Malone (1987)

Malone (1987) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Malone (Burt Reynolds) is an ex-CIA agent who was used as a hitman. He has walked away from that life but when his car breaks down in a small town out West he finds himself in a new battle. It turns out that a man named Delaney (Cliff Robertson) is trying to force people out of this small town so that he can operate some sort of twisted game. Malone decides to come to the rescue of the people he's been staying with.MALONE is a pretty routine action film but at the same time it's certainly a lot better than the "A" pictures that Reynolds was doing earlier in the decade. It's funny to think that Reynolds career was booming thanks to films like THE CANNONBALL RUN, its sequel and STROKER ACE even though they were all quite terrible. The public soon caught up to that fact and before long the actor was making "B" movies.I must say, going through some of these films there's no question that the "B" movies I've watched were a lot more entertaining and that holds true for MALONE. As I said, this is a pretty standard action movie but there's certainly enough entertainment to be found here that one can have some fun with it. The film's main drawing point is Reynolds who turns in a decent performance and he's at least believable enough in the role. The film offers up nice suport from Robertson as the bad guy. Cynthia Gibb and Scott Wilson were good as the folks who take in Reynolds' character.There are some decent and rather bloody action scenes and it appears that the filmmakers really wanted a lot of blood when it came to the shooting victims. There are a lot of people being blasted here and there's no doubt that the film earns its R-rating. The story is rather weak to say the least and the film begins to lose momentum as it reaches its climax but if you're a fan of Reynolds then this is still worth watching.

"Black Moon Rising" director Harley Cokeliss and British scenarist Christopher Frank have done neither novelist William Wingate nor actor Burt Reynolds any favors with their pallid cinematic adaptation of the novel "Shotgun." A contemporary remake of "Shane," this interesting actioneer doesn't live up to its promise. Of course, Burt Reynolds plays the protagonist but he should have left his toupee at home. The way that you can tell serious Burt from pretentious Burt is his hairpiece. He went without it in "Deliverance," and he was brilliant. In "Malone," the pelt on his head makes him look funny. Otherwise, the "Smokey and the Bandit" star is restrained and lifeless as the leading man who has problems shooting people that are faraway. He cannot bring himself to perforate a target in the opening scene. Later, we learn that this wasn't the first time that Malone couldn't pull the trigger. The differences between the gripping novel and the lackluster film can be summarized in the first scene. Malone pushes a conked out Mustang into town, whereas in the novel he was pushing along a VW Bug. Can you imagine Burt nudging a VW Bug? Clearly, Cokeliss and Frank must have felt that it was necessary to give our hero a cool car. Nevertheless, the VW Bug was neat in the novel. Not long after he arrives in town, our hero learns that a paranoid right wing fanatic, Delaney (Cliff Robertson of "PT-109"), has other plans for the town. Mind you, "Malone" evokes memories of the far superior western "Shane." The big difference between the books is that the narrator of "Shotgun" is a teenager. Marginally speaking, "Malone" does a few things right, but for the most part, this actioneer is contrived.

Malone marked Burt's return to cinema after more than a two year absence. It's a hell of return in this lamebrain sort of actioner, you'd expect to see those karate stars who couldn't act in. Fortunately we have someone who can, along with a good line up of other actors. It's not the most memorable of returns, but in a way it's kind of cool for someone's of Burt's stature to make a comeback in a film like this, where incidentally, in Adelaide, it only ran a week. For a while I was convinced this was Burt's worst film. I'm not sure I still am, but it's near the bottom. Burt's CIA, running from the agency who sends an old flame (Lauren Hutton) of his to do him. He prolonged the hit of guy, he was almost about to take out, but had second thoughts. So he's given up this employment, but some jobs you just can't walk away from. And Burt's luck does him one worse. His car breaks down outside this shitty town that is slowly being taken over by land baron (Cliff Robertson who plays good guy that mask's bad underneath, with a restrained professionalism. He's really a bastard, who has a lot of henchmen working for him, one who becomes deprived of having children after trying to take on Burt. My ears still ring and hurt when I think about that scene. Businesses are closing, left, right and centre in this evaporating town, where some residents who don't play ball end up dead. Burt makes a comical remark. "What happened to this town, someone discover toxic waste". Well they might as well have. Burt who's taken in by a gas station attendant and his daughter gets caught in another feud, instantly making an arch enemy with the local sheriff, who we can't discern if he's good or bad. I love it at the end when he balks as making a pathetic attempt to arrest Burt, after he's taken down all the bad guys. We got enough action to make this worthwhile and we are in the dark about Burt's shady past, but we do know he's a keen poker player, some handbooks, he keeps under his bed, references. The scene with two hit men, not the first, trying to take out Burt in his room at the top of stairs, is the film's best scene. No prizes for guessing who wins this one, although he doesn't come out, unscathed. Guess who nurtures him back to health. I love the direction Hutton's character took, a decision that endangers her own life, where there's no turning back. You gotta take Malone for what it is, an actioner, but it falls into the stupid category, honestly. You may even feel your i.q. drop slightly. Burt's worthy of better material.

Burt Reynolds is an ex CIA hit man who coincidentally gets caught up in some sort of well-funded, ultra-patriotic plot in a small town in Oregon. Mister Big in this scheme is Cliff Robertson. Like one of those corrupt cattlemen in generic Westerns, he runs the town, including the sheriff, Kenneth MacMillan. When Reynold's car breaks down, he stays with the friendly garage owner, Scott Wilson. Wilson's nubile young daughter takes a shine to the disillusioned and taciturn Reynolds but he's too proper to take advantage of her advances, the fool.After a run-in with a couple of Robertson's assassins, Reynolds winds up with a couple of bullets in his belly. He survives, of course, and is rescued and taken to a safe house by an old friend from the Company, Lauren Hutton. The suave local goons soon find the safe house and plastic-bag Hutton to death. This annoys the hero. And it provides him with the revenge motive that leads to the thoroughly predictable climactic shoot out.Neat location shooting in British Columbia. Verdant forests, jagged hills, a pervading sense of tranquility.Reynold's part could have been played by Charles Bronson, Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme, the young Clint Eastwood, the aging John Wayne, or Babaloo Mandel. It wouldn't make any difference. It's a strictly routine action movie put together with all the generic elements -- the car chase, the exploding fireball, the oily hood who never blinks, the villainous smirk, the hero who holds his feelings in check, the ugly guns, the incandescent eyeballs of the man behind the curtain.Burt Reynolds is a likable guy. Few actors lack pretense the way he does, unashamedly and in a funny, self-deprecating way. But he never really had any good scripts except "Deliverance" and "Boogie Nights." Cynthia Gibb was already in her mid-20s when this was shot, not the teen ager her character is supposed to be. Not that it matters. Her acting skills are modest at best but she's had dance training and, in some eerie way, it lends cachet to her extraordinarily conventional beauty. Her nose in profile could have been designed with the aid of one of those plastic French curves that are used in high school geometry classes.Cliff Robertson is a fine actor in the right role. He never dazzles because he's given to subtleties. The flamboyant "Charly" was an outlier for him. In other roles, as the CIA bureaucrat in "Three Days of the Condor," he manages to get all kinds of signals across with the merest change of expression, a smooth smile or a momentary lift of the eyebrows. By the time of "Malone", he must have needed parts because this stereotype is unworthy of him. He died recently.The film is diverting, that's all.