MULHOLLAND FALLS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Four beefy L.A. cops trample the law
to solve a case with national implications. This
is a film with a terrific look and a very strong
cast but a shockingly weak script with a wafer-thin
story that is full of superficial
characterizations, plot contrivances, and holes.
This clearly was a film with more budget than
intelligence. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4)
Well, somebody must have believed in this script. I am not sure why. I suppose the reason may be that it is a murder mystery that has a setting of post-war Los Angeles and environs. And the plot has to do with political conspiracies and sex. Perhaps someone thought this could be the new CHINATOWN. MULHOLLAND FALLS has terrific photography by Haskell Wexler, one of the great cinematographers. There are a surprising number of name actors even in tiny roles. This is a film that was given every advantage the Zanuck organization could give it. But it was all to bring to the screen an amateur script that often verges over into the Idiot Plot, the plot that moves forward only because somebody, usually the villain, acts like a complete idiot. ("Mr. Bond, this is the reactor keeps my whole island running.")
Max Hoover (played by Nick Nolte), Coolidge (Chazz Palminteri), Eddie (Michael Madsen), and Relyea (Chris Penn) are the kind squad of cops that give the Los Angeles Police Department the reputation it enjoys after the Rodney King and O. J. Simpson cases. They come on like the Untouchables (in the movie) and have no respect for hoods, gangsters, or due process of law. After an initial sequence that shows just how far beyond the law that they are willing to operate, they are called in on a mysterious case. A woman has been found dead in the desert, and Max obviously knows the woman, but is keeping that to himself. The woman was found actually imbedded IN the desert as if she had fallen off a cliff, but there are no cliffs around from which she could have fallen. From the dialogue it is clear that our squad of deep-thinking policemen cannot figure out how that is possible. To their credit, nobody in my audience shouted the answer at the screen, but we are just a few minutes into MULHOLLAND FALLS and it is clear this was not going to be a mind-stretching film. And it certainly is not. Multiple times there are scenes which do not make sense, such as characters being frisked by experts who somehow miss little things like eight-inch blackjacks. The logic of this film is on the level of a bad James Bond movie with the bad guys making major and stupid errors in judgment. That is actually a shame because both the police enforcement squad and the secret they uncover individually have a basis in truth. What is far- fetched is the scripting and not the basic plot.
Why Nick Nolte's agent let him play opposite Chazz Palminteri is anybody's guess, but it certainly was a mistake. Playing a scene opposite James Earl Jones, Howard da Silva, Chazz Palminteri, or Rin- Tin-Tin, you are in a battle for the audience's attention and you are probably going to lose. Nolte is okay, but Palminteri manages to make his own every scene in which he plays. Palminteri is really along mostly for comic relief from a tension that rarely manages to materialize. Second billing goes to Melanie Griffith in a decidedly secondary part as Max's wife. Her character is not even a major character in the story, though she does get some opportunity to act. John Malkovich does have a pivotal role as a general as well as a scientist working for the Atomic Energy Commission who was involved with the murdered woman. The casting department seems to have gone out of its way to get name actors in even some of the tiniest roles. People like Bruce Dern, Brad Pitt, and Louise Fletcher show up for parts as small as three sentences and then are seen no more. Direction is by New Zealander Lee Tamahori who directed ONCE WERE WARRIORS.
With a few good revisions on the script by Pete Dexter this could have been a major film and worthy of the attention that was lavished on it. As it is this is a film that has great style, but weak substance. I rate it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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