Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)

Following the murder of a beautiful woman he picked up from the road, private dick Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) finds himself the object of scrutiny from both the law, and other parties.

Sniffing money, Hammer decides to pick up the trail from the murdered woman - a fateful decision for which he will have to pay a heavy price.

With the nuclear threat back at the forefront of world attention, and the seemingly rapid collapse of the American empire, Kiss Me Deadly’s apocalyptic satire feels all the more evergreen.

I have watched it a couple of times. This last viewing is the one where I have liked it the most.

In fact this screening was something of a revelation.

I was hit by the arctic nothingness at the core of the film’s central character: Hammer’s thirst to profit from the ‘great whatsit’ is so pure.

As the movie hurtles toward the apocalyptic finale, it all becomes so meaningless - from Albert Dekker’s overly articulate villain, to Mike’s scheme to cash in on whatever he can.

It is a small consolation that Hammer is just less hypocritical than the people around him.

If my previous experiences with the film sound subpar, I remember being underwhelmed by Ralph Meeker on my first viewing - he seemed small, and lacking in charisma. I do not know what I was expecting, but for some reason, he was a block.

Not this time!

 

Meeker is pure venom. With the presence of a thug, or schoolyard bully, he stalks through the film like a predator. He brings a certain low cunning, but his Hammer lives up to his name. He has clear, simple goals (get rich, everyone else be damned).

Visually, he is striking: with his lantern jaw and eyes like the viewing slits in a helmet, he looks like a human tank. That big mouth - either smirking or grimacing - is a major asset as he interrogates his way through witnesses, suspects and anyone else who gets in his way.

The whole movie sets him up as both a traditional gumshoe and an evisceration.

He fights his way through the movie, becoming less of a detective and more of a bully.

There are two great scenes showcasing Hammer’s MO: in the first, he alphas his way through a witness’s home, poking around his belongings, drinking his drink, and finally, snapping his prized record.

In a later scene, Hammer runs into the coroner who turns out to be as craven as he is. After rebuffing the coroner’s demand for a bribe, Hammer looks beat - and then he jams the coroner’s hand in his desk.

It is at this point, we get the one emotion we have not seen Mike express: glee.

He seems genuinely excited by the pain he is causing.

 

After following Hammer for the length of the movie, the ending seems inevitable, an exclamation point on his selfish quest.

The only character who is equal in his greed and lack of forethought is Lily (Gaby Rodgers), the Pandora who opens the box and unleashes Armageddon.

The ending is so final, it turns the film into an evisceration of the genre - it is easy to see why so many critics treat it as the endpoint for film noir.

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Workmates (Curtis Vowell, 2025)

Best friends Lucy (Sophie Henderson) and Tom (Matt Whelan) have been managing their struggling theatre for years. Their lives are tied up in this place.

However, those ties are about to be unwoven.

While Lucy is happy with the status quo, Tom is getting married and looking to move onto a job at another, more upmarket venue. 

When the theatre is threatened with closure, it also threatens to break the bond between Lucy and Tom.

A love letter to local theatre, Workmates got my attention because it is based around Auckland’s Basement theatre, a long-running venue that was formerly managed by the film’s co-writer and star, Sophie Henderson.

I have been visiting the theatre for decades - so long I can remember watching Henderson striding the boards there.

Over ten years ago, I started reviewing shows at the Basement, and I fell even harder for it. In that time, I got to see so many different types of theatre: one-person shows, stand up, workshops, puppetry, improvised dating.

It got to the stage where I would just pick a show based on the title and not read anything ahead of time.

The Basement is a special place and Workmates is a showcase for its particular charms. We only get a few snippets of various performances, but as a portrait of its geography, and atmosphere, it is effective.

From my limited perspective as a patron, the most unrealistic part of the film’s depiction is in a scene where a character attempts to carry his lover up the stairs to the second floor backwards. After spending so many years clambering up and down those slanting steps, this scene verges on fantasy.

So on that level, Workmates is terrific.

As a film, it is a little shakier.

One of the reasons I took so long to post this is because I was struggling to work out how to describe the film.

Tonally, it wants to have its cake and eat it - it wants both broad laughs and darker, messier human drama. 

On the one hand, the film has the farce of keeping the theatre’s lights on, while it also wants to balance Lucy’s crisis of arrested development. 

The film never manages to find a way between these two poles, and Lucy becomes a victim of the film’s tonal dissonance.

The character is afraid of growing up, betraying a childlike belief in ignoring problems that eventually catches up with her.

This is a fairly solid foundation for a character, but the film also wants her to be a screwball-style agent of chaos, which is where it falls apart.

In a bizarre early moment, Lucy intentionally fills a moving car with dry ice. She has been warned about it, and does it anyway, in a petulant attempt at play that plays less like a comic punchline and more like something more dangerous.

This moment colours the rest of her actions: she hides the theatre’s massive safety issues; she is lying about her employment situation.

Henderson’s character is terrifyingly self-centred, in a way that the film seems not quite able to handle. 

The film’s hard segues in tone reach their peak  when the film introduces a subplot involving sexual assault. As a sequence, it works. In the context of the film, it is one more plotline in a film that cannot decide on what it wants to focus on.

It does not help that the comeuppance for this subplot is an accident. 

The performers are good and have an easy rapport.

Despite the film’s scattered approach, Henderson has a grasp on Lucy, managing to navigate through the film’s various hijinks without losing the character’s pathos. The theatre means something to Lucy - it is not just her literal home, but an escape from the problems of the outside world. 

Workmates is more Lucy' s story so Whelan recedes a little - he is a good straight man and brings a quiet integrity to Tom. 

While the performances are solid, the actors seem a shade too old for the characters they are playing. Not to say people can go through significant changes at any time of their lives, but the characters in Workmates feel like they are just starting to grapple with adulthood. 

The film’s greatest success is in evoking the world of a living creative community. It is at its best as a fly on the wall experience as our protagonists struggle with the nuts and bolts of keeping the lights on.

Overall, Workmates is an easy watch. It has ambition in its scope and tone which it cannot quite reach, but the performances, and world it builds, are worth it. 

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Hard Boiled (John Woo 1992)

Rogue cop Tequila (Chow Yun Fat) and undercover agent Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) join forces to bring down Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong), a triad boss intent on taking over the city’s underworld - no matter the cost.

I was so stupid. Loving action movies and not watching this symphony of mayhem.

Even if this was not Woo’s last Hong Kong film prior to heading for Hollywood, it feels like a finale.

There is an underlying theme of time passing, of change coming. 

The Hong Kong handover is not explicitly referenced but it can be read into it - the cop with torn loyalties, who eventually has to leave Hong Kong; the elder gangster who is determined to stay. Or for fans of really obvious metaphors, there is Tequila protecting the newborn baby (a new life, a new opportunity for a different world).

The film is not just a culmination of Woo’s heroic bloodshed work, it is a love letter to/upping the ante/reaction to Hollywood. Woo was partially inspired by watching Die Hard, and there are a couple of moments throughout the film that feel like homage (the gun in the box of roses ala Terminator 2).

The film has a relatively simple plot, providing set-ups for the massive set-pieces: 

The opening in the restaurant - featuring the iconic moment of Tequila sliding down the bannister double-gunning - would be enough for one Hollywood finale.

Instead it is the movie flexing - the initial flourish, before the real mayhem kicks off.

The second major shoot-out is Johnny’s ambush of Uncle Hoi’s gang.

This conflagration is also a clash of ideologies, as undercover cop Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is forced to choose between his mentor, elder gang boss Uncle Hoi (Kwan Hoi-San), and young buck Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong).

Uncle Hoi operates with a sense of loyalty, looking out for his gang members; meanwhile, Johnny Wong is more concerned with accumulating wealth and power, no matter the cost.

In this sequence, Tony Leung Chiu-wai really showcases what a powerful performer he is.

He plays to the melodrama of the character without going for maximalism. So much of this scene’s emotional impact is watching Leung’s conflict flicker across his face.

Chow Yun Fat is also excellent as his reluctant partner.

Tequila could be a cartoon, but Fat has the charisma and the humour to make it work (the whispered ‘sorry’ as he opens the cabinets in the morgue).

Chow Yun Fat asked John Woo to play his bartender buddy so that their scenes would not be cut, and Tequila would get some additional character development.

Tequila must have been a hard character to take, from the page, but the performer’s star persona fills it out.

The coupe de grace is the finale.

Taking around 40 mins - it is a mini-Die Hard riff:

We get multiple groups of characters in different parts of the hospital - Tequila and Alan in the basement armoury; undercover officers in the waiting room; Johnny in the control room.

It also turns into a siege, including with the use of heavy artillery to hold off the cops outside.

Taking a new Hollywood narrative concept and using it for one set-piece is the prime example of the largesse and imagination of the whole enterprise.

This is also the sequence which cements the film’s - and Woo’s overriding themes of brotherhood and loyalty.

Loyalty defines all the characters. It defines how they live and interact with each other. 

Tequila and Alan’s bond is sealed when Alan puts his body on the line to open the hidden armoury - with flashbacks to Tequila’s partner’s death, intercut with Alan flying back from the electrical discharge.

Tequila runs to his side, all animus is gone - and the armoury doors open to trigger the final battle.

While our heroes’ bond gives them the strength to face down Johnny Wong’s goons, Wong is ultimately undone by his non-relationships with other people. Ignoring concerns about patients, he orders the final firefight in the hospital.

This action is a step too far for even his implacable henchman Mad Dog (Philip Kwok), who attempts to kill Johnny after he murders a room full of innocents.

It is a testament to Woo that the hospital set-piece never loses steam, building in scale and scope, without losing focus on the relationship between its leads.

If you have not seen Hard Boiled, make up for that right now.

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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Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987)

While his family are away, Dan (Michael Douglas) has a short affair with a colleague, Alex (Glenn Close).

Dan thinks it is just something he can put away, but Alex has other ideas…

While I enjoy erotic thrillers, it is embarrassing to admit I have never seen this movie before.

It is such a cornerstone of the genre, and I did not have that many thoughts about it. 

It is also a prime example of the “[blank] from hell” genre - a strain of eighties and nineties thrillers based around taking familiar archetypes and turning them into villains: The Stepfather (the stepdad from hell), The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (the babysitter from hell), The Temp (you get the idea).

Here we have the spurned lover from hell in Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest. 

While I had never seen this movie before, I was aware of the character and her impact. On this viewing, I found it impossible not to empathise with Alex.

I love Douglas - mostly because much of his star persona is based on how inherently sleazy he is. But that quality kind of works against him here. That quality is so potent, he cannot be sympathetic. Meanwhile Close’s performance is so specific, too rooted in a sense of pain and trauma, Alex never comes off as an out and out villain.

In a movie that was leaning into its contradictions, and the messiness of people, these things would not be problems. But Fatal Attraction does not want to be that movie. 

The film is well-directed - the ‘bunny boiler’ scene and the final showdown are well-paced and shot - but the movie is kind of inert. It is too afraid to follow the trajectory of the original story.

In the original ending, Alex gets her vengeance by killing herself - this finale is foreshadowed by an early scene in which Dan and Alex bond over their love of Madame Butterfly. 

I do not know if the film would have worked with that ending - it probably would not have been the huge hit the final film ended up being.

But while it works as a set-piece, the final confrontation carries no punch. 

Fundamentally, there is no getting away from the hypocrisy at the heart of the movie: Dan gets away with it.

Even the final shot - a roving camera moves through the house before ending on a photo of the family - feels like the filmmakers are trying to show how Alex’s death has saved the family. It is a full stop on the story that feels like it wants to veer away before having to deal with the messy aftermath of Dan’s actions.

No blowback, no irony, no lingering unease about the stability of the family unit.

The only vaguely interesting aspect of the movie was something I had noticed in other examples of the [blank] from hell genre: a racial subtext.

This is a familiar dichotomy from a lot of Hollywood movies, creating a racial and moral divide between the suburbs and urban environments.

It is most explicit in Unlawful Entry, where the film opens on a helicopter shot that moves from a murder scene involving a dead black man in the city to the protagonists’ home in the suburbs.

What was more unsettling with Fatal Attraction is the way it aligns black people and their spaces with sexuality and deviance.  

After their first tryst, Dan and Alex are shown dancing in an Afro-carribean club - we are introduced to the scene/location by close up shots of sweaty black couples, before Douglas and Close are shown.

I do not know if I would have noticed this if I had not also watched Cape Fear (1961) around the same time. A progenitor to the [blank] from hell genre, Cape Fear includes an early scene in which the villainous Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) enjoys hanging out at a blues bar. 

The dancing scene is maybe the only time we see anyone non-white in Fatal Attraction - certainly the only scene in which our central characters are the minority in a scene. The fact that it is this scene, in the context of two characters engaged in an affair, shows the way the film aligns different spaces with different values. 

The suburbs are the domestic space, the non-sexual space, while the city is more diverse, and offers space for erotic exploration (see also the seduction in the industrial lift to Alex’s apartment). 

While it offers a lot to analyse and write about, I found Fatal Attraction to be kind of boring. The bluntness of the finale is stifling on the film’s themes, it kind of put me off trying to dig more into it.

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.

If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!