Made For TV Movie Review: The Jericho Mile (dir by Michael Mann)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1979’s The Jericho Mile tells the story of Larry Murphy (Peter Strauss).

Larry is serving a life sentence at Folsom Prison, convicted a crime that he admits to having committed. Larry murdered his father, specifically to protect his stepsister from being raped. Larry feels no guilt for his crime and, at the same time, he’s willing to quietly serve his sentence. He’s a loner, avoiding the rival racial factions in the prison. (Brian Dennehy leads the Aryans while Roger E. Moseley leads the black prisoners and Miguel Pinero is the head of the Mexican Mafia.) Larry just wants to spend his time running around the prison yard.

When Dr. Bill Janowski (Geoffrey Lewis) sees how fast Larry can run, he arranges for a local track coach, Jerry Beloit (Ed Lauter), to come up to the prison with a few potential Olympians so that they can race Larry. Larry manages to outrun all of them. Jerry becomes convinced that Larry could qualify for the Olympics, if only he had a regulation track to run on. The Warden, knowing good publicity when he sees it, assigns the inmates to build the track but doing so means dealing with Folsom’s highly charged racial politics. No matter how fast Larry can run and no matter how inspiring it would be for Larry to go from serving a life sentence to competing in the Olympics, Folsom is still a prison and Larry is still a prisoner. And while the guards may have the guns and may be the only ones who are allowed to go home at the end of the game, it’s the prison gangs who have all the power. When the Aryans go on strike and refuse to work on the track, it puts Larry’s chances in jeopardy.

Of course, Larry’s chances are already in jeopardy just because of who he is. Larry is a prisoner who refuses to show remorse. While other prisoners embrace religion or politics and try to convince outsiders that they’ve either reformed or been wrongly convicted, Larry just wants to run. Running is when he’s free. (The film’s title refers to the Walls of Jericho coming down.) And, for the other inmates, watching Larry run is a reminder that there are many ways once can escape from the drudgery of being locked away.

The Jericho Mile is a tough and rather cynical prison film, one that manages to combine downbeat social drama with a uplifting sports story. You’ll want to cheer Larry while he’s running, even if you secretly suspect that he’s ultimately chasing something that will never happen. Making his directorial debut, Michael Mann shot the film on location at Folsom and the cast is full of actual prisoners, all of whom bring some much need authenticity to the film’s story. Mann never lets us forget that this is a film about people in a very dangerous situation and, even at its most inspiring, the film leaves you feeling as if violence could break out at any moment. Peter Strauss, who usually played somewhat more refined characters, is totally believable as the taciturn Larry and character actors like Dennehy and Mosely skillfully blend in with the actual prisoners in the cast. The Jericho Mile is a portrait of crime, punishment, and dreams. It’s a movie that will stay with you.

Icarus File No. 22: Revolution (dir by Hugh Hudson)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1985’s Revolution opens on July 4th, 1776. The Declaration of Independence has just been published. The streets are full of people celebrating. A statue of King George is pulled down. In her carriage, the wealthy Mrs. McConnahay (Joan Plowright) turns up her nose to the enthusiastic rebels, including the fanatical Liberty Woman (Annie Lennox). Mrs. McConnahay’s daughter, Daisy (Nastassja Kinski) is intrigued by this idea of freedom and equality.

Fur trader Tom Dobbs sails his boat into Hudson Harbor. Tom is Scottish, illiterate, and very much a man of the 18th Century. However, he’s played by Al Pacino, who was none of those things. After Revolution was released to desultory reviews, Pacino took four years off from the movies and watching this film, one can see why. Pacino is miscast as Dobbs and, as a result, he gives the type of truly bad performance that can only be given by a great actor. Unable to disguise the fact that he had the accent of a modern-day New Yorker, Pacino resorts to mumbling the majority of his lines. Tasked with playing a character who has no idea how to deal with the history-making events in which he finds himself, Pacino alternates between a blank look and with bulging his eyes like a madman, proving that it’s far more difficult to play an uneducated character than an educated one. Why cast Pacino, who can be one of our most exciting actors, as a character who can barely speak and who has neither the intensity of Michael Corleone or the subversive wit of Tony Montana? Due to Pacino and Kinski having zero chemistry, the scenes where Tom falls in love with Daisy are almost painful to watch.

The film follows Tom as he and his son, Ned (Simon Owen when the film begins, Dexter Fletcher by the time the action moves to Valley Forge), as they find themselves conscripted into the Revolutionary Army. Eventually, Ned is abducted into the British army and serves as a drummer boy under the sadistic watch of Sgt. Major Peasy (Donald Sutherland). The idea behind the film isn’t a bad one. It attempts to portray the American Revolution through the eyes of the average citizen. Instead of focusing on the Founding Fathers, Revolution tries to tell the story of the everyday people who found themselves in the middle of the war. Tom loses his boat and (temporarily) he loses his son. Fortunately, this is one of those films where people are constantly running into each other by chance, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not. Daisy goes from seeing Tom in New York to randomly coming across him in a field to eventually finding him in Valley Forge. It’s not because she’s specifically looking for him. Instead, he just happens to be there.

Why does Revolution fail? A lot of it comes down to Pacino’s performance, though Pacino certainly isn’t the only talented actor to give a not-quite good performance in Revolution. (Donald Sutherland has never been more wasted in a film.) The script is full of dialogue like, “My mouth belongs where I place it.” (Pacino gets stuck with that one.) Hugh Hudson directs in a leaden manner. Towards the end of the film, there is one brilliant sequence where Tom wanders through the streets of New York and, for a few minutes, the film comes to like with a spontaneity that was previously lacking. Unfortunately, it’s just one sequence in a very long movie,

To be honest, we could use some good films about the American Revolution and I’m not talking about elitist nonsense like Hamilton. No taxation without representation. It’s still a good message for us all.

Previous Icarus Files:

California Straight Ahead! (1937, directed by Arthur Lubin)

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Biff Smith (John Wayne), fired from his job as a school bus driver, becomes a partner in a trucking company. In order to show-up the railroads that are determined to put any potential competitors out of business, Biff and his fleet race a train to the Pacific Coast, where a boat needs to be unloaded before a labor strike begins. Making this personal for Biff is that he’s in love with Mary Porter (Louise Latimer), the sister of Biff’s late business partner. Embittered by her brother’s death in a trucking accident, Mary is now working for the head of the railroad, James Gifford (Theodore van Eltz). Biff not only wants to prove that his small trucking firm can compete with the big boys but also wants to show Mary that her new boss is nothing but a smooth-talking weasel.

This film is from John Wayne’s B-movie star period, before John Ford cast him in Stagecoach and made him one of the biggest stars in the world. California Straight Ahead! features Wayne in a contemporary role, though the movie still has a western sensibility. There’s not much difference between a wagon train and Wayne’s fleet of trucks and, as in so many westerns, the greedy railroad baron is the villain. This is one of Wayne’s better B-movie performances. He was clearly comfortable in front of the camera by the time he made this movie and was no longer as stiff as he was in his earlier films. California Straight Ahead! is a crowd-pleasing film that finds Wayne standing up for small businesses and their workers. Though this may just be a 61-minute B flick, California Straight Ahead! reveals the movie star that Wayne would soon become.

The Eric Roberts Collection: Bad Substitute (dir by Steven Krasner)

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you want proof that Eric Roberts will appear in just about anything, just consider 2024’s Bad Substitute.

Though the title brings to mind a Lifetime film (and, as soon as I heard the title, I imagined Vivica A. Fox saying, “Looks like you hired the bad substitute,”), Bad Substitute is actually a comedy in the style of Bad Teacher, Bad Moms, Bad Bosses. and all the other bad films. Eric Roberts plays the principal of a high school who has to find someone willing to teach summer school. With all of his regular teachers having an excuse to get out of giving up their summer, Roberts is forced to turn to a teaching assistant (played by Steven Krasner, the film’s director and writer) who has just been dumped by his girlfriend and now has his entire summer open. The bad substitute has a class of misfits who need to prove themselves by passing their exams and he has a crush on the dedicated teacher working next door. You can pretty much guess where all this is leading.

Now, to be honest, for all the flaws in this film, I really don’t have any interest in trashing the Bad Substitute. The film pretty much is what it was advertised to be. It is what it is and I think most people’s critical ire is better served by being focused on expensive but bland studio films as opposed to an obviously low-budget and rather amateurish production that looks like it was filmed on someone’s phone. Bad Substitute may not be a good film but it’s also not actively hurting anyone.

What I will say is that Eric Roberts makes an impression as the principal, showing what a good actor can do with even limited resources. His befuddlement at discovering that all of his teachers are claiming to have COVID should be put in museum because it’s a moment that perfectly captures the mood of the past few years. Bad Substitute, whatever else you may say about it, should give every aspiring filmmaker hope. Maybe Eric Roberts can be in your film too!

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Westward Ho (1935, directed by Robert N. Bradbury)

Posted on April 13, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

As a young man, John Wyatt (John Wayne) witnessed an attack on a wagon train by the evil outlaw Wick Ballard (Jack Curtis). John’s parents were killed and his younger brother Jim was abducted. Years later, the grown John Wyatt realizes that the law cannot be depended upon in the wild west so he raises his own band of vigilantes and delivers justice to the frontier. (Wayne’s second-in-command is played by the legendary Glenn Strange.) Wyatt remains committed to taking down Ballard. Going undercover as John Allen, Wyatt joins a cattle drive that he thinks will be attacked by Ballard. Also working undercover as a member of the cattle drive is Jim Wyatt (Frank McGlynn Jr), John’s long-lost brother, who is now working for Ballard! Both the Wyatt bothers end up falling for Mary Gordon (Sheila Bromley), the daughter of rancher Lafe Gordon (Jim Farley).

This was a good example of the the type of B-movies that John Wayne made in the years before John Ford cast him in Stagecoach. The story is simple but Wayne gives a commanding performance as Wyatt. Unlike many of the B-movies that featured Wayne as a callow singing cowboy or a fun-loving rogue, Westward Ho features Wayne playing the type of character that he would often play after he became a star. Wyatt is determined to get justice for his family and to protect the innocents who are attacked by men like Ballard. The presence of his brother in the enemy camp adds an extra dimension to Westward Ho. Wyatt learns that vengeance isn’t everything.

It’s only 61 minutes long but it tells a good story and it has all the gunfights and horse chases that Western fans expect from their movies. Of Wayne’s poverty row westerns, Westward Ho is one of the better ones.

The Eric Roberts Collection: Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534 (dir by Jon Cassar)

Posted on April 13, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s disaster time!

In 2001’s Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534, a plane is making its way across the country. The pilot is the arrogant Jack Brooks (Kevin Jubinville), who is convinced that all a pilot has to do is let the instruments and the plane’s computer run the flight. He has total faith in technology. His first officer is Mike Hogan (Eric Roberts), a veteran pilot whose career went downhill after he was unfairly blamed for a crash in Boston. Mike is old school. He doesn’t have much use for all this technology nonsense. Mike thinks that a pilot has to listen to his own instincts and be willing to improvise. That sounds dangerous! It’s a good thing that Jack’s in charge of this plane!

Unfortunately, turbulence and a concussion temporarily puts Jack out of commission. Mike is going to have to conquer his own fears and insecurities to land this plane. Fortunately, he has the support of the head flight attendant, Katy Phillips (Alexandra Paul). Also, one of the passengers has some flight experience! Grant Blyth (Dean McDermott) is willing to help out. Of course, Grant is also a convicted murderer who was being flown to prison but whatever. I just find it interesting that, in the movies, convicted murderers and their handlers are always put on commercial flight. That seems kind of irresponsible to me.

Rough Air is a throwback to the old disaster movies of the 70s. The airplane is full of people who have to set aside their differences to work together and try to avoid a disaster. There’s a soccer star (Mark Lutz) and an engineer (Russell Yuen) and a rich guy (Carlo Rota) who only exists that he can be told to shut up whenever he doubts Mike. Unfortunately, this film isn’t quite as fun as any of those old disaster movies. There’s one funny moments where Jack wakes up and deliriously demands to be allowed to fly the plane but otherwise, this is a pretty boring flight. Not even Eric Roberts giving a typically committed performance can save this flight from being forgettable.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Hidden Assassin (1995, directed by Ted Kotcheff)

Posted on April 12, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

After the Cuban ambassador to the United States is assassinated, the CIA worries that someone is trying to create trouble between the USA and Cuba. With another Cuban-American summit due to be held in Prague, CIA Agent Dolph Lundgren is sent to arrest the assassin and bring her back to America to be tried before she can cause anymore trouble. The CIA claims that the assassin is a sniper-turned-club owner named Simone (Maruschka Detmers) but, once it becomes obvious that whoever wants to keep her from going to America want to not only kill him but also her as well, Dolph starts to suspect that there’s a bigger conspiracy at work.

Hidden Assassin was the last feature film to directed by Ted Kotcheff and, while it’s definitely a direct-to-video action flick, it’s still a cut above similar films that were being released at the time. Not surprisingly, the director of First Blood and Uncommon Valor knew how to shoot action films but he also did a good job directing the actors and everyone gives it their all in this film. Amongst the lower-tier action films of the 90s, Dolph Lundgren was always a better actor than Van Damme and he also more likable than Seagal. (Of course, a rabid bobcat is more likable than Steven Seagal.) Lundgren is at his best here, believable as both an action star and a spy. John Ashton of Beverly Hills Cop fame plays his partner and Gavan O’Herlihy plays his superior. They’re both pros who know exactly how to handle the material.

Hidden Assassin has some plot holes, the least of which anyone would go through that much trouble to sour relations between America and Cuba. America and Cuba haven’t gotten along for a very long time. Still, the movie makes great use of Prague as a location and Lundgren is characteristically strong as the film’s hero. There’s even some moments of deliberate humor that work surprisingly well. Lundgren and Kotcheff were a killer combination and it’s too bad they didn’t do more movies together.

The Eric Roberts Collection: The Perfect Summer (dir by Gary Wheeler)

Posted on April 12, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s the perfect summer …. or is it?

In this 2013 film, teenage Jake (Adam Horner) moves to California with his mother, Alyssa (Sydney Penny). They move in with Jake’s grandfather, surf shop owner Lou Reynolds (Eric Roberts). At first, Jake is miserable. He misses his friends. He doesn’t know what to make of the California lifestyle. He has a crush on Kayla (Katie Garfield) but he feels insecure because he can’t surf and, when he does buy a surfboard, it’s promptly broken in half by the local surf bullies.

(Is there really such a thing as surf bullies? I’ve never lived on the beach so I really haven’t had much experience with surfers. The ones that I met in Hawaii and Galveston all seemed pretty cool, though. But, in the movies, they’re all like, “Can’t surf our beach, brah.” A part of me suspects that movies should not be used as a guide for real life.)

It’s a good thing that Lou just happens to be a legendary surfer! While Alyssa pursues a romance with Marcos (Louis Mandylor), Lou tries to teach his grandson how to surf. It’s not always easy. Jake gets frustrated easily and he doesn’t quite understand the zen philosophy behind surfing. But, with Lou’s help, Jake gets the hang of it and soon, Jake is ready to enter the big surging competition!

If this all sounds familiar, that’s because you’ve already seen a hundred films like this. Think of The Karate Kid, but with surfing and Eric Roberts as the mentor. It’s all very predictable but the beach is pretty. The ocean is majestic. My favorite American Idol also-ran, Jason Castro, shows up for a few minutes. And Eric Roberts actually gets a fairly substantial role and a chance to show what a good actor he can actually be! There’s absolutely nothing surprising about the film but, for what it is, The Perfect Summer works.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Buckaroo From Powder River (1947, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Pop Ryland (Forrest Taylor) is a frontier outlaw who makes law-breaking a family business. With his two sons, Pop is planning on flooding the territory with counterfeit bonds. His stepson, Tommy (Paul Campbell), doesn’t want anything to do with any criminal activity so Pop sends for McCall (Frank McCarroll), an assassin. In a letter, Pop explains that he wants his stepson murdered. When federal agent Steve Lacey (Charles Starrett) captures McCall, he finds the letter. Steve heads into town and goes undercover, pretending to be McCall. He also uses his other identity, the Durango Kid, to thwart Pop’s plans.

More than usual, this Durango Kid film leans more into the undercover aspect of Steve’s work. What’s interesting is that, after Tommy fakes his own death, Tommy also disguises himself as the Durano Kid and keeps his stepfather from suspecting that Steve is actually a member of law enforcement. It’s actually pretty clever, as far as these movies go, and it answers the question of why no one ever wonders why Steve and Durango are never in the same place at the same time.

Smiley Burnette shows up as Steve’s sidekick and he sings a few songs with the The Cass County Boys. Along with Smiley’s antics, this film has all of the horse chases and gunfights that we expect from a Durango Kid movie. Most of the usual stock company is present, including Ted Adams and Kermit Maynard. As always, Charles Starrett looks authentic riding horse and handling a gun. If you’re not into westerns, this film won’t convert you. But, for fans of the genre, this is another entertaining outing for the Durango Kid,

The Eric Roberts Collection: Deadly Sanctuary (dir by Nancy Criss)

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2015’s Deadly Sanctuary, Philadelphia reporter Kendall O’Dell (Rebekah Kochan) relocates to a small town in Arizona and proceeds to spend the majority of the movie complaining about it.

Seriously, I could relate to Kendall to an extent. We both have red hair. We both have asthma. We both hate snakes. We both wear high heels in the desert. We’ve both run outside in our underwear after coming across a tarantula in our house. But, even with all that in mind, even I quickly got annoyed with listening to her complain about every little thing. Her father got her a job at the Arizona newspaper so, of course, Kendall calls him up to complain about the desert. An old man stops and helps to shoo a snake away from Kendall’s car so, of course, Kendall gives him the glare of death when he casually calls her “sweetie.” (The guy’s 70 and was clearly not hitting on Kendall so maybe he can be forgiven for not speaking like a 30-something grad student.) Kendall shows up late for her job interview so, of course, she complains about the newspaper to her editor (Eric Roberts). Kendall gets a place to live, rent-free. She complains about the house being located near a mental hospital. Kendall’s co-worker, Ginger (Teri Lee), sets Kendall up with both a handsome cowboy (Marco Dapper) and the richest man in town (Peter Greene) and, of course, Kendall finds an excuse to complain about it.

Eventually, a plot of sorts kicks in. Kendall investigates the death of her predecessor and discovers that the sheriff (Dean Cain) doesn’t seem to be all the interested in solving any of the murders that seem to occur around town. She also tries to set up an interview with Dr. Price (Daniel Baldwin), the owner of the mental hospital, but it turns out that he doesn’t want to talk to her. He doesn’t care that she once wrote a series of articles about mental health in Philadelphia. (Yikes! I’ve seen Parking Wars so I can only guess how scary that must have been.)

Kendall hears strange voices in her house and spiders keep showing up at inopportune moments. Who can she trust? Who is the bad guy here? The rich guy or the salt-of-the-Earth cowboy dude? Well, I won’t spoil the film. I will say that the plot had potential but the poor pacing and the unlikable lead character eventually combine to do this movie in.

Eric Roberts is his usual avuncular self in this film. He spends most of his scenes sitting behind a desk. The rest of the film’s celebrity cameo budget was apparently spent on Dean Cain and Daniel Baldwin, both of whom seem rather bored with the whole thing.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed: