Strangers on a Train review

 Number 210 on the top 1000 films of all time is Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 psychological thriller 'Strangers on a Train.'

Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is an amateur tennis star who wishes to divorce his wife Miriam to instead marry Anne Morton (Ruth Roman,) the daughter of a US senator. On a train, he meets Bruno Antony (Robert Walker,) a psychopath who hates his father. Bruno suggests that the two swap murders - Bruno will kill Guy's wife if Guy kills Bruno's father. 

Hitchcock was dubbed the 'Master of Suspense' for a reason. This was another great outing. Possibly one of his scariest films since The Birds. A lot of this was down to Robert Walker's portrayal of the antagonistic Bruno Antony. Not only is he a psychopath, but he is a silver-tongued psychopath, charismatic enough to integrate himself into any social situation without raising an alarm. And he is clever enough to manipulate all situations to his advantage. He tricks his way into fancy dinners that Haines is attending and even into his tennis club. And like many psychopaths, he is delusional; he kills Haines' wife believing that Haines has accepted his offer, but this was never the case. 

Walker is definitely no hulking giant of a man, but he still created a true aura of menace. In some ways, he was what I would imagine Ted Bundy being like. Although I did read online that Hitchcock deliberately queer-coded Bruno. By today's standards that could be considered problematic, although I didn't really notice much of that. Perhaps because Walker was so charismatic.

But it wasn't just Walker's performance that kept me on the edge of my seat; it was the lighting, shadows and the cinematography. Guy is a famous tennis star who wears his shiny tennis whites while Bruno is a nobody languishing in his dark, dingy mansion. All his wealth has failed to save his soul. Of course, there is also the famous shot of Bruno strangling Miriam reflected in her glasses that had tumbled to the floor. In fact, the whole sequence was tense, as Bruno silently pursues her through the tunnel of love in a fairground.

Speaking of the fairground, I was sceptical about the final confrontation between Bruno and Haines taking place on a carousel that is spinning wildly out of control. I understand that it is going very quickly, but it's not that high off the ground. There's no real danger there. Unfortunately, this did push my suspension of disbelief a little too far.

Anyway, this was still an enjoyable film. It was tense, gripping and had a great performance by Robert Walker.

Running Scared review

 Number 849 on the top 1000 films of all time is the neo-noir crime thriller 'Running Scared.'

Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) is a low-level mafioso present at a drug-deal gone wrong. A group of masked, dirty cops turn up and a shoot-out happens. Gazelle and his other mobsters shoot dead all the cops. Gazelle is then tasked with hiding the gun. He takes it home and hides it in the basement. It is later discovered by his son Nicky (Alex Neuberger) and his son's best friend Oleg Yugorsky (Cameron Bright.) Oleg steals the gun and uses it to shoot his abusive, Russian mobster stepfather Anzor Yugorsky (Karel Roden.) Gazelle is in a race against time to find Oleg and the gun before his mob, the Russian mob and the corrupt coppers.

Who decided this should be on the top 1000 films of all time? Was it a group of twelve-year-old boys? Because it looked like it had been written, filmed, edited and directed by a group of twelve-year-old boys. It was all so immature and juvenile. I'm talking gratuitous violence, cliched characters, absurd plot developments, ridiculous action scenes, terrible dialogue, objectified women - Joey's wife Teresa (Vera Farmiga) spent much of the film with her thong poking out of her jeans - and the effects, filters and grainy colour scheme that look like they're out of a 90's rap video.

Let's break these down in more detail. The film starts badly with the drug-deal going wrong. The corrupt coppers turn up and the violence ramps up. Gangsters and ex-coppers are flying across the screen in slow-motion. We see bloody mists and weird filters. It all just looked ridiculous. But this was nothing compared to the final sequence where Gazelle confronts the Russian and Italian mob at an ice-hockey stadium. The Russians hold him down on the rink and have one of their players shoot pucks at his face until he tells them what he wants to know. It was all just so laughable. And of course there was another of these stupid filters - this time, a blue-light filter. Eventually this breaks down into another chaotic shoot-out where you have no idea what's happening and don't know who is shooting who.

I did criticise Teresa's character, but that's not a criticism of Farmiga, but rather her writing. She is immediately portrayed as a sex object. Her introduction is her rubbing up against Gazelle on the washing machine with her senile father in the living room and son in her basement. And as previously stated, she then spends the rest of the film with her thong sticking out of jeans. It didn't seem like a very empowering role for Farmiga, but I think she did the best she could. 

In fairness, she did have some agency. It's just a shame it happened with such a crazy plot development. When Oleg is on the run after having shot by his stepfather, he is kidnapped by these two paedophiles Dez Hansel (Bruce Altman) and Edele Hansel (Elizabeth Burke.) They take him to their flat where they're going to film a snuff film. He is later rescued by Teresa who murders the two paedophiles.  But this was just absurd. It comes out of nowhere and the vivid colour scheme didn't fit into the grainy visuals of the rest of the film. Obviously, I'm sure this stuff does happen, but it just didn't fit into the film. I do wish they had given Farmiga much better material. She was very much a cliche.

But so were the rest of the characters. Gazelle is your standard hot-headed mobster, Chaz Palminteri is your corrupt cop and the Italian and Russian mobsters are complete run-of-the-mill. And there was also the weird side character of Lester-the-Pimp. Oleg stumbles upon the pimp abusing one of his workers. He was just another silly addition to an already bloated cast. The only character I really felt any sympathy for was Oleg's mother Mila (Ivana Milicevic.) Unlike most of the other characters she actually had some depth. She worked as a prostitute in Moscow before her pimp brought her to the United States. After getting pregnant, she is told to abort her child. She refuses and her pimp sends Anzor to kill her. Instead he marries her. Unlike everybody else, I actually felt sorry for her.

The ending was also super cheesy. There is a fake-out death with Joey Gazelle. He and Farmiga share lots of tears, but I didn't feel anything. Both characters were complete cliches and it didn't help that he and Farmiga lacked any real chemistry. Other than them having sex and yelling at each other, you never see any real relationship or any reason why you should root for them.

I've been working through this list for years now and I've seen a lot of films that I can acknowledge as being good films in their own right, but not for me. Running Scared is one of the first films I've watched that I can say was objectively bad.