mean mad Marvin . . .
Added 9/22/2009
In the late 60's, if you wanted an actor to play a tough, mean, angry SOB, you might be hard pressed to find someone better for the role than Lee Marvin. Directed by John Boorman, Point Blank (1967) features Marvin (The Dirty Dozen), as Walker, a hard boiled criminal with a burning desire for revenge, willing to break in half, anyone that gets in his way.
Walker, his wife Lynne (Sharon Acker), and buddy Mal Reese (John Vernon), are partners in crime. On Alcatraz island to make a score, Reese decides to end the partnership by putting a couple of slugs into Walker, taking his wife, and his share of the loot (93 thousand dollar$).
A year later, recovered from his wounds, and with the help of a mysterious underworld figure named Yost (Keenan Wynn), Walker is ready for revenge. Things won't be easy, as Reese knows Walker is coming, and is holed up in a penthouse suite, surrounded by bodyguards. Walker has enlisted the help of his wife's sister Chris (Angie Dickinson), and uses her to get to Reese. Things get a bit messy, as Reese loses his balance, and Walker learns that his money has been paid to the Organization. It's the money that really drives Walker. Even when Lynne and Reese are no longer in the picture, Walker's desire to reclaim the $93,000, propels him to risk his life taking on the organization. Under Yost's guiding hand, things ironically finish where they began, as Walker and his cash both end up on Alcatraz.
Point Blank would probably not be regarded today, as particularly violent or shocking, and may now be of interest more for its historical significance, and notable cast. Lee Marvin, rarely a straight up good guy, makes an appropriate antihero, in what was then, a rather violent statement. The use of flashback cuts, seems to add ambiguity rather than clarify matters. Boorman, perhaps most well-known as the director of Deliverance (1972) and The General (1998), would team up with Marvin again in the World War II adventure, Hell in the Pacific (1968).
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Characters with Focus = Winners!
Added 9/22/2009
With no prompting or knowledge of this movie, I took the plunge since I'm a fan of late 60s - 70s shows.
Given the vintage, this watch follows many of the devices of modern movies. Thus, I wasn't quite as entertained as I usually am with these types of shows. Although not a fan of too much dialogue, this film lacked the lines where they would have been useful.
The style and scenes of the era are always nice. There wasn't much wasted time on development of character, which is a plus, too.
Those of you who prefer characters with simple motives, Walker will join your list of favorites. All demand can be reduced to a basic element and Walker's is retrieving stolen cash. And I particularly admired his resistance to distraction from shapely dames and conversations therewith. Surely, you will find his focus on task refreshing given most characters seem to have the attention span of a gnat.
And, Angie Dickinson is an even trad-off for the hip stuff.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Great, stark time capsule for its era
Added 8/10/2009
POINT BLANK is one of the best cinematic representations of that stark, sun-bleached, urban mood which dominated the mid-to-late-1960s but rarely gets referred to--- people talk about "protest" and "tumult" yet rarely refer to the almost post-apocalyptic zeitgeist of the era.
The atonal score; the "echo-y" resonance of the thing; the claw-your-neck, angsty atmoshpere; the diffused lighting; that window-screen camera trick; the jazz bar; those aloof neon lights at night; even that car lot.... it's all just sooooo very, very 1966/67...
It's just like the metaphorically appropriate name of the film: in-your-face ("POINT") yet oddly hollow ("BLANK").
For any younger person looking to see what the cities tended to feel like at that time, POINT BLANK is one of the better movie examples of the period you could point to.
In order to capture that invigorating, counterculture, echo-chamber resonance that made the '60s so poignant and memorable, then you also have to capture (what Walter Cronkite once described correctly as) that "slum of a decade" vibe as well.
They're both true: sunlight across an open field, and crud glued into the cracks of an urban sidewalk.
Without one, you miss the irony of the '60s that so defined it.
...Also, the DVD has two brief extras (both entitled "The Rock") which focus on Alcatraz Prison and also convey the same lost, disillusioned flavor of time which was so captivating yet confounding --- in fact, these two extras show you much MORE of Alcatraz than the movie itself winds up doing, so something must have been left on the cutting room floor.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Vastly overrated by other reviewers here
Added 7/13/2009
It always makes me laugh to see a well-written and fairly argued low-star review on this site get all sorts of unhelpful votes, as some of them do for this movie. The votes aren't really against the review: they're for daring to have a dissenting viewpoint. Such a crime! What is wrong with some reviewers; are their egos and self-worth so tied up in their favorite works of (someone else's) art that a viewer who doesn't like it must be showered with scorn for disagreeing with their opinion? Do they see it as a personal attack on their self-worth (such as it is, stemming from others' achievements)? Are their lives so empty that to disagree with them is a crime? Apparently so. How nice to not be living their lives, and to know a boring movie when one sees it.
I just watched this last night having read no reviews etc, going in cold, the best way to see a film in my estimation. And by the end I was quite convinced that the only really good thing about this movie was Lee Marvin.
I've enjoyed some Boorman films and found others corny in their over-reaching, and I think his direction is one of the weakest aspects of Point Blank. The script has fair dialogue but is full of holes; we are never really shown Walker's deepest motivations apart from "I want my money!", and the rather pointless ending sort of obviates them anyways. Boorman is so worried about getting the most noir-looking (but not noir-feeling) and "modern" camera angles and pans etc that he neglects to deal with all sorts of small and large fissures in the plot and script.
I don't want to notice a camera angle; I want to be transported BY it. The shot is not the end, it's a means to an end: furthering the story and character development. If, as in Coppola and Hitchcock and Truffaut and other greats, the shot is also pure art, excellent. But Boorman wants us to notice the Art Of Boorman more than Marvin or the story or even the wonderful SF locales, and ends up achieving neither.
Marvin is taciturn and believable as always; he usually delivered, and he carries this film all the way. Vernon is good enough as the bad guy (in his first role, and he stayed type-cast in that role for his whole career), but Dickinson and the others here are merely fair (Wynn is good but rarely seen). The oft-silly plot peregrinations do none of them any favors, though, and Boorman's own insistence on being noticed makes it all seem like a failed movie-student effort by the end.
I couldn't ever really enter the world of this film, despite it being set in one of my favorite towns, in an era when that town was ripe for great cinematography. Even Alcatraz seemed misused, and how exactly can bad guys fly a chopper in there weekly without the cops noticing? That's only one of many plot holes that Boorman left in place...and yet this is a five star movie? I don't think so.
I think some reviewers just want to feel that they have found some old gem in this and other semi-b-movies with pretensions to greatness, and it becomes their pet. How dare you give my secret discovery a bad rating?! I will unhelpful you!
Well, go ahead, kids, because this movie is barely above a turkey, and no amount of negative votes can rescue the fact that this is neither a decent film noir homage nor a very moving crime flick. It's just another mediocre 60s crime drama saved by Lee Marvin...and there are plenty of those to go around.
But hey...if your existence is vitiated by giving unhelpful votes in place of an intelligent comment pointing out flaws in a review, please justify yourself to yourself. Otherwise, a comment always goes a lot farther...though it may reveal one's fanboy status.
And to those pondering watching this, please read the bad reviews as well as the good, as ever, and then ask yourself, which make more sense?
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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One of the worst movies ever.
Added 7/1/2009
I wanted to see this movie after all these years thinking that it was a forgotten gem. I was wrong. It should be forgotten and avoided at all cost. If I were a studio head at the time this was made and saw it in a preview before it was released, I would have told director John Boorman "to pack it up and change professions". Who would of thought that this was the same director that would go on to direct 1972's "Deliverance".
As for Lee Marvin's peformance? It is clearly his worst. All the acting is bad and the entire cast is wasted on this mess. The dialog by Lee Marvin's wife in an early scene is rambling, excessive, exhausting and laughable. A scene that Mel Brooks would have been proud of and embarassed by it at the same time. The final and nicest thing I can say about this mess is stay away from it. See 1994's The Professional" instead. It is a masterpiece.
0 out of 7 people found this helpful.
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mean mad Marvin . . .
Added 9/22/2009
In the late 60's, if you wanted an actor to play a tough, mean, angry SOB, you might be hard pressed to find someone better for the role than Lee Marvin. Directed by John Boorman, Point Blank (1967) features Marvin (The Dirty Dozen), as Walker, a hard boiled criminal with a burning desire for revenge, willing to break in half, anyone that gets in his way.
Walker, his wife Lynne (Sharon Acker), and buddy Mal Reese (John Vernon), are partners in crime. On Alcatraz island to make a score, Reese decides to end the partnership by putting a couple of slugs into Walker, taking his wife, and his share of the loot (93 thousand dollar$).
A year later, recovered from his wounds, and with the help of a mysterious underworld figure named Yost (Keenan Wynn), Walker is ready for revenge. Things won't be easy, as Reese knows Walker is coming, and is holed up in a penthouse suite, surrounded by bodyguards. Walker has enlisted the help of his wife's sister Chris (Angie Dickinson), and uses her to get to Reese. Things get a bit messy, as Reese loses his balance, and Walker learns that his money has been paid to the Organization. It's the money that really drives Walker. Even when Lynne and Reese are no longer in the picture, Walker's desire to reclaim the $93,000, propels him to risk his life taking on the organization. Under Yost's guiding hand, things ironically finish where they began, as Walker and his cash both end up on Alcatraz.
Point Blank would probably not be regarded today, as particularly violent or shocking, and may now be of interest more for its historical significance, and notable cast. Lee Marvin, rarely a straight up good guy, makes an appropriate antihero, in what was then, a rather violent statement. The use of flashback cuts, seems to add ambiguity rather than clarify matters. Boorman, perhaps most well-known as the director of Deliverance (1972) and The General (1998), would team up with Marvin again in the World War II adventure, Hell in the Pacific (1968).
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Characters with Focus = Winners!
Added 9/22/2009
With no prompting or knowledge of this movie, I took the plunge since I'm a fan of late 60s - 70s shows.
Given the vintage, this watch follows many of the devices of modern movies. Thus, I wasn't quite as entertained as I usually am with these types of shows. Although not a fan of too much dialogue, this film lacked the lines where they would have been useful.
The style and scenes of the era are always nice. There wasn't much wasted time on development of character, which is a plus, too.
Those of you who prefer characters with simple motives, Walker will join your list of favorites. All demand can be reduced to a basic element and Walker's is retrieving stolen cash. And I particularly admired his resistance to distraction from shapely dames and conversations therewith. Surely, you will find his focus on task refreshing given most characters seem to have the attention span of a gnat.
And, Angie Dickinson is an even trad-off for the hip stuff.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Great, stark time capsule for its era
Added 8/10/2009
POINT BLANK is one of the best cinematic representations of that stark, sun-bleached, urban mood which dominated the mid-to-late-1960s but rarely gets referred to--- people talk about "protest" and "tumult" yet rarely refer to the almost post-apocalyptic zeitgeist of the era.
The atonal score; the "echo-y" resonance of the thing; the claw-your-neck, angsty atmoshpere; the diffused lighting; that window-screen camera trick; the jazz bar; those aloof neon lights at night; even that car lot.... it's all just sooooo very, very 1966/67...
It's just like the metaphorically appropriate name of the film: in-your-face ("POINT") yet oddly hollow ("BLANK").
For any younger person looking to see what the cities tended to feel like at that time, POINT BLANK is one of the better movie examples of the period you could point to.
In order to capture that invigorating, counterculture, echo-chamber resonance that made the '60s so poignant and memorable, then you also have to capture (what Walter Cronkite once described correctly as) that "slum of a decade" vibe as well.
They're both true: sunlight across an open field, and crud glued into the cracks of an urban sidewalk.
Without one, you miss the irony of the '60s that so defined it.
...Also, the DVD has two brief extras (both entitled "The Rock") which focus on Alcatraz Prison and also convey the same lost, disillusioned flavor of time which was so captivating yet confounding --- in fact, these two extras show you much MORE of Alcatraz than the movie itself winds up doing, so something must have been left on the cutting room floor.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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