Eureka

Eureka

One of the riskiest propositions for any filmmaker when constructing their story is to literally hand off the baton at either the halfway point or shortly after from one main character to another and in doing so completely removing your original lead actor (usually by killing them off) and thus placing the complete fortunes of your film (including the ending) on a second newly minted lead to carry things through to the end and hope that the audiences can adjust to the changeup. Brian DePalma successfully managed that feat with his Dressed To Kill, keeping Angie Dickinson at the forefront of the story until her brutal death scene at which time Nancy Allen more than adequately took over as the lead there with a character worth rooting for. This 1983 release by pseudo avant garde director Nicolas Roeg takes the same leap of faith but the execution was so sloppy that the overall result just kind of falls apart as a result. It’s definitely not the problem that the actors weren’t exceptional because you do have Gene Hackman handing it off to Rutger Hauer to finish the movie for him, it’s just that the whole movie is so strongly centered around Hackman all the way up to his death scene with the themes running rampant throughout the story being so much dependent on his character arc (whereas Hauer is revealed to have his own personal set of unrelated demons) that making the switch (which here is at or about the 2/3rds mark of the film) just kills the momentum which the film has built up by that point in using Hackman as the forward thrust for that momentum. What’s even worse is that Hackman’s half of the film never reaches the heights of the stunning first 20 minutes which depicts his Jack McCann making his prospect for gold in the frozen Canadian tundra in 1925. In a series of surreal, almost hallucinatory sequences that would put David Lynch to shame, Hackman’s Jack McCann is first shown in the opening scene beating the shit out of his prospecting partner on the idea that Hackman no longer feels like splitting the gold 50/50 IF they find any at all so he just kicks the shit out of the guy while a woman (presumably the wife or daughter of the guy) cries uncontrollably over the sight. Hackman leaves the guy laying facefirst in the snow (and he is never seen nor referred to ever again) and takes off into the tundra alone. He passes through some sort of ramshackle shantytown where he casually witnesses a guy blowing out his brains in despair and then finally and amazingly comes upon a well lit and maintained house in the middle of the frozen apocalypse. The place appears to be either some sort of a whorehouse or just a hangout for bored hedonists. Hackman resists all offers of sexual hijinx on the idea that “gold smells better than a woman does” but he is still befriended by the woman of the house (Helena Kallianiotes) who also appears to be somewhat of a practicing witch, having foretold Hackman’s arrival and apparently feeling that he is some sort of reincarnation of her own husband as well. Indeed, the VERY subtle yet underdeveloped occult surrealism on display here seems to be the overriding subtext of the movie all the way through to Hauer’s part of the film as Hackman’s hostess basically tells him that he is destined to find the gold which Hackman shrugs off as being superstitious talk since he’s going to find the gold by working his ass off and not with any kind of hocus pocus nonsense. And find it he does, literally an entire underground temple filled to the brim with gold and he’s the one with the claim on it. But when he goes back to see the woman who saved his life by giving him sanctuary, he finds her dying instead with the implication that (perhaps out of love?) she had cast a spell to guarantee him finding the gold mine that in return would drain the life out of her. As fascinating as all this is, it only consists of the first 20 minutes of the film which means we then cut to 20 years later with Hackman made up to be an eccentric old man who happens to be one of the richest individuals in the world, married to a haughty British socialite (Jane Lapotaire) and doting on a beautiful, 20 year old baby girl daughter (Theresa Russell). But all is not perfect in his world. His daughter has gotten engaged to and eventually married an unambitious Frenchman (Hauer) who comes from a family with a good bit of money in their own right, but still he chooses to drift aimlessly through life with the only thing that he owns that is of any value, his yacht. It comes as no surprise that Hackman and his son in law don’t get along on the overriding belief that Hauer is only involved with his daughter for the money and as far as Hackman is concerned, nobody is going to be touching his money except Hackman himself. But there’s a far greater concern on the horizon than just a layabout son in law. Since Hackman owns the very island in The Bahamas which he lives on and that island is a prime location for tourist expansion including opening casinos, he finds himself being persuaded by his best friend and business partner (in name only) played by Ed Lauter to listen to the business proposals of a shady lawyer (Mickey Rourke at his most serpentine) whose clients are looking to invest in the island and open some casinos. Problem is, Hackman already has all the money that he could ever have in this world and the island which he lives on is his and his alone, so what would he have to really gain by doing business with these people except bring in more crowds? However, Lauter seems to have a lot riding on it, having apparently made too many promises to Rourke and his boss, a Jewish mobster played by Joe Pesci. It’s no secret that Pesci’s character was based directly on Meyer Lansky, the legendary Jewish mafia kingpin who was known to never make an irrational decision, never saw the inside of a prison cell and died a peaceful death in 1981 long after the Capones and Lucky Lucianos of the world were dead and gone. But the Pesci as Lansky dynamic also betrays the fact that the story and the Jack McCann character as played by Hackman is actually based directly on the real life prospector turned multi multi millionaire Harry Oakes who had discovered gold in the Canadian tundra and had also set himself up on his own private island in The Bahamas before being brutally murdered in a crime that remains unsolved to this day and for which several biographers have postulated that Lansky (upon being unable to convince Oakes to sign over the property rights) had him killed instead mostly because Oakes had a moral objection to allowing gambling on his island (unlike the Hackman character in the movie who simply felt that there was no need for it while living in his own little world). But the real idea that makes this whole thing work is in the concept that Hackman (as selfish and self absorbed as he is) has really been miserable since the day he achieved his life long goal and struck gold, having loved every moment of that quest and sense of adventure that it entailed only to find that his spoiled wife and daughter suffer from a sense of entitlement which he never had, having had to fight for and risk his life to get to where he is today, which is bored and miserable. Once that part of the movie comes to an end with the brutal murder (as Hackman imagines himself at peace in the still, snowy wilderness of years ago), that’s when the ball gets handed off to Hauer, like the witch earlier in the movie a practitioner of occult symbolism but who is really just an immature fool who never really grew up and who always ran away from real crisis and real responsibility (including World War 2 which is still raging in his homeland of France and the rest of Europe), something that causes him self loathing coupled on top of a known arrogance. It’s not to say that Hauer is more than capable in the role, it’s really that the actual character itself is just not likable or relatable enough. Just like with the Oakes case, Hackman’s son in law Hauer is charged and eventually acquitted of the murder, but the trial scene which closes the movie remains one of the most ridiculous, unbelievable bits ever as Hauer (acting as his own attorney) calls his wife and Hackman’s daughter Russell up on the stand with the two of them having a public marriage counseling session in open court that goes on for so long and is so overwrought that it has to be seen to be believed. Even moreso, it proves that the film would have been better off ending with Hackman’s demise and completing his character arc instead of dragging it out into one of the worst courtroom scenes ever…

5/10

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