Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) is an idealistic young law school graduate who discovers that having a degree and passing the bar doesn’t automatically make you a success. He gets a job working a bar that just happens to be owned by an ambulance chasing attorney named Bruiser Stone (Mickey Rourke). Bruiser takes Rudy on as an associate and assigns his associate, Deck Shifflet (Danny DeVito), to teach Rudy how to find cases. When Bruiser flees the country to escape an FBI investigation, Rudy and Deck start their own law firm. Rudy soon finds himself with the case of his young career, representing a family in a law suit against Great Benefit Insurance. Rudy also falls for Kelly (Claire Danes), a young woman who is being abused by her husband (Andrew Shue).
It can be hard to believe today but, in the 90s, every John Grisham novel was adapted for the screen. Most of the adaptations weren’t very good but audiences ate them up. In many ways, The Rainmaker is the ultimate John Grisham adaptation because it contains every single trope that John Grisham made popular with his legal thrillers. This time, Matt Damon is the charismatic attorney. Roy Scheider is the soulless corporate CEO who needs to be brought down. Jon Voight is the intimidating opposing counsel. Danny DeVito is the eccentric comic relief and Mickey Rourke is the dues ex machina who returns to the movie to give Rudy a piece of information at the exact right moment. The appeal of Grisham is that he made readers (and eventually moviegoers) feel like insiders while presenting them with stories that were essentially very simple good vs evil morality tales. The insurance company is so cartoonishly evil that there’s no doubt Rudy is going to defeat them. There’s also no doubt that Rudy is going to find a better calling than ambulance chasing because the only thing that people hate more than insurance companies is lawyers.
The Rainmaker is never as complex as it pretends to be but it’s an entertaining legal movie. It was also director Francis Ford Coppola’s last big hit. It’s really more of a Grisham film than a Coppola film but Coppola’s influence is still felt in the almost uniformly excellent cast. (Ignore Andrew Shue if you can. Melrose Place was very popular in the 90s.) Damon, Danes, Rourke, Voight, Dean Stockwell, Danny Glover, Teresa Wright, Virginia Madsen, and Mary Kay Place all give memorable performances. Roy Scheider is loathsome as the sweater-wearing CEO. Best of all is Danny DeVito, who gets all of the best lines.
The Rainmaker was the best of the 1990s Grisham adaptations. While it’s not quite a masterpiece, it’s still emotionally very satisfying.
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you were struggling to get to sleep last night, you could have jumped over to Tubi and watched the 1989 film, Listen to Me.
Listen to Me tells the story of two poor but ambitious teenagers who receive debate scholarships to fictional Kenmont University. Monica Tomanski (Jami Gertz) is a liberal from Chicago. Tucker Muldowney (Kirk Cameron) is a “shit-kickin’ conservative” who is from Oklahoma. Despite their different political beliefs, Monica and Tucker find themselves assigned to be debate partners by the college’s legendary debate coach, Charlie Nichols (Roy Scheider).
At Kenmont, debate is as popular and as important as football is at some other colleges. The entire student body shows up to listen to the debates and to cheer for their side. It’s like Oxford, if Oxford was solely populated by 80s teen actors. (Seriously, there’s a lot of familiar faces wandering around that campus.) Charlie is convinced that this could be the year that he wins the national tournament. Gar McKellar (Tom Quill), the troubled son of Sen. McKellar (Anthony Zerbe), is one of the best debaters in the country. However, Gar fears that winning a national debate tournament will somehow lead to him going into politics. He wants to be a writer and he’s got a self-destructive streak. As you probably already guessed, this all leads to Tucker and Monica debating the arrogant Harvard team in front of the Supreme Court. The topic? Whether or not Roe v Wade should be overturned….
A few thoughts on Listen to Me:
Kirk Cameron’s “Oklahoma” accent is, without a doubt, the worst that I have ever heard in any film ever made. When I was growing up, I did occasionally live in Oklahoma. I still visit Oklahoma frequently. Yes, people in Oklahoma do have an accent. However, that accent sounds nothing like whatever Cameron was trying to do in this film. Whenever Kirk Cameron speaks, he sounds less like an Oklahoma farm boy and more like the tubercular son of a once proud New Orleans family. Beyond the accent, Cameron just isn’t believable as a quick-on-his-feet debate champ. He overplays when he should underplay and underplays …. well, I can’t think of a single scene that he underplays. It’s just not a good performance.
Jami Gertz is a bit more convincing as Monica. (It perhaps helps that Gertz, like her character, is actually from Chicago.) But, for the majority of the film, Monica is seriously underwritten. She’s a straw feminist, who largely exists so that Tucker can tell her to loosen up.
As for the other debaters, we don’t learn much about them. That’s a shame because some of them — like Amanda Peterson’s crippled debater — seem like they would be much more interesting to follow than either Gar, Tucker, or Monica. It’s a crime to cast Peter DeLuise as an Ivy League debater without giving us a chance to actually see him debate.
Roy Scheider gives the best performance in the film, which isn’t really a surprise. That said, Charlie Nichols was a terrible debate coach, one whose entire philosophy seemed to be based on teaching his debaters to make loud and emotional arguments and hope that the judge doesn’t understand how competitive debating is supposed to work.
Would the Supreme Court really judge a national debate tournament?
As for the debates themselves, it’s hard not to notice that all of the arguments are emotional. There’s little talk of evidence or research or anything else. Instead, the characters talk about how abortion has personally effected them. (The Harvard team is portrayed as being snooty villains when they dare to bring up an actual clinical study about abortion.) Admittedly, I did not do college debate but I was involve with Speech and Debate in High School and, when it came to debate, I always tried to get by with the same cutesy techniques that everyone uses in this film. If the judge was a man, I definitely showed a little leg. If someone asked me about a study that disproved my argument, I’d respond by citing a fictional study that disproved their study. I was the Queen of Dramatic Personal Anecdote! And I rarely made it out of the preliminary rounds because most judges — the good ones, at least — were able to tell that I hadn’t bothered to do my homework and that I was just trying to skate by on charm and wit. My coach often told me that if I would actually do the work, I’d probably make it to the semis and beyond but …. eh, doing the work was just too much …. well, work. So, you can imagine my surprise when Tucker and Monica used the same techniques that I used and were declared to be the best debaters in the country!
Seriously, I was robbed!
Listen to Me is a very 80s film, right down to the debate montages and the explanations about why Roe v Wade would never actually be overturned. It tries to do for college debate what numerous other college-set films did for football an binge-drinking. Unfortunately, the film’s intentions are defeated by a didactic script and a miscast lead. It feels considerably longer than 100 minutes, which might help you with your insomnia.
Today’s scene that I love comes from Bob Fosse’s 1979 masterpiece, All That Jazz.This scene features the legendary Ann Reinking at her best. Roy Scheider said that he cried after shooting this scene.
“You know the thing about a shark, he’s got…lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eye. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white.” — Quint
People have blamed Spielberg and his breakout film, Jaws, as the cause of the blockbuster mentality that studios have had since this film came out. Studios and producers wanted to recreate the ultra-successful box-office numbers of Jaws. Despite the fact that this film was modestly budgeted, people nowadays who think they’re film experts point to it as the culprit. They’ve called it the film that begun the dumbing down of Hollywood when creativity was sacrificed for profit.
Why did I pick a scene from this film as a favorite? I picked this particular scene because it’s one reason why the film succeeded and made people come back again and again. It’s a scene that perfectly captures one reason why we love to see films in a communal setting. We want to share the same experience and emotions this scene brought up from the pit of each audience’s psyche.
Jaws didn’t ruin the creativity in filmmaking. I like to think that this one film was a filmmaker at his most creativie (shark wouldn’t work properly so Spielberg kept it off-screen which just added to the terror and tension in the film). This very scene goes down as one of the greatest film monologues. It sets up the danger the trio faces with some anecdotal evidence from the very person who survived the experience, but who might have become unhinged because of it. I love the look of frozen terror on the face of Richard Dryefuss’ character as he listens to Robert Shaw tell the story of the ill-fated journey of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.
This latest “Scenes I Love” is why I consider Spielberg one of the best filmmaker of his generation and probably beyond that.
Some of the toughest criminals in America are being transported, via train, to a high security prison. For some reason, instead of using an entire train to transport the prisoners and guards, it’s decided to just put the criminals in one car attached to a normal passenger train. Did the passengers in the other cars get a warning that would be traveling with a bunch of desperate criminals? Did they at least get a discount on their tickets? Of course, Mafia kingpin Enzo Martini (Roy Scheider, slumming) engineers a takeover with the rest of the prisoners. It’s up to Sheriff Wes Blaidek (Ray Wise) and bartender Zoe Clark (Delane Matthews) to stop the prisoners.
This is a fast-moving, dumb-as-Hell action movie that’s memorable mostly for having a cast that was very much overqualified for the film. Keith Coogan, Dorian Harewood, Don Swayze, Ed O’Ross, and Sam J. Jones are all in this thing. Clint Howard plays the homicidal serial killer who lets a child live because the kid has seen Taxi Driver. Dick Van Patten plays the head of the parole board. I can understand why Roy Scheider might be selected to play a mob boss and how Clint Howard and Don Swazye ended up playing killers. But how do you look at this film’s story and think, “This need Dick Van Patten?” It’s Die Hard on a train but without the wit or the budget. The movie moves quickly, there’s plenty of train and helicopter action and it’s still good to see so many familiar and eccentric talents gathered together to bring too life one very stupid movie. It’s too bad they couldn’t find room for Joey Travolta or Joe Estevez but I guess you can’t have everything.
Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. Tonight, Monday February 24th, we’re watching THE SEVEN-UPS starring Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Ken Kercheval, Richard Lynch, and Bill Hickman.
THE SEVEN-UPS is about an elite New York City police unit, led by detective Buddy Manucci (Roy Scheider). The unit is nicknamed the “seven-ups” based on their ability to secure convictions and jail sentences of 7 years and up. While working a job, one of his fellow seven-ups is killed, and Buddy will do anything to find the men who did it.
I wrote a full review of THE SEVEN-UPS just last week because it’s truly a great movie and features one of the best car chase sequences ever put on film. Rather than repeat a lot of those same facts, I’m including a link to my review below, which also includes the trailer for the film:
I’m guessing it started with JAWS (1975) and JAWS 2 (1978) since they played often on Fox-16 out of Little Rock when I was a kid, but I’ve been a fan of actor Roy Scheider for as long as I can remember. He’s one of those actors who has his own section in my massive collection of physical movie media. I’ve read about every film he’s ever made, and I’ve watched most of them. Surprisingly, THE SEVEN-UPS is the first Roy Scheider film I’ve written about on The Shattered Lens.
NYPD detective Buddy Manucci (Roy Scheider) leads a team of elite cops, known as the “seven-ups.” They’ve acquired this nickname because most of the criminals they arrest receive sentences that are 7 years and longer, which makes their superiors on the force very happy. Granted, the team does use a variety of unorthodox methods to find and arrest the criminals, which can also rub their superiors and some of their fellow cops the wrong way. Buddy’s childhood friend Vito Lucia (Tony Lo Bianco), an undertaker by trade who has his finger on the pulse of the criminal activities in his community, serves as an important snitch for the team, with his information often leading to major busts. Unbeknownst to Buddy, prominent members of various organized crime families and other white-collar criminals start getting kidnapped and held for ransom in the community. Buddy’s unaware of the full extent of the kidnappings, but he asks his old friend / snitch Vito about this when he actually witnesses the abduction of a crooked bail bondsman he’s following named Festa. We know that Vito is the mastermind behind all of the kidnappings, and his two main henchmen, Moon (Richard Lynch) and Bo (Bill Hickman), are impersonating cops just long enough to confuse and abduct the various criminals. When the Seven-Ups stake out a funeral meeting of various mobsters in the area, squad member Ansel (Ken Kercheval) is killed as part of a screwed-up abduction attempt. Buddy spots Moon and Bo trying to flee the area and tries to chase them down in an incredible car chase that ends when Buddy is almost decapitated in a violent collision with a parked 18-wheeler. With one of their own dead and with the wild chases through the streets, the members of the team are placed on suspension and even investigated as suspects for the kidnappings. Not content to just lay low during their suspensions, the seven-ups continue to try to figure out what’s going on, doing whatever it takes to get the information they need. When Buddy and his group start applying incredible pressure to some of the local mobsters about who shot Ansel, he gets information that ties the killing and the kidnappings to his friend Vito. This time when he meets with Vito, Buddy feeds him false information, thus setting a trap to bring the whole operation down.
After viewing THE SEVEN-UPS again for the first time in a while, it continues to be my opinion that this movie is severely underrated. It’s a great cop film from the early 70’s, anchored by an excellent lead performance from Roy Scheider, who’s wearing one of the coolest leather jackets in the history of cinema. Coming in hot off the heels of THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971), and with many connections to the Oscar winner, it seems that somehow this great film has fallen through the cracks over the years. I mean, how often do you hear people talk about this movie? THE SEVEN-UPS is directed by Philip D’Antoni, his only directorial credit, although he did serve as the Producer for both BULLITT (1968) and THE FRENCH CONNECTION. D’Antoni clearly values a good car chase sequence. THE SEVEN-UPS contains a thrilling car chase, which really isn’t that big of a surprise when you learn that stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, who plays the bad guy Bo in this film, coordinated the car chase sequences in BULLITT and THE FRENCH CONNECTION. This film features my personal favorite car chase sequence from any film that I’ve seen to date. Don Ellis composed the memorable musical score, a service that he also provided in THE FRENCH CONNECTION. I point out all of these ties to THE FRENCH CONNECTION because, in my humble opinion, the talent behind that film created another classic in THE SEVEN-UPS.
Complimenting Roy Scheider’s lead performance, THE SEVEN-UPS has a strong supporting cast. Tony Lo Bianco, Ken Kercheval (of DALLAS fame), Bill Hickman, and Richard Lynch are all quite memorable in their respective roles. I also like the 1973 New York City setting for the film. In movies like this and the following year’s DEATH WISH, we get to see a New York that no longer exists. To me, this only adds to the gritty realism of the film.
Overall, THE SEVEN-UPS is a movie I recommend without any reservations. If you’re a fan of 70’s cop thrillers, you simply can’t go wrong with this one.
The first time I saw Jaws, this scene totally freaked me out. Every subsequent time that I’ve watched Jaws, this scene continues to freak me out. Even though I always know it’s coming, the brutality of it always takes me by surprise. This scene and the way it goes from mild comedy (“That’s a real bad hat, Harry!”) to terrifying horror without missing a beat is a reminder that Steven Spielberg definitely knows something about directing.
Writer George Plimpton (Alan Alda) is a Park Avenue sophisticate who practices “participatory” journalism. He has already written about pitching in an exhibition all-star game and getting knocked out by Sugar Ray Robinson. He is having trouble coming up with his next stunt until he goes to Central Park and plays a touch football game with his girlfriend Kate (Lauren Hutton) and his editor, Oscar (David Doyle). Oscar sees George throwing the ball and decides that George should write about going to a professional football team’s training camp as a player.
George, who fantasizes about throwing the game-winning touchdown, is enthusiastic. Most of the teams that George approaches are less enthusiastic but finally, the Detroit Lions agree to sign him as a quarterback. Once the other players realize that George is a writer and not a professional athlete, there’s a lot of resentment. As Guard John Gordy (playing himself) puts it, he could easily get injured while protecting an inexperienced quarterback like George. George can always go back to Park Avenue but, for the rest of the players, the game is their life and they don’t like the idea of some outsider coming in and treating it all like a joke. At first, only the fearsome defender Alex Karras (also playing himself) is willing to support George but eventually, George’s refusal to give up wins over the rest of the team. They even let him score a touchdown during practice.
When the preseason begins, George waits for his opportunity to take the field. How many yards can he lose in three plays?
Paper Lion is based on a true story. In 1963, George Plimpton did attending training camp and play a scrimmage for the Lions and he later wrote a book about the experience. The movie changes the time period from ’63 to ’67 so that all of the then-members of the Lions could play themselves. (Though Karras was a friend of Plimpton’s, he was actually suspended during the 1963 season and, unlike in the movie, never joined Plimpton on the practice field.) The film plays Plimpton’s football career largely for laughs, celebrating every guy’s fantasy of being a sports star while also showing why it’s probably best to leave the actual game to the professionals. Alan Alda doesn’t imitate Plimpton’s famous Mid-Atlantic accent but he does capture the excitement of a man getting to live out his fantasy.
Paper Lion was made with the full cooperation of the NFL and a good deal of the film’s final third is made up footage that was shot for an actual game. Seen today, it’s interesting to see how positively Paper Lion portrays both the game and its players and to contrast it with how the game is usually portrayed today. There’s no talk of steroids or fears of multiple concussions. All of the players are clean-cut, friendly, witty, and helpful. Even the training camp hazing is all done is good fun. Paper Lion introduces us to the nicest people in the world and they’re all football players!
Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) is a Vietnam vet-turned-cop who pilots a police helicopter for the LAPD. Every night, he and his partner, Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) fly over Los Angeles, helping to keep the peace and peeping on anyone undressing in a high-rise apartment.
Murphy is selected to serve as the test pilot for what is described as being the world’s most advanced military helicopter, Blue Thunder. Blue Thunder is so advanced that the pilot can control the gun turrets just by turning his head and it’s also been supplied with the latest state of the art surveillance equipment. The pilot of a Blue Thunder can literally spy on anyone while listening to and recording their conversations. With the Olympics coming up, the city of Los Angeles wants to test out the Blue Thunder as a way to control the crowds and prevent crime during the Games.
Murphy may be impressed by the helicopter but he has his reservations about the program. He immediately sees that Blue Thunder could be a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. Those wrong hands would belong to Col. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), who was Blue Thunder’s first pilot and also Murphy’s commanding officer during Vietnam. Murphy is still haunted by the atrocities that he saw committed by Cochrane during the war.
When it turns out that Murphy was right to be suspicious of Cochrane’s intentions, the movie turns into an exciting aerial chase above Los Angeles, with Murphy in Blue Thunder, trying to outrun F-16s, heat-seeking missiles, and eventually Cochrane, who enters the chase in a Blue Thunder of his own.
I’m always surprised that Blue Thunder doesn’t have a bigger following than it does. It’s an action classic, with a gritty performance from Roy Scheider, a villainous performance from Malcolm McDowell, and comedic relief from the always reliable Daniel Stern. Even Warren Oates is in the movie, playing Murphy’s LAPD commander! The script actually does have something relevant to say about the militarization of America’s police forces (and it feels downright prophetic today) and the chase scenes are all the more exciting because they were filmed in the era before CGI and have an authenticity to them that is missing from most modern action films.
Blue Thunder is a perfect example of the “don’t do this really cool thing” style of action film. The Blue Thunder helicopter is described as being a danger to everyone in the country and the movie even ends with a note saying that real-life Blue Thunders are currently being designed. But I don’t think anyone who has ever watched this film has thought, “I hope they stopped making those helicopters.” Instead, this movie makes you want to have a Blue Thunder of your very own. They’re so cool, who wouldn’t want to fly one of those things?
Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) is an idealistic young law school graduate who discovers that having a degree and passing the bar doesn’t automatically make you a success. He gets a job working a bar that just happens to be owned by an ambulance chasing attorney named Bruiser Stone (Mickey Rourke). Bruiser takes Rudy on as an associate and assigns his associate, Deck Shifflet (Danny DeVito), to teach Rudy how to find cases. When Bruiser flees the country to escape an FBI investigation, Rudy and Deck start their own law firm. Rudy soon finds himself with the case of his young career, representing a family in a law suit against Great Benefit Insurance. Rudy also falls for Kelly (Claire Danes), a young woman who is being abused by her husband (Andrew Shue).
Through the Shattered Lens 