Published 2017 on Down Under Flix
This latest installment of Down Under Flix’s Aussiewood series chronicling the adventures and misadventures of Australian filmmakers abroad deals with Russell Mulcahy. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about Mulcahy on this website – see my review of his 2003 sports biopic Swimming Upstream – but it’s my first time writing about the director’s signature action fare. Following his inventive creature feature debut Razorback (1984) and the cult success of Highlander (1986), the stalwart music video director looked to be on an upward trajectory as a filmmaker. However, Mulcahy was fired two weeks into production on the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Rambo III (1988) because he wasn’t shooting enough close-ups of its hubristic star, and the subsequent production and release of the much-maligned (and deservedly so) Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) was a ghastly, pained process. Ricochet, Blue Steel, and The Real McCoy followed those professional debacles in quick succession, and these three films feel like exercises in directorial penitence: they’re moderately budgeted, straight-down-the-line mainstream features and are largely inoffensive, discounting the innately quippy immorality of the Joel Silver era of action cinema that Ricochet slots into.
This latest installment of Down Under Flix’s Aussiewood series chronicling the adventures and misadventures of Australian filmmakers abroad deals with Russell Mulcahy. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about Mulcahy on this website – see my review of his 2003 sports biopic Swimming Upstream – but it’s my first time writing about the director’s signature action fare. Following his inventive creature feature debut Razorback (1984) and the cult success of Highlander (1986), the stalwart music video director looked to be on an upward trajectory as a filmmaker. However, Mulcahy was fired two weeks into production on the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Rambo III (1988) because he wasn’t shooting enough close-ups of its hubristic star, and the subsequent production and release of the much-maligned (and deservedly so) Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) was a ghastly, pained process. Ricochet, Blue Steel, and The Real McCoy followed those professional debacles in quick succession, and these three films feel like exercises in directorial penitence: they’re moderately budgeted, straight-down-the-line mainstream features and are largely inoffensive, discounting the innately quippy immorality of the Joel Silver era of action cinema that Ricochet slots into.
Ricochet
Stars: Denzel Washington, John Lithgow, Ice T, Lindsay Wagner,
Kevin Pollak, Mary Ellen Trainor
Ricochet opens with rising cop
Nick Styles (Denzel Washington) arresting criminal Earl Talbot Blake (John
Lithgow) in the most heroic and humiliating way possible. Blake gets
imprisoned, while Styles ascends through the justice system to the station of
Assistant District Attorney. Blake plots a juicy revenge behind bars, and
following escape from incarceration he proceeds to exacts it, pushing Styles to
the brink through slander, character assassination, and psychological torment.
The
opening credits for Ricochet,
unfolding against a nervy, jittery Bernard Hermann-esque score by Alan
Silvestri, read like a roll call of late 80s/early 90s action technicians. In
addition to Mulcahy as director and Silvestri – also known for scoring The Delta Force and Predator – as composer,
Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad)
shares a story credit, Steven E. de Souza (48
Hours, Commando, Die Hard) has a screenplay
credit, and the imprint of aforementioned producer Joel Silver (of 48 Hours, Commando, Predator, Die Hard, AND Lethal Weapon, AND all their
sequels, AND their parodies The
Adventures of Ford Fairlane and Hudson Hawk) permeates the film. The cast is
even peppered with genre support players like Jesse Ventura (Predator, The Running Man) and Mary Ellen
Trainor (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon). Such a
cavalcade of action movie imagineers would have a hard time making a boring
film, but in Ricochet’s
case the film is hobbled by its mad desperation to entertain. From its opening
scenes there’s little moderation or modulation of tone: everything is equally
cranked to 11, from a friendly basketball game to the initial confrontation
between Blake and Styles to co-star Kevin Pollak’s Captain Kirk impressions,
and the film maintains that overwrought, emphatic tone for the next hour and a
half.
As
indicated above, the influence of Joel Silver is fairly evident, from Ricochet‘s heavy quip and
pyrotechnic quota to its aforementioned cast and crew. Mary Ellen Trainor
actually reprises her Die
Hard role here as journalist Gail Warrens, hence Richocet technically
inhabits the same cinematic universe as Die
Hard, not to mention Commando,
since that and Die Hard 2 both
reference the fictional country Val Verde. It’s a shame cinematic universes
weren’t in vogue until Marvel, because a crossover film featuring Die Hard’s John McClane, Commando’s John Matrix,
and Ricochet’s
Nick Styles could have been a blast. Unfortunately, not all films in cinematic
universes are created equal, and against stiff competition Ricochet is only half as
good as its Silver Cinematic Universe kin. But it’s twice as ridiculous and
affords Mulcahy plenty of opportunity to indulge in highly theatrical, “look at
me” filmmaking, taking cues from similarly OTT precursors ranging from Raoul
Walsh’s White Heat to
early Sam Raimi to the director’s own Highlander.
Amidst all the shenanigans, Washington is characteristically solid and Lithgow
is characteristically unbridled.
Blue Ice
Stars: Michael Caine, Sean Young, Bob Hoskins, Ian Holm
In Blue Ice, Mulcahy’s next film
and his second in a row to carry the HBO imprint, Michael Caine plays retired
secret intelligence man turned club owner Harry Anders. When driving home from
a funeral Harry’s car is hit by Stacy Mansdorf (Sean Young), the elegant but
troubled wife of a politician. Harry and Stacy embark on a relationship, and
when Stacy asks Harry to perform a minor errand this leads to altercations with
the criminal fraternity, propelling Harry back into the espionage game.
Where Ricochet is Mulcahy’s
funfair hall of mirrors version of a Joel Silver action joint, Blue Ice is the director’s
stab at a classier romantic espionage thriller (though there’s a slither of the
Silver-verse here in Michael Kamen’s score, which utilizes some of the wailing
saxophone that characterized his Lethal
Weapon score). Caine’s character Harry Anders originated in a
number of thrillers by novelist Ted Allbeury, but it wasn’t the first ‘Harry’
the actor had played on film: in the 1960’s he played Len Deighton’s working
class anti-007, Harry Palmer, in The
Ipcress File, Funeral
in Berlin, and Billion
Dollar Brain (and he’d essay the role twice more later in the
1990s). If you squint, Blue
Ice plays like an unofficial, alternate Harry Palmer film. The
film also shares some intertextual DNA with the British crime film tradition,
bolstered by the presence of Caine (of Get
Carter) and Bob Hoskins (of The
Long Good Friday). Blue
Ice does not rival its distinguished precursors, and
unfortunately for a romance-tinged thriller there’s not much chemistry between
its two otherwise capable stars, but it’s decent meat and three veg
entertainment. The director mostly holsters the stylistic tendencies which got
a bit carried away in Ricochet,
but Mulcahy gotta Mulcahy, and here and there he indulges in his pulp
inclinations and woozy surrealism. Cinematographer Denis Crossan, who also
lensed The Real McCoy,
shoots the film in hues of blue and grey, giving it an icy look consistent with
its title.
The Real McCoy
Stars: Kim Basinger, Val Kilmer, Terence Stamp
In The Real McCoy, Kim Basinger
plays super-thief Karen McCoy. Following release from prison. Karen wants to
make an honest living and walk the line. But former employer Jack Schmidt
(Terence Stamp) has other ideas, abducting Karen’s estranged son and forcing
her to carry out a major heist.
Between
1989 and 1997, three different actors played Batman on film (Michael Keaton,
Val Kilmer, and George Clooney) and three different actresses were romanced by
Batman onscreen (Kim Basinger, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Nicole Kidman; sorry Uma
Thurman). And like a posse of Gotham City swingers, these different Batmen and
their romantic interests also hooked up in other films: Keaton and Kidman
in My Life,
Clooney and Kidman in The
Peacemaker, Clooney and Pfeiffer in One Fine Day, and Basinger and
Kilmer, who plays Jack’s nephew and Karen’s new partner in crime, in The Real McCoy.
Unfortunately, The Real
McCoy is the least of these match-ups: like Blue Ice, it’s a pairing of
typically capable actors unable to generate a mutual spark onscreen. It’s also,
sadly, the least of these three Mulcahy films under the spotlight: while Blue Ice is best in terms
of quality, and Ricochet the
most entertaining, The Real
McCoy is simply bland. Like Blue Ice, it’s another 1990s update on a
hoary classic genre, in this case the heist film. It also puts a 90s spin on
the “women’s films” of the 1930s and 40s routinely headlined by Bette Davis or
Joan Crawford. On paper that’s a tantalizing hybrid of genres, but the film
never hits the high or even modest notes of either genre. Ultimately, The Real McCoy is textbook
functional programming: well-made, mildly diverting, and likely to evaporate
pretty quickly after viewing.
Following The Real McCoy, Mulcahy would
flirt with bigger budget filmmaking with 1994’s The Shadow, another
unsuccessful 1990s attempt to launch a pulp period franchise ala Dick Tracy, The Rocketeer, and The Phantom (directed by
another Antipodean, Simon Wincer). After The Shadow’s poor reception, compounded with the
low grosses of the three films discussed above, Mulcahy hasn’t had much
opportunity to play with the big toys, but he remains steadily employed across
both film and television. There are some nuggets and gems amongst Mulcahy’s
post-The Shadow output
– I quite like Swimming Upstream, and Youth on the March director Mike Retter speaks highly of 1996’s Silent Trigger – and I’m particularly
enthused about his upcoming Errol Flynn biopic, In Like Flynn. To paraphrase
the director’s most famous music video, direct-to-video ain’t killed this radio
star.
Ben Kooyman