24th
The Dead Zone (1983)
Hollywood’s myths are democratic. That’s why they sell. Every paid-for-a-ticket butt in every cheap-o seat must (must!) be able to imagine itself up on the silvered screen, tending to the needs of the masses. There’s something wonderful in this accessibility, that all our heroes are average, meek Joes who, through circumstance and will, have managed to ascend to the clouds of Olympus and became as gods. It strikes me as so much more humanist, and so much more valuable, than the old, dirty-nosed greek myths. But wishy-washy democratic sentiment, while boo koo bucks at the box office, comes at a narrative price: our heroes are Every Man, so they are also No Man. Too many of our big screen wonders are bland, blah, blech: they’re indistinct, they’re interchangeable. Harrison Ford could play Bruce Willis could play Keanu Reeves could play any other six foot four headliner with a pulse and a regular Wheaties sponsored work out regimen. So: thank god for David Cronenberg and Christopher Walken. The Dead Zone is not a perfect piece of heroic cinema (say the suits: “it’s got third act problems”), but it is incredibly distinct. No one but Chris Walken could headline this film, and that’s a unique honor. I’ll always champion zero-to-hero tales (Long live the four eyed schmo cum avenging angel!), but please, Hollywood, please: give us more democratic fantasies with the character, wit, and merit found in this film.
So what in the picture is so distinct? It’s pedigree, certainly, is not very unique. An adaptation of Stephen King, the source material is a bit cardboardy, a bit familiar. Any viewer well versed in King’s style should see most of the signposts coming well in advance. Walken as “Johnny Smith” (Cronenberg on the name: “not my choice”) wakes from a five-year coma to find his latent psychic powers are active in the “dead zone” of his brain. Every time Walken makes skin-to-flesh contact with another human body, he is overtaken by visions of the subject’s life, past and future. But while the gimmick is familiar, it also works. Cronenberg lays into the visions with relish, using them to justify elaborate, dangerous pyrotechnics (the first flash shows Walken, glistening in flame retardant ointment, screaming in the nursery of a burning house) that are filmed with a kinetic, highly subjective camera. It’s great fun, and the conceit lets the director and his actors throw off any pretensions of severity in favor of letting loose, un-self consciously, with the material.
That lack of self consciousness is really what gives the film its staying power. Walken is Walken, of course. Any scene you place him in will almost assuredly result in relaxed, free flowing interpretations of a narcoleptic speed freak just off the graveyard shift at Denny’s. Every element of his performance - from the hairdo that gradually remolds itself from wilting bowl-cut to razor edged flat-top, to the shifting, studied progression of his coma-enabled limp - is a pleasure to observe and take in. The man is an artist of the human body and of human speech. I would watch him twitch and stutter his way through anything (anything). But the real gem of the film, and the person who seems to carry all the lynch-pin weight of the thing, is Brooke Adams as Walken’s love interest. Adams proved herself, in Days of Heaven, to be a talented, responsive actress. Here she proves herself to be a brave one as well. Her character, Sarah (who loved Walken before the coma, but married another man in the intervening years), as written in the script, is about as deep as a rain puddle on the pavement. She gets horrible lines: “Oh Johnny Smith…you better marry me!”. A lesser or more sheepish actress would have run from these scene killers, mincing her words and clouding her face behind affectation. But Adams is no coward, and whether being aided by Walken (or, in a few notable scenes, bracing him) or on her own, she never delivers her lines or her character with anything but total, un-abashed conviction. It takes guts, and serious acting chops, to sprint full force, eyes wide open towards a thin B-movie role like Sarah Bracknell. Adams hits the part so hard, with such earnest good intention, she convinces us that behind those dull, foolish lines there lives a sensitive, full-bodied intelligence: a true consciousness. It’s impressive stuff.
It pains me to say it, but ninety percent of this film’s success seems to be derived from the fearless, free-spirited performances of Adams and Walken. Pains me because I’d like to praise Cronenberg for his vigorous screen direction, but I’m not convinced that he really gets his material. He’s almost working against it. There are indications, beginning mid-way through the film and rising in tempo and pitch in the last third, that what Cronenberg really wants to do - all accolades for well drawn characters asides - is drag the audience around on meat-hooks labeled “Clever Plot Structure.” He introduces a villain late in the game, played with predictable megalomania by Martin Sheen, who serves no other purpose than to build the film artificially towards its big climax. Sheen is evil, and Cronenberg gives him two great scenes to show the audience just how evil, but he has nothing, thematically, to do with the characters played by Walken and Adams. He’s just a very good, very clever film villain. And pitting Walken against Sheen reduces the lead’s efforts in the previous 80 minutes to something petty, and inconsequential. There is very little that is innate in Walken’s character that justifies him as the “perfect and only possible foe” for Sheen’s spittle-flecked libertarian nightmare. That’s fine for other Hollywood fantasies, where all the players are interchangeable simps, but Walken’s portrayal deserves a little bit more: he deserves a nemesis. Cronenberg made a number of strong deviations from King’s source material in banging out the script, but he missed the most necessary one: Johnny Smith, poorly named champion of the American Spirit, needs a better counterpart than the pinko-hating political snake-in-the-grass he’s provided with.
The last act of the film didn’t get me where it counts, but you might not mind. Certainly, I doubt you’ll care about the last twenty minutes stutter-stepping over well-trod plot paths if you end up enjoying Walken and Adams’ performances as much as I did. There’s a scene, perhaps half way into the movie, when Adams brings her kid over to visit the once-again-among-the-waking Walken. She makes an offer to him which is totally, absolutely, completely ludicrous. Just when you think both she and Walken will be unable to hold back sheepish chuckles at the scene’s implausibility, they both start beaming. Their acknowledgement and embrace of the situation’s inherent mirth will endear them to you all the more.
If you have any interest in 80’s horror/thriller cinema, see The Dead Zone; if you could care less about supernatural thrills and inane Reagan era political rebuttals, and are just looking for some good actors enjoying the scope and breadth of their on-screen talents, see The Dead Zone. It’s worth it.
