Thoughts on The Falcon and the Snowman

via thisdistractedglobe.com

"They're charging you with murder."

"You're kidding. ... You've gotta be kidding."

"Cop killer."

"I am not."

"Comunista."

"I am not."

"Terrorista."

"No, I am a tourist. I am a businessman. I am a Republican."

*shortly after, a blindfolded Daulton (Sean Penn) is being escorted to a vehicle by Mexican police*

"I have my rights! I am an American!"

"*pushing him in* This is not America."

People see what they want to see, Christopher "Falcon" Boyce (Timothy Hutton) informs friend Daulton "Snowman" Lee when revealing his plan to sell government secrets to the Soviet Union. Daulton might a drug dealer and user, but he's also capable of insight, suggesting to Christopher that he might be seeing what he wants to see. Later, a greatly disillusioned Christopher acknowledges the Russians are just as paranoid and dangerous as the American are.

Directed by John Schlesinger and adapted by Steven Zaillian from Robert Lindsay's book about Boyce and Lee, The Falcon and the Snowman is a fascinating movie to watch in our post-impeachment, pre-election times. Once upon a time, it was shocking to think that America could manipulate an ally (in this case, Australia). Then and now, people like Gene (Dorian Harewood) rationalize that it's okay to do with this. Hey, fuck with us and you have to accept the consequences. Equally timeless is Christopher's eye for an eye rationale and action before full reflection behavior.

*Christopher has been interrogated for several hours*

"I appreciate fear. The chance to face it. There's nothing more exhilarating than confronting your fears." 

"What are you afraid of?"

"Of people who can imagine and create sophisticated weaponry and a government that can't be trusted with it. We're the only nation that ever used atomic weapons on other human beings. ... We are capable of it."

*some time later*

"You understand that by turning over U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union, you're putting every man, woman and child in this country in jeopardy?"

"They're already in jeopardy."

*time passes again*

"There are other forms of protest. Are you sorry you didn't choose one of them?

*silent flashback to Christopher leaving the seminary with his pet falcon, Fawkes*

"Chris? ... Chris?"

"What?"

"You don't feel you hurt anybody?"

Despite running 131 minutes, The Falcon and the Snowman feels incomplete. Christopher and Daulton's exploits, the former's prison escape and recapture (not even mentioned in the movie's postscript), the ramifications of their actions -- it might have been (and still could be) better told in a miniseries. The movie has the pace of a character study, which I think benefits Hutton over Penn. 

Then again, it's Daulton who gets one of the best moments: his solitary, humiliating and inescapable return to America, which I believe is at the same checkpoint he used for smuggling. It almost makes up for the off-putting performance. I frequently had a hard time believing that anyone in California or Mexico would ever want to talk to such a loser.

Like Penn, the ensemble is effective in fits and starts. Several characters, like Christopher's girlfriend Lana (Lori Singer) and his father (Pat Hingle), have their best scenes near the end of the movie. Actors like Harewood and David Suchet, as primary Soviet contact Alex, left me wanting more.

"Christopher, you remember one thing: impulsively or not, you came to us. We didn't come to you. And, whether you realize it or not, you are a professional. *takes a shot* The moment you accepted money, you became a professional. You can't leave here tonight free of it all any more than I can. Did you really think you could? It's not over, Christopher. ... It's just beginning."

Recommended with reservations.

Thoughts:

-- GOODEVENING HBO

    FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT

    $12.95/MONTH ?

    NO WAY !

    [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]

It has nothing to do with the movie itself, but how could I not mention it? In a similar vein, the lead image for this review was almost Marge Simpson talking about how old friends stick together. "Like O.J. and A.C., or the Falcon and the Snowman."

-- Box Office: Grossing $17.1 million on a $12 million budget, this opened at No. 2 and came in at No. 52 for 1985.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "A sour and scary morality play," according to Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times. "A scathing social satire in the form of an outrageously clumsy spy story told with a completely straight face," Vincent Canby wrote. The movie isn't a routine thriller, according to Roger Ebert. It also wasn't grounded enough for Pauline Kael. "(Schlesinger's) busy making a countercultural statement and a work of art when if he had just told the story straight it might have really been those things -- it might have meant something." David Denby: "By the end, I was unable to tell if we were supposed to think of the boys as American heroes or American buffoons."

-- Critic's Corner, Hutton's performance and image: He's made so many serious films that he's on the verge of becoming "a highbrow Robby Benson unless he does a comedy soon," Siskel wrote. Turk 182 would be released a few weeks after Falcon, but it didn't help Hutton. In fact, one of the juiciest bits of the infamous "Brat Pack" article published a few months later in New York is that Hutton's peers were speculating that his Box Office Poison (my words, not the article's) status might be permanent. Still, Kael liked him: "He's turning into a strikingly good-looking man, with a sexual presence, like a young Warren Beatty. This young actor is ready to take off into uncharted realms."

-- Critic's Corner, Penn's performance: He dominated the screen, Canby wrote. Siskel: "It's absolutely lifelike, and for a film based on a true story, there is no greater compliment." Kael: "It's an embarrassment -- the kind of fanatic actor's performance that's obvious and empty in a way that's bound to be compared admiringly to De Niro's run of bum work. ... (Penn's) a self-conscious catastrophe here." Kael wasn't finished. She felt Penn wasn't doing his job. "A good actor takes on a different character -- he doesn't dissolve into it."

-- Musical Moment: "This Is Not America," with lyrics and vocals by David Bowie and adapted from Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays' score, plays over the end credits. It received a music video with footage from the movie presented in a way implying a more conventional thriller.

-- "Who did you receive your instructions from?" "My conscience."

-- Next: Witness. On deck: The Breakfast Club.