Romancing The Stone
Michael Douglas is a sterling example of a guy who was able to succinctly pick his own spots when it came to his Hollywood career, starting off with doing TV work and then taking a major left turn at a young age to become a Hollywood producer (unlike his father Kirk Douglas) and quickly striking gold by winning the Best Picture Oscar for producing 1975ās One Flew Over The Cuckooās Nest. Douglas continued to veer between producing and minor acting roles (most notably The China Syndrome) until the time came that he felt ready to become a full fledged movie star with this 1984 release that was tailor made to push his name onto the Hollywood acting A list, having optioned the screenplay from a struggling waitress named Diane Thomas who had made the pitch while she was serving him at a restaurant. Thomas would pocket a cool $250K for the script, only to tragically die in a car wreck less than a year later. Douglas would then make an extremely smart choice to hire in as director one Robert Zemeckis, on the cusp of his career defining Back To The Future who here would bring some real style and verve to the proceedings. Many would cite this at the time as being one of several cinematic attempts to replicate the success of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and its serial storytelling style of action adventure (although Thomas had allegedly wrote her first draft years before in 1979), but really it was a outright parody spoof of the oldschool romantic western adventure novels of years past featuring a put upon female heroine who is continuously being rescued by her āperfect manā, a mysterious hero seemingly driven only by his undying love of said heroine. Ironically enough, this film would present as its heroine a woman who is an AUTHOR of such novels, using her imagination to create her own little worlds where that perfect (yet imaginary) man is much more preferable than the dreary real life option of dating any number of unsavory and unappealing men in early 80s New York City where she lives. And judging by her apartment, she makes a pretty damn good living doing so. As played by Kathleen Turner (herself a fast rising star at the time), Joan Wilder is actually quite adorable with all of her mousy, neurotic insecurities, writing her stories that we only need to see but a few snippets of in order to know for sure that it is all just shallow, unreadable drivel, but the fact that she continues to hold out in her own real life for that fictional, unattainable hero of her books (āJesseā) is really what makes her quite fetching. Things get interesting when her sister (80s stalwart Mary Ellen Trainor) finds herself kidnapped by a couple of jewel smugglers (Danny DeVito and Zack Norman, getting a villainous yet comedy team like rhythm going and doing quite well at it). Turns out that her sisterās murdered husband had stumbled amongst some very bad people and had paid for it with his life (although not at the hands of DeVito and Norman who are more or less opportunistic interlopers), but not before sending his sister in law (Joan) a highly sought after treasure map that leads to the āStoneā of the filmās title, a giant, shimmering green emerald that no doubt is priceless in its value. Joan is instructed to bring the map down to Columbia, South America and exchange it for her sisterās life, only to run into the true villain of the film and the murderer of her brother in law (Manuel Ojeda, a guy who had a long acting career south of the border but is only known to American audiences for his bad guy role here), a paramilitary leader who has tracked Joan all the way from New York and when he makes his move on her in the jungles of Columbia by threatening her at gunpoint for the map, she finds herself rescued by Douglasā Jack T. Colton, an American big game hunter whom at first glance appears to be her beloved āJesseā come to life but on second and third glance is really just a cranky, everyday guy who nonetheless can handle himself very well with firearms and definitely has survivalist instincts even as he also has a little twinge of being a smooth talking, wink and a smile con artist type to him as well. Douglasā Colton (who doesnāt even reveal his characterās name until almost halfway into the movie) agrees for a price to take the stranded and helpless Joan to a telephone and off they go trekking through the jungle all while being pursued by the bloodthirsty paramilitaries and the somewhat more benign DeVito (out running around doing all of the dirty work while his partner in crime lounges back on his yacht), coming across a crashed cargo plane full of still fresh marijuana (which they use to make a campfire in easily the filmās best scene) and then stumbling into a small village controlled by a goofy druglord ganja dealer (Alfonso Arau, a VERY big name actor south of the border who is probably still best known for his extended cameo here) and finally they come to the final three way confrontation with Ojedaās evil paramilitary and the pairing of Devito and Norman who are still holding Joanās hapless sister. Throughout all of this, the script (which was rewritten several times) keeps the film afloat with good character development and some witty repartee amongst the principal players with the only real implied mystery being the openly stated possibility that DeVitoās Ralph and Douglasā Colton have not only maybe crossed paths before, but that DeVito seems to be all too aware of Coltonās reputation as a smooth talking lothario con artist who is only taking Joan for a ride for his own financial gain by obtaining the priceless Stone all for himself, but the only reason that this is hinted at yet not confirmed is because Colton himself doesnāt even acknowledge it when DeVito tells him that to his face in front of Joan. As far as the obvious Indiana Jones comparisons are concerned, Colton does share with Indy the wry sense of humor, but much of the story here revolves upon just how much that Colton lives up to the whole āideal manā persona that Joan had built up for herself in her books, with the hard truth being that her beloved, imaginary āJesseā was too damn cookie cutter to ever possibly exist in real life, a quasi Christ figure of The Old West whose very perfection on such traits as saving the day is exactly what made him not so human nor realistic, whereas Colton (with all of his faults especially his penchant for complaining incessantly) is pretty much the best option that she is going to be able to settle for in real life, and with Michael Douglas (arguably one of the best Everyman type actors in recent history) riding the saddle in that role, we wind up getting a charming, funny little trifle that made enough of a box office impact to keep most of the careers of those involved rolling right alongā¦
8/10