Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #161: The Year of Living Dangerously

Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) is a very well made look at how reporters, back when they still had stable careers, operate in unstable countries. It looks at ethical questions, from the point of view of both the journalists covering the conflicts, and the people who actually live in the country and have to live with the impact of their coverage. One of these people is a photographer played by an award-winning Linda Hunt. Unfortunately, the other major role is played by Mel Gibson, a name now synonymous with controversy, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from seeing the movie.

Between Christmas and the start of 2022 like many people I was stuck indoors with a lot of time to kill so I caught up on a few shows and movies. I can’t say I was itching to complete my viewing of Mel Gibson’s filmography, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Linda Hunt have such a prominent role. Certain TV viewers might know her as the boss on NCIS LA, but here we see her early in her career in a much more dramatic role. It’s an impressive performance, especially given that she is convincingly playing a man.

The movie is set in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1965 when there was high tension between communist and religious factions. Caught between those factions is a population living way below the poverty line and hoping for positive change. The situation draws international journalists such as Australian Guy Hamilton (Gibson) who is young with dreams of making a difference. His one contact in the city, local cameraman Billi Kwan (Hunt), proves to be a wealth of information on both the country’s culture and its politicians.

Kwan is also the story’s narrator, which makes narrative sense given how he seems to know everyone important in the city. Guy wonders if Billy is a spy, but maybe Billy is just a very good people person. It also helps people constantly underestimate him because of his short stature. Many of the other international journalists look down on him, both figuratively and literally, until he helps Guy score a major interview with a high-ranking member of the communist party. They make quite the team, covering riots while Guy comments on the situation in his microphone and Billy shoots with his camera at their own peril.

The rest of the international journalists and other diplomats/spies are an interesting lot. While the country is on the brink of conflict, many of these foreigners treat the situation almost like a vacation. Guy meets a British colonel (Bill Kerr) who is enjoying a sunny day by the pool but complains to a waiter that his drink doesn’t have enough ice. One reporter throws a party when he can finally afford a bungalow in the country. Another is happy to spend his leisure time chasing prostitutes who hang around a cemetery after dark, as long as he has access to penicillin.

Billy hopes Guy is different and is in a way grooming him to be a journalist that could help bring the country’s much needed change. The problem is the more success Guy gets, the more of a blind side he develops when it comes to ethics. Thanks to his romantic relationship with British embassy assistant Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver) he learns information that could shift the country’s political stability. Jill told him about the news in confidence so he could take precautions. Guy’s first instinct is to find proof of this information and tell the world, regardless of the impact on his relationship with Jill or on the local populace.

It is an interesting ethical dilemma. If this information is big news, is it Guy’s first priority to publish it, consequences be damned? However, if the news was told to him in confidence should he not mind his own business and wait for events to unfold? These are complicated questions, and if Guy was less self-centered, he would be asking them to Billy since he is in the best position to know what impact any information will have on his country.

Telling the story from Guy’s point of view makes sense given that like most of the audience he is a fish out of the water in this setting and historical context. However, the story could have been better if there had been less focus on Guy and his melodramatic romance, and more on the ordinary people of Jakarta. I never quite got the whole grasp of the conflict; despite the fact it is Guy’s job to tell me. The Year of Living Dangerously is worth watching, especially for Linda Hunt, but there is a better movie to be made about that historical period.

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #97: Reservoir Dogs

One of the most surprising things about Quentin Tarantino’s debut film Reservoir Dogs (1992) is the fact that it has never been adapted for the stage. They will make a show out of Beauty and the Beast , Monty Python and the Holy Grail , and even Spider-Man , but somehow a movie in which most of the action takes place in a warehouse has never made it to Broadway? In any case, this was the movie that announced the arrival of the insatiable film fan that could regurgitate everything he had learned watching movies at the video store into stories filled with sudden bursts of violence, sharp-dressed characters, awesome soundtracks, and crackling dialogue. Since this violent piece of American cinema came out at a time when I was still learning basic math in elementary school there was no way I would watch this on the big screen. However as the years went by it became a cult classic, and even a classic of the independent movies genre, and was re-released on special edition DVD for its

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #49: Evil Dead 2

What do you get when you mix buckets of fake blood, creative camera operators, the humour of the Three Stooges, and a man with the most recognizable chin in Hollywood? You get Evil Dead II (1987), the horror classic that somehow manages to remake the original in the first 15 minutes and yet feel entirely original. Even though it is mostly set in a cabin in the woods, that staple location in the horror genre, it feels like a roller coaster ride. This is especially true once the film's hero, the scrappy Ash Williams, embraces the madness by arming himself with a sawed-off shotgun and attaching a chainsaw where his hand used to be. "Groovy" indeed. This gore-soaked franchise has had a long run, starting off with one low-budget movie directed by a young Sam Raimi and then growing into two sequels, a remake, comic books and a TV show with three seasons. My starting point was the third entry, Army of Darkness, which moves the action to the Middle Ages with the same

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #102: The Hustler

Robert Rossen’s The Hustler (1961) is proof that any sport can be used for good cinematic drama even if that sport is pool. Although this is not a game that involves a massive sport arena and bloody boxing gloves, things can get dramatically interesting if the monetary stakes are high, and visually arresting if the filmmakers shoot from the right angle. It also helps a lot if the man putting his money on the table is played by a young Paul Newman in a career-breaking role. Prior to watching the film I had a vague idea of the meaning of the word “hustling” and a rather passive interest in the game of pool. It’s a fun game to play if you are having a couple of nachos and chicken wings on a Friday evening with friends, but I didn’t see it as a spectator sport. Watching The Hustler in the classics section of Netflix two years ago was a bit of an education since it shows the sport as a way of life for some people, and a huge source of revenue for big time gamblers. Newman star as

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