The Hitchhiker: Ghostwriter

Unfortunately writers are not like painters. When they die, the value of their work does not necessarily increase. Trust me, my old house lost plenty of authors and hardly saw any bump afterwards. Somehow, that happened for gothic writer Jeffrey Hunt, except he is not really dead. He faked his death to reap the anticipated benefits. In contrast, movie fans always valued the recently departed M. Emmet Walsh, who invariably brought plenty of sly attitude to every classic character performance, like Det. Underhill, who is investigating Hunt’s death. Fans know it will be dangerous to underestimate him in the “Ghostwriter” episode of The Hitchhiker.

Hunt was reasonably well-reviewed, but he just never sold. However, his slimy agent Tony Lynch never dropped him, presumably because he was sleeping with Hunt’s wife, Debby. Naturally, Debby assumes she can finally be with Lynch when her husband reportedly drove his car into the ocean, to his watery death. She is therefore quite surprised and alarmed to find Hunt back home, having witnessed their passionate embrace.  Of course, she and Lynch quickly figure out since the world thinks Hunt is already dead, they have a free hand to murder him for real.

Originally, The Hitchhiker was supposed to be HBO’s slightly naughty dark thriller anthology, but the sex and nudity seem relatively mild today. The small ensemble is also packed with talent. Naturally, the drawly insinuating Walsh is reliably entertaining. Willem Dafoe is also quite satisfyingly creepy as the bug-eyed Hunt. Frankly, we do not see enough of him playing sinister characters.

Mario Van Peebles’ Outlaw Posse

There is a relatively new trope in revisionist Westerns, in which a grizzled gunslinger blows into a town founded by freedmen that exudes contemporary values of tolerance and diversity. Of course, he comes to respect their ways, even though he must revert to his bad old habits to defend their dreams. You definitely find this template in the Django series, the Refuge graphic novel, and now again in this film. At least the hard-bitten “Chief” will do his best to keep his shootouts out-of-town in Mario Van Peebles’ Outlaw Posse, which opens in select theaters this Friday.

Shortly after the Civil War, Chief and Angel hijacked a shipment of gold intended to pay reparations to former slaves. They had the usual falling out, resulting in Angel losing both his share of the gold and one hand. Shrewdly, Chief stashed the loot on reservation land, where most white outlaws fear to tread. However, Angel remains determined to re-appropriate the gold and sever one of Chief’s mitts in retribution. For leverage, he abducts Malindy, the wife of Chief’s estranged son, Decker.

To save her, Decker must ingratiate himself into Chief’s gang, now consisting of the fatherly Carson, the young Southpaw (both of whom are white), the knife-wielding femme fatale Queeny, and the minstrel-performer, Spooky. Chief is due to reclaim the gold at the time he and the actual tribal chief agreed upon, but to get there, they must travel through the freedmen’s community led by his former riding mate, Horatio, who isn’t as dead as Chief had heard (that is a common phenomenon in Outlaw Posse).

Weirdly, one of the most entertaining things about Outlaw Posse is the wealth of colorful character actor cameos, like Neal McDonough and the truly great M. Emmet Walsh, who appear in the prologue (which could stand alone as separate short) and then only reappear briefly in a dream sequence. Regardless, they are both perfectly cast. There is also Edward James Olmos popping up as a general store proprietor and Joseph Culp (Corman’s Dr. Doom) as a crooked sheriff. Plus, Cedric the Entertainer plays it relatively straight as newly enlightened Horatio.

Outlaw Posse does not appear to be linked to Van Peebles’ Posse from 1993, but he clearly remembered his way around horses and six-shooters. Frankly, there is no “posse” in Outlaw Posse, so the title seems deliberately misleading. Regardless, as Chief, he is definitely cool, in a steely, world weary kind of way. He can still carry a movie.

Knives Out: Daniel Craig Investigates Famous Suspects

If a suspicious character is not played by someone famous, chances are that person is not the murderer. That is why Agatha Christie movies used to have little pictures of the cast running along the bottom of their lobby posters. It showed off how many suspects there were. Winking homage is paid to those films in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which opens today nationwide.

Johnson’s screenplay is all about its twists, so some caginess is in order, to prevent spoilers. It is safe to say Harlan Thrombey, a celebrated mystery novelist and patriarch of a wildly dysfunctional and elitist family is about to die a premature death. Marta Cabrera, his private nurse is probably the only one who truly mourns him. The cops assume it is an open-and-shut case, but Benoit Blanc, an eccentric Southern gentleman private detective has reason to suspect otherwise. An unknown client hired his services to investigate, which is rather suspicious in itself.

Much to her surprise, Cabrera finds herself pressed into service as Blanc’s Watson. Of course, it becomes increasingly awkward for her, because she harbors her own secrets. Needless to say, everything is not as it seems.

There is quite a bit of clever misdirection going on throughout the film. It would be no fair telling, but rest assured the big reveals are all quite satisfying. The knowing humor is also mostly rather sly, but there are times when the scoldy class warfare messaging should have been throttled down. This is supposed to be larky fun, not a Theodore Dreiser adaptation.

Fortunately, Daniel Craig always keeps things snappy when he is on-screen, delighting viewers with Blanc’s impossibly lazy drawl. Honestly, that accent deserves some kind of award. It is also great fun watching him effortless shift from genteel charm to gleeful cunning.

Frankly, it is rather impressive that Ana de Armas can keep up Craig and the rest of the colorful ensemble as the almost fatally nice Cabrera. Of course, only Blanc can withstand the withering attitude Jamie Lee Curtis projects as the tartly cynical eldest daughter, Linda Drysdale. She is a totally believable chip off the block that is Christopher Plummer’s uber-yankee Thrombey (and really ought to have more screen time, but she makes the most of what she gets). Likewise, Plummer has the appropriate lordly presence, but he has some surprisingly engaging humanizing moments with De Armas.

Yet, Don Johnson might just score the biggest laughs as the venal and pretentious son-in-law, Richard Drysdale. Honestly, Johnson has yet to get the credit he deserves for his comedic chops (check out his razor-sharp cornpone turn in Cold in July, if you doubt it).

The Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple

You know a film has lasting cultural significance when Zhang Yimou helms a Chinese remake (in this case, the wildly entertaining A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop, starring a seriously hard-nosed Sun Honglei). For some reason, the Coen Brothers’ debut film never really found a wide popular audience, but its acclaim made the Fargo and Big Lebowski phenomena possible (as well as the Best Picture-winning No Country for Old Men). The time is probably right for casual fans to catch up with the film that started them off, Blood Simple (trailer here), which re-releases in its 4K restored glory (courtesy of the Criterion Collection) this Friday at Film Forum.

As befitting a film that takes its title from bit of Dashiell Hammett dialogue, Blood Simple starts with some hardboiled narration from sleazy private detective Loren Visser. That is him in the VW Bug, tailing Abby Marty and Ray, the manager of her husband’s east Texas roadhouse. Technically, they were not yet having an affair, but instead of continuing to Houston, they impulsively check into a motel, providing Visser with the evidence her husband expects.

Julian Marty makes no secret of his contempt for Visser, but he still hires the ethically questionable P.I. to kill his wife and her paramour. This turns out to be a mistake in retrospect. Initially, Visser falsifies evidence of his contracted hit job, killing Marty instead, using his wife’s gun to frame her up. At least that was the plan. Things get super-complicated when Ray stumbles upon the crime scene. Several iconic scenes later, the illicit lovers openly distrust each other, unaware of Visser’s villainy.

Even in an age of iPhones and the like, Blood Simple still holds up remarkably well. The noir narrative twists have not dated and it looks as stylish as ever. At the time, some complainers thought the Coens and cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld should have been filmed in black-and-white, but it simply would not have been the same film without Visser’s sickly yellow suit. It just screams bad news.

From today’s perspective, it is rather remarkable how much talent came together for this little upstart noir. M. Emmet Walsh was already something of a legend in 1984, but Blood Simple is the film that truly defines his career. As Ms. Marty, Frances McDormand, who married Joel Coen shortly after Simple wrapped, is more seductive and vulnerable than you would expect from Marge Gunderson, her Oscar-winning Fargo character. 

On the other hand, Dan Hedaya probably helped type-cast himself as ethnically ambiguous heavies with his work in Simple, but he really is terrific as Julian Marty. Frankly, John Getz probably deserved more attention for his understated but assured turn as Ray. Although he is not a household name, Tony-nominated playwright Samm-Art Williams adds considerable flair and energy as Marty’s bartender, Meurice. You can also briefly hear the then unknown Holly Hunter as the voice on his answering machine.

It is pretty crazy to imagine the Sundance press corps eagerly queueing up to get a look at the buzzy Blood Simple from the ultra-indie Coen Brothers (who even tapped their local suburban Minnesota branch of Hadassah for financial support), yet such was the case in 1984. Thirty-two years later, it remains a slickly effective thriller further distinguished by the Coens’ wickedly sly, darkly comic touches. Highly recommended, Blood Simple opens this Friday (7/1) in New York, at Film Forum.