Point Blank

Walker (Lee Marvin) and Mal Reese (John Vernon) stage a robbery, stealing a bag of cash from some crooks conducting a delivery by helicopter in deserted Alcatraz. Reese double crosses Walker and leaves him for dead, taking off with the cash and Walker's wife. Walker survives, escapes from the island, and comes after Reese, and all the rest of his criminal organisation, with the mantra, "I want my $93,000." On this third or fourth viewing, I was struck less by what an exemplary action film this is (Marvin, the hardest man in the history of the movies, was at least as mean and relentless in The Killers), and more by how deeply artiness is infused into its structure and design. The recurrent flashing back and forward in time, especially at the start between the planning - not in the traditional meticulous heist film set up, just a series of fractured, barely linked brief meetings and conversations - and the robbery, but also Walker's thoughts returning to his betrayal, feed the predominant critical interpretation that Walker was fatally wounded on Alcatraz, and the whole film is his trying to process this and his fantasy of revenge. Boorman addresses this directly in the commentary, to the extent that he refuses to commit and says it's intended to be ambiguous. I'm now firmly in the dying-flashback camp, because of Walker's almost magical powers. (On reflection, it's like the question of whether Deckard is a replicant - you can enjoy debating it and looking for clues, but in the end the answer is yes.) He appears in new scenes and locations with no evidence of having travelled, and generally in a spiffy new outfit (more of this later) despite carrying nothing but his revolver, and, particularly in the central sequence, he evades being apprehended either by coincidence (the lift he's in opens and closes while the baddies waiting for the same lift are distracted by a commotion) or by the sheer application of cool (waiting immobile but scarcely invisible in an underground car park while his pursuer is gunned down by police). He also has an advisor/mentor, played by Keenan Wynn, who pops up in scenes like a cartoon character (he looks like a sort of dome shaped, bristle headed man in a suit who might appear in Ren and Stimpy) and gives Walker his next mission, while the two of them assiduously avoid eye contact as if one or both aren't really there. From Walker's re-emergence in the first of a series of natty suits, Point Blank is constructed as a series of set pieces. The first is the oddest, continuing the flashbacks and playing with chronology. Walker is seen striding intently down a corridor, and we hear the sound of his footsteps over a series of scenes of his meeting his wife, and the two of them sharing innocent good times with Reese. He confronts his wife, fires six shots into her bed before realising Reese isn't there. A scene later, she's dead after an apparent overdose. A scene after that, the body is gone, the apartment is bare, and Walker has boarded himself inside. Did Walker even see his wife? Had she died already? A messenger arrives from whom Walker extracts a name, and he's off chasing the next link. Walker meets care dealer Big John, whose yard has enormous signs in a jazzy '50s font. He asks for a test drive, buckles his seatbelt, and smashes the car between pillars (c.f. The Driver) until John spills the next name. The most self-consciously art-directed scene follows, in which Walker visits a nightclub which features both a bikini-clad go-go dancer and a trio playing something between jazz and James Brown. Tipped off by a flirtatious waitress that he's being followed, he ducks behind the stage, and fights two baddies while giant faces are projected on a huge screen behind him. In a moment that suggests Tarantino watched this while writing Inglourious Basterds, Walker pulls down a rack of celluloid canisters to trap one pursuer, and then returns things to some kind of action movie orthodoxy by subduing the other one with a haymaker to the groin. In the centrepiece, Walker meets his sister-in-law Chris (Angie Dickinson). Grief and his mission of revenge don't mean he misses the chance to share her bed, and emerge, manhood serenely unthreatened, in her borrowed yellow shortie robe. The colour scheme gets turned up to 11 at this stage, with Walker in a mustard shirt-sports jacket combo (his outfits get truly creative whenever he's bedded Angie - later, he sports a shirt somewhere between salmon and ruby grapefruit - which I guess is the wardrobe equivalent of Joseph Gordon Levitt's post-coital dance routine in (500) Days of Summer), Angie in a rockin' yellow shift dress and matching '60s mid-length coat (let down soon after by wearing something striped like a bee), and Reese in a light tan, crushed velour t-shirt that might be the least flattering male garment in cinema until Borat's mankini. Walker even finds a sightseeing telescope painted lemon yellow, which he casually dislocates from its moorings to scope out Reese's penthouse lair. Once Reese is dealt with, the movie shifts into an early example of crime-as-big-business. Reese's boss is Carter, whose sleek Mad Men-style office and threads are matched by his resemblance to that series' Ted. According to IMDb, Lloyd Bochner, who plays Carter, was doing voice-over work from age eleven, and between him, Vernon's baritone (you know how it sounds - like Dean Wormer: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."), and Marvin's basso profundo, there's a meeting of male voices unmatched until, say, Brideshead Revisited. Around this point the architecture of LA attracts more and more focus, both modernist glass towers and the concrete culvert of the LA River, where a sniper lurks who might have inspired the climactic shooter in Get Carter. The commentary is conducted as a dialogue between Boorman and Soderbergh, who, if you've seen this, early Nic Roeg (Performance and Don't Look Now), and were already acquainted with the colour yellow, seems less original than he otherwise might. He has the decency to open by talking about how many times he's stolen from Point Blank. He's not the only one though. Point Blank deconstructs and toys with the action film as knowingly as anything in the 45+ years since, up to and including Archer and the entire oeuvre of Shane Black. Just when it's in danger of becoming too clever to be satisfying as a genre piece, it gets your attention with a pistol whipping, a punch to the groin, or the rarely-shown actual end result of the villain-takes-a-long-fall thing. And of course there's Marvin, who, whether dressed like a dandy, wearing a robe, or looking baffled when the next corporate criminal explains that they just don't have $93,000 to hand over, can't be beat. Seriously, you're not obliged to love it, but you have to see it at least once.

Finally it's in dvd. Been looking for it for years. Point Blank is Lee Marvin's best movie, the best character for him, and has his best tag line. I'll leave that for you to find. (It has to with seat belts.) The movie is aptly named. The plot is steam-roller direct, but the director uses some arty time-lapse devices that either distract by conflicting with the directness of the character and the plot, or enhance by providing depth and interest, I can't decide. But they do jarr a little and seem dated. I suppose I do like the uniqueness they add. It's a really good Lee Marvin movie, and Angie Dickinson to boot. Who remembers her answer when Johnny Carson asked her whether she dressed to please herself or others? Memorable.

I've been a big fan of this movie for many years, long before the advent of DVD let alone Blu-Ray. I used to go and see it at the repertory cinema often - the first time, I was stunned by the quasi-hallucinatory cinematography of it. A totally unique film that's never been replicated before or since (although The Limey was a good attempt) Frankly the story is incidental and not worth summarising or even paying much attention to. The cinematic style of it is what makes it so riveting both then and now - an excellent psychedelic time-capsule of late `60s LA punctuated by stunning performances from the likes of Marvin, Dickinson and others. The DVD was a huge let-down when released. Despite the accolades that it had at the time, it had a "watery" non-filmic quality which made it dull and tiresome to watch even once. Without capturing the garish color and mind-bending trippiness of the film, you were reduced to following the plot which, like I said, is the least interesting aspect of it. The Blu-Ray is MILES superior to the DVD. The integrity of every component in this movie that I've discussed above is perfectly captured; the emotional power of it is all there in bucketloads. The colors are strong and vivid and in true Blu-ray style you notice subtleties that you hadn't noticed before (e.g. the green chairs in the corporate offices, Angie Dickinson's expression after the "what's my last name" exchange). The overall quality is very filmic (no DNR etc) and good grain where appropriate. It looks like a strong 35 mm print that has been run a few times but has plenty of life left. So no Criterion day-it-was-released look but more than satisfactory. Ideally, I would like Criterion to get hold of this as I think they would clearly be able to make an improvement but this is a minor quibble. For fans of `60s cinema and experimental film-making, this Blu-Ray edition will thoroughly satisfy. I no longer feel the need to see this in a movie house anymore unless there's a full restoration of the original 35mm print (which does happen from time to time)

Magnífica película con uno de los mejores actores de su tiempo, Lee Marvin. Con una excelente calidad en audio y video, tan solo 91 minutos de intriga y suspenso. Como ya es común en las ediciones Blu Ray de Warner Brothers, contiene un documental y el trailer original, así como doblaje a español latino (original) y castellano.

Utlisation privée

This has always been one of my favourite films of all time.

'Point Blank' ist ein Thriller kühl und brilliant wie ein geschliffener Diamant. Die Story wäre kaum mehr als eine Variation eines klassischen Themas, dem Rachefeldzug eines um sein Recht Geprellten, würde sie sich nicht einer besonderen Erzähltechnik bedienen: Der Zuschauer erlebt das Geschehen, als ob es auf einer Realitätseben knapp neben der normalen Welt abliefe. So als ob er selbst, so wie die Figuren auf der Leinwand, in einem beständigen Rausch wäre, in dem Gegenwart und Erinnerung, Handlung und Gedanken einander beständig kreuzen und ein irreales Grundflimmern erzeugen. John Boorman (Regie) nutzt, um diesen Effekt zu erreichen, alle ihm zu gebote stehenden Mittel: Die Tonspur gibt nur selten, und dann immer nur kurz und selektiv, Umgebungsgeräusche wieder. Oft bleibt der Film sogar tonlos wie aufgehobene Realität. In anderen schneidet die Tonspur aus den zahlreichen möglichen Geräuschen genau jene heraus, die den irrealen Charakter des Geschehens unterstreichen. Wunderbar die Verfolgungs- und Prügelszene in einem Jazzclub, die von den spitzen Schreien des Sängers auf der Bühne unterlegt ist. Doch nicht nur die Tonspur bleibt selektiv, auch die Worte der Figuren sind es: Widergegeben wird, was zum Verständnis des Geschehens notwendig ist, und da ist kein Wort zu viel. So karg, wie die Tonspur oft ist, so karg geben sich die Figuren: Allen voran Walker, der als Rächer kühl und unerbittlich, ohne jegliche Rücksicht durch den Film schreitet. Kaum zeigt sich in seinem Gesicht Emotion. "You died all right at Alcatraz", sagt ihm Chris, als er sie für ihre Hilfe ausbezahlt. Walker ist emotional tot, und nur eine kurze Sequenz, in der er um seine Frau Lynn wirbt, lässt ahnen, dass er einmal ein anderer war. Und Walker schreitet auf seinem Rachefeldzug durch eine Szenerie, der der Regisseur alles Leben genommen hat. In einer beeindruckenden Sequenz am Anfang des Films macht er das Sterben Lynns greifbar, indem sich wie in einer Traumsequenz ihre Wohnung leert, bis nur noch das tote Weiss der Wände und der Staub bleibt. Inbegriff dieser Kühle ist jedoch die Festung Alcatraz in St. Francisco, in der der Film beginnt und endet: Film Noir Szenen in Perfektion, künstlich und kühl, choreographiert und dennoch packend. Der Rachefeldzug Walkers hat seinen Ursprung im Verrat durch seinen Freund Mal Reese. Nomen est Omen, denn Mal (= das Böse) entpuppt sich auch in der Folge als Erzbösewicht, der Walker nicht nur Geld und (vermeintlich) das Leben nimmt, sondern auch noch dessen Frau. Doch Walker ist nicht einfach auf Rache aus, er will vor allem sein Geld zurück. Doch hat er noch einen anderen Auftrag: Ein Unbekannter, der auch hinter Mal her ist, hilft Walker, die erste Spur zu finden und verpflichtet Walker als Gegenleistung darauf, ihm die Organisation hinter Mal zu liefern. Und Walker führt diesen Auftrag unerbittlich aus. Er findet seine Frau Lynn, und von ihr gelangt er wie auf einer Leiter von Sprosse zu Sprosse der Organisation. Und auf jeder Stufe kommt es erneut zu einem Showdown, und fast jedesmal bleiben Tote zurück. Jedesmal zeigt Walker, dass er ein unschlagbarer Pro ist. Schliesslich, in der letzten Szene des Films, erklimmt er die oberste Sprosse der Organisation. Und hier schliesst sich der Kreis. Wieder ist er in Alcatraz, und wieder ist er der Betrogene. 'Point Blank' ist einer der spannendsten und seiner Erzähltechnik wegen einer der eindrücklichsten Thriller auf der Leinwand. Doch muss man sich auf die Irrealität einlassen, in der die Handlung wie in Trance fortschreitet. Das ist ungewohnt, doch faszinierend, kühl und brilliant.

This is one helluva great gangster-revenge movie. Lee Marvin,John Vernon, Angie Dickinson , Keenan Wynn and Carroll O' Conner[Archie Bunker] makes this movie a Must See. This movie shows what a cool cat Lee Marvin is as his portrayal of Parker, who is out to get his 70 grand back from a double cross. If you enjoyed this flic, check out the remake Payback starring Mel Gibson, Maria Bello, James Coburn and Lucy Lui. you will be in for a double treat . "Rockin Ron".