Mario Azzopardi | Through the Shattered Lens

I became obsessed with the actor Rutger Hauer in the summer of 1990. I was about to go into my senior year of high school, and I was attending the Arkansas Governor’s School. I had seen Hauer before in films like THE HITCHER and WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE, but as part of our curriculum, we all watched BLADE RUNNER and then broke up into smaller groups to analyze the film. Blown away by the film, Hauer’s powerful performance, and the opportunity to engage in a serious conversation about a movie with my peers, it was a rewarding experience, and I soon found myself seeking out every Hauer film I could find. I followed the charismatic Dutch actor’s career closely from that point forward, all the way up to his death in July of 2019. I was actually sitting on a beach in Florida when I read that he had passed away. Based on my extreme interest in every project that Hauer was associated with, I specifically remember when BONE DADDY premiered on HBO in 1998. I didn’t have HBO so I had to wait for a few months to catch it when it arrived on home video.

In BONE DADDY (1998), Rutger Hauer stars as Dr. Bill Palmer, a retired Chicago medical examiner turned bestselling author. Years earlier, Palmer investigated a series of brutal unsolved murders committed by a serial killer known as “Bone Daddy.” Retiring in frustration from not being able to solve the murders, Palmer pens the novel, “Bone Daddy,” a fictionalized account of the crimes where, unlike real life, the killer is caught and brought to justice. The book’s runaway success catapults Palmer to fame, but it also seems to pull the notorious Bone Daddy out of retirement. When his literary agent, the cocky, Rocky Carlson, is kidnapped and subjected to the killer’s signature torture, the surgical removal of bones from a living body, Palmer finds himself back on the case and teamed up with the no-nonsense police detective Sharon Wells (Barbara Williams). As the bones and the suspects pile up, Palmer is determined to make sure the killer is found and brought to justice this time around!

BONE DADDY is a pretty darn good entertainment option if you’re in the mood for an undemanding serial killer flick that’s in and out of your life in 90 minutes. It’s certainly not in the same league as SE7EN, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed for what it is. The premise is pretty twisted, and the scenes where the killer is preparing to remove the bones of fully coherent victims is horrifying to say the least! There isn’t a lot of gore, but what’s there is pretty gross. This is B-movie territory and the lack of Hollywood gloss works in its favor. The film’s plot also has quite a bit of family drama between Dr. Palmer and his adult son Peter (Joseph Kell), who’s following in his dad’s professional footsteps in the medical field. It seems Dr. Palmer wasn’t the greatest dad and the current state of their relationship figures strongly throughout various portions of the film. This element of the story is actually handled quite well and adds some interesting tension as we move towards the end.

At the end of the day, the best thing about BONE DADDY is the presence of Rutger Hauer in the lead. He brings gravitas to the role of Dr. Palmer, a man who has had his share of successes and failures in the world. It’s his failures that continue to haunt him throughout this story and seems to put everyone around him in danger. Hauer, known for his ability to go over the top at times, plays the role completely straight with the quiet intensity and determination of a man trying to make up for past wrongs. It’s another solid performance in the career of the then-53 year old actor. I also want to give a special shout out to his nice, bushy mustache. I enjoyed it very much! The other primary performance of the film comes from Canadian actress Barbara Williams as the lead cop. In contrast to how much I enjoy Hauer, I’m just not much of a fan of Williams. She seems to be in a perpetual state of being offended in every role I’ve seen her in. She played Charles Bronson’s daughter in the FAMILY OF COPS series and her character was always on the ready to jump down someone’s throat for just about anything they said. It’s kind of the same here. I should probably try to look for some more of her work just to see if she ever smiles.

Overall, I think BONE DADDY is worth a watch, especially for fans of Rutger Hauer or movies about serial killers. The plot is predictable, and so is the identity of the killer if you’re paying attention, but you could definitely do a lot worse!

Uh-oh! New Orleans might be in trouble!

In the 2000 film, On Hostile Ground, John Corbett plays a geologist named Matt Andrews. Matt has been asked to investigate why two giant sinkholes have suddenly opened in New Orleans. The mayor’s press secretary, George Regan (Peter Stebbins), hopes that Matt will just do a perfunctory investigation and then declare the sinkholes to be no big deal. After all, it’s nearly time for Mardi Gras and it would be an economic disaster to cancel this year’s celebration. One can only assume that, like most movie bureaucrats, Regan has never seen Jaws and therefore doesn’t understand the folly of saying, “We can’t close the city during tourist season!”

However, Matt’s a geologist and he holds himself up to a higher standard. He doesn’t care about whether or not people get to celebrate Mardi Gras or not. In fact, just listening to him talk and watching him work, you get the feeling that Matt was probably the guy who, during previous Mardi Gras celebrations, would say, “You guys go without me. I’ve got to get some work done.” Anyway, Matt does some investigating and discovers that New Orleans is basically about to collapse into the Earth. It could happen tomorrow or it could happen 3,000 years from now but it will happen. Matt also points out that, even if the entire city manages to not sink into the Earth, the sinkholes could cause the levees to collapse and then the entire city would be flooded. (This movie was made before Katrina.)

Regan hears Matt out and then decides to hide all of his evidence and let Mardi Gras go on as planned.

Can you guess what happens?

There’s a few things that I immediately noticed about On Hostile Ground.

First off, my family lived in Louisiana for about a year and a half. I’ve been to New Orleans during Mardi Gras. I can usually tell when a film has actually been shot in Louisiana as opposed to some place nearby like, say, Georgia. Watching On Hostile Ground, I noticed that it appeared that at least a few of the Mardi Gras scenes had actually been filmed in New Orleans. There wasn’t quite as much Mardi Gras footage as I was expecting but what there was appeared to be authentic. However, whenever the action moved outside of the French Quarter, I couldn’t help but notice that the surroundings looked very Canadian and that very few of the extras sounded like they had ever spent any time anywhere near the Big Easy. In short, it quickly became obvious that the majority of this made-for-television film was shot in Montreal and Toronto. Canada really can’t pass for Louisiana, much as how they could have never shot an episode of Degrassi in New Orleans.

The other thing I noticed is that, despite New Orleans being below sea level, Matt and his fellow geologists had no trouble finding dry underground caverns underneath the city. It reminded me a bit of that old X-Files movie where the kids find an underground cavern right outside of Dallas. Some things just aren’t going to happen, okay?

Anyway, this is one of those low-budget disaster films where everyone refuses to listen to the scientist and disaster follows. This is the type of film that, nowadays, would probably be made by the Asylum for the SyFy Network. That said, the Asylum version would probably be a lot more fun because there would be probably be like a sea serpent or killer Mardi Gras floats or something. This one is just kind of dull and spends too much time on build-up without enough pay-off.

On Hostile Ground is not really worth sacrificing any beads for.