Kenneth Robinson
Expirations
'Cinema
The Counsellor Director: Alberto De Martino Stars: Martin Balsam, Tomas Milian 'X' Warner West End 1(110 mins) Rancho Deluxe Director: Frank Perry. Stars: Jeff Ashley 'X' Continentale (100 mins), 'What are you going to do now, Thomas', asks the Mafia Godfather-figure in the Rome-Madrid production The Counsellor.
Thomas, a nice young man with, nevertheless, a strong likeness to Cliff Richard, puts his head on his chest and expires.
I think he had to. Not because it would have seemed more sad to think he was settling down for life with Laura. She, in case you are interested, teaches by day and enjoys nothing better than a friendly roll on the carpet to unwind. Before he dies Thomas has already left her, in a scene which has echoes of Love story and 317 other films. 'Laura, I have to go', say Thomas, and they walk — with the sad-clumsy walk of film lovers — across a rain-swept car park. Invoking, as they do so a surge of Laura-I-Must-Go music. This theme returns several times in a haunted way. And I don't mean haunting.
I'm telling the story badly. Perhaps it would be better if I explained that Thomas has to die because we should feel uncomfortable if he lived. I know the Hays Code no longer exists, with its insistence on naughty people being punished. But Thomas has really gone too far, with his reckless shooting down of members of the family. The family is, of course, the Mafia. For reasons I won't bother you with Thomas has caused a rift. This becomes a small civil war and box of chocolates, a chef has been burned to death in his own blazing oven and another character has been sealed up in a garbage-Can and buried, with at least 20 comrades, in the foundations of a new building. It is astoriishing how quickly you can grow accustomed to this sort of thing. I am always so bored by films whose characters are called Minnelli, Spizzoni, Ruffo or Don Vito that I even welcome a little violence. I must say I didn't care for the scene where several men are buried, half-alive, by a building-site dumper. More graceful is the hanging of another man among the masks and costumes of a theatrical . shop in Sicily. And some people will admire the way a convict is knifed in a shower bath. This is done with a most impressive close-up of the wound, showing very closely that it was produced in much the same way as those boils and warts you can buy at the trick-shop for jolly uncles in Holborn.
For those who don't like too much killing, there are some pleasant car chases, one trying to imitate the scenes in Bullitt and the other the wilder moments of The French Connection, And I ought to mention, for connoisseurs of picture-palaces, that you can see this film ina a cinema of such unsual shape that all the violence is easier to assimilate. The cinema is broader than it is deep. So if you choose a seat carefully you can view everything sidewaYs and pretend it isn't really happening. I used t° look at films like this every week in my youth, as I waited off-stage, at Granada cinemas, t° take part in the amateur talent contests. I never realised that one day I would have to pay a lot of money to see films in this oblique way. I cannot think why I have left myself less space for writing about Rancho Deluxe, which is a much better film. It is full of surprises that creep up on you and often don't reach you until you are on the way home. Sometimes they are just startling images. Like the brand-new Lincoln car, riddled with bullet-holes arid abandoned in a snow-covered valley. Another is the enormous grand piano that dominates a. small ranch-house, but is never played aria never mentioned. It obviously symbolises the life its owner have always hoped for. Other surprises are in the characters. There iS an ex-detective, too old and absent-minded to concentrate on the case he is brought back from retirement. And there is a gorgeous girl whose naivete ranges from the touching to the comic, because we are never sure if she is genuinely innocent. And then there are two boys — the heroes of the piece — whose determination to keep the practice of rustling cattle alive brings them the de luxe life. I recommend this film because, although somebody has said it is reminiscent of Blazing Saddles, its send-up techniques are much more, subtle. My heart always sinks at the mention or Westerns. If you feel the same, you should try this one. It could be the first of a series of up-dated and up-market versions. But there's not much chance of getting such goOd character-writing and performances as these: In this entertaining picture the plot, images and characterisation all fight for top place. This review could go on and on, with a Beethoven ending, because I keeP remembering vivid or outrageous scenes frorn both films. I thought I had seen everythingill the cinema until The Counsellor gave us a man the back athetofeasraomadestiidmeebush and being silo h t in
If this is the New Sadism of the cinema,.el
prefer kind. Whatever happened to Joh Andrews?
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