TWILIGHT
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Mystery in a minor key. A once-
policeman, once-detective, Harry Ross is now unpaid
an errand boy and friend for a wealthy man. One
errand gets him involved in a murder. Soon the
complications involves blackmail and the buried
past. There is a lot of talk and not a lot of
thrills in this mystery set in modern Los Angeles.
Rating: 6 (0 to 10), +1 (-4 to +4)
Considering that TWILIGHT is only 94 minutes long and moves at such a slow pace, the plot is surprisingly complex, not to say downright confusing. The three main male characters are in their sixties and are taking that fact rather hard. Harry Ross (Paul Newman) has been a cop and a detective, but these days he is a houseguest for the well-off Jack and Catherine Ames (Gene Hackman and Susan Sarandon). Harry pays back his hosts by being a companion for Jack and occasionally running errands. Two years earlier the errand was to pick up Jack's daughter who had run off with her boy friend to Puerto Vallarto.
Given a private package to deliver to a woman runs Harry into a man dying of a fatal dose of bullets. The man's last act is to try to kill Harry. Both the police and Harry are anxious to know why. Harry is able to discover that the dead man was anxious to uncover the story, never fully explained, of what happened to Catherine's first husband before she married Jack.
Director Robert Benton, director of NOBODY'S FOOL, co-wrote this film trying for the depth of character that film had and at the same time the sort of mystery that Newman had with HARPER. It must have looked good on paper. Clearly a lot of good actors had some respect for the production and were willing to take non-starring roles. We see people like Stockard Channing and James Garner in supporting roles. M. Emmet Walsh appears just long enough to die on camera. It is hard to judge from a script if a mystery will be a good one or not. While the plot complications were convoluted, I picked out the killer early in the film, never wavered from my belief, and I was right. I suspect many viewers did the same. The film was probably made with the assumption that audiences would want to go along with Newman's easy- going rapport with his fellow actors, particularly James Garner with whom easy rapport does not seem like much of an accomplishment. However, with too much being so mellow the film robs itself of a sense of any real tension. Hackman tries to give some power to his role, but there is only so much he can do playing a man dying of cancer.
Of some additional interest is that the Ames mansion was really the home of Cedric Gibbons and Delores Del Rio. Gibbons was the art director on films like A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, and LUST FOR LIFE. Del Rio was a fiery Latin beauty in films of the 1930s and 1940s. The Ames's other home was one actually built by Frank Lloyd Wright, though never completed.
The aptly named TWILIGHT seems full of characters in the twilight of their lives and reaching a point where they think and talk rather than act. The point is carefully driven home that Newman's character is still a lover, but the viewer has reason to be skeptical. The actors give the feel of people going gently into that good night. I rate TWILIGHT a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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