THE DEVIL'S OWN
[Spoilers]
A film review by Brian Rohan
Copyright 1997 Brian Rohan
Sympathy For The Devil
Engaging Characters and Strong Acting Almost Make Up For a Plot That Goes Nowhere, Fast
The Devil's Own Starring Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Ruben Blades, Margaret Colin, Treat Williams and Paul Ronan. Columbia Pictures/ Rated R
THE most surprising thing about The Devil's Own is certainly not the plot, which in terms of predictability often places somewhere between sunrise and taxes. Instead, the greatest surprise is the very fact that this rumored Hollywood disaster, this IRA version of Heaven's Gate, a film which seemed destined to become known as MacIshtar, is actually not that bad after all. With two weeks to go before its March 26th release, The Devil's Own has long been considered dead on arrival. Reports of the film's demise have been widespread, beginning with the shooting of the film in New York last summer and climaxing dramatically in late January with public denunciations by one of the film's two leading men, Brad Pitt.
"Twenty pages of dogshit," was Pitt's recollection of the Devil's Own script, as told to Newsweek.
"[The Devil's Own] was the most irresponsible bit of filmmaking -- if you can even call it that -- that I've ever seen. I couldn't believe it. I don't know why anyone would want to continue making that movie."
In addition to Mr. Pitt's complaints were the howls of Hollywood journalists, horrified by The Devil's Own many delays, script rewrites, and most of all, budget figures.
"The budget has soared from an estimated sixty million dollars to ninety million," reported The New Yorker, almost four months and surely another few million dollars ago, in November. The gossip columnists' condemnation of director Alan Pakula's spending habits were such that one would think the money was theirs. Haven't there been plenty of on-set disasters which turned out to on-screen classics? What about Apocalypse Now? Wasn't that film also a mess before it was recognized as a great?
Yes, but of course that hardly means there will be a Hearts of Darkness made about The Devil's Own. The IRA thriller is a greatly flawed mess in search of an ending. It will most definitely be slated by the critics and will be very lucky to break even. But as stated above, it's not our money....
***
THE film begins in 1972 in a rural cottage outside Belfast, where we see young Frankie McGuire listening to his dad, who is saying Grace. The potatoes are still warm when the door is kicked in by men in balaclavas, guns blazing. Frankie's eyes are frozen as his father -- whom we hear later was some form of republican sympathizer -- is gunned down by the unidentified gunmen.
The incident is all young Frankie needs to become, within the next 20 years, the most feared of IRA weapons. A closed-door strategy meeting among security force officials reveals as much -- the adult terrorist, McGuire, must be brought down at all costs, the troops are informed. Just as the 1972 killing of his father was all McGuire needed to forge a life of mayhem, so too is that life of mayhem all the British Army and Northern Ireland police need to custom-order the assassination of McGuire. A policy of shoot-to-kill is put into effect.
As the twenty something McGuire, Pitt is a quietly seething force. With the confidence and bravery known only to leading men, McGuire is a daredevil in Belfast fire-fights, though all around him his IRA buddies are shot to bits. "Where's Frankie McGuire?," hisses a menacing British army agent, immediately recalling the "Where's Sean?" mantra of an earlier IRA movie, 1992's Patriot Games.
Unlike Patriot Games, the IRA man in The Devil's Own is portrayed as justified in his actions and decent in his intentions, although his mission is ultimately more important than the human lives of even those close to him. Frankie McGuire is shown to have friends and also to have affection, but he'll gladly detonate both if the need arises.
This is evident when we next meet McGuire, on a missile-purchasing mission in New York, in the spring of 1993.
"Isn't this crazy?," says McGuire's increasingly unsure IRA buddy, played by Paul Ronan. "Us trying so hard to bring missiles over there, and them only waiting to shoot us?"
Phelan makes a brief attempt at talking McGuire out of it all: peace is in the air; we'll only be killed and forgotten; and besides, isn't New York a wonderful place? But McGuire, as determined as any Hollywood heavy, brushes him off and sets out to buy some missiles.
Alan Pakula, the Devil's Own director, obviously felt it necessary to justify his IRA character's actions even beyond the 1972 death of Frankie McGuire's father. McGuire is shown entering Newark Airport on February 23, 1993, a date which is surely no coincidence. In real-life -- but not mentioned in the movie -- the date is exactly three weeks after the first-ever U.S. visit by republican leader Gerry Adams. It was a grim time for Northern Ireland supporters of the IRA, which would not declare a ceasefire for several more bloody months, on September 1st. In February, there were many within the IRA who were urging peace, leading to the ceasefire six months later, but (the fictional) Frankie McGuire was surely not one of them.
"If we could only take one of them down," laments McGuire, referring to the flocks of Army helicopters over Northern Ireland. "Then we'd get them to listen."
(Obviously, the Devil's Own screenwriters did their homework in this regard -- judging by the real-life busts of IRA gun-running missions over the past two decades, surface-to-air missiles has been a priority.)
McGuire appropriates the name of 'Rory Devaney' (though for some reason he doesn't bother with a disguise or even a haircut) and enters a familiar network of sympathetic Irish Americans. Chief among them is a wealthy and powerful judge, played by George Hearn, who is involved in a 'Project Children'-type effort connecting wayward and unemployed Irish youths with generous American families. New York Police sergeant Tom O'Meara (Harrison Ford), as a favor to his old friend the judge, allows 'Rory Devaney' to crash in the basement of his suburban home.
Unknown to the O'Meara family, the judge is something other than a benevolent Project Children type and 'Rory Devaney' is more than an unemployed youth in need of a start. The judge provides a sack full of fresh hundreds, and it's McGuire/Devaney's job to convert them into dead helicopters.
It is in the O'Meara household that Devil's Own has its finest moments. Harrison Ford plays a veteran cop in a house full of females -- his wife, Sheila, (played by Margaret Colin) and their three daughters, aged approximately five, eleven and perhaps fourteen. The three daughters immediately fall in love with this mysterious basement-dweller with the funny accent, providing some genuinely touching domestic scenes, thankfully free of Hollywood cutesiness. Sergeant O'Meara's high school-aged daughter is mortified when the youngest child asks 'Devaney' at the dinner table whether he has a girlfriend. The tension is delightfully real; tellingly, the drama over corned beef and cabbage is much more effective than that which takes place later, over Stingers and AK-47s.
As the Provo-beneath-the-stairs, McGuire moves quickly in acquiring the goods. A plan is hatched to buy missiles from a shadowy Irish American businessman, Billy Burke (played by Treat Williams), who toasts dead Fenians in his shamrocked Manhattan saloon (locals will recognize the set as the historic Old Town tavern). It is evident from the beginning -- especially to Frankie McGuire -- that Billy Burke's loyalties are closer to his own wallet. Without getting into specifics and giving away too much of the plot, trouble begins when the visiting IRA men fall afoul of the local Irish American mobsters. Frankie McGuire is loyal to a fault, but his mobbed-up ethnic cousins are as reliable as the weather.
Thus also begins the unraveling of the relationship between McGuire and Sgt. O'Meara. There is much for O'Meara to question at this point in his middle-aged life: the sudden realization that his NYPD partner -- played by Ruben Blades -- as well as the Irish kid in the basement, are something other than what was advertised. The NYPD angle is merely a distraction though, as O 'Meara copes with the newly-discovered identity of the son he never had. It is here that the bottom starts to fall out of The Devil's Own. Sgt. O'Meara's loyalties and motivations are all over the place, as if, well, as if they were taken from several different screenplays. The movie stumbles on to an end which is, at best, anti-climactic, but not before Alan Pakula's production allows the audience a little bit of fun.
For instance, there is the emergence on U.S. soil of a British Army agent, identified by Harrison Ford's character as a member of the S.A.S., or Special Air Service. In a characterization which will surely make the London tabloids howl in protest, this character is slightly less charming than Darth Vader. We have already seen him coldly assassinate an already-wounded member of Frankie McGuire's IRA unit in Belfast, and it is made clear that he is in the U.S. to do the same to Frankie McGuire.
"We have already gotten everyone else in his unit," explains the SAS agent, suggesting that McGuire's unit has resisted the rest of the IRA's move toward peace. Sergeant O'Meara, although he disagrees strongly with armed republicanism and is repulsed when he learns of McGuire's involvement, nonetheless decides not to help the British agent. This leads to a memorable confrontation between the snarling spy from London and the narrowback cop from Brooklyn.
"What exactly is your relationship to Frankie McGuire?," snarls the agent. "After all, you are Irish, are you not, Sergeant O'Meara?" O'Meara, livid at the implication, shoots back incredulously, "Yeah, but so's Cardinal O'Connor."
***
SADLY, the hissing British agent, like so much else in the early parts of The Devil's Own, vanishes into thin air. It is a movie filled with loose ends and dangling plotlines, which is surely the result of too many competing screenplays and egos.
Politically, The Devil's Own is likely to cause plenty of problems overseas. There is no mention of Frankie McGuire's unionist-minded neighbors, which must have seemed okay to the screenwriters since Frankie McGuire seems to care far more about military revenge than he does political ideals (concepts such as partition or re-unification are never discussed). The only unionist-type we meet in the entire movie is the above-mentioned SAS agent. As regards the history of American involvement in IRA matters, the film is more accurate and understanding than any of Hollywood's other recent IRA thrillers (the main ones being Patriot Games and 1994's Blown Away). Bits and pieces of the plot resemble events in a number of real-life gun-running operations: the early 1980s Valhalla operation out of Boston, for example, as well as the numerous attempts at buying Stingers over the past fifteen years. More importantly, the character of Sergeant O'Meara points to a depth previously unseen for his stereotype -- the character is Irish American, somewhat sentimental, and is also a blue-collar member of the New York City police force. Yet this does not make him a de facto supporter of the IRA. At the same time, neither is O'Meara blindly condemning of the IRA. Harrison Ford's character, while disagreeing strongly with armed republicanism, states how he understands the anger-fueled motivations of republicans like McGuire. "Can't they get the bastards?" O'Meara asks Frankie, referring to the men who killed the senior McGuire, in 1972.
"They are the bastards," responds Frankie.
There's no other way but to hit them back, asserts McGuire, and although O'Meara does not agree, he understands. Such complexity of character, acted by a seasoned, affable professional such as Harrison Ford, make The Devil's Own stand out above its IRA-themed predecessors.
Unfortunately, it is not enough. The movie's characters are eminently engaging for the first 60% of the film, before the plot is pulled from beneath them like a rug. The film's ends with a dud, when it clearly needed a bang, and is ultimately less than satisfying.
Which begs the question: it is possible for the Hollywood to make a meaningful, character-driven IRA-themed story and simultaneously deliver a sophisticated thriller? The jury is still out on that one. For better or for worse, the real-life material which inspires stories such as The Devil's Own will be around long after this movie has gone to video.
From esch@fische.com Wed Mar 19 09:02:18 EST 1997 Article: 5453 of rec.arts.movies.reviews Path: nntphub.cb.lucent.com!not-for-mail From: esch@fische.com (Dave Cowen) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: SAFE (1995) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.past-films Date: 18 Mar 1997 17:01:09 GMT Organization: Exec-PC Lines: 244 Sender: eleeper@lucent.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: eleeper@lucent.com Message-ID: <5gmhol$526@nntpa.cb.lucent.com> Reply-To: esch@fische.com (Dave Cowen) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtvoyager.mt.lucent.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #07132 Keywords: author=Cowen Originator: ecl@mtvoyager Xref: nntphub.cb.lucent.com rec.arts.movies.reviews:5453 Status: O
SAFE
A film review by Dave Cowen
Copyright 1997 Dave Cowen
[This review contains what some may consider spoilers. However, I feel that these observations on the film could enhance the movie for first-time viewers as well. Read on at your own discretion.]
It's a natural human instinct to attribute cause, and when none is available, to fill in the blanks with unfounded speculations that can be recited as simple truths. At its most harmless, this human reaction to the unknown results in superstition or meaningless legends, but at worst can engulf an individual with a sense of paranoia and the belief in conspiracy. When an individual feels that there is no answer to a fundamental question of human existence, or even worse, the "meaning of life," that individual either shrinks into depression or, if lucky, relies on a strong community or family to help them through their crisis of the soul. Unfortunately, the human animal has a tendency for gullibility in times of crisis, and can be easily lured into a community which masquerading as being there to help, is really there for another reason.
The central irony of Todd Haynes' film SAFE is that Carol White (Julianne Moore), the film's main character, is in a position that many would consider to be more safe in life than any other in our society. A housewife in the San Fernando Valley during the late 80's, Carol spends her days decorating, carpooling, doing aerobics and 'fruit diets'. She has a husband with an advancing career, a stepson, a large European auto, and most of all, a spacious house protected by a huge metal gate. Carol personifies the housewife we've all imagined as being the female component of an 'American dream family'. What could possibly go wrong?
Things start to change. Carol begins having headaches, sleeplessness, sensitivity to smell. She has a coughing fit after driving behind a dumptruck, and later we find Carol hyperventilating while attending a friend's baby shower. Repeated visits to the doctor leaves the doctor with the impression that Carol's symptoms are stress related, which results in a referral to a psychologist. A visit to the psychologist yields little gain, however, when the psychologist tells Carol "We really need to be hearing from you. What's going on inside -you-," and Carol finds she has little to say.
When Carol speaks she speaks in fragments, as if she can not quite verbalize an idea. Carol ends her fragments with question marks -- when asked if she has children, Carol responds "he's not my son, he's my stepson? Rory?" And if questioned in an aggressive manner, or accused of something, she'll let out a defensive "I just...", pause for a few seconds, and say something else. When a waitress asks "Do you know what you want," the best Carol can do is to say "I'll have what she's having." Carol is not a woman who is in control of her life.
After a draining aerobics session, Carol finds a flyer hanging on a bulletin board at the health club labeled DO YOU SMELL FUMES? Carol starts attending seminars on chemical sensitivity, reacts during an allergy test, and becomes convinced that she is suffering from environmental illness. Carol begins a regimen to combat the illness, fasting, popping vitamin pills, creating a "safe place" in her home, and carrying an oxygen tank.
A grand mal seizure in a dry cleaning shop sends Carol to the hospital, where on TV she sees an infomercial for Wrenwood, a getaway for environmentally ill individuals which labels itself a "safe haven for troubled times". Carol goes to Wrenwood, run by the leader Peter Dunning (described in the film as a "chemically sensitive man with AIDS") who preaches that self-help and optimism will help chemically sensitive people overcome their problems. Peter, a charismatic speaker who lives on an extravagant house seen on a nearby hill, has a mantra for attendees at his center: "We are safe, and all is well in our world." Carol seems to feel at home in this community, but her condition worsens, and ends up in a small, porcelin-lined and ventilated igloo.
What most viewers of SAFE have found daunting, exasperating, or have missed entirely is the fact that SAFE is not only an exploration of the impossibility of establishing a cause to all things, but also a satire played with a poker face. Imagine watching Dr. Strangelove with the sound turned off -- one would likely consider themselves to be watching a straightforward war film, and without paying attention to SAFE, the film seems to have vacuous characters, not characters that are being mocked for their vacuity. The late 80's conservative lifestyle is spoofed at every chance, from the Billy Ocean songs on the radio to Carol's reaction to being delivered the wrong color of couch. While many complain that SAFE is boring because nothing happens, nearly every scene contains a hint, or at best a red herring, which is absolutely essential in understanding the film. In fact, SAFE is a mystery comprised entirely of clues that may be considered red herrings.
"We are safe, and all is well in our world."
I mention, at the beginning of the review, that it is natural for we as humans to assign cause to unknown things. It is nearly impossible, therefore, for the viewer to not watch SAFE and construct the clues present into a hypothesis as to why she is becoming ill. It is common for a viewer to take the stance that Carol is genuinely sick, victim of chemicals in the air of everyday life, or that it is completely psychosomatic, but I propose something slightly different in this review.
The second scene in the film is a sex scene, portraying Carol's husband Greg (Xander Berkeley) in the throes of passion. We see Carol's face, impartial, beneath his back and his head, waiting patiently for him to finish. When he is done, she gives him a chaste kiss and a pat on the back.
Soon after, we find Carol wandering through her house, through the kitchens, where the painters are painting. Carol asks for a glass of milk, falls down, and then sits at the table, taking sip after sip. The camera pans back and zooms in at the same time, giving a feeling of spaciousness and expansion to the scene. The space around Carol feels more and more empty as she is dissociated from her environment.
Later in the film, we find Carol and Greg at a client dinner at a high-class restaurant, as one of Greg's business associates is telling a dirty joke. After the punchline, one of the other wives at the table mentions Carol not appreciating her husband's joke. "Carol!" Greg says suddenly, and the camera finds Carol snapping back to attention from having her eyes closed. "I'm sorry, I don't..." she says, pauses, and then mouths the word "sorry" to Greg. Carol doesn't... feel well? Or, perhaps, Carol can't admit she doesn't like dirty jokes.
Throughout the nights, Carol wanders the yard of her home when she can't sleep, caged in by the fence that surrounds the property. One night, when walking through the front yard, she is spotted by the local security company and has the spotlight thrown in her face. She quickly runs back inside the house.
Remember that Carol's son is her stepson -- she doesn't have a real son. When attending a baby shower, Carol is served something that is "melting all over." When the final present is opened, a baby stroller, Carol begins hyperventilating. Later, when at the allergists, Carol is injected with a number of substances that could provoke an allergic reaction. She begins hyperventilating with .1 of 2 milk.
Later in the film, in one of the film's last scenes, Carol is shown with her husband at Wrenwood, as Carol is moving into her porcelin-lined cabin. Greg is walking with her, and then slips his arm around her as though to initiate a kiss. Carol instantly recoils from the touch, walking back about 10 feet, claiming that there must be something in his shirt that she's reacting to. He then asks if he "at least gets a hug", which she then provides, putting her head onto his chest, right on the shirt.
I feel that Carol is faced with a crisis in her life: without having raised a child, without having a job to do (servants perform all of the work in the White household), and without having any responsibilities, Carol has a vacuum in her life, a life with no meaning (the cinematography throughout the first half of the film frames the characters of the film in their houses in such a way to present, on screen, a visual vacuum -- people swallowed by the emptiness of their surroundings) Her husband seems to have little to do with her except for sex, which he pressures her for in the film. She obviously doesn't like the advances, and at least once in the film, uses illness as a way of rejecting his advances. Her house seems like a giant cage, and she an animal being kept for show. Carol is caught between not knowing what she wants in life, living in a society that does not provide her with any purpose in her life, and living in an environment that is not in any way healthy for her, whether it be physically or mentally. What better way to get away then to leave to a camp whose bylaws promise not only isolation from chemical dangers, but also safety from "casual drug use and sexual interaction" between the patients? Quite a few, perhaps.
"We are safe, and all is well in our world."
If SAFE's first half is a maze of ambiguities and possibilities, the film's second half does have one clear answer -- that Wrenwood, and the type of tepid new-age self-help optimism that is espoused there, is quite clearly corrupt.
When Peter Dunning explains his ideas to his visitors, he punctuates his sentences with the phrase "Does that make sense?" When he does so, it doesn't seem as though he's asking to make sure that he is understood, but is instead issuing a threat -- with a defensive tone of voice, the above phrase prevents anyone in the camp from challenging him. When Dunning talks about all of the hatred and negativism in the world, his voice changes to a tone that expresses hatred and negativism towards that hatred and negativism. When Dunning tells another Wrenwood visitor who expresses disgust at the chemical companies who made her environmentally sensitive, Dunning tells her to "Put that gun away!" in the most condescending way possible. He seems to be the perfect new-age hypocrite, railing against the anger and hostility in the world with anger and hostility. Dunning advocates abandoning the world -- he speaks about "throwing away" the newspaper and no longer watching TV so that he would not have to deal with the kind of messages that those media vehicles provide. But what's the real reason he's recommending doing that? It's a good way of keeping his flock on the farm, within the fenced-in confines at Wrenwood. Dunning's house on the hill, Wrenwood's glossy brochure and extended infomercial is a sure sign that Wrenwood is not a benign not-for- profit, but an organization intended to keep it's high-ups with a high incoming cashflow and a pack of admirers. Carol has moved from one environment that is unhealthy for her to another.
Despite the new dangers present at Wrenwood, Carol is sucked in by the entire Wrenwood experience: the staff members there seem to be happy and full of life, Dunning's speeches comfort her that all is well in the world, and she has found a community, however artificial, where she belongs. The isolationism Dunning proposes, however, has an unwanted after effect -- throughout the second half of the film, Carol's condition grows progressively worse. Carol is literally shrinking. She seems shy and more girlish, and a Texan accent begins to creep into her speech (she mentions earlier in the film that she is originally from Texas, not California). By the end of the film, when she has moved into the small igloo, with the tube from her oxygen tank providing her with "fresh air", she has returned to the womb, defenseless, weak, and cared for by a parent that wants nothing more than her money. Carol has become afraid of the world, but instead of teaching Carol the need to take an active fight against adversity, either philosophically or medically, Wrenwood influences her to recoil into herself. Wrenwood's philosophy, that in order to get better, one has to love one's self, seems like a tiny band-aid or placebo pill being used to try and cure a much larger problem. What, ultimately, is that problem? The vacuity of our society and anxiety over the often invisible dangers of modern life. In many other films or TV movies, Carol's final words of "I love you," would be a sure sign that all is better. In SAFE, that's far from the case.
No one is safe. And all is not well in our world. And when we as a society don't have proper support to deal intelligently with crises in our lives, what we end up seeing are those who are trying to take advantage of us in that situation. The constant advertisements for "psychic help lines," the success of the scientologists, and in many cases religion is used to take advantage of those with the natural human instinct to question their place in the world or to attribute cause, and the fear and uncertainty that results from that. Don't be fooled by friends you have to pay for. SAFE spells out, in a satire on the emptiness of American life, just what a mess that can become.
So how can we possibly cope in a world fraught with danger? SAFE is a rare film in that it does not lie with a simplistic or tidy answer, preferring to simply not offer an answer, which is more often than not, the only real answer in life. It may be ambiguous, and it may not be happy, but it sure isn't a cop-out.
--
Even if you don't care for what SAFE is saying, it is still a film of much merit. The cinematography is nothing short of striking (see it letterboxed if possible, as framing is very important in the context of the film), and the sound mix is incredible, where the constant noise of our surroundings becomes almost unbearable. Julianne Moore's performance as Carol is breathtaking: her decline in the second half of the film seems truly tragic as Moore's actual physical condition deteriorates (Moore lost 10 pounds during the course of the film and kept strict diets), and her portrayal of a fragile, empty individual is one of the most effective and striking performances seen this decade.
As a side note: for many months after seeing SAFE, I argued with friends about the character James LeGros plays at Wrenwood. Many other viewers were certain that he was trying to 'hit on' Carol. I argued that he wasn't, as I considered him to be flamingly gay. In an interview with Todd Haynes, Haynes mentions that Moore and LeGros decided, behind his back, to play LeGros' scenes with the idea that his character was Peter Dunning's secret lover. Whether gay or not, Haynes has said that he intended for that character to start out by appearing that he was 'hitting on' Carol, but ending up as a kind of camp counselor. It's just another interesting thing to keep in mind while watching the film.
Signed: ESCHATFISCHE, david (esch@fische.com) ----------------------------------------------------------
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