Movie Review: Cadillac Man

Cadillac Man (1990) 

Directed by Roger Donaldson 

Written by Ken Friedman

Starring Robin Williams, Tim Robbins, Paul Guilfoyle, Annabella Sciorra

Release Date May 18th, 1990

Published May 18th 2020

“Movies are machines that generate empathy” Roger Ebert 

My favorite theme in a movie is compassion. Watching genuine compassion from a character in a movie almost always gets to me. Cadillac Man was not a movie I expected to have compassion as a theme. On the surface, Cadillac Man is about a supremely selfish, self-involved car salesman who is taken hostage and has to use his ability to lie, cheat and steal to get himself out the jam. 

That’s just the surface, in the performance of Robin Williams as Joey, we have a desperately soul-sick man whose shallowness is beginning to wear away his will to live. He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t even want to change too much, but Williams in his sweaty, sleezy, gesticulating performance, communicates Joey’s emotional emptiness and the desire he has to be better, even if he doesn’t realize it yet. 

Joey’s about to be forced to have the realization that he wants to be better in a highly stressful and dangerous way. As he’s desperately trying to sell cars to save his soul-sucking job, Joey winds up in the middle of a hostage situation. Into the scene comes Larry (Tim Robbins), the crazed husband of one of Joey’s co-workers, Donna (Annabella Sciorra). Donna’s been sleeping with the boss’s son, Little Jack (Paul Guilfoyle) and Larry has come to the dealership with an automatic weapon to exact revenge. 

Again, that’s the surface of the situation. Yes, Donna is cheating with the boss’s son, but Larry doesn’t really have a plan for revenge. He has the gun and what he claims are plastic explosives, but in reality, he’s the same kind of sad sack, lost soul that Joey is, only not nearly as self aware, intelligent, or brazen. Larry is like a lost child who just needs someone to care about him a little and Joey is a man who knows how to read people, sizes him up right away. 

Sensing that he can get everyone out safely, Joey turns to his skill as a salesman and sets about calming Larry down, serving his emotional needs, and almost instinctively, the goodness in Joey becomes the driving force of what comes next. For the next hour, Joey sets about becoming Larry’s friend, soothing his ego, nursing him and along the way, Joey transforms from a desperate man trying to save himself to a genuine person, who wants nothing more than to save everyone. 

That’s never on the surface of Cadillac Man. You get all of that just from Robin Williams’ incredible performance. The turn that Joey makes from self-obsessed con-artist to Larry’s friend and the protector of everyone in the car dealership happens steadily over the length of the midpoint of the movie, and through the final act. It begins as an act of a desperate man and becomes genuine compassion and empathy from one desperate, sad, man to another. 

All while this is happening director Roger Donaldson keeps up a relentless pace. Cadillac Man rarely lets up on the pace. The dialogue, the plot, the scenes, move with great quickness. Even before Larry arrives, about 40 minutes into the movie, he makes an early cameo but Robbins doesn’t arrive fully until the midpoint, the story sets the table incredibly well by introducing the competing ways in which Joey has dug himself into a seemingly inescapable hole of his own careless and callow creation. 

The opening act, with a motormouthed Joey talking directly to the camera before getting to work, allows Williams to be dynamic and of the kind of Robin Williams we know. As the act progresses though, and the walls start to crumble around Joey and this empty, selfish place he's created for himself, the film begins to take shape. Larry then enters in full chaos and shakes the foundations of the movie. Joey's resolve to keep his various lies in place begins fall down and as we watch the man reborn into a place where he is a genuine person it's fascinating to watch. 

Williams acts the role of Joey with his entire body. The sweaty energy that Williams brings to his broad stand up comedy here is inverted into drama as the quick wit searches for real answers instead of punchlines and pathos in instead of laughing payoffs. It's really rather extraordinary and unlike any other Robin Williams performance. Williams takes an empty suited, selfish, borderline villainous character, breaks him down to pieces and rebuilds him before our eyes without ever letting up on the pace of the story being told. 

Cadillac Man is desperately underrated and cruelly forgotten by time. Williams, known for his broad comedic roles, has a legend that overshadows his often brilliant dramatic work. That's why I wrote this review, I want to get people to see what I think is arguably the best Robin Williams performance. The one least seen by the masses and one that can work to remind people just how brilliant Robin Williams could be in just about any role. 

Cadillac Man is maybe my favorite movie of 1990. 

Movie Review The Bank Job

The Bank Job (2008) 

Directed by Roger Donaldson

Written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais 

Starring Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Mick Jagger 

Release Date February 19th, 2008 

Published June 22nd, 2008 

The words 'based on a true story' are always a little sketchy in Hollywood. Take for instance the new to DVD movie "The Bank Job" starring Jason Statham. This London set crime thriller is based on a real 1970 bank heist where the culprits escaped without punishment and the crime remains unsolved. If you think I gave away too much there, trust me this Bank Job has more surprises than any spoiler I could give you.

London has been rife with conspiracy theories for years as to the how and the why of these criminals and their astonishing escape from justice. The most tantalizing theory goes all the way to Buckingham Palace and a safety deposit box with some very interesting royal blackmail material.

As for the movie itself.

Jason Statham, the intense, bullet-headed star of the Transporter movies, stars in The Bank Job as Terry Leathers. A former thief and thug, Terry has gone legit selling and repairing high end automobiles. Not making much money in his new profession he is quite receptive when an old flame approaches him with a money making opportunity. The old flame is Martine (Saffron Burrows) who, unknown to Terry, has just been busted by MI5 and needs Terry's help to get her out of trouble. He thinks she is offering the opportunity to rob a bank. In reality MI5 wants her to obtain the contents of a particular safe deposit box.

Who that box belongs to and what is inside it are just the kind of sexy details that make for one heck of a guilty pleasure movie. The Bank Job is exactly that. Clever, if not exactly brilliant, The Bank Job is what I like to call a mouse trap movie, quick, precise and deathly effective. Director Roger Donaldson directs The Bank Job with a swift, no frills style that focuses on the action and lets the plot do the talking. The seemingly extraneous are actually integral elements of the plot and no strand is left untied up until the very end.

Jason Statham is the perfect star for this kind of gritty, fast paced action. With his tough guy looks and badass accent, Statham is the kind of guy who looks like trouble follows him everywhere. The former supermodel Saffron Burrows matches Statham's grit with smoldering good looks and the combo is smokin 'hot.

The Bank Job is quick and to the point while telling a clever story with the kind of guilty pleasures and thriller elements that make for classic B-Movie excitement. That it's 'based on a true story' gives it another level of kinky thrill. Who cares how much is true and how much is Hollywood, it's all a whole lot of fun.

Movie Review: The Recruit

The Recruit (2003) 

Directed by Roger Donaldson 

Written by Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer, Mitch Glazer 

Starring Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynihan, Gabriel Macht 

Release Date January 31st, 2003 

Published January 30th, 2003 

Is Al Pacino's act running thin? An unquestionably brilliant actor for most of his career, Pacino has been uneven at best in his most recent work. His last, the Hollywood satire Simone, was a middling comedy that featured a mugging, forced performance by Pacino. However, the film before that, the ingenious thriller Insomnia, showed Pacino at his best. His newest work continues the spate of uneven performances as Pacino plays mentor/tormentor to Colin Farrell in The Recruit.

In The Recruit, Al Pacino plays CIA recruiter Walter Burke, a grizzled vet whose job it is to find the next generation of agents. Burke has his eye on an MIT student named James Clayton (Farrell), whose father may or may not have been an agent himself. Clayton isn't interested at first, but suspicions as to whether his father was an agent and whether Burke knew him, and how his father died, cause Clayton to join up.

Soon Clayton is shipped off to the Farm, the CIA's highly secretive spy training ground. Burke is the Farm's lead trainer and though he was friendly with Clayton while recruiting him, Burke is quick to let Clayton know that things are different on the Farm. From now on, nothing is what it seems as students and teachers turn tables on each other in a series of testy spy games meant to wash out the weak and send the strong on to the CIA. While at the Farm, Clayton meets Layla (Bridget Moynihan), another potential agent whose alluring chemistry with Clayton may or may not be an act.

The Recruit is a construct of numerous setups meant to lead the audience in one direction and then pull the rug out from under them. Unfortunately, the setups are rather ham-handed and lack any real suspense. Any intelligent audience member can see where the film is going. That is, until the end--which is a minor surprise--but by then, the movie has spent so much time jerking the audience around with one random twist after another, it becomes hard to really care.

Farrell is very good in a role that requires his character to be very smart but yet, easily manipulated by Pacino's character who may a bad guy or may be a good guy. Farrell has the look of a star; he's charismatic and engaging with a strong good-guy swagger. There are moments where he evokes a young Mel Gibson. Like it or not, that Hollywood buzz about Farrell being the next big thing may be more than just hype.

If the rest of The Recruit were as good as Farrell, it would have been a very good film. Unfortunately, director Roger Donaldson takes this intelligent character and buries him with an uninteresting love interest, a hammy Al Pacino, and a plot that twists and turns so much as to exhaust the audience rather than entertain it. Colin Farrell has a very bright future in front of him and The Recruit will do little to slow his momentum as he builds towards bigger roles in Daredevil and the delayed, but much buzzed about, Phone Booth. The Recruit will be just another film on his resume soon enough.