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Don't Mention The War!
Review date: 2008-04-09 Rating: 8 out of 10
A well-constructed and well-acted film, based on the situation of a family in constant fear of detection by the FBI. The reason? The parents were involved in the bombing of a laboratory researching napalm, in 1971. A security guard was blinded in the attack and they have been fugitives since then, constantly changing locations, jobs, schools for their two children, who are drilled in their new names, backgrounds etc every few months. The boys are also schooled in how to spot and evade surveillance. The family have fallback rendezvous points just in case...the "whole nine yards" of terrorist/espionage tradecraft, really. They are assisted by The Network, the remnants of their late Sixties/early Seventies underground group.
The River Phoenix character is a skilled musical student and gets the chance, in his new school, in suburban New Jersey (the film was partly filmed in Tenafly), to attend the prestigious Juillard School of Music in New York City. His father, played by Judd Hirsch (who realizes the role of Sixties Jewish radical grown middleaged rather well) realizes that, if the son attends Juillard, arrest is almost guaranteed in time, so says he cannot go, but the son wants to and has formed a romantic-sexual liaison with the daughter of the NJ school music teacher...
The film was made in 1988 and won an Oscar. It is clear that it takes its inspiration mainly from the existence of the "Weather Underground" network (itself named after a Bob Dylan song). The same theme was dealt with also, but in a comic way, in the (also 80's) film Flashback. In fact, there ARE still, not even 20 but 40 years after the radical late Sixties, Wanted fugitives of this kind in the USA, still seriously sought by the FBI! One woman was arrested in Pennsylvania (I think) while (coincidentally!) I was visiting Tampa, Florida in 1999. She was the wife of a local doctor and had lived there for about 20 years, but was still wanted for a bombing similar to the one in this film. She was going to be put on trial, I believe, but I know not the result. The irony is that she, like the people in this film, had long ago, decades ago, given up any ideas about armed struggle and was living a kind of unremarkable American middleclass surburban lifestyle; the pointlessness of continuing with a para-"armed struggle" today was brought to life in this film and highlighted by the reappearance of a former comrade who still did things like robbing banks, having turned (like the IRA and others) to crime while pretending continuing political commitment. The parents in this film are, like that real woman, trapped because they did one terroristic thing which now continues to haunt their lives. Terrorism they now see as pointless (the bombing would not have prevented napalm research and was but a gesture...gesture politics?).
Recommended.
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Reviews
A beautiful film
Review date: 2007-12-14 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is one of the seminal films from my youth. It is heartbreaking, funny, warming and has a brilliant soundtrack featuring James Taylor's 'Fire and Rain' which makes me cry every time I hear it. It's intelligently written and you really feel for the characters.
"Running on Empty"
Review date: 2005-11-26 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is a film I first saw on TV in my late teens, before I was old enough to realise what it meant. It stayed with me in the back of my mind as something half-remembered, something I'd love to see again. Last week it was released on DVD in the UK and I had pre-ordered a copy (thank you, Amazon!). I've not been so moved by a film for as long as I can remember. The performances are so fresh, the script feels so natural (Naomi Foner justly won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Screenplay), nothing is overstated or overplayed - the weight of the family's circumstances builds up in the background, and when it hits the surface it knocks you sideways.
Danny (River Phoenix) and Lorna (Martha Plimpton) have an evening together, they started kissing while he's walking her home, he breaks away, she's angry and stomps home. Next day he tries to talk to her and she won't listen. He goes to find her and explains how his family lives, constantly on the run from the FBI, and why he can't be with her unless she knows this: and how he's never explained this to anybody before. During this scene you go through the journey in her head from being a teenage girl with a crush on a boy to fully comprehending another person's life; from playing games with boyfriends to entering into a relationship that will change her life and his. It's masterfully done.
If you'd read the pitch for this movie, you'd think it could so easily have been instantly forgotten. Foner's script, Sidney Lumet's subtle direction, the performances of perfect cast and an appropriately haunting piano/guitar score by Tony Mottola have ensured that this film will be watched over and over again.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
River Phoenix
Christine Lahti
Judd Hirsch
Creators:
Christine Lahti (Primary Contributor)
River Phoenix (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
EAN: 7321900118439
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2005-11-21
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 111 minutes
Language: English (Original Language)