together, and Doc seems to shine all the brighter for it. Christopher Lloyd’s performance takes a boost for these new aspects, too. And Clara is such a sweet character, played wonderfully by Mary Steenburgen, and so well suited to Doc that you do feel how torn he is between his head and heart, which is clearly not a decision he is used to.

This is not to say that the film is all about Doc and Clara. There is still the shenanigans with Marty, who comes to town and almost instantly runs afoul of Biff’s ancestor, Buford Tannen. Marty is almost successfully hanged (which actually rendered Michael J. Fox unconscious), though he is saved by Doc. When Marty then saves Doc and Clara at the town dance later on, Buford challenges him to a gunfight. Marty accepts, thinking he’ll be gone by the time the Monday deadline rolls up, but seeing as how Doc is now so smitten with Clara, he isn’t sure he’ll join him getting out of town. The typical relationship between Doc and Marty has now been reversed, with Doc trying to follow his heart, and Marty trying to follow his head. It’s a nicely underlined moment when they also exchange catchphrases:

Marty: Great Scott!

Doc: I know, this is heavy.

Zemeckis does a great job of transposing the Hill Valley that we’ve come to recognise into its beginnings of 1885, locating the familiar places like the diner into the saloon, and showing the first ticks of the courthouse clock, which would come to have such significance for these characters. Zemeckis has also utilised the vistas and the iconography of westerns to great effect. There’s also several nods to westerns of the past, such as giving Marty the alternative name Clint Eastwood, and then having him use the stove hatch/bulletproof vest trick Eastwood used in A Fistful of Dollars. The shot that sees Marty enter the township for the first time is itself an allusion to a similar shot in Once Upon a Time in the West. Even the casting of Dub Taylor, Pat Buttram and Harry Carey Jr., three actors who are as synonymous with westerns as John Wayne, is an inspired touch. And a very interesting part comes from the moment when ‘Mad Dog’ fires into the saloon floor, calling for Marty to dance. Not only is this a reference to the 1903 Edwin S. Porter western The Great Train Robbery, which contained a similar scene, but it is actually one of two big films from 1990 to have this reference, the other being Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.

I know I’ve said very little about Alan Silvestri’s music over the series. In fact, almost nothing at all, so I’ll mention it now. From beginning to end over the course of the whole trilogy, Silvestri’s music has been one of the most enduring elements of the films. It’s a shimmering, soaring, absolutely superb work. I actually have the soundtrack to all three films, and I tell you this – it is very difficult to be driving on a long journey, have the Back to the Future theme come on, and try to not instantly aim the speedometer for 88mph. It is very difficult indeed. And in Part III, Silvestri conducts all of the energy and spirit of the originals into a new vein, channelling it through the likes of Elmer Bernstein and Alfred Newman, creating a sound that is at once familiar and distinctive. As far as I’m concerned, Silvestri could have screwed up everything else he ever did, because the music for the Back to the Future trilogy is his pass to permanent fame. Of course, just to show off, he did other excellent work in other films. Some people are just show-offs like that.

Back to the Future Part III was received much better than Part II, largely because it seemed to recapture the heart that seemed to be missing from that previous instalment. It’s also much less convoluted than Part II, although I did enjoy the interweaving nature of that film. It more clearly mirrors the simplicity and fun of the first film, whilst still very much having its own personality. What’s more, it feels like a proper ending to the series. The characters have made their journeys and come good. They have come through it all, and what makes it better is that we were with them through it all. It’s always great to be able to part ways with the characters you’ve come to love on such amiable terms. Between you all, you’ve got some fond memories.

So many people say they long for a fourth film; I don’t. I’m honestly okay with no continuation of this series. Not that I don’t wonder about where the characters went and what else happened to them, but I’m happy with having that exist solely in my head. To bring out another one would be an uncomfortable stretch. These characters have been through so much, and us with them, that to drag things out further would feel like an act of cruelty to them. I don’t want Marty and Doc to be subjected to more temporal displacement lunacy for my amusement, or the amusement of others. I’ve grown to care about them too much for that. I’m sure that what they would want is to sit back with their lives as they are now and happily recollect the ups and downs, the scores and near misses of their adventures. Who are we to shake them out of that?

Back to the Future Part II (1989)

GETTING BACK WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING

As we have come to learn, with great box office comes great opportunity for sequels. As I mentioned yesterday, Back to the Future was the most successful film of 1985, turning a simple $19,000,000 budget into just over $380,000,000 of box office gain. That’s some fine business. These are the kinds of numbers companies like to see, so plans for sequels were put into development, hoping that lightning would once again strike the clock tower, this time with a budget of just over double the first. Zemeckis and Gale returned, and reassembled most of the original cast, for another dose of time-skipping wonder in Back to the Future Part II.

Having just returned from mending his parents’ relationship, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) get dragged to the future by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). In 2015, Marty has to save his son from turning to crime, but afterwards buys a sports book so he can make money in the past. When Doc throws it away, old Biff Tannen (Thomas J. Wilson) takes it, steals the time machine and gives it to his own past self. On discovering the changes, Marty and Doc have to travel back again to set things right.

It should be understood from the outset that there was never any intention for there to be a sequel to Back to the Future. When word came that another film or two were to be made, decisions had to be made about the direction of the story. At this point, Zemeckis had his hands full with his next film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, so Bob Gale became the sole writer on the film, working on an idea that had its origins in a throwaway line from Doc Brown the first time out. When Doc first reveals the time machine to Marty in the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall, he jokingly mentions that he could use the time machine to acquire future knowledge for personal financial gain in the present. From this, Gale spun the plot of Part II, where Marty is the one who plans to make money gambling with future knowledge, thus triggering a temporal paradox that he and Doc must rectify before they can return home. As such, the story jumps from 1985 to 2015 to an alternate 1985 to 1955 and back to 1985, and manages to run parallel to, and even intertwine with, events from the first film. Given the amount of jumping around and alterations in time, you’d think that it would be confusing and easily unravelled. As it is, it’s all very well played out. In fact, Carl Sagan, noted scientist and all-round incredibly smart guy, said at the time that Back to the Future Part II was the greatest time-travel movie ever, saying that the folding and overlapping of timelines was presented in a way that was very close to what it would be like if time-travel were possible.

Given this kind of praise, it’s difficult to start trying to pick holes in the fabric of the film. In fact, some of what happens in Part II intentionally apes what occurred in the previous film, which gives the film something of a nice feeling of déjà vu about it. It all seems new, but also very familiar. As such, when the film begins to deviate from this familiar pattern, as in when 2015 Biff travels back in time to give 1955 Biff the sports book, the resulting changes feel awkward, unfamiliar, wrong. When George Lucas was making his Star Wars prequels, he told his production team that the similarities between events in the original trilogy and the new one were intended as some kind of temporal rhyming scheme, like history has a poetic structure to it. As far as I’m concerned, it didn’t work for Star Wars, but this idea is probably the best way to describe the occurrences in Back to the Future Part II and, eventually, Part III.

There is one thing that does rather unsettle me in this film. Gale and Zemeckis are smart enough to know that characters need some kind of motivating factor to drive them into action, rather than just acting because the script told them to. And Marty has these motivations to get things going, to take action. We can all understand why Marty tried to take back the sports book, why Doc said no, why Biff went back in time, why Marty and Doc tried to reset things. What I never really took to was this new facet of Marty’s character where he doesn’t like to be called chicken. Now, it’s a perfectly understandable trait in itself, but I’ve never thought it sat right with Marty. Look at him in the first film. He’s confident and capable, but his flaw was always that he couldn’t quite put himself on the line, like with his demo tape. He feared rejection by those that held the keys to his future, and would shrink from the challenge. That he learns to overcome this because he taught his dad to find his own confidence is part of what makes it all so special. However, this new aspect of Marty being easily goaded into doing stupid things because he doesn’t want people to think he’s a wimp seems ill-fitting. By this measure, all someone needed to do in the first film was tell him he was chicken for not sending in his demo tape. On hearing this, he’d send it in, problem solved. The whole thing about his dislike of being called chicken does set up obstacles in Part II and III, but it compromises the original film. Original Marty was a stronger person than this.

I think part of this may have come from the fact that there was never a sequel intended. Both Gale and Zemeckis said that, had they known that a sequel was on the cards, they would not have had Marty’s girlfriend get in the car at the end of the first film. However, that’s how it ended, and so she had to be there in the future, too. She’s rendered unconscious almost instantly, but this then leads to them going to the McFly family home, and having to explain that Marty and Jennifer hit the skids, and that Marty’s music career never took off because someone called him chicken, which would become a trait to recall later on and in the next film. If the character of Jennifer hadn’t been there, it would probably be very different. It’s not Jennifer’s fault, or rather the fault of Elisabeth Shue who plays here. Nor is it entirely the fault of Gale, although he does have to accept some credit on it. Simply, it’s just an unfortunate side effect of trying to deal with the sequel status.

Outside of this, the film is actually pretty decent. The rest of the script works itself around the various timelines with great skill; Zemeckis’ direction is still great, particularly when roaming around 1955 again; and the actors are still on great form. On the point of the actors, there are two changes in the line-up. First off, as I mentioned, Jennifer is played by Elisabeth Shue, as opposed to Claudia Wells, who played the part in the first film. The reason for this is that, by the time filming began for the sequel, Wells had left acting to look after her mother, who had fallen ill. Shue was brought in to replace her, leading to the final scene of the first film to be reshot for this one. On a weird note of trivial linkage, this would mean that Shue was the movie girlfriend of two beloved 80s characters – Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II and III, and Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid. And to further the link, Ralph Macchio, who played Daniel LaRusso, was briefly considered for the role of Marty McFly. Ain't life weird?

On the second point of casting shake-ups, despite appearing in Back to the Future Part II, Crispin Glover never actually signed on for the film. Anytime you see George McFly, it’s either footage from the original film or a different actor shot from a different angle. Glover was approached about being in the film, but apparently asked for such a ridiculous fee that he was turned down and effectively written out of things. He did try to sue on the grounds that they used his image without permission, but the case went nowhere and was eventually dropped. Shame, really.

In the same way that Back to the Future had a cultural impact, so did Part II. This generally has to do with some of the cooler aspects of future technology and prediction that the film made for the 2015 sequences. People really wanted some of that stuff, but nothing more so than the Hoverboard. I was six when this film came out, and you best believe I still want one now. There was something of a backfiring prank about this item. On a behind the scenes feature for the film, Zemeckis said that the Hoverboards used in the film were real, and had existed for years, but parent groups were holding them back over safety concerns. He was only kidding, but this opened a door you can’t easily close again. Toy stores and companies were inundated with calls and letters wanting to know where and how people could get them, but to no avail. Thanks a lot, Zemeckis.

Back to the Future Part II is generally regarded as inferior to its predecessor, which it rather is. It’s doesn’t really capture the same spirit, but being fair, the first film was brilliant. Besides, I love the way the timelines break off in this one, and the way the new storyline crosses over with the old, creating a very textured feel to proceedings. Plus, it does mean that you can go back and watch the first film, looking for the stuff they picked up on here (do it, they really have lifted a few things nicely). My biggest complaint is the alteration made to Marty’s character, which comes off more as a convenient tool for the plot rather than a recognisable trait from someone we already know. It’s not really enough to completely sully the enjoyment of the film, but it doesn’t do it any favours. Overall, it’s still an enjoyable film, with good work and memorable scenes, and with some actual thought put into how events play out. Honestly, you all know it could have been so much worse.

Back to the Future (1985)

HE WAS NEVER IN TIME FOR HIS CLASSES... THEN ONE DAY HE WASN'T IN HIS TIME AT ALL

What happens when you mix together time-travel, terrorism, high school, theft, science, murder, assault, attempted rape, incest, alcohol, drugs and rock n’ roll? You get one of the most beloved films in history, that’s what happens. You get a film that spawned two sequels, an animated series and a theme park ride, not to mention turning some weird-looking stainless steel car from Belfast into one of the most iconic vehicles in the world. It would also properly launch the career of a relatively unknown director, Robert Zemeckis, who had only a few films to his name at the time. With a guiding hand from Steven Spielberg, the film was the most successful film of the year of its release, and it’s a film that actually almost never got made. That film is Back to the Future.

In the year 1985, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) receives a message from his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) that he needs help with his latest invention - a time machine built from a DeLorean and powered by plutonium stolen from Libyan Nationalists. After the Libyans gun down Doc, Marty escapes in the time machine, accidentally sending himself back to 1955. There, he meets both of his teenage parents, unintentionally interrupting their first meeting and endangering his own existence. He then finds the younger version of Doc and together they try to find a way to get Marty back home.

A few days ago, when talking about Away We Go, I asked to whether or not you had ever considered what your parents were like before you showed up. Well, as it turns out, this was the genesis of Back to the Future. Bob Gale, producer and co-writer of the film, was going through some things in his parents’ basement and happened upon his father’s high school yearbook. Finding his dad’s picture, and seeing that he was the president of his class, Bob wondered if he and his dad would have been friends had he met him in his youth. When Gale told his friend Zemeckis about his idea, they both began constructing a story. It would seem that in the beginning, it was a very different idea. The time machine was a fridge; the main characters were into pirating films; Doc’s pet was a chimp; and it required crashing an atomic test site to get home. It’s really difficult to try to reconcile those things into the film as it exists today.

Many of the main plot points were already in place (kid accidentally goes back in time and gets caught up in his parents’ courtship), but Gale and Zemeckis had problems finding someone to pick it up. Despite the stuff about the mother unwittingly falling for her son, most thought it was too light, citing the much more brazen antics of movie teenagers in the Porky’s series as an example of what was expected from such characters... I'll stop and let you get to grips with the creepiness of the implications of that. As it is, Gale and Zemeckis did not follow such examples, and the better for it. Over all these attempts to find the desired green light, the script was revised and altered to make things better or more cost-effective. The fridge became a DeLorean sports car; the characters became slightly less criminal… ish; the chimp became a dog; and the atomic test site was dropped altogether.

The script that would ultimately become the one we know today is some damn fine work. The characters are so well defined and memorable. Marty is actually cool as all hell, but he’s got his fair share of teenage worries and self-esteem issues, and his relationship with Doc Brown is kind of weird and yet makes sense, in that 80s movie sort of way. Doc Brown himself is brilliant and has become the standard definition of Zany Scientist – smart, absent-minded, enthusiastic, and just downright eccentric. The three different incarnations of George McFly, Lorraine Baines and Biff Tannen are excellent. In each reality we meet them, they are so different from the other, and yet so obviously the same.

And considering how easy it to stumble on time-travel, the story has been thought through with great care and consideration. There’s a dramatic principle that’s called Chekov’s Gun, named for playwright Anton Chekov, which says that if a gun appears in the first act, it should be used by the final act. Back to the Future uses this principle superbly, so every little thing has some significance to it, and most of it comes from such small, seemingly insignificant things. For example, the flier that tells Marty when the clock tower will be struck by lightning. The only reason he kept it was because his girlfriend wrote on it. If she hadn’t been going away, she wouldn’t have written anything on it, he wouldn’t have kept it, and so never have known about the lightning strike. But he wouldn’t have had that if some old woman hadn’t come up to him rattling a can about saving the clock tower, which was damaged because of the lightning strike. And there are the endlessly mind-boggling considerations, outside of the main plot, about how much of Marty’s reality was influenced directly by him, like Goldie Wilson deciding to become mayor, or the Twin Pines Mall becoming the Lone Pine Mall, or the invention of rock n’ roll. It’s all woven together so damn well.

Something to really appreciate about Back to the Future is that, although it is very much an sf romantic comedy, it takes so much of the story seriously. Beyond figuring out timelines and cause and effect issues, it remains a solid piece of work. If you removed all of the time-travel stuff, you’d still have something that works, and that resonates with so many people. It doesn’t mock its characters, it doesn’t belittle their plights, it doesn’t act like it’s all a bit of fun and that’s all there is to it. It acknowledges the darker aspects of things, which gives it all a greater sense of weight and purpose. When I said at the top about the murder and terrorism and attempted rape… all of that is in this film, and it’s not really shied away from too much either. However, the characters rise to their respective challenges. They all come good.

What makes Back to the Future so special, aside from the great blend of genres and themes, is that it all comes with a genuinely heart-warming central arc. And no, I don’t mean Marty. The real hero of this film is George McFly, who grows from someone who is virtually crippled by his lack of self-esteem to become an actual hero. He spends the whole film being so pathetic that you can only pity the poor guy, but he finds in himself the balls to stand up to his chief tormentor, and he does it when it counts the most. That’s the real test of a hero. I tell you now, if every bit of you isn’t one hundred percent behind George at his moment of triumph, you are dead inside.

Back to the Future actually had its 25 year anniversary last year, and so got a special digital re-release in cinemas, which I was most definitely there for. Now, I’ve seen the film more times than I can count, so watching on it the big screen, I was able to pay less attention to the story, and focus on the more technical things about the film. And by that, I mean Zemeckis’ direction. Good lord, it’s some fine work. He’s found such nice little touches here and there to help complete the world, and so much actually happens in the background. A lot of directors are content with working within the foreground of a shot, with the background filled random extras that either sit or walk and that’s about it. Zemeckis has got things going on back there. He’s not just directing his actors; he’s directing the film, and that’s so much rarer than you think.

One of the other things I was able to appreciate more was just how good everyone is in the film. No one is playing a role; they all simply are their roles. Pretty much every single person in Back to the Future is remembered for their work in it, and for damn good reason. Just look at the pretty much effortless cool of Michael J. Fox, how quickly it dissolves in front of 1955 Lorraine. Look at the wild-eyed, wild-haired eccentricity of Christopher Lloyd. And look at the multi-stranded performances of Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson and Thomas F. Wilson. Wilson’s Biff is every inch an imposing guy, a real threat in both his original 1985 and 1955 forms; but his new 1955 persona is all awkward and softly polite. Thompson is superb as Lorraine, a very promiscuous girl in her school days, who can become either a rather unhappy and alcoholic frump or a lively and active older woman. And Glover is just peerless as George McFly. In his 1955 self and original 1985 self, he’s so ill at ease that he virtually apologises for existing in every gesture and waver of his voice. Then look at his new 1985 version, a completely confident and strong-willed guy.

Just to illustrate what kind of effect Back to the Future had at the time, there’s a story about what happened a little while after its release. Despite the film beginning on October 25^th 1985, the release of the film actually came on July 3^rd. Such was the overwhelming popularity of the film that, in the early morning of October 26^th, the date of the initial time-travel, a group of people went to the Twin Pines Mall location to see if Marty would turn up in his DeLorean. Of course, he didn’t. And of course, no one actually thought it would happen… probably. However, that’s how much this film meant to people at the time. So much that a bunch of them would travel to some empty parking lot in the middle of the night on some October night on the pretence of seeing if the movie’s main character would blast into the night, leaving two lines of fire behind it.

And yes, I kind of wish that Michael J. Fox had shown up in a DeLorean just for the sake of it, too.

Back to the Future isn’t just one of those 80s films that hangs around because people are nostalgic about it. It’s a genuinely excellent film. The script is outstanding, the direction is great, Alan Silvestri’s music is spot on, the cast is on fire, and it’s a superbly engaging and wonderful watch. It really is difficult to think of a more inventive and joyous film experience than this.

Article 99 (1992)

WHEN YOUR HOSPITAL IS A WAR ZONE, YOU HAVE TO FIGHT TO SAVE LIVES.

Healthcare has long been a touchy subject for most people, but particularly in America. So many people get lost in the miasma of bureaucracy from the insurance companies and hospitals and government health initiatives, it’s hard to find much light in a system that, from certain angles, seems to place more emphasis on cost-reduction than life-saving. One of the many groups that get caught up in all of this is the veterans of America, who were promised lifelong medical care for their sacrifices, but are met with a wall of red tape when they try to claim. In 1992, a film was released that sought address the indignities suffered by those who once fought for their country, but now have to fight against it in order to get health cover.

In a severely underfunded veterans’ hospital, a group of doctors, led by Dr. Sturgess (Ray Liotta), must try to treat too many patients with too little supplies. The main cause of their problems is the bureaucratic belt-tightening by the hospital callous chief administrators. Determined to do their jobs as best they can, with the help of some patients and nurses, they defy the orders of management, stealing supplies and performing unauthorized operations.

As far as Article 99 is concerned, veterans are the ones who, in terms of medical care, get hit hardest. Despite the soldiers being promised free care at army hospitals, there is a system in place that seeks to stop this from happening as much as possible. The title refers to a clause that, although the patient may indeed need medical care, the veterans’ hospitals and the government cannot provide such care since it cannot be proved that the problem was a result of injuries sustained from war. This in itself is enough to angry up the blood of most people. It essentially presupposes that the only health concerns a soldier would ever have, mental or physical, would be those directly attributable to their wartime efforts. It neglects such things as later life heart disease, which is the very complaint our first character has. A decorated veteran, he needs a triple bypass and so heads to the VA to get the paperwork approved so he can get himself fixed up. Unfortunately, he’s met with such an all-consuming bureaucratic nightmare that it has men lined up all over the place to fill in one form to get some more forms to be filled out and taken to the next line to fill in the form to get… good lord, I need a seat. Our man is taken aside by Luther, played by Keith David, the man who knows how rotten the system is and explains the pitfalls to the poor guy, and us. Luther tells him, “the only thing that’s gonna get bypassed is you.” Not two minutes later, another former soldier, diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, having just received an Article 99 letter, pitches his truck through the lobby of the hospital and goes on a rampage through the building with an automatic rifle. With the underpaid security dealing with problems elsewhere, it’s up to the doctors to take him down with a defibrillator.

If they’re lucky enough to actually get into the hospital, they’ll spend their time being “turfed” from one department to the other until the paperwork can be sufficiently fudged that they can get the help they need. Until then, they populate the wards, the corridors, the basement, the laundry room, all fragile men with their dignity long since stripped away by their fight to get some help.

So like I said, the filmmakers have picked themselves a highly emotive and complex subject. Writer Ron Cutler and director Howard Deutch clearly feel like they have something to say about the way things seem to be. Indeed, who wouldn’t? They have also assembled themselves a superb cast, featuring Ray Liotta, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Lea Thompson, John Mahoney, Eli Wallach, Kathy Baker, Keith David, John C. McGinley. Sutherland himself apparently felt especially passionate about this project, since his maternal grandfather was Tommy Douglas, the guy who started Canada’s own healthcare system, leading him to be voted as the greatest Canadian ever.

Deutch has found the occasional image that lends itself quite nicely to the project. For example, there is a nice bookending image of the inscription on the steps of the VA hospital. When we first see it, it’s upside down; at film’s end, it’s the right way up. Given the focus on those in the military, this would be a clear reflection of the idea that when flying a flag, to fly it upside down is a sign of distress or something wrong. It’s a perfectly elegant way of suggesting the system is broken before even entering the building.

However, the main problem with the film is that, frankly, it treats the subject a little too… light-hearted? I don’t mean to suggest that it makes it seem like it’s all fun and games, but there is an undeniable feeling that some of the people involved are having fun here. Honestly, you know what Article 99 reminds me of? Scrubs. And not just because John C. McGinley’s there, and that his performance as Dr. Cox in Scrubs was likely more than a little influenced by Ray Liotta in this film. It feels a little like a sitcom because there’s no real sense of scale to the problem. It’s not really about healthcare in America, just in this particular hospital. The filmmakers seem to have confused the dramatic conflict of the film’s character with that of the higher subject matter. Perhaps they were afraid to be too much of a downer, so they bumped up the joke count slightly to combat the woes of medical misappropriation. There is something of a tonal schism in Article 99, similar to the kind of episodic trajectory that occurred in …And Justice for All. It wants you to acknowledge that there is something wrong, that the system is broken, but fails to offer up any kind of hope outside of the over-dramatic escapades that only happen in the movies or on TV. Overall, it makes things feel false… disingenuous… wrong. If they had given the film an extra half hour in which to develop characters more, or had a more widespread consideration of the problem, they would have done better. However, the simple fact is that they just weren’t up to the task at hand. This subject matter deserves a more balanced and comprehensive approach to work as a dramatic piece, but it’s all too neatly tied up here. If this really is such a massive problem, it would take a lot more than a relatively brief protest to solve.

Article 99 clearly has an agenda of sorts, but it’s doubtful as to whether or not it actually succeeds in addressing it properly, so it’s difficult to consider it as anything other than a failure. Even removing its aspirations of social change, and despite a couple of decent performances and the occasional nice piece of direction, it simply doesn’t hit any higher than an average episode of TV drama or sitcom. And its ending is something of a mixed message, too.

All the Right Moves (1983)

TOM CRUISE AND CRAIG T. NELSON DISCOVER WINNING IS THE ONLY WAY OUT

About two weeks ago, I talked about coming-of-age movies when reviewing Adventureland. These are the movies that follow the fortunes of a young person, typically either not long graduated high school, or just about to. They concern themselves with the attempts made by that young person to find their place in the world, whether it’s going to college or travelling or getting a job, really just trying to do something with their life. In some places though, options are limited. There are places where you either go to college or you stay behind, get a job in the mill and never leave. In these places, getting out is all that matters. Such is the focus of All the Right Moves.

In the slowly dying Pennsylvania town of Ampipe, there are only two ways to go: the steel mill or a football scholarship. Stefen Djordjevic (Tom Cruise) is a high school footballer desperate to get out of town, but both he and the headstrong Coach Nickerson, who wants out just as much, clash as the school year comes to an end.

The script for All the Right Moves was written by Michael Kane, based on an article by one of America’s great sports writers Pat Jordan. It’s a great seed of a story, full of youthful longing, passion and dreams of a new generation hungry to take on the world. It’s really just a shame that it dropped the ball so much. The story is filled with cliché, right down to players who already have full scholarships being unable to leave because they got their girlfriends pregnant. Characters are also so incredibly flat and weak it’s ridiculous. Stefen is lacklustre as a main character and Lisa is not so much a person as an agent of the plot. Only Brian has any real emotional arc to him. Salvucci is actually more interesting, since things actually happen to him, but because we see him so little and the changes are so huge, it’s like a different person every time we see him. As such, he’s appallingly written. Also, I’ve still no idea who Bosko actually is. I’ve literally just finished watching the film and I can’t tell if he works in the mill, if he works in the school, if he’s the mayor of the town. He just shows up, is an asshole, and goes away again. There are nods in the direction of love and envy and following your dreams and letting go, but they’re done so flimsily, it’s difficult to take any of them to heart. It’s incredibly patchy as a whole work, and the ending is soft-hearted bullshit that makes little sense when considering the character motivation at the time.

This was the first film for Michael Chapman as director and you can really tell. There’s no sense of pace to the whole, and scenes just feel a rather flat. There are moments that should feel big, like they’re important occasions, such as the pep rally or the games themselves. However, they feel pretty limp. Chapman just doesn’t seem to have any sense of what kind of emotional pitch the movie has either, so the tone is all over the place. A later party scene where Stefen gives a drunken speech is a nightmare of inconsistency. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be funny or tragic. Cruise’s performance does it little favours either, but we’ll get to that. The one thing the film does have going for it is a washed-out look. All colour seems to have a slightly muted, grey-ish quality to it, which nicely captures the downbeat feel of the town and the prospects for its future. Frankly, this should be the one place where the films works because not only is the cinematography done by Jan de Bont before he became a director, but Michael Chapman is himself an excellent, twice Oscar-nominated cinematographer, whose credits include Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Honestly, this is where Chapman’s skills lie, not in direction.

The acting throughout is also pretty patchy. As Stefen Djordjevic, Tom Cruise certainly looks the youthful part, and handles the slight cockiness well, but really brings a little too much intensity to the role. Cruise could always do the intense, hard stare bit, but this was long before he learned to control it. As such, Stefen can be kind of off-putting. Lea Thompson, on the other hand, doesn’t bring enough emotion to her role. This is mostly because she’s given a pretty weak character, but that she doesn’t really come out of herself is a problem, too. This makes the scenes with between Cruise and Thompson feel slightly uneven, because he’s a little too much and she’s not enough. Craig T. Nelson does well for himself, but still suffers from poor writing. Chris Penn might be the best thing in it, nicely capturing the fragility of Brian, whose dreams have been unceremoniously dashed, though he doesn’t quite see the arc all the way through to the end. Paul Carafotes is damn near schizophrenic for the constant shifts of mood you see him in. In fairness to him, Salvucci is the weakest-written character, but at times he actually manages to outdo Cruise for intensity. More than any of this, I felt no kind of connection between these people. They’re not friends, they just share a uniform.

Considering what the film is meant to be about, it says pretty much says nothing of worth. It may be an attempt to look at the dreams of youth and the prospects that face them, but makes no lasting commentary or consideration on any of it. The romantic subplot could be comfortably excised, everything with Salvucci could be removed without much bother, the scenes of family are completely undercooked… so what is it, then? What can I take from this film? I’m not sure I can really take anything from it. There’s no depth about what sports mean or what being part of a team can do for a person. There’s no strong pull of love or considerations of long-distance relationships. There’s really very little that merits this being a lasting film about youth, growing up or coming of age.

All the Right Moves is pretty poor, mediocre at best. The script is filled with holes, clichés and half-conceived ideas, the direction is weak, the standard of acting on show is pretty scattergun, and the prevalence of 80s synth power ballads date the film pretty badly. I can, to some degree, understand why it has lasted this long, what with it having Tom Cruise and Lea Thompson getting naked, but beyond that, it’s really not worth much.