Subject: Re: hooray
(For those of your who weren't there, this is a response to a response to a msg I sent to 2 people last night announcing that I'd found another Prochnow film, On Dangerous Ground.)
You might get it - your nightmare, I mean. I didn't watch the thing, just fast-forwarded thru it looking for Jürgen's scenes to see what he was doing. In the process I caught a few things that lead me to believe this could be a classic Bad Movie. If they explain Jürgen any better, I missed it, so I still don't know why a guy named Carl Morgan, who has a German accent, is the nephew (or brother or brother-in-law --- Jürgen and the stepdaughter both called him "uncle") of a very Italian Mafia boss called (oh yes) Don Giovanni.
However, Jürgen is a widower with a stepdaughter he has the hots for. I don't know whether they're sleeping together, but the good guys have a theory that he killed his wife so there wouldn't be any interference. At the end it turns out that the stepdaughter killed her own mother to get him. After she tells Jürgen 40 times that she loves him, she shoots him point- blank in the chest.
I am saying this now because there's probably plenty of material left for a real reivew after I see the whole thing... when somebody hands Rob Lowe the autopsy report on Jürgen's wife, he opens the folder, glances at it, and says, "This was no accident." Now that's my kind of hero: an ex-terrorist who's also a speed-reading medical expert. I also liked the part where Jürgen asks the stepdaughter whether she's falling in love with Lowe, and she says, "Why would I fall for him if I have you?" I can think of some reasons why she would. I can think of a whole lot more reasons why she wouldn't.
In all probability Jürgen also has The Line of the Movie: "Drop your gun or I'll serve his brains up on your shoes." If that statement is topped elsewhere in the dialog, I can't wait to see how.
Subject: On Dangerous Ground
Brought to you by the Ford Motor Co. See, there was an extended shot of a truck with F O R D in big letters across the grill so I was sitting there asking, "Is that a sponsor or did the filmmakers just like that truck a lot?" Seconds later one of the bad guys gives another bad guy a set of instructions that included "a gray Ford Escort" as a landmark, so then I knew. Please run out and buy a Ford as soon as you finish reading this. Thank you.
Anyway, I will try not to get carried away with this one because there are too many cliches, convenient coincidences and just outright bloopers in the plot to cover them all. I'll put it this way... it's the kind of movie where things like this happen: an hour and forty minutes into it, one of the good guys makes an international phone call and says, "Mr. So-and-so, I was told I can trust you. what do you know about thus-and-such?" and Mr. So-and-so, who has never been seen or mentioned before, recites a litany of detail about where the bad guys are right this minute, what the layout is, how to approach it, and which wine is being served with dinner this evening.
It was basically an educational film. Here is what you learn from it:
If you tell a priest that you don't need absolution because you are going to heaven anyway, he will shoot you.
If someone plants a transmitter on you to track your movements, it's with you for life no matter how many times you change your clothes or undergo surgery.
If you're going to duck behind a bush to hide, you should duck extra low if you have an 8-inch topknot on your head.
If you get a job as a waiter or waitress at a party, whenever you walk up behind someone that person will always immediately sense you are there and turn around and take a drink from your tray.
If you are locked in a room, you can punch a hole in the ceiling plaster and crawl through it up into the one area of the attic that doesn't have floorboards...which will support your weight...even though you had no trouble punching a hole in it.
A document that's been lying at the bottom of a muddy lake for 50 years will come out looking brand-new.
When a plane is heard flying over, everyone in the house should become extremely suspicious for 15 seconds just because it's there. Then they should forget about it until a smoke bomb goes off in the foyer.
Good night, Gene.