After his daughter is mistaken for an heiress and kidnapped, ex-cop Sean Boyd (James Brolin) finds himself in a race against time to save her.
I have not been feeling it this month. Illness, writer's block, a general sense of malaise about life, career, future.
And then I watched Night of the Juggler.
This kind of movie is the reason I started this blog in the first place.
A lowdown, dirty exploitation movie, dancing through a couple of different genres, with some bizarre tonal shifts and characters. I wish I had gotten to it sooner.
The title put me off for years.
Having watched it, I have no idea who the juggler is. Maybe it has to do with all the metaphoric balls/obstacles Brolin has to deal with? Who cares - this movie is amazing.
Released in 1980, it plays like a nineties thriller - after a short set up, we are dropped right into the action.
And the set pieces are protracted, in a great way. The kidnapping turns from a foot-and-car chase to purely vehicular pursuit, as the villain tries to make his way through New York traffic while our hero is forced to jump from a cab to a preacher's travelling pulpit in order to keep up with him.
It is well-shot, and tonally well-balanced (it somehow manages to maintain the stakes of the kidnapping while throwing in some great comic beats).
Played by Cliff Gorman, the villain is unsettling, but the movie makes the choice to not make him a sexual predator. His motives are financial - he sees the kidnapping of (who he thinks is) the child of the city's heavy hitters as compensation for how his family were squeezed out of upward mobility.
That financial motive also allows the movie to maintain that relative lightness of touch. I was reminded of Die Hard - apparently, John McTiernan’s reason for replacing the script's original terrorist villains with thieves was because he wanted the film to be entertaining. Making the villains terrorists with specific motivations would complicate the audience’s experience.
In the lead, James Brolin is effective. I have never been a fan, but he is not bad here. He seems believably put upon, and his choice to not go for emotional history is makes sense for a guy who is exhausted.
Once that first chase ends in the villain’s escape, the movie introduces more obstacles, including a dirty cop (Dan Hedaya) obsessed with Boyd because he testified against him.
The best element of this part of the movie is how much the city itself feels like an obstacle - it allows the villain to hide, and it provides endless opportunities to frustrate the protagonist’s quest.
The scene at the peep show is maybe the best scene in the movie.
To set the table properly: during the initial chase, the villain dropped a medallion and a dancer snatched it up. Boyd remembers this and goes back to the peep show to get it back.
Thus begins a farcical scene in which our hero goes from booth to booth, trying to find the dancer who has the medallion. In a great touch the actual show features multiple women, and Boyd keeps having to speak to the same increasingly frustrated sex worker.
It is very funny, but it manages to avoid defusing the tension.
Less successful is the incorporation of a Puerto Rican street gang, which, at best, feels indebted to The Warriors, and at worst feels like the movie giving endorsement to the villain’s racist delusions about the current state of New York.
The third act is a slight dip, but overall Night of the Juggler is an effective thriller.
If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour.
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