“Straight Time” (1978)
An inexplicably compelling tale of a small-time thief’s inevitable devolution back into a life of crime after prison, “Straight Time,” directed by underappreciated theater/film director Ulu Grosbard, is a prime artifact of 1970s cinema and the peculiar, loose-limbed magic that the independent American films of that decade weaved so effortlessly. Magnetized around what is undoubtedly one of Dustin Hoffman’s greatest performances, the film also boasts a to-die-for supporting cast in Harry Dean Stanton, M Emmet Walsh, Gary Busey, Kathy Bates (proving she was young once), and a naturally stunning Theresa Russell. Wading through the same fraught, complex, antiheroic moral waters that so many defining works of the ’70s did, Hoffman plays Max Dembo, released from a stint for armed robbery at the very start of the film. After the briefest of dalliances with the idea of really going straight, Dembo (as we’re led to infer he often does) takes a perceived injustice against himself as an excuse to lapse back into criminality, hooking up with his old crew and knocking over a grocery store, before graduating to a bank then a jewelry store. Along the way he falls for good girl Jenny (Russell), who falls right back, and yet this is not the story of the redemptive power of the love of a good woman, nor about any sort of redemption at all, really. Instead it’s about how character is destiny, in even the most obviously self-defeating ways, as Dembo’s tit-for-tat idea of justice, loyalty, and betrayal leads him to commit some truly unforgivable crimes. With an ending, and a perfectly fatalistic last line that allows this riveting character study to end on a brief note of self-awareness, “Straight Time” is a small, yet perfectly formed portrait of grim fate and dumb luck and the things a man might do in the name of a perverse but pervasive code of personal honor.
“The Long Goodbye” (1973)
Perhaps there’s no greater exemplar of the cinematic genre revisionist than one Robert Altman, and it’s not a popularly held opinion, but to some of us, “The Long Goodbye” just may be his finest hour. The 1953 Raymond Chandler novel of the same name, updated by Leigh Brackett (who also scripted “The Big Sleep”) and recast in Hollywood in the 1970s, was directed by Altman as if the story and its lead character emerged from Cheech and Chong’s smoked-out weedmobile. But Altman had a serious gift for setting his far-out ideas up against tired genre tropes, all against a backdrop of mundane and yet compelling reality, as is the case here. That collision creates the tension: Philip Marlowe (a perfect Elliot Gould) was rather noble in his previous incarnations up to that point, exuding a cool professionalism and honor fitting the era in which he was originally created. Dropped into the shambolic ’70s, however, he’s unable even to successfully feed his cat, and wanders around mumbling to himself. The deconstructionist satire elevates the material until it transcends mere noir and becomes truly great cinema—’70s-style. The film’s bleak ending, in which we see Marlowe commit a cowardly act, is the perfect stamp on the entire story, at once offending Chandler purists (“Marlowe would never do that!”) but also bringing the modern update full circle. Things change, people can devolve into lesser versions of their former selves, and Altman seemed to be saying as much by concluding this way. The real world has a way of altering even our favorite, and most deeply-held, genre cliches.
“To Live And Die In L.A.” (1985)
A more hi-octane look at west-coast crime than “Inherent Vice,” “To Live And Die In L.A.” is director William Friedkin‘s other great cop movie (alongside “The French Connection,” obviously—if your mind went to “Jade,” we genuinely worry for you). Based on a novel by ex-Secret Service-er Gerald Petievich (who also co-wrote the script with the director), it sees renegade agent William Petersen teamed with a new partner (John Pankow) when the old one is killed in an attempt to bring down ruthless genius counterfeiter Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe). The story is admittedly full of cliches, from the small number of days before Petersen’s partner’s retirement (three) to the we’re-the-same-you-and-I links between cop and criminal, but, as with his earlier policing classic, Friedkin gives a procedural authenticity to the movie that makes it richer and deeper than most entries in the genre, and he knows how to upend the cliches too, particularly when it comes to a brutal late-in-the-game twist. More importantly, like the Michael Mann precursor that it so clearly is (it seems like an influence on everything the director made, up to and including casting Petersen in the following year’s “Manhunter“), it’s shot through with style, thanks to killer action sequences—the car chase, again, is one of the best ever—stunning photography from Wim Wenders regular Robby Muller, and a none-more-’80s score from Wang Chung. It’s a film where the atmosphere is as important as anything, and Friedkin, as the title might suggest, is painting a picture of a city as much as of people, with the real, glamor-free Los Angeles getting one hell of a showcase.