I have loved Sam Rami films ever since I discovered “the Evil Dead”. His style of film making is vibrant, eclectic and the stories that he tells are off kilter enough that they are memorable, even if they are buried in a genre that gets easily dismissed. He has a new film coming out in a couple of weeks that I am looking forward to, and this coming weekend, I will also be seeing my favorite Sam Rami film, “The Quick and the Dead”. Last weekend however, I got to see his 1990 Comic Book hero creation, “Darkman”, starring Liam Neeson in action mode, years before “Taken” launched him as a senior citizen tough guy.
This is a standard origin story, but it is about a character who is not standard at all. Peyton Westlake becomes the Darkman because of a vicious attack by gangsters, and an accident of medical intervention that results in rage generated strength while being largely impervious to pain. Because he was a scientist, working on artificial skin, he has the ability to create flesh masks of anyone he can obtain a photograph of. Thus he can disguise himself in a way that allows him to manipulate the men who disfigured him, in a way that turns them against each other.
Westlake also has to create a mask of himself, to be able to reach out to his girlfriend, played by future three time Academy Award winning actress Francis McDormand. Neeson plays a tortured scientist, who pines for the life he lost, and also rages against those who mutilated him and murdered his colleague. Wearing his own face as a mask, there are several scenes where his interaction with Julie, McDormand’s character, go off the track. In an incident at a carnival, Peyton’s temper gets the best of him and director Rami amps up the situation with Dutch angles, zoom close ups, and intercutting of disturbing carnival images. It is very much like one of his Evil Dead movies for a moment.
The main villain is played by Larry Drake, who was well known at the time as a benign character on “L.A. Law”, so here he was playing against type and he was great. Robert Durant is a confident bully who delights in removing the fingers from his victims, in a dispassionate manner. As if his lack of emotional display is a sign of professionalism rather than sociopathy. There were two direct to video sequels to this film, the first of which revived the character of Durant from the dead. This is a bit like killing the survivors of “Aliens” to start the third film, it undermines some of the things that were great about the earlier film.
The music score was from Danny Elfman, who had done “Batman” the previous year. This second dark hero has a theme that is familiar enough to echo the famous Batman theme, but distinctive enough to clearly fit with the aesthetic of a Sam Rami movie. Jenny Agutter shows up in a scene as the neurologist treating the injured Dr. Westlake, she reportedly did so as a favor to John Landis, who has a tenuous connection to the film, including a part as an extra. There were a series of novels following the further adventures of Darkman, most of which were too dark to consider basing a movie on. This Alamo screening was a blast and I laughed with delight at a number of moments. The make-up effects are also pretty spectacular, you can see that Darkman is a forerunner of Two Face in the “Dark Night” Batman movie.
Kirkham A Movie A Day 