I come here to defend Mitchell.
First released in 1975, Mitchell does not have a great reputation. It’s often described as being one of the worst of the 70s cop films and Joe Don Baker’s performance in the lead role is often held up to ridicule. A lot of that is due to the fact that Mitchell was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Last year, for my birthday, my friend Pat McCurry actually hosted a showing of the MST 3K version of Mitchell. I laughed all the way through it. It was a funny show and most of the jokes uttered by Joel and the Bots landed. That said, I wish they hadn’t been so hard on Joe Don Baker. Baker was an outstanding character actor, one whose good ol’ boy persona sometimes kept people from realizing just how fiercely talented he actually was.
Here’s the thing with Mitchell. Just because a film is snarkable, that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad film. Just because there are moments in a film that inspire you to talk back to the screen, that doesn’t make it a bad film. Some of the most enjoyable films that I’ve ever watched were enjoyable specifically because they were made to inspire the audience to talk back to the characters. Whatever flaws you may want to find in Mitchell, it’s an entertaining film. The plot may be impossible to follow but who cares? When you’ve got Joe Don Baker, John Saxon, and Martin Balsam all in the same film, does the plot really matter?
This is a film that you watch for the personalities involved. Balsam plays a wannabe drug lord who always seems to be somewhat annoyed. Someone once describes Bernie Sanders as always coming across as if he was about send his meal back to the kitchen because it was too cold and that’s a perfect description of Balsam’s performance in Mitchell. John Saxon plays a sleazy rich guy who murders a burglar and then tries to cover up his crime. Saxon is calm, cool, collected, and completely confident that his wealth will get him out of anything. And then you’ve got Joe Don Baker as Mitchell, wearing an ugly plaid suit, drinking beer the way that I drink Diet Coke, and continually pretending to be dumber than he actually is. There’s an interesting subtext to these three characters and how they interact. Saxon and Balsam play criminals who are both rich and who both think they can get away with anything because they’ve got money. Mitchell is a complete and total slob, a guy with a cheap apartment, a cheap suit, and absolutely no refinement at all. Mitchell uses his good old boy persona to get the bad guys to continually underestimate him. He ultimately turns out to be smarter and actually more ruthless than any of them.
Joe Don Baker throws himself into the role of Mitchell and there’ actually a lot of intentional humor to be found in his performance. Baker doesn’t play Mitchell as being a supercop. Instead, he plays Mitchell as being a blue collar guy who gets absolutely no respect. Even when he’s on a stakeout, a random kid starts arguing with him. (Mitchell loses the argument.) Mitchell’s a jerk who busts his hooker girlfriend (Linda Evans) for having weed on her but he’s also the only one who could stop Balsam from doing whatever it is that Balsam thinks he’s trying to do. (Again, don’t spend too much time trying to understand the plot.) Mitchell’s super power is that he’s a slob who doesn’t give up. To paraphrase Road House‘s Dalton, he plays dumb until it’s time not to be dumb.
As I said, it’s an entertaining film. Where else are you going to see a not particularly high-speed chase between two station wagons? Where else are you going to see John Saxon in a dune buggy or Joe Don Baker in a helicopter or Martin Balsam as the captain of a yacht? Where else are you going to see a film that features its hero saying, “Yep, that’s grass,” before arresting his lover? Mitchell is fun and entertaining and I’ll always defend both the movie and its star.
To quote John McClane, “How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?”
Through the Shattered Lens 