Runaway Jury (2003)

Legal thriller adapted from a John Grisham novel. 

The plot is a little tricky to explain, but here goes... Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman) is a consultant who gets paid off to rig juries in court cases. Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) is a morally upstanding lawyer who believes in truth, justice, decency and so on. The two men are pitted against each other during a trial against a gun manufacturer following an office shooting. But one of the jurors (John Cusack) and his girlfriend (Rachel Weisz) appear to hold all the cards about the real outcome of the court ruling. And, inevitably, nothing is quite what it seems.

It ought to work, and it very nearly does, but you are deliberately left in the dark about Cusack and Weisz’s real motivations until about 10 minutes before the end. By the time everything suddenly makes sense, you feel a little cheated that the film did so little to guide you through the various twists of the plot. Plus, their relationship isn’t fully explored. When we first meet them they appear not to know each other, but then it transpires that they’ve known each other for years. So were they pretending to be strangers as part of the scam? If so, why, when they were merely talking in an empty candle shop and this had nothing to do with manipulating the court case? If there was an explanatory cue here, it wasn’t clear enough.

All four of the leads are good, if not exactly stretched in the acting department, but there’s still something missing. Plus, Hackman’s hi-tech centre of operations – a flashy surveillance crime hide-out that no one seems to know about – is almost as implausible as the elaborate dens of villains in the 1960s Batman TV series.

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Alternative title: An Hour Too Long. 

During World War II, Operation Market Garden was an Allied operation that took place in September 1944. It aimed to secure key river crossings, enabling a route from the Netherlands into northern Germany – culminating with the strategically vital Arnhem bridge. 

That real-life saga is brought to life with mixed results. Unfortunately, at nearly three hours it’s excessively drawn out. The film gets off to a very slow start, too, and it’s a full 52 minutes until the first shot is fired. There are a lot of characters and plenty of time is used up introducing them and generally setting the scene. It’s an extreme example of the all-star cast, cramming in key roles for Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O'Neal, Laurence Olivier and Robert Redford. The ensemble approach works reasonably enough and it adds scope, but it does mean you don’t get to know – or care about – any particular individual very well. 

Despite the jaunty music at times and the sense that for the posh Brits it’s all just a jolly jape, there’s a strong message about the brutality of war and the film doesn’t hold back from showing the realities of injury and death. 

It’s superior to the likes of The Great Escape and The Longest Day, although still oddly unsatisfying. It fails to convey why these battles are so important or to provide a wider context of how they fit into the war.

Get Shorty (1995)

Clever mixture of crime and comedy, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and adapted from the excellent novel by Elmore Leonard. 

John Travolta plays Chili Palmer, a loan shark from Miami who starts getting involved in the film world after going to L.A. on a job. He meets a horror director (Gene Hackman), a famous Hollywood star (Danny DeVito) and a glamorous B-movie actor (Rene Russo). But unfortunately there are gangsters out to get him (Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo and James Gandolfini). 

It’s punchy and witty, with the twists and turns of Leonard’s plot captured well. Travolta is perfect in the lead role, and Russo has an easy charm. They both add to the appealing quirkiness.

The Mexican (2001)

Foolish amateur gangster Jerry (Brad Pitt) has to perform “one last job”, which involves transporting a legendary gun from Mexico back to the USA. Predictably, nothing goes to plan. Events are further complicated when his girlfriend (Julia Roberts) is kidnapped by another gangster (James Gandolfini) and the pair develop a strange friendship. 

This is a comedy thriller with an unusual tone. It flits between tense moments and genuinely funny ones – a tricky balancing act that director Gore Verbinski pulls off with skill. 

Brad Pitt is better than usual because he’s playing an idiot and therefore doesn’t need to seem credible. Roberts is terrific – vividly full of life and personality – and her evolving relationship with Gandolfini provides the heart of the film. 

Gene Hackman has a cameo. Plus, there’s a nice sub-plot about a ferocious dog.

Absolute Power (1997)

Above-average political thriller. 

While robbing a billionaire’s mansion, a skilled burglar named Luther Whitney (Clint Eastwood) witnesses a crime involving the US President (Gene Hackman) and his secret service operatives. Because of the President’s careless actions in an affair with the billionaire’s wife, his mistress ends up getting shot. Detective Seth Frank (Ed Harris) begins to investigate the death, for which Whitney now finds himself the main suspect. 

All three male leads are charismatic and appealing. The secret service team are less impressive, although there’s a funny and clever scene in which the President dances with his Chief of Staff (Judy Davis). It’s moments like this – and a scene in which Ed Harris shows his attraction to the burglar’s estranged daughter Kate (Laura Linney) – that exhibit the warmth and intelligence that make the film so enjoyable. There’s also fun to be had in Whitney’s skill as a master of disguises, and there’s a fairly touching thread in which – despite everything – Luther and Kate begin to re-connect.

The French Connection (1971)

Crime thriller starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as New York cops “Popeye” and “Cloudy”, investigating a drug deal. 

There are plenty of thrilling moments, including a particularly exciting car/train chase scene, but it’s prevented from being a masterpiece by a few confusing plot elements. It’s frustrating because there’s so much that’s great about the film. 

Hackman gives the performance of a lifetime. There is something incredibly believable about him, so he makes the drama seem real. Scheider is also appealing, and the chemistry of the pair adds a great deal.

It looks fantastic, too, with the urban shots presented in a way that’s extremely gritty and convincing.

In 1975, Hackman starred in a sequel.

Unforgiven (1992)

Western. 

Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, who was once a dangerous outlaw but who has now cleaned up and settled down to lead a quieter life. His wife has died but he's looking after his young children and working on his small farm. When he decides to take on one last job he finds himself back in trouble, and before long he’s drinking and killing again. 

In some ways this is a film designed to appeal to old people, with ageing actors and ageing tropes. Eastwood plays alongside Morgan Freeman (his partner), Gene Hackman (a slightly crazy sheriff) and Richard Harris ("English Bob"). It cleverly examines the myth of the cowboy while also showing the grim reality of the truth behind it, i.e., bullets actually hurt and there’s no glory in taking a man’s life. There’s a certain irony in Clint Eastwood presenting that message after making so many cowboy films, but you hope he was aware of that.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

The SS Poseidon is sailing from New York to Athens when an underwater earthquake creates a huge wave that turns the ship over. A small group of passengers do their best to survive, despite the water coming in and the fires breaking out.

I was curious to see this film, which I had often heard about. It’s trashier than I expected. There’s a shabby made-for-TV quality to it, and it has none of the big-budget grandeur of disaster classics such as The Towering Inferno. The characters are absurdly diverse “types”, including:
• a rogue preacher (Gene Hackman)
• an angry, bad-tempered cop (Ernest Borgnine) and his ex-prostitute wife (Stella Stevens)
• a gee-whiz American kid (Eric Shea) and his older sister (Pamela Sue Martin)
• a woman given no other function than to be “a fat lady” (Shelley Winters) and her thinner husband Jack Albertson (Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory)
• a nervous singer (Carol Lynley) whose band of beardy blokes doesn’t make it
• a kindly, injured waiter (Roddy McDowall)
• an absurd-looking runner (he jogs like a parody of a Carry On character), who’s too shy to have any luck with women (Red Buttons)

Meanwhile, Leslie Nielsen plays the captain. After seeing him in Airplane! and The Naked Gun, it’s strange to see him in a straight role: I kept waiting for the gags that never arrived.

The concept is good, but it’s poorly executed and poorly written. There’s a lack of dramatic tension. Too much of the film becomes a logistical challenge of getting a group of people past an obstacle or from one room to another. The ship is meant to be upside down most of the time, but it rarely looks that way. You only see it in close-up, and the lack of contextual shots mean that what you do see looks like a set. It made me respect the action sequences in James Cameron’s Titanic even more than I did already. 

Character-wise, there are sections that are unintentionally comical – ridiculous, even. Often, one person is speaking and everyone else is holding a strange facial expression, such is the lack of dynamism in the group scenes. There’s a lot of unnecessary shouting, too. And you can tell when someone’s about to die because of the conversation they have beforehand. 

Gene Hackman makes the most of the sub-standard material, but he can only do so much. 

All these points aside, it’s entertaining enough.