By Gary
Deane
While
Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat (1981)
and Michael Mann's Thief (1981) kicked
off the ‘80s with a bang, much of the rest of the decade proved a bust as far
as potent crime thrillers go. That said, a couple of films did make an effort.
The first
was Eddie Macon’s Run, an old-school police drama starring a
still-vital Kirk Douglas as Carl
‘Buster’ Marzak, a New Jersey cop. Marzak has a score to settle with runaway
felon Eddie Macon (played by John Schneider), who’d been convicted and jailed
on minor charges but is now on the lam. Though Macon made his escape in order to
get money to pay for medical treatment for his sick child, the hard-nosed Marzak
doesn’t give a damn. The law’s the law and that’s that.
Every bit an
’80s crime title, Eddie Macon’s Run
is blunt and melodramatic, stripped of the brooding cool that had qualified dramas
of the decade before. Production-wise, the film also looks and feels as though made-for-TV.
However, the performances stand tall, especially that of Douglas, whose
out-sized character is not far removed from those of his defining noir classics
like Ace in the Hole (1951), Detective Story (1951), and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).
Schneider too
is impressive in Eddie Macon’s Run. Unfortunately, after seven seasons of
being just one thing in The Dukes of
Hazzard, the actor would be asked, for the rest of his career, to sleep in
the bed he’d made for himself. For her part, Lee Purcell shines as the spoiled socialite
who’s only too eager to give shelter to the hunky Macon just for the thrill of
it.
Eddie
Macon’s Run is available
on YouTube.
______
If Eddie Macon’s Run looks and feels a lot like
a movie of the week, Thompson’s Last Run
was the real thing, which had its first broadcast showing on the CBS network in
February of 1986. A lower-key affair than Eddie
Macon Runs, this one has big-screen
warhorses Robert Mitchum and Wilfred Brimley in harness as longtime pals who
end up on opposite sides of the law.
John
Thompson (Mitchum) is a seven-time loser facing a transfer from an out-of-state
prison back to Texas where he’ll serve a life sentence under the state’s
habitual offender law. Texas lawman Red Haines (Brimley), though he's less than
a week away from retirement, asks to be the one to bring Thompson back.
During the
transfer, however, Thompson’s niece, Louise (Kathleen York) manages to break him
loose. Louise, who’s been turning tricks to support herself and her young
daughter, figures that John must have enough money hidden away for her to leave
the life and have the three of them disappear forever. That’s what she thinks,
anyway.
Unlike Eddie Macon, Thompson’s Last Run reels out slowly, without a lot of heightened
action. For one thing, Thompson isn’t that anxious to be on the run. Now out of
jail and in hiding, he’s enjoying spending time with Pookie, an old girlfriend,
and another tart-with-a-heart, played convincingly by Susan Terrell. However, it
doesn’t take Haines all that long to put things together and begin closing in.
Like Eddie Macon’s Run, the film is low-rent fare. But Mitchum, being
the Hollywood pro he was, is fully present and accounted for and looks to be
enjoying himself. Brimley, on the other hand, was never cast to look like he
was enjoying himself, whether playing ‘Sherriff’, ‘Doc’, or ‘Coach’. He’s in great
form here as the curmudgeonly Haines.
Thompson’s Last Run offers up a compelling story about
two old-timers, life-long friends as well as long-time adversaries, who manage to
get through it all without killing one another. In this case, that’s no small
thing.
Thompson’s
Last Run is streaming
on Hoopla.
We will be watching these, thanks to you.
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