Backtrack
Nobody in the history of Hollywood had a more eclectic career than one Dennis Hopper. A guy whom one day would be co starring in a major Hollywood blockbuster (usually as the main villain) and the next day would turn up in an out of left field low budget production on an almost random basis, his legend as we all know was first forged with his seminal directing debut in 1969’s Easy Rider followed up almost immediately and disastrously with 1971’s The Last Movie, which was NOT a bad film at all but rather such an out there cinematic piece that neither audiences nor critics at the time could wrap their heads around it at all. Hopper continued his wild ways with his acting career, only coming back to directing when given material that he felt he could work with which brings us to this 1990 release, on the surface a typical gangster / mafia movie complete with actors familiar to the genre, but it also managed to sneak in subverted elements of comedy, drama, and even some amusing romantic sitcom overtones. Everything seemed to be in place: it had a tremendous cast (many of whom appeared to be there solely out of respect to Hopper), outstanding location work (including the rarely cinematically utilized state of New Mexico) and even the not often seen participation of Dick Clark(!) as one of the producers. Then Hopper turned in his final cut of the movie at 180 minutes (3 hours) which was then unceremoniously trimmed down to 98 minutes (and given the new title Catchfire), enraging Hopper and not only causing him to disown the film and initially use the infamous pseudonym of Alan Smithee, but he also filed a lawsuit against distributors Vestron Pictures before a settlement of sorts was finally reached where Hopper was allowed to cobble together a 2 hour “director’s cut” (which having seen both versions, it’s amazing how stupid they were since the 98 minute cut is practically incoherent) for home video and cable release, which brings us to today’s review of Hopper’s preferred version for now (since the 3 hour version is rumored to still exist) and this film is actually pretty damn good all things considered, a tale of obsession and betrayal and ultimately, a love story based upon circumstances of survival. It is also remarkable in the levels of subtlety and subtexts it contains, more times than not choosing to imply things about characters and story points in a rather ambiguous manner rather than just to overexplain things outright. Ironically, the only thing here that is not subtle at all is Joe Pesci as the main mobster bad guy (in what was clearly a dry run for his Oscar winning turn as a maniacally sadistic gangster in Goodfellas), screaming, ranting and raving up an obscenity laced storm, yet curiously enough (despite clearly having the third largest amount of screentime), Pesci would go completely uncredited for his role here, not being billed in either the opening or closing credits nor on any of the posters or promotional materials. For our star, we get Jodie Foster (having already nailed down one Oscar win by this point and getting ready to win another for Silence Of The Lambs) as Anne Benton, a conceptual artist whose specialty is LED lit signs programmed with literally thousands of different phrases and affirmations (some of which are written by her while others are borrowed) which has made her the sensation of the local LA art scene, a fame that is about to be shattered when her car breaks down one night and as she goes looking for help, winds up witnessing a brutal mob murder being committed by Pesci (just hearing Pesci’s shrieking voice coming into focus when his unbilled status left you unaware that he was even in the movie is literally a shock in itself) and now she finds herself in the uncertain hell of going into a witness protection program as proposed by a shady FBI agent (Fred Ward) and essentially being forced to give up her identity (and her career) over an amazing case of bad luck. Meanwhile, Pesci has plans for her, sending two of his goons (John Turturro and Tony Sirico) over to her place to take her out only to accidentally kill her boyfriend (Charlie Sheen) instead. A mistake this big finally compels the big boss / Godfather (Vincent Price in a truly remarkable piece of casting) to bring in his personal specialist who goes by the name of Milo (Hopper) which is timely since Foster has already made her break from the whole scene, successfully changing her identity on her own and even embarking on a short lived new career with an advertising agency. But Hopper’s Milo is a hitman whose methods are as disciplined as a detective and as skilled as an FBI profiler, doing a full deep dive on everything there is to know about Foster as a person and going so far down that rabbit hole that he actually purchases one of her LED displays for his own residence, but during the course of his research he finds that there is something more to her than he anticipated (some clues are possibly dropped from the LED sign itself as well as with certain nuances in Hopper’s performance). As it turns out, when he finally tracks down the clever and elusive Foster, he makes the decision to give her a choice: Have him finish her off here, or he can allow her to live but now her life belongs to him (a crackling scene at almost exactly the halfway point). Foster of course chooses to live but must now allow him to have her sexually or else risk having him kill her anyway but at least now she has a new bodyguard with her, one whom all of the mafia goons know and fear even as he himself has become a traitor to them. But considering who he was working for, maybe it was for the best, as Pesci is his usual unstable self, Sirico talks tough but is really an obvious coward and Turturro (in what is clearly a comic relief performance) is just a pure weasel, ready, willing and able to kiss everybody’s ass and do whatever it takes to make an impression in order to climb the ladder, plus there is Pesci’s lawyer (Dean Stockwell, insidiously acting most of the time like he’s in a completely different movie judging from his character beats), a slow talking, methodical type who also seems to carry an air of utter indifference with him in regards to his client’s getting into more and more hot water. The only enigma here is Price, apparently a filthy rich legitimate businessman who oversees all of the criminal operations as well but whose true relationship with Hopper remains a mystery, other than judging by Hopper’s mannerisms and personality that he obviously leads a very sheltered existence whenever he’s not being brought in to kill someone. And that turns out to be catnip for Foster since after giving in to his initial unwanted advances (just her facial expressions in that scene tell the story), when she sees that this professional killer (who has willingly given up his own life in the process in order to protect her) is really more like a passive little boy whenever he’s alone with her rather than some kind of brutish alpha male, she uses it to turn the tables on him and utilize her own feminine abilities to “take charge” in the bedroom and thus guarantee that he will serve her well as both her personal bodyguard and potential retaliatory weapon against the mobsters who have made her life such a living hell. It goes without saying that the psychological complexities on display here are the most fascinating part of this movie and serves both of its lead actors well especially when we see them start having comically trivial arguments like an old married couple including having her literally walk out on him for a short period of time. Although it was a crying shame to see Hopper and Foster have a real life falling out over Hopper shooting a topless shower scene with Foster that he assured her would be heavily edited only to make movie history with showing a gorgeous, in her prime Jodie Foster on full display, resulting in her never speaking to him again for the rest of his life. Of course, the concept of a killer developing such feelings for a particular female to the point where he decides that the world is much better off with her being in it is a direct parallel to Foster’s upcoming role at that time as Clarice Starling in Silence Of The Lambs, but first we get to have Dennis Hopper here in his own brilliantly insane element, playing a hitman who betrays his own kind by falling in love with his target, becoming a meek little lamb to her in the process even as he can still singlehandedly take out whole goon squads sent for the sole purpose of killing the both of them…
9/10