Gary
Tison secured a place in history for his family. Unfortunately, it was with the
landmark death penalty case, Tison vs. Arizona. He exerted a dysfunctional Svengali-like
control over his sons that made everyone suffer, particularly their victims. With
their assistance, Tison escaped from prison, igniting a spectacularly ill-fated
flight from justice. If ever there was a compelling argument for the death
penalty, it would be Tison, who chillingly comes to life in Dwight Little’s
true crime drama, Last Rampage (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in Los Angeles.
While
doing well-deserved time, Tison was a model prisoner, so he was duly moved to a
lower security annex. In retrospect, that was a huge mistake. His three sons
just sauntered in on visiting day, just like they always did, except this time
they had a picnic basket full of guns. At least Tison was a loving father,
albeit in a seriously warped way. His cellmate and fellow escapee Randy
Greenwalt was a stone-cold sociopath. Donnie Tison, the only Tison brother
exhibiting any capacity to think for himself clashes early and often with
Greenwalt. Their father will also try to shift the blame for the worst of the
post-escape crimes on his former cellmate, but it is hard for the Tison boys to
ignore what they see with their own eyes, especially for Donnie.
Of
course, it is not just their father who poisoned his sons’ heads. Their mother Dorothy
is sort of like a Lady Macbeth-instigator, who keeps herself in a willful state
of denial regarding her husband’s dangerously erratic nature. Sheriff Cooper
already lost friends and colleagues to Tison, so he will have Tison’s wife and
semi-estranged brother closely watched.
Rampage is a somewhat
frustrating film, because it assembles some truly terrific performances in a
cookie-cutter TV-movie-of-the-week package. Frankly, Robert Patrick’s
charismatic ferocity as Pops Tison will be an out-and-out revelation for those
who only know him as the T-1000 in Terminator
2 and subsequent self-parodying appearances. In a more distinctive film,
his performance could have been a dark horse awards contender.
Likewise,
Heather Graham is unusually intense playing against type as Ma Tison. It is a neatly
calibrated performance that leaves viewers unsure to what extent she has been
deluding herself about her beloved husband. As always, Bruce Davison is
rock-solid as Sheriff Cooper, providing a grounded, moral center to the film.
John Heard only appears briefly, but he makes the most of it as the “colorful,”
ethically questionable Warden Blackwell. Chris Browning is also all kinds of
creepy as Greenwalt, but in a quieter, clammier, low-key kind of way, which
nicely compliments Patrick’s flamboyant bluster. Sadly, the Tison brothers are
rather dull compared to everyone else.
You
have probably seen some of Little’s earlier films, like Halloween 4 or Marked for
Death, back when going to the latest Steven Seagal film in theaters was a serious
option instead of a depressing joke. Most of his recent work has been in
episodic television (Bones, Prison Break,
Nikita), so maybe it was inevitable Rampage
would have a TV vibe. Nevertheless, Little brings out the best in his cast
and the film’s late 1970s period details are spot-on. It is certainly far more
polished and professional looking than Do It or Die, another recent true crime indie film helmed by a TV veteran (a
comparison only a handful of us truly intrepid film dissectors would ever think
to make).
