A Frederic Forrest jag from a sneaky rewatch of The Conversation (1974). Directed by Joel Schumacher (A Time to Kill (1996), some ill-advised Batmans, etc.). Written by Ebbe Roe Smith.
The central conceit was to give the Los Angeles of the day a big broad unsubtle serve, and as such it functions as a time capsule. Michael Douglas led. As a fed-up veteran he went looking for his inner Matthew Modine/Vincent D'Onofrio in an effective, bland and just sometimes explosive performance much like what he did in The Game (1997). Barbara Hershey was his placeholder ex-wife, Lois Smith fine as his concerned mother. Robert Duvall ran on a parallel track, a cop on his last day who is married to Tuesday Weld, to whom time has not been kind. Her histrionics are somewhat amusing. Rachel Ticotin, radiant as Duvall's ex-partner/protege/daughter surrogate. Forrest played the surplus store operator that Chef may've become if he'd made it, and of course he doesn't make it. Dedee Pfeiffer is soaked when Douglas shoots up her burger joint.
Douglas's straight walk from somewhere west to Venice Beach reminded me of Dustin Hoffman's in Straight Time (1978) and more figuratively Burt Lancaster's swim. He decided he's not going to take it any more. The racism lacked the cutting edge of Spike Lee's east-coast Do The Right Thing (1989); here the "Korean" shop keeper is deemed insufficiently white to escape Douglas's rampage. The ganglands were better observed in Boyz'N'Hood (1991) and Venice Beach by White Men Can't Jump (1992). There is a minor-note No Country for Old Men (2007) ruefulness in the Douglas/Duvall pairing. Cliches abounded.
Roger Ebert: three stars. Some easy scapegoating here but he'd prefer you to blame Wall Street. Vincent Canby also noted the similarities with The Swimmer, albeit the John Cheever original. Valentino D. Harrison, the kid who instructs Douglas on how to use the missile launcher.
