Pacific Heights

20^th Century Fox (theatre) and Warner Brothers (DVD)

present a Morgan Creek production

of

a John Schlesinger film

PACIFIC HEIGHTS

starring Matthew Modine, Melanie Griffith and Michael Keaton.

*******

Here's a trailer.

This 1990 film about new landlords doing battle with the tenant from hell could have been a good psychological thriller; sadly, an interesting idea was hampered by poor execution.  The film cost $18,000,000 to make and grossed $44,926,706, and Schlesinger certainly makes good use of the locations in San Francisco and Palm Springs; that said, the characters are so underdeveloped that it's difficult to care about what happens to them.  As with Event Horizon (already reviewed), as far as the look of the film is concerned the money's been used well; would that one could say the same for the content.

Drake (Modine) and Patty (Griffith) are young, un-married and upwardly mobile.  They move into a Victorian house in San Francisco which they plan to renovate.  The payments are beyond their means but the property’s been divided into three apartments so by combining their savings with rent from the other two apartments, Drake and Patty decide that they can manage.

Before long one of the apartments is occupied by the Watanabes (a kindly Japanese/American couple) but Drake and Patty haven't been entirely truthful about their financial position and in order to make the monthly payments on the house they need another tenant as quickly as possible.

Enter Carter Hayes (Keaton).

Hayes is expensively dressed, drives a very expensive car and is very polite; the answer to Drake and Patty's prayers.  Admittedly for someone so apparently wealthy he's strangely reluctant to undergo a credit check but so what?  Needs must when you are up to your eyes in debt; besides, he may be polite to the point of creepiness but he's got references, he's come along at just the right time and in return for waiving the credit check he's willing to pay six month’s rent up front by wire transfer; what could be better?

Now, there's an old saying about what happens when someone or something seems too good to be true.

Yes, that's the one.

Sure enough, Hayes is a nightmare; he moves in without permission, has another man whom one can only describe as a slack-jawed weirdo move in with him (together they carry out unauthorized do-it-yourself work on the apartment until the small hours of the morning), the promised rent shows no sign of appearing and the noise (plus an army of cockroaches) forces the Watanabes to move out.

Hayes, however, has absolutely no intention of doing likewise; from the moment he moves in on Drake and Patty, he’s waging psychological warfare.  He won’t even answer the door to the apartment and goes so far as to change the locks.  He also knows how to play the legal system to his advantage and when Drake cuts off the power, he calls the police and it’s Drake who finds himself on the wrong side of the law.

This pattern is repeated throughout the film and is, as it turns out, Hayes’ usual modus operandi: move into rented accommodation, refuse to pay the rent, make a nuisance of himself, push the landlord over the edge and then play the victim, continuing this pattern until a happy household has been destroyed.

There is, to begin with at least, an air of mystery about Hayes; what does he do apart from unauthorized building work?  Is he, perhaps, a satanist?  A serial killer?  Both?

No.

Hayes, we discover, is a loser, serial wrongdoer and general ne’er-do-well who is unhappy because he's been disowned by his family so in his mind, nobody else should be happy either.

That’s it.

Michael Keaton plays creepy-and-slightly-menacing like nobody else but for him to be scary the menace needs to come to the fore and that simply never happens.  Even when he’s seen sitting in the dark twirling razor blades, we don’t get the feeling that he’s going to do anything with them: at least, not to anybody other than himself.  He comes across as more pathetic than anything else.

Without going into too much detail from here on, Hayes is not above a spot of identity theft; having already assumed the identity of the property's former landlord (Hayes' real name is James Danforth), he pretends to be Drake in order to use his credit cards; however he is soon found out by Pattty and all Drake has to do to stop him is freeze the joint account.  With that done, Danforth's 'scam' unravels and it's downhill for him from then on.

I won't give away the ending but it is a happy one, should you be curious enough to watch this interesting misfire of a film.

4 out of ten.

Event Horizon

Paramount Pictures

present a Golar Production in association with Impact Pictures

of

 a Paul W.S. Anderson film

EVENT HORIZON

starring

Lawrence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan and Joely Richardson.

******************

Here's a trailer

Without wishing to give too much away, for those who have not seen this and may let their curiosity get the better of them, this is a UK/USA production made on an estimated budget (according to Internet Movie Database) of $50,000,000 and as far as the look of the thing is concerned the money was used well; would that one could say the same for the content.

Seven years after disappearing on its maiden flight, the deep-space research vessel 'Event Horizon' reappears in orbit around Neptune.  Unfortunately, the ship's revolutionary faster-than-light 'gravity' drive (which works by folding space by means of creating a black hole... er... I think...) has taken the ship to somewhere it really shouldn't have been and it's brought something back that it really, really should have left behind.

As we are helpfully informed, there were eighteen people aboard the ship.  Some of them may still be alive and thus need rescuing so to this end, a rescue vessel, the 'Lewis and Clark' is dispatched, crewed by Fishburne (a chance to see him when he was still slim) and a crew of walking stereotypes.

I can just imagine a meeting...

Producer: "Okay, let's go through the list of the crew: we've got...

the tough, by-the-book but basically decent Captain (Miller: Lawrence Fishburne)

 the no-nonsense one (Lieutenant Starck: Joely Richardson),

the rough diamond (Pilot Smith: Sean Pertwee),

the caring medic (Medical Technician Peters: Kathleen Quinlan),

 the rookie kid (Engineer Ensign Justin: Jack Noseworthy),

and the intellectual one (Trauma Doctor D.J.: Jason Isaacs).  That's great, that's everyone... oh, no, not quite: we need the token black dude.  Where's the token black dude?"

Assistant: "We got him: we got Fishburne."

Producer "No, the token black dude".

Assistant: "Oh, man..."

Rescue Technician Cooper (Richard T. Jones) is duly added to the list.

For technical advice the crew take with them the ship's designer, Dr. Weir (Sam Neill).  In keeping with the casting policy set out above, Weir is a classic 'mad, mad, they said I was mad but I will show them bwahahahahaha' scientist.

When we first see him, on what we discover to be a space-station, he is woken up and begins looking at photographs of his wife who has, for reasons that do not become clear, committed suicide.  This scene follows on immediately from a scene in which we witness the Event Horizon in orbit around Neptune... the camera takes us on board... abandoned items float around... before long a lacerated body, its mouth frozen in a scream, floats towards the camera.  All this may or may not be a nightmare of Weir's... sadly this is by no means the only unanswered question.

This film is so derivative that you have to remind yourself that you haven't already seen it, so numerous are the references to other films (Alien, The Black Hole, 2001. 2010, The Shining, Dune and Hellraiser, to name but seven).

 Nothing that happens really makes any sense: when Fishburne and Co. first encounter the ship it is in the upper cloud layers of Neptune, the better to give a dramatic approach.  From then on it remains in orbit.  How it manages to move itself around with no power is not explained.

As for plot, well, there isn't much.  From hereon in we are served a fairly relentless stream of hallucinations, death, an unintentionally funny recording of what happened when the crew activated the gravity drive (mutilation and - apparent - death), explosions, death, buried memories, blood, gore and death.

Where has the ship been?  The implication is that it's been to hell and back but we are never told this.  What has it brought back?  No idea.  What happened to the crew?  Are they dead?  If so how come there are life-signs all over the ship?

Before the Lewis and Clark sets off, we discover that Peters is going to miss her handicapped son's birthday: this information sets things up for some shock moments later on.

In fact, shock is the operative word here.  Everything is designed for maximum shock value with no regard to whether or not anything makes any sense at all.

Come the end, Weir is thoroughly possessed by the ship.  Miller disposes of him by blowing out a window  but his spirit returns and takes over the aforementioned body.  'Weir' attempts to take the ship to... wherever... and Miller attempts to stop him.  Finally Miller sacrifices himself by hitting the destruct button and only Starck and Cooper escape in the front portion of the ship.

The script squeezes in what is meant to be a final shock, but it really does not come as a huge surprise when Starck wakes up and hallucinates that Weir is part of the rescue team.  Unsurprisingly she then loses it completely and has to be sedated

Yes, I know I said I wouldn't give too much away but this film truly deserves to be missed.

1 out of 10.