Cinema
Goofing off
Peter Ackroyd
A Kind of Hero (`AA', selected cinemas)
Judging by the audience at the cinema 1 attended, Richard Pryor, the black American comedian, has a specific appeal for young English blacks — although it is difficult to see why. He is an uneven and uneasy actor, much given to rolling his eyes and bouncing on the balls of his feet. I kept on being reminded of Jerry Lewis, which on the whole I would rather not be.
In A Kind of Hero Pryor plays a veteran from the Vietnamese war, Eddie Keller. In the opening scenes we see him as a prisoner in a Vietnamese camp. On one level it look- ed almost too realistic — the cesspits, the lice and the general filth were all pungently conveyed. But with Pryor continually breaking into a routine which was close to burlesque, the whole experience of that war was turned into a kind of farce.
It is true that the people across the Atlan- tic have very short memories, but it is dif- ficult to imagine an American. audience which would find this situation amusing so soon after the event — it would be rather like seeing Morecambe and Wise in the Falklands. In fact the film itself seemed uncertain of the proper attitude to adopt, and attempted to mingle seriousness with comedy in a way which suggested that the director and script-writer did not have much grasp of either.
The main plot of the film concerned Ed- die Keller's return to America. He finds his wife with another man, his mother disabled by a paralysing stroke, his small shop bankrupt and his army pay deferred because, under duress, he signed a 'confes- sion' for the Vietnamese. There have been a number of films concerned with the plight of American soldiers returning to a country which has no further use for them and which treats them, at best, with sentimental politeness. But this was a theme which the film could only obliquely touch upon, so concerned was it to make a series of jokes about a situation which is not in itself par- ticularly funny. It wanders, as a result, into ramshackle picaresque: Eddie Keller picks up a whore with a heart of gold and begins a lacklustre career as a bank robber. Of course it has a happy ending.
It is difficult to understand why Richard Pryor chose this particular role. It is possi- ble that he wished to extend his range as an actor — the only problem is that he has very little range to start with and here he is reduced, in moments of drama, to hoarse shrieking noises and the occasional bout of tears. His presence in the film was perhaps its greatest disadvantage — damaging both to himself and to the nature of the `comedy'.
He has, after all, acquired a considerable reputation as a black satirist, sometimes obscene and often polemical. He has even been seen as a successor to Lenny Bruce. But here he is meant to play the quintessen- tial 'little guy', a bunibling, harmless creature, well-meaning but prone 10 mishap, caught up in events which are larger than he is but which, with a brand of native pluck and good fortune, he is able to surmount. The seriousness which, ideally, he should have brought to the role is con- tinually being defused — he simply has to look 'goofy' or do a funny walk. W becomes, as a result, a sentimental figure his racial identity reduced to the occasional slang (`Hey, my man ... ') and coming, perilously close to the ancient 'coon, routines of American vaudeville. There are moments of inventiveness on his part, but they are swamped by a clumsy script and even clumsier direction. If the film had 0 `message', it was one written on water. But that was, I suppose, inevitable. A Kind of Hero is only one in a succession of American films in which emotions are turn- ed into caricature, and where a nervous in- consequence vitiates even the most arc parently serious moments. And always, of course, there are scenes of gratuitous se% and violence which are meant to tug the au" dience along when the going gets heavyThere was something obscene about this film's exploitation of a savage war in order, to provide a few cheap thrills. Even the au" dience, who came to laugh and were perhaps enamoured of Richard Pryor's skill as a performer, were in the end embarrass- ed.
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