Edge of Darkness (Martin Campbell, 1985): Fusion

In this season of The James Bond Cocktail Hour podcast, we are covering the six year gap between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye, covering everything James Bond-related, from books to comics to video games, to non-Bond properties which tried to fill the gap.

Our heroes check out the finale of GoldenEye director Martin Campbell's entry to Hollywood, the 1985 BBC miniseries Edge of Darkness!

Check out the episode at the link below:

No Time To Die (review)

No Time To Die (commentary)

Pierce Brosnan - The Bond In Waiting 

GoldenEye & Spymaker - The Secret Lives of Ian Fleming

Nikita

Total Recall

Fire, Ice and Dynamite & Bullseye!

The Russia House

BrokenClaw

Lethal Weapon & Die Hard

If Looks Could Kill

Hudson Hawk

The Rocketeer

Black Cat

Timebomb

Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country

The Man From Barbarossa

James Bond Jr 

James Bond Jr. and other lost adventures, with Mark Edlitz 

Timothy Dalton's Bond 17 (Mark I) 

Permission to Die

Memoirs of an Invisible Man & The King's Man

Live Wire 

Sneakers 

Blue Ice

The Harry Palmer Trilogy

Freddie as F.R.O.7 

Death is Forever

Timothy Dalton's Bond 17 (Mark II), Part 1

Timothy Dalton's Bond 17 (Mark II), Part 2 

Serpent's Tooth

Timothy Dalton's Bond 17 - comparing the different visions 

The Man who almost killed James Bond 

Point of No Return 

Death Train 

In the Line of Fire 

Undercover Blues 

The Hunt for Red October 

Patriot Games 

Clear and Present Danger

GoldenEye - the First Draft 

James Bond 007 - The Duel 

Edge of Darkness: Compassionate Leave

Edge of Darkness: Into the Shadows

Edge of Darkness: Burden of Proof

Edge of Darkness: Breakthrough

Edge of Darkness: Northmoor 

Edge of Darkness: Fusion

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MYSTERIOUS DR SATAN: Double Cross

When I started reviewing Mysterious Dr Satan, it was the start of the pandemic. I thought I had lucked onto an interesting project that would sustain me through the lockdown.

Cut to four years later and I am up to Episode Six.

When we last left off, the Copperhead was about to tussle with Dr Satan’s ‘metal man’. The fight is anticlimactic, mostly because the Copperhead’s ally Professor Scott (C. Montague Shaw) finds the robot’s Off switch.

I appreciate how human the Copperhead is - I even liked how he fooled the evil doctor by switching his mask with a goon to avoid being ambushed.

Mostly he seems a little headstrong in this episode. In contrast to his previous encounter, the Copperhead enters Dr Satan’s new hideout in his civilian guise as a way of throwing the villains off.

Luckily for our hero, Dr Satan explains the intricate trap he has set for the Copperhead. 

Less luckily for our hero and the viewer, he is then escorted out of the room with the death trap.

Escaping his guards, he ends the episode trying to fight his way back into the room to save Lois.

Episode Six exemplifies the reason why I slowed down reviewing this serial.

Prolonging the story over 15 installments, you start to feel the repetition - not just in terms of the setpieces but the storyline.

In this episode alone we have characters repeatedly visiting the same locations (Dr Satan’s waterside hideout and Professor Scott’s residence), and getting into and out of peril.

This episode feels like the filmmakers are struggling for ideas.

We get some fun action - the Copperhead’s running leaps remain a delight - but this episode boils down to a lot of plot moves to justify getting the characters into position for the next cliffhanger.

In its favor we get our first skirmish between our hero and Dr Satan’s robot. Hopefully we get bigger and better fights between them in future episodes.

Related reviews

Return of the Copperhead

Thirteen Steps & Undersea Tomb

The Human Bomb 

Dr Satan’s Man of Steel

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)

Wendy (Michelle Williams) is currently living out of her car with her dog Lucy.

Hopeful that she can find work in Alaska, she is currently in Oregon when her car breaks down.

On top of this setback, Lucy goes missing.

As Wendy struggles to come up with a plan to fix her car, she races around the small town, searching for her dog.

If there is a scene I am forgetting, believe this is the first appearance of trains in a Reichardt film.

Rootless, implacable, unstoppable on the human scale, these giant machines feel like outsized metaphors for the world Reichardt’s characters have to move in.

Trains are both a signifier of the larger forces they cannot control, and an escape from them.

Reichardt makes movies about people struggling to find their way in a world that is not built for them - they are trapped and excluded from a society that is moving past them and is obsessed with consumption.

In Wendy and Lucy you get a feeling of helplessness.

There are so many wide, long shots of Michelle Williams staggering through the damp, worn town backdrops. There is an isolation to the compositions - you feel a lack of community.

The only person who shows her any care is the older security guard (Walter Dalton) at the mall where she is parked, and where her car broke down.

Set in the nooks and crannies of a small town - public restrooms, restaurants, loading areas of businesses - Wendy and Lucy is bleak. 

It is not usually the kind of movie I gravitate towards, but Reichardt’s empathy for ordinary people and their lives is hypnotic.

There is a lack of judgment and an unwillingness to swing toward a more conventional take on the story, that keeps me onside.

The centre of almost every scene, Michelle Williams is fantastic. 

Trying to maintain a sense of calm, you feel the character’s struggle to keep on top of her mounting problems. There is such a lack of histrionics to her performance, an absence of sentiment or one-note despair. 

As with Reichardt’s debut, the ending promises movement, but it is bittersweet: Wendy does find Lucy, but she has to leave her dog behind.

Related

River of Grass 

Old Joy

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

My Bloody Valentine (George Mihalka, 1981)

Serial killer Harry Warden is back. Or so it seems.

Someone is recreating the mad miner’s modus operandi is leaving bloody Valentines gifts around town, tormenting the locals.

Can he be stopped?

Weirdly, I saw the remake to this first.

A lot of the movies I watch, and the filmmakers I gravitate towards, I was not able to watch for a long time.

My first knowledge and impressions of a lot of filmmakers and movies came from internet reviews, Empire magazine and documentaries.

Such is the case with My Bloody Valentine ‘81.

This is a really strong picture.

The young cast have a lived-in, organic dynamic.

The feel like an established set of friends - even the comic character does not grate. He feels like the one friend who makes dumb jokes.

The kills are varied and well-staged.

The movie has a fantastic central location and an iconic killer. 

The best thing about the movie is its sense of atmosphere - there is a gloomy, grimy gothic feel to the whole picture.

It also takes full advantage of its environment.

We get set pieces in a couple of distinctive environments in unique ways - we even get a fight on top of a coal trolley.

I cannot remember if it is specified in the movie, but it feels more overtly Canadian than other slashers of the era (Happy Birthday to Me).

The version I watched is the restored version with all the gore added back in. I am kinda curious to watch the theatrical cut because the added footage is from poor sources - the print it is taken from is faded and scratched, and it worked against the film in a couple of places.

Still, it is easy to see why this film is regarded so highly.

A treat.

Related

Night School

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kiss of Death (Barbet Schroeder, 1995)

After he names names for a reduced sentence, Jimmy Kilmartin (David Caruso) thinks he is free to start a new life.

But once outside, he finds this deal will cost him more…

I did not own many noir movies growing up.

I found a DVD of the 1947 version of Kiss of Death in a bargain bin in 2012 and it entered the rotation of movies to put on.

I had heard of it because of Richard Widmark’s performance as Tommy Udo.

I enjoy the original Kiss of Death but it is not a favourite.

There is a virtuousness to aspects of the film: the portrayal of law enforcement - as embodied by Brian Donlevy - is above reproach; Coleen Grey as VIctor Mature’s innocent babysitter-turned-wife(!) who narrates the movie.

I had heard of the remake but the Caruso of it all put me off.

I did not grow up with NYPD Blue. He was already considered a failed TV-to-movie star.

I put this movie down sight unseen.

After Against All Odds, for some reason, this movie felt like the natural follow-up.

To its credit, this film has good ideas - a more cynical, realistic take on the power dynamics between prisoners and the police.

In contrast to Brian Donlevy’s genial DA, Stanley Tucci is a two-faced schemer.

Nicholas Cage has a unique angle on the film’s big bad. What aids Cage’s take on Little Junior is that the character is different - he is the son of a mob boss, not a gunman.

Widmark also felt like he was trying to present himself as a tough guy, which adds to the character’s vibe.

Cage’s Junior is positioned as a child in a man’s body. Overshadowed by his father and asthma, his whole presentation is about projecting machismo, through violence and his own obsession with bodybuilding.

Like Bob Hoskins’ Harold from The Long Good Friday, Little Junior is too innately violent to be any kind of leader. He is a boy king with no one to tell him no.

As for the star, Caruso is solid in the lead - when his character has to break down, I noticed these moments are mostly offscreen, conveyed through ADR.

There is one shot where he yells at Tucci, and immediately dries up - his mouth closes and his eyes recede, like he is waiting for the director to yell cut.

It feels awkward, like the editor held too long on a take.

It feels like maybe the actor could not get big enough, or maybe the filmmakers wanted to make the character more emotionally external.

It is so obviously an addition made in post - maybe the result of test screenings.

A solid thriller, the changes made in Kiss of Death (1994) are not detrimental.

It is more successful in trying to make an alternative take on a classic noir than Against All Odds.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.