How did this movie come to my attention? As usual, I get introduced to movies like this from my source of entertainment and reviews for new movies, thecinemasnob.com and the Midnight Screenings show. The episode specifically that this movie was brought up was during their review for A Walk Among the Tombstones, which was based on a book written by Lawrence Block, part of a series following the character of Matthew Scudder, played in that movie by Liam Neeson. In it, Brad mentioned that Scudder had appeared in a movie before, that one being the topic for today, 8 Million Ways to Die. The credits of note for this movie seem almost surreal, from the director (Hal Ashby, of Harold and Maude, Coming Home, and Being There fame. This also was the last film he directed), one of the screenwriters (Oliver Stone, post- Scarface but pre Platoon and Salvador), having Jeff Bridges in the role of Scudder and Andy Garcia as the main villain. It's a strange collection of individuals coming together for this movie, and strangely enough this movie did not do well at all. Only making around $1.3 million at the box office against an $18 million dollar budget, there was also the dismal critical status, being a movie that has the dreaded 0% on Rotten Tomatoes (with a 33% audience rating and a 5.6 on IMDB, so it has that going for it). The 0% was what made me want to do this since it does exemplify the whole "Is the movie THAT bad?" aesthetic that this series tries to strive for.
To start this off, it really does feel like an 80's movie through and through, through the styles of clothing and the way the film feels. I can't really explain it but it does fit the 80's cop film mold and most of the time, it doesn't take me out of the movie but rather makes my brain take myself back to that period of time, the one that does this best though would be To Live and Die in LA, which I will save for another time. The movie begins with Scudder, at this point in time an LA cop who is also an alcoholic, being a part of a drug bust gone wrong where he kills a suspect in front of the man's family, the guilt causing him to sink more into his alcoholism, leading to the destruction of his career and his relationship with his wife and daughter. This does differ from the original backstory regarding the breaking point of him trying to become sober, which was similar to the way it was portrayed in A Walk Among the Tombstones, but it does get him to start going to Alcoholics Anonymous while taking up work as a private investigator. It is during one of these meeting where the plot begins to take form, when he is handed a note to go to a private club. The woman, named Sunny, tries to convince him to help her escape her life, under the guise of no longer wanting to deal in prostitution. Of course in movies like this, something goes wrong and there is more to the situation than meets the eye.
Overall, I should say that the acting in this movie is rather solid, at least from the perspective of the male leads. Bridges does a good job in the role of a recovering alcoholic, especially the scene early on when he relapses and wakes up in a drunk ward, all the while carrying himself well as a PI trying to piece together the mystery of what is really going on. Garcia is a pretty fun 80's villain with the name Angel Moldonado, There are some times where he appears to be having a lot of fun in the role and hamming it up quite nicely. There is also the small appearance of one Tommy "Tiny" Lister, who I'll probably remember forever for his role as Zeus in No Holds Barred and he's alright. But then we get to the actresses, who I wouldn't say are completely bad but they are one of the low points of the film. First being Sunny, played by Alexandra Paul; the only other movie I can remember her being in was Christine so I can't really judge her acting abilities from this, neither can I for Rosanna Arquette, who plays another lady of the night also serving as Matt's love interested Sarah. I just didn't find them that interesting aside from a few pieces of dialogue from Sunny, mainly one piece of dialogue from when she tries seducing Scudder in his apartment.
Structure and editing wise, sometimes the movie feels like a mess. That does have a reason though since because Ashby as a director was known for being a terror during the post-production process he was fired on the last day of shooting, so he didn't get to see through his vision for the film. Instead, it was left in the hands of editors Robert Lawrence and Stuart Pappe, the latter I can't figure out what else he's done but the former was Oscar nominated for Spartacus (this was at the tail end of his career though). In a situation like that though, it can be easy to assume that things do get lost in translation and the movie suffers from it, a prime example being the transition from Sunny's murder to Scudder waking up in the drunk ward being confusing and I didn't get that was what happened the first time I saw it. I'm not sure I should talk about this movie more though since I'd rather have people gauge the experience on their own but I guess I could leave off on this: if you're curious about the movie for any reason, give it a shot. I wouldn't consider it to be a good movie for the most part but it is better than the 0% RT rating it's given. I hope that 80's Jeff Bridges is enough to convince you to give this a try.
Post: I've decided that I'm not going to plan the posts for this one ahead of time since I do prefer this to be a spur of the moment kind of thing. I have an idea for the next one though if I decide to write it today, that being the 1984 Linda Blair vigilante film Savage Streets, which could be fun to talk about.
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