Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sly mystery isn't what it seems, July 15, 2005
Like "Chinatown" (the only contemporary mystery that I can compare it to), "Night Moves" has much more going on below the placid chilly surface of the water at the conclusion of the film than meets the eye.Ex-football player and private eye Harry (Gene Hackman)is hired to find the worldly daughter (Melaine Griffith in her second screen role at the tender age of 18)of a Hollywood socialite. Harry's wife (Susan Clark)feels ignored by her husband and resents his frequent absences and pursues an affair with another man complicating his placid existence. His pursuit of the girl opens up a pandora's box of murder, deceit and greed that he's completely unprepared for. Written by Alan Sharp, "Night Moves" incorporates elements from the novel "The Stunt Man" which director Arthur Penn was originally supposed to direct (he had to pull out to a prior commitment at the last minute)and features a number of marvelous suspenseful set pieces.
Well directed by Penn ("Little Big Man", "Bonnie & Clyde"), "Night Moves" is the same rancid world that Gittes faced in "Chinatown" only the players have changed but not the greed that drives those that commit the crimes. Hackman delivers one of his finest performances. Susan Clark and the rest of the supporting cast all turn in terrific performances adding to the gritty realism of the film.
I've seen a couple of complaints about how dark the video was for this film. Rest assured, "Night Moves" looks terrific. Warner has struck a brand new print of the film and given it the deluxe treatment. Colors are vibrant and bright throughout the film. There's no noticeable dirt or debris to mar the picture and only an occasional analog flaw that was on the original negative of the film. The film features the original vintage featurette produced to promote the film focusing on the moive "Night Moves" and director Arthur Penn's approach to film directing as well as the original theatrical trailer for the film.
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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tangled up in the Watergate-era Blues, December 6, 2001
Film-noir, cynical thriller, jaded mystery,... Night Moves is all those things. There were many conspiracy saturated films after Watergate but Penns film is perhaps even darker because it finds the seed of corruption in every aspect of American life . Everyone is in some way morally compromised and if not yet corrupt getting very near to being so. And they start young. A very young Melanie Griffith plays the runaway teen who seems perfectly capable of finding her way as well as getting her way and doesn't really need any finding. Gene Hackman plays the detective doing the family a favor. And James Woods plays what at first seems like a villainous role but there are no easy gradations in this film. Everything and everyone operates in their own grey area. There is no high ground.
The locations are perfectly chosen. L.A. and the Florida Keys each have a wonderfully seedy resonance in any film goers mind. The locations are wonderful surfaces which barely conceal the dirty secrets seething just below the water line. Hackman tracks Griffith from L.A. to the Keys and there encounters the very sexy drop out Jennifer Warren living in tropic squalor mixed up in the trafficking of all kinds of strange cargo. The plot is complex to describe but all is very competently put together into a flawlessly structured whole by the great Arthur Penn. The ending allows for no easy resolution and may have effected the way the film was intitially received but it is a gutsy exit. One of the great films of a great period in American cinema, the early 70's. Smuggle this film into your library.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
'70s Noir, July 15, 2005
This is a relatively unknown film noir from the mid '70s, starring Gene Hackman as a former football player turned private eye who is obsessed by a chess game from the '20s, where one of the players missed a forced mate, and lost instead. He's hired by a wealthy former hollywood starlet to track down her daughter, which takes him to some of the seedier parts of the Florida Keys you'll ever see on film.
As is common in other noirs, just about everyone in this film is corrupt, even including Hackman's character himself, to a certain point. As noted by another reviewer, this movie will remind many of 'Chinatown'. In the end, just about everyone loses.
I have a copy of this on VHS, and I bought the DVD for the widescreen. I was impressed by the image quality of the DVD -- it's a little grainy, but overall, quite high quality. I don't think anyone's going to be very disappointed by the transfer, considering it's a mid '70s film. The only extras are some trailers, and a sort of short documentary on the director.
Hackman is terrific in this, as he is in most of his other films. He can play genial one moment, and a moment later play cynical and tough. It's too bad he didn't get another opportunity at another role like this. Unfortunately, they don't really make films like this anymore.
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