Duncan Fraser .... Malone's target
It’s no secret that Burt Reynolds has been in a lot of shit movies, and that’s sad since he’s such a likeable movie star. Malone is one of his ‘80s action films, and I thought it might contain some Reynolds charm, or at least be stupidly entertaining. Sadly, Malone is abysmal. I didn’t know why anyone was doing what they were doing most of the time, all the characters were shit or cliched, and Reynolds walked around like he was stunned at how bad the movie he wandered into is.
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Reynolds displays his "I'm in peril"
expression from Malone. |
In the first minute of the film we see Burt Reynolds fly somewhere, prepare to assassinate someone, then change his mind. He then has a brief chat with Lauren Hutton about leaving the CIA, and how no one can just walk away. Then he burns his ID card and walks away. Opening credits later his car’s broken down in a small rural town.
The plot from there is that of numerous Westerns. Mystery man enters a town being taken over by a local despot (Delaney). Mystery man takes up with a family that won’t sell a key piece of land to the despot (Paul Barlow and his teen daughter Jo). Despot kills people to get his way. Despot doesn’t count on mystery man. Despot tries to kill mystery man. Mystery man fights back. People from mystery man’s past return to complicate matters. Young girl grows attached to mystery man, etc. This film could have been written by taking the script of Shane and substituting ‘paved road’ for 'prairie’, but it isn't that good.
Let’s go through the elements together to work out why. First, who is Malone? He’s a CIA agent who’s grown tired of his work. Why? Who knows, the film doesn’t go into any depth on the subject. What does this disillusionment mean for his character? All it means is that we have a reason why he appears in the plot. What does he stand for? I suppose he’s against Delaney. Why? Who knows. It doesn’t help that Reynolds basically plays Malone like a statue. But, boy is he one top agent. Lots of people say "Oh, he’s good" about Malone’s covert spy moves. But the key to movies is showing, not telling. At one point he actually shoots at a guy in the petrol station while Jo is standing behind the pumps! HE’S AN IDIOT!!!!!
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| How Hutton got her gap. |
Okay then, the family. Well the Barlows own the local garage and seem to have a strange trust for Malone. The basis for this trust seems to be that he knows how to fix his own car. They let him stay while they order parts. Jo finds his gun, Jo tells him that her mother died, Jo gets a crush on him. The father pops in from time to time to offer plot details. Malone hangs around the house like a statute. Not much enjoyment here. We don’t know why the Barlows want to keep the garage. Their business sucked anyway, and the town is dying. In a fast-changing economy these people are the worst type to protect. Move out of town, take a computer course, and put that damn daughter in some schooling.
So, how about the villain? What makes a story like this interesting is the conflicting goals or philosophies of the despot and mystery man. But here we don’t find out until the end what Delaney wants, and when we do it’s shitty and vague. I have no qualms about revealing stuff, because if you go out and watch the movie it’s your own fault. Delaney’s explanation of his goals has all the nuance of a campaign speech. He talking about being a true patriot, and saving America. But at some point I wanted to know what he was saving America from. How did buying up all the land in town fit in with this? What exactly was he going to do? One piece of solid action that Malone was preventing? Anything?
And then there’s the storyline of CIA. They send Lauren Hutton after Malone, which is a pretty funny thing to do. But why do the CIA want Malone dead, and are they connected to Delaney? Don’t know, and don’t know. Could be because, as Malone says at the start "No one just walks away". I think Lauren Hutton is basically in the movie to show that Malone isn’t messing around with the teenage girl. Don't believe me? At the end Jo tells Malone "In five years I’ll be older" and then they kiss in front of her dad (who then puts a supportive arm around her as Malone drives away), which made me feel good that the dodgy inter-generational sexual tension wasn’t just in my mind.
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Malone shows the facial expression
knows as "passion". Hutton is
displaying "Mu-uh". |
Lauren Hutton does do one other thing. When she shows up after about an hour of the movie it gives us a reason why Malone heads off to the final action scene at Delaney’s goon-infested compound (she gets offed). It has nothing to do with the Barlows, who we pissed around with for an hour. It doesn’t have anything to do with any plan of Delaney’s that seems to have a remote chance of success. It has to do with a shitty plot line chucked in at the end to stop Malone looking like a pedo.
Malone is the epitome of a plot driven film, where characters are just dragged along for the ride. What doesn’t help is that the plot is stale and the characters are dull. I started out asking "why is he doing that?" and ended up asking "why am I watching this?" At least you now know not to bother.
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