A PRAYER FOR THE DYING
A film review by altera!bert
Copyright 1987 altera!bert
I hope this gets out soon enough to save you netters some money.
I saw a preview of A PRAYER FOR THE DYING last night at Camera One in San Jose. Now, Camera One is one of those high falutin' places that play movies like TAMPOPO, WISH YOU WERE HERE and MY LIFE AS A DOG. A PRAYER FOR THE DYING stars Bob Hoskins, Alan Bates and Mickey Rourke. Mickey Rourke is an IRA assassin who wants out. Alan Bates is a funeral director who'll get him to the USA if he'll do one more job. Bob Hoskins is a priest (ex-military man) who witnesses the killing. Here is my list of complaints.
(Prescript: I went into this movie with a good attitude.)
[1] Mickey Rourke's accent is so inconsistent (it's supposed to be Irish) that it's nearly impossible to make out what he's saying. [2] Once again, Mickey Rourke plays the detached, ultra-hip, cool guy just like in ANGEL HEART, 9 1/2 WEEKS, and YEAR OF THE DRAGON and it's getting boring. [3] Not considering [2], Mickey Rourke can't act. [4] There's no character development, motivation, suspense or mood. [5] The music is unbearably overwrought. [6] Alan Bates turns what could have been an extremely sinister character into high camp. [7] Is Alan Bates wearing a wig and did he recently have facial surgery? There is nothing above his collar that looks human. [8] The movie can be broken down into a cycle of length 3: scenes which are supposed to be meaningful but are patently phony, scenes which are high camp, and scenes which are supposed to be hip." It's a conspicuously bad mix. [9] Bob Hoskins is totally wasted in a 0-dimensional role. [10] For cheap sympathy, there's a blind girl. [11] The audience was a bunch of morons. In one scene where the priest loses his temper and starts to beat up the funeral director's henchman, it is clear that the priest is horrified by his return to violence. During this scene, the audience was cheering him on like he was Rambo. In general, even before it became obvious how bad the movie was, there was an awful lot of inappropriate tittering.
There isn't a rating on the Sid and Nancy, Leeper -4/+4, or $$$ scale low enough to place this movie.
Postscript: The only positive thing the person I went with could come up with was that the movie showed what a funeral director's job was like more than any other movie she'd seen.
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