JUDGMENT NIGHT A film review by Andrew Hicks Copyright 1997 Andrew Hicks
(1993) **1/2 (out of four)
This is one of those movies that's not all good, all bad or all mediocre, it just trades off between the three. There are parts in JUDGMENT NIGHT that achieve real tension, real action and real dialogue, almost equally matched by the scenes that don't. I don't know if there's another movie I've reviewed that I have on tape, have watched multiple times and love the cast of but still don't really like. Maybe JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY and AIRPLANE 2: THE SEQUEL, but those are comedies.
JUDGEMENT NIGHT is an action flick built around the mistrust between economic classes and the common fear of being surrounded by people but still being completely without help. It also features another common fear -- Emilio Estevez. If you've read some of my other reviews, you know I never considered him one of the best of the '80s, which prompted one person to e-mail me with the question, "Do you have a problem with Emilio Estevez, or just his films?"
No, I don't have a problem with him, although from the way he's disappeared from the movie scene, Hollywood seems to. He's not a terrific actor but he's likeable, even if he did usually pick weak scripts. It's only in JUDGMENT NIGHT that he's called on to carry a movie almost entirely by himself and, I have to say, as an action hero, he's not. He kind of walks through the movie, and it's only by time that JUDGMENT NIGHT is now better viewed as an ensemble work rather than an Estevez vehicle.
Estevez, as the ex-wild guy now domesticated, is the main character, but his three friends are much more interesting. There's Cuba Gooding Jr. who, as written, is just generic and ambiguous (and probably his only performance where race isn't mentioned at all), but his own charisma lights up the movie. Jeremy Piven is the unlikable friend, the superficial wheeler-dealer who thinks he can get what he wants, and Stephen Dorff plays Estevez's younger brother with impulsivity control problems. None of the characters are terribly original, but in all four cases, the actors provide the appeal.
This goes double for the movie's villain, played by Denis Leary. In other hands, the character would have been a run-of-the-mill action movie villain. Here, it's a run-of-the-mill action movie villain played by Denis Leary, which means a lot of sarcastic rants. He comes off as a disgruntled, gun-wielding stand-up comic and, although it makes him and his gang bangers (including the House of Pain guy) seem much less threatening, it makes the movie that much more watchable. This is why, and Hollywood executives should take note of this, Leary is always better as the likeable heavy than as the unlikeable protagonist. That's one of the reasons TWO IF BY SEA sucked so hard.
The premise is a simple one -- the four friends are soft, middle-class twentysomethings who head into the city for a boxing match and end up in a horrible neighborhood, watching Leary pop Michael de Lorenzo. Leary chases them for the next 80 minutes or so, through four long set pieces. First is the railyard, followed by the housing project, the sewer system and the empty department store. All of this is fairly routine and predictable, and that's why I almost hate this movie, but every time you're reading to hit the fast forward button, one of these actors will do something to remind you they're the ones getting the big bucks. That's why I almost like this movie.
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