Instinct

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Instinct (1999) is not an impartial film. It is an indictment of how humans are dangers to the Earth. It stresses how people are so self-centered that they fool themselves into thinking they should be the masters of their world.

The opening shows gorillas in the wild, where the land stretches out far into the distance. It then shifts to a man, Dr. Ethan Powell (Anthony Hopkins in a terrific performance), the last name implying a physical punch, who is a famous anthropologist. He was missing for two years and now looks animal-like with scruffy long hair and beard. He is wearing chains in a cage in Africa. We are used to seeing animals held captive for no reason except for our amusement, but not humans, unless they have committed crimes. Ethan has broken human laws. Guards transport him in a truck with growling guard dogs. By the time they arrive at their destination, the dogs are docile and Ethan is petting them. The man has connected to the animal in himself and thus to other non-human creatures.

People from the U. S. State Department arrive and say they have Ethan now. Even though they remove the chains, he still has no freedom. The shift to Dr. Theo Caulder (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) treating a psychiatric patient under the approving eyes of his teacher, Professor Ben Hillard (Donald Sutherland), tells us that Ethan will be examined as a psychiatric patient. We discover that Ethan used to work at the same university as the psychiatrists and he killed two people and injured three others which explains his imprisonment. For two years he has not said a word, which emphasizes his detachment from human society. Theo exhibits pride when he says he can handle the research on Ethan’s case in a very short time.

When alarms go off at the facility where his captors have brought the now primitive Ethan, he becomes agitated and attacks all those trying to restrain his freedom. He has reverted to instinct, not contemplative intelligence, and is in a flight or fight mode. When he sees his daughter, Lynn (Maura Tierney), he stops his resistance and is overcome by guards. Her appearance summons up his connection to family, which, we later discover, was the reason for his violence in the jungle.

Theo (the name suggests “theocratic,” that is, a god-centered governance, ironic, as we discover) is only a resident but wants Ben to give him Ethan’s evaluation. He is ambitious and sees Ethan as a way of becoming famous by writing a bestselling book about the case.

Ethan is at an institution for the criminally insane called Harmony Bay, an ironic title since there is no “harmony” there. Theo must compromise his lofty ambition to treat the other inmates.

                                    

Theo’s first encounter with Ethan shows how the prison overmedicates him and uses a Taser on the man if he does not comply with rules. There is a literal line across the table that he is not allowed to cross. There is only an attempt to control, not understand him. Theo meets Lynn who says that her father was distant, obsessed with his work with little concern for his family before he went to Africa. Theo borrows pictures that she took when she visited Africa. When he shows them to Ethan, he smashes the picture of her. When Theo acknowledges that Ethan would rather be an animal, he adds that his daughter wants him back. He finally speaks and says “Goodbye” to his daughter’s photo. He now shows that he is not a psychotic divorced from reality by saying, “Have I made your fucking day?” Theo sees the picture of the jungle as his home, not his house in America. Theo promises to cut his medication if Ethan will tell him about Africa. Why does he allow Theo to gain access? The story shows he sees in him the potential to understand Ethan’s viewpoint.

The two meet in privacy now. Ethan describes his time in Africa, and the film visualizes his experiences there. It is vast, beautiful, and removed from human civilization. By increments he became closer to the silverback leader of the gorilla family. He says the clicking sound of his camera disturbed the gorilla. Once he abandoned the piece of technology, he says he “really” saw animals as Ethan became more one with nature. He felt he was getting in touch with something lost long ago and was now remembering. It became harder to leave them and eventually did not go back to his camp. He was able to touch them. He says to Theo that there was more danger in a city than in those forests.

After Ethan has spoken, he tells Ethan that the use of the cards to determine which inmate goes outside is the facility’s way of controlling the patients. He calls the institution’s operatives “takers,” because they remove the freedom of others. When Theo tries to say the session isn’t over, Ethan calls him a “taker.” Theo says he’s “free to go.” Ethan’s response is “Am I? Are you free?” Ethan is just going from one cell to another and implies that although not incarcerated, Theo is imprisoned by the expectations of society.

Ethan is right about the cards. The guards allow the survival of the fittest in an animal-like controlled environment by permitting the strongest, Bluto (Paul Bates), to get the Ace of Diamonds from others to get the privilege to go outside. The supposed civilized are not acting like their name when they allow people to be most primal. When Ethan gets the ace and Bluto attacks him, Ethan overpowers the man and the others back him up so that democratic humanity finds a way into this prison. Dr. John Murray (George Dzundza) says to Theo that even though every inmate is supposed to have a daily period outside they do not have the manpower to supervise many at once, so they let the cards act as a random way of allowing outside privileges. Theo says that the strongest have the advantage and Murray says that it causes the patients to focus their aggression on each other and not the guards. This system shows the awful way the civilized world treats its outsiders.

Murray says that it was worse before he got there although one would not want to think about how that could be. When the inmates fight each other, Dacks (John Ashton) lets them go at each other saying they work it out among themselves. The film suggests that gorillas in the jungle treat each other better than humans behave with their own kind. There is a self-destructive patient who likes to bang his head against the wall. Instead of trying to help him they gave the man a football helmet instead. That doesn’t stop the man from hurting himself. Theo isn’t prepared to deal with this type of chaos. We see Ethan perched high above near a window edge, like an animal in a tree observing all this craziness of the people below and is probably feeling justified in abandoning the human community for the gorilla one,

Ethan corrects Theo, saying that he did not live as an animal but as a human among animals, the way it was long ago before people became “takers,” trying to control everything, destroying the harmony (that word again) in the environment. The gorillas reached over that “line,” a metaphorical one unlike the one on the table before, to accept a human into their family, something humans can’t seem to do with their own kind.

Ethan will not talk about his wife and daughter, knowing that he left them behind and doesn’t want to be reminded of that. He knew humans were there even in the jungle because he saw trapped animals, because snaring is what people do, limiting the freedom of other life forms. He left behind his machete, his binoculars, things that connected him to modern times. He wants Theo to tell his story, to share what he learned, which he can’t do because he is no longer part of the current world inhabited by people. Theo is supposed to direct the flow of the treatment. He keeps pushing for Ethan to deal with his daughter, saying he is in control here. Ethan manhandles him and takes tape from his armrest and gags Theo. He threatens to kill him unless he learns the lesson that Ethan is teaching. After two failed attempts Theo gives the right answer, that Ethan has taken away Theo’s illusions that the psychiatrist has control over his life when he is really adhering to the routines prescribed for him.

When he sees Ethan again, he has drawn a map of the world on his cell walls as it was, he says, millions of years ago. Hunters and gatherers then only killed what they needed, only planted what they required. They were “part of the world” and “they shared” what they had. Theo asks are people supposed to give up the cities and go back to the jungle? Ethan says, “We have only one thing to give up. Our dominion. We don't own the world. We're not kings yet. Not gods. Can we give that up? Too precious, all that control? Too tempting, being a god?” Ethan is asking for a different way of looking at the Earth, and the part people play in it.

Theo brings a box with every patient’s name in it into the gymnasium where they gather. He says there will be no more cards, no ace, no fights. Each day a different name will be drawn so each man can have a chance of going outside. It is a random selection that is fair to all and denies Dacks control over the fates of others. When Dacks tries to intimidate Ethan, he rips his card and all the others do the same. Theo has learned Ethan’s lesson about giving up “dominion.”

Warden Keefer (John Ayleward) is not happy with Theo changing the rules. He says that Theo doesn’t have the authority to alter the program. It doesn’t matter that the rules were harmful and unfair, and That Theo used a better system to decide outside privileges. Dacks said that Ethan was threatening, but he wasn’t. To Dr. Murray’s credit, he backs up Theo by saying that Ethan was not violent. Murray is generous enough to see that Theo made a breakthrough. But all Keefer wants is to keep his “dominion, his “control.” (The name Keefer has the sound “key” at the beginning, which suggests he likes to determine who gets freedom and who he locks up).

Keefer exerts his power to limit how long Theo can stay at his institution. Theo has a week, and Hillard says he must find out why Ethan used violence, and if possible, why he no longer will be violent. A tall order. Ethan admitted to Theo that he murdered the men, but adds that there were many murders, which is what Theo must investigate.

Theo decides to reach Ethan by taking him to a zoo to visit the gorillas. In the past, Theo brought back a silverback, and he considers that action a betrayal on his part. Ethan says that the animals are “shadows of gorillas, born in cages.” They do not know their true selves because, like the slaves brought to America, the owners cut them off from their true identities. The silverback is named Goliath, a name suggesting power, but Theo says the animal has been broken and is now insane. He admits his part in that atrocity.

Ethan says that there was a female gorilla who took good care of her child. She allowed Ethan to hold the baby. This flashback stresses how Ethan did not show much affection toward his daughter. The silverback in the wild took care of them all, him included. The silverback showed “tolerance, acceptance,” attributes we admire when people show them.

We finally view through Ethan’s retelling the “many murders” that took place. Men came and shot the gorillas. Ethan hid the baby and then tried to defend the others by using a wooden club, killing and harming the men. There were too many “takers,” and they wounded him in the leg and overpowered him. When the silverback charged, trying to help Ethan, they shot the gorilla in his tracks. The men had Ethan’s machete and binoculars. They tracked him. Ethan feels profound guilt for his part in what happened. Theo correctly says that Ethan was only protecting his new “family.” He takes a pen from Theo and opens the cage, but Goliath will not try to escape. He says that the gorilla could get freedom over the fence, but the idea of escaping is now only something he dreamed of, something not real. That statement is a foreshadowing of what is to come.

Theo believes he can have a hearing and get Ethan free. Lynn is there and Theo says he will not tell her “Goodbye” for Ethan; he must do it himself. Theo keeps pushing Ethan to show the same attention to his true child as he did for the baby gorilla. He meets Lynn and tells her if he had the chance now and she was a baby he would keep her close and never leave her. The only possession he kept with him was a photo of her when she was a child. They move that photo back and forth over the line on the table, showing defiance of the overly restrictive controls.

Those in authority can’t let go of their power, however. Dacks brings Ethan back to his cell that has been wiped clean of his drawing of the ancient world, metaphorically removing the cooperation of the ancient world species. The guard starts to hit him with the nightstick when Ethan hesitates to go back into the cell. The other inmates apologize to Ethan about his cell and Dacks starts to attack another inmate. Ethan has a new family among these misfits. So, he attacks Dacks. Even Bluto helps hold the guard against his cell.

The problem now is that Ethan has shown violence again and has now reverted to his anti-social ways by reverting to his mute state. To show how much Ethan has affected Theo, the psychiatrist, in response to Hillard’s comment how Theo may be losing control, says, “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

In the gymnasium, up near the window where he stares out at freedom, Ethan sways like a restless animal. Theo talks to him, and it appears that Ethan is closed off, not paying attention to him. Theo says he was good at playing the “game,” of playing by the rules. But he wasn’t close to anybody. He says that Ethan showed him how to live outside the game, to truly live. But, because of the way things are, he will go back to the “game,” but wishes he didn’t have to say goodbye to the one who showed him a different way to be.

As Theo leaves, Ethan turns sideways, showing he paid attention to Theo. In his hand is the pen he took to open Goliath’s cage. He has been using it to scrape away at the hinge that holds the window. One may think of The Shawshank Redemption, and Andy’s small hammer.

The next scene has the guards, Dr. Murray and the patients watching a baseball game. Pete (Thoams Q. Morris) pulls the electric plug so they can’t watch the TV. Murray uses gentle persuasion, that he learned from Theo, to get the electric cord back, saying it’s a guard’s birthday, and Pete should give him the cord as a present. It’s all a diversion. In the commotion, Ethan escapes.

Ethan left a message for Theo. It says that he thanks Theo for going on the journey with him and getting him his daughter back. He says, “You were right. Freedom is not just a dream. It's there, on the other side of those fences we build all by ourselves.” He’s saying we imprison ourselves if we allow it. Later in the rain, Theo stops covering himself, just as Ethan did earlier in the wilderness. Theo spreads his arms and looks up at the sky, another similarity to Andy gaining freedom from the prison in Shawshank.

The last shot is Ethan heading back to the jungle. Another one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Heat

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title, Heat (1995), written and directed by Michael Mann, takes on different meanings in this film. It refers to the police. It also can represent the pressure the characters feel in the pursuit of their jobs. It may also suggest the adrenalin-driven high one gets performing a dangerous act.

The first shot is of a train station at night with steam rising from the earth, a rather hellish look. Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) passes a reproduction of Michelangelo’s Pieta, which suggests sacrifice, but here there is little redemption felt here for the characters, and the feeling here is not spiritual. Neil is in disguise as a paramedic who steals an ambulance. His appearance is a deception as he is not here to ease anyone’s pain. We see patients who reflect the meaning of the statue by being in various stages of suffering, reflecting the agony of the world at large.

Police Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is with his wife, Justine (Diane Verona) and his stepdaughter, Lauren (Natalie Portman), who worries about making a good appearance for her father who is picking her up. How Vince’s job conflicts with home life becomes evident later.

Neil and his gang literally knock over an armored car with a truck. One of the crew, Waingro (Kevin Gage), is a loose cannon and shoots one of the guards which sets off a gunfight and the killing of all the guards. The scene shows how plans can go sideways when you are dealing with outlaws, the very definition of the word meaning they function outside society’s rules. Once restraint is lost, a domino effect of chaos can occur.

Neil meets Nate (Jon Voight) who hired Neil for the robbery of bearer bonds that belonged to a crooked businessman, Roger Van Zant (William Fichtner). Nate confirms that the big shot was insured for the theft of the bonds, will get full reimbursement, and then can buy back his own merchandise for at a large discount. The scene shows that men died as collateral damage so that crooks could help a supposed legitimate businessman scam the system.

Vincent shows up at the crime scene and realizes that except for the killings he is dealing with a professional group who knew they had limited time to pull off the robbery and only went for the bearer bonds, which they knew about. They also chose a location that was easy to exit. The exploding of the bomb used to enter the armored car was executed efficiently. All he has to go on is to check fences, that someone heard a robber call someone “Slick,” and maybe trace where the explosives were bought. Vincent also realizes that these robbers will not hesitate to eliminate witnesses once violence is in play. We have the start of professionals on both sides of the law working to defeat their opponents.

Neil shows his impatience and brutality because one of his men escalated the crime. He batters Waingro against the wall and table of a diner where he meets with his men and says Waingro won’t get a share of the heist. Neil is ready to kill the man outside, but Michael Cherrito (Tom Sizemore) stops him because police are nearby, not because it’s wrong to kill the man, which shows the lack of accepted morality. While they are distracted, Waingro escapes. We have another loose end in the process of committing a crime.

Chris (Val Kilmer), one of the crooks, brings home less cash than expected from the robbery and his wife, Charlene (Ashley Judd), gets into an argument with him because he needed cash to pay off gambling debts. She calls him, “a child growing older.” Chris explodes, breaking things. There is arrested development here which shows more cracks in the chain holding these robbers together, and there is the emphasis on the inability to balance home life with activity outside of the family.

That problem is also evident in Vincent’s home. Lauren’s father never showed up. Vincent is very critical of the missing dad, but he himself was scheduled to have dinner with his wife four hours prior. Vincent is sarcastic when he says he’s sorry that he didn’t share that he dealt with dead guys on the street. His words suggest his family’s details aren’t as important as his job.

Family continues to be the topic as Neil meets a woman, Eady (Amy Brennemen) in a restaurant. He is suspicious of her at first, trusting nobody, which shows how his line of illegal work causes him to be cautious. After she says she works at the bookstore he frequents they strike up a conversation. He learns that she has “a tight family,” while he admits that his mother died many years ago and he doesn’t know where his father and brother are. The dialogue shows how he is a loner which contributes to his feeling less vulnerable in his work. He has comes to terms with his isolated situation, telling her he is “alone,” but he is not “lonely.” She admits to being lonely and the two kiss and then have sex. But Neil cannot have a relationship in his mind and leaves early the next day.

Vincent’s intimidating ferocity is on show in the scene with Albert Torena (Ricky Harris), an informant, at the man’s chop shop for stolen vehicles. Vincent is loud, sarcastic, and threatening, and Albert promises to have his brother provide information for Vincent.

Chris crashes at Neil’s house which has no furniture. Neil isn’t even emotionally invested in his home. When Chris asks when he’s going to get furniture and a wife, Neil’s answer to both questions is, “When I get around to it,” which basically means never. He stresses the importance of not getting involved in the life they have chosen when he tells Chris, “Have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life that you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner.” For Neil, the heat is the police, but in this movie it can mean anything that threatens to anchor you to anything else, leaving you as an easy target.

An example of how the social system discourages going straight is in the character of Breedan (Dennis Haysbert). He is on parole and shows up for a job at a diner to be a grill man. Instead, the manager makes him clean toilets and mop floors. He also says he will state that Breedan stole or did other violations unless he plays ball, which includes giving the boss twenty-five percent of his pay. The implication is that it’s easy to see why convicts revert to criminal activity when they are not given a fair chance at rehabilitation.

Neil finds out that Charlene is cheating on Chris with Alan Marciano (Hank Azaria). Since Chris says that Charlene is his world, which is the opposite of what Neil preaches, Neil concludes he must keep his partner happy. He tells Charlene that she must give Chris one more chance. If Chris screws up again, Neil promises to help Charlene get situated on her own.

Vincent meets Albert’s brother, Richard (Tone Loc), who just wants to work the system, like others, to get Vincent to arrest his competitors who steal cars. He mentions that an ex-convict he knows calls people “Slick.” Vincent discovers that Richard was talking about Michael Cherrito, so Vincent now knows Cherrito was involved in the armored car robbery. He learns what the guy looks like, including tattoos. He gets Cherrito’s criminal record and orders full surveillance.

Van Zant was supposed to pay Neil to buy back the stolen bearer bonds. However, the crooked businessman Van Zant wants to kill who stole from him even though he is making out on the deal. His attitude shows how revenge many times blinds a person to the consequences of getting even. He sends two men to fake the payment and kill Neil. However, since nobody trusts anybody in the underbelly world of crime, Neil has his men there and they kill Van Zant’s men. Neil calls Van Zandt and says there is a dead man on the other end of the phone line. There are attempts at doing business here but since there are no social rules in effect, it becomes open season on others quite easily.

We get two views of the opposing teams at dinner with their respective families. Neil is alone, of course, and he must feel the need for temporary companionship because he calls Eady. He wants to connect with her and asks her to go with him to New Zealand to start a life together. But the destination is far away, divorced from the rest of her current world. To be with him she must meld with his separateness.

 As Neil, Cherrito, and Chris and their families exit the restaurant, Vincent and his men observe them from the roof, since they tailed Cherrito. They recognize Chris, but not Neil, because he secured his anonymity.

We have symmetry now as the police and their families go out to dinner. But the comradery is broken when Vincent gets a call about the homicide of a young call girl. We know that Waingro is the killer, and we learn that there have been other hookers that suffered the same deaths by crushed skulls. The film shows us different layers of ferocity on both sides of the law, but there are some criminals that are more depraved and dangerous than others who harm those outside of the battle between cops and robbers.

The scene between Vincent and his wife Justine at this point is very good at showing the divide between the job of a homicide detective and his home life. Vincent doesn’t want to share the grotesque details of what he sees with his spouse because he doesn’t want to contaminate his family with the evil he confronts every day. However, by keeping Justine in the dark (and this scene is shot in shadows to stress that fact) means, as Justine says, “You don’t live with me, you live among the remains of dead people. You sift through the detritus, you read the terrain, you search for signs of passing, for the scent of your prey, and then you hunt them down. That's the only thing you're committed to. The rest is the mess you leave as you pass through.” Vincent lives for the heat of the hunt, and he admits that he doesn’t want to vent because he needs the “angst” to fuel his predatory drive. She eventually has an affair because it’s a way of getting free from Neil emotionally.

Vincent and his team observe Neil and his gang at a supposed robbery of a precious metals repository. However, one of Vincet’s men bangs his rifle against a truck. Neil, on guard duty, hears it. In the infrared camera it looks like Neil can see Vincent, almost in an extrasensory way, and he pulls out of the heist so that Vincent feels forced to let them go since all he has them on is a misdemeanor.

Neil feels that the robbery is compromised, but he sees it as his last job because he wants out with Eady. Chris has a precarious financial situation with his gambling. But Neil tells Cherrito that it’s better for him not to participate. Cherrito says, “for me, the action is the juice.” It’s that adrenalin heat that these guys desire, and in that sense they are the same as Vincent.

Because he has Chris under surveillance, Vincent also has the man’s wife observed. Which means he knows she has been seeing Marciano. Vincent is able to pressure him based on prior illegal activities to give up information on Chris. Here the film shows how the police put the heat on others by threatening them to get what they want.

Vincent’s team observes Neil, Chris, and Cherrito at a refinery next to a scrap yard. It appears that they are scoping out the area. Vincent later goes to the same location and realizes there is nothing there to steal. He now understands that they have been outwitted and they have been “made.” Neil is high up taking pictures of them, so he knows who he is dealing with. Vincent gets a kick out of it because, in a perverse way, he enjoys a worthy adversary. He is getting off on that “juice” Cherrito mentioned. Neil gets information about Vincent from Nate who also gives him schematics and other information for their bank heist. Despite learning that Vincent was in the Marines, is smart, and was on his third marriage which shows his dedication to bringing hoods down, Neil says the job is worth it. Is it the “juice,” the money, or both?

Vincent follows Neil in his car, pulls him over, and strangely invites him for a cup of coffee. Their conversation is like two noir combatants sizing each other up, finding things in common, showing some mutual respect, and throwing down their gauntlets. Neither of them leads a “regular” life consisting of “barbecues and ballgames.” Neil admits he has a woman in his life but will leave her in that thirty second time slot if he has to because that is the “discipline” he has pledged himself to. Each admits they don’t know how to live any other way and don’t want to. Neil says he will not go back to prison he will put Vincent down if he gets in his way. Vincent says he will do the same if Neil turns the wife of an innocent man into a widow.

Neil is smart enough to shake the tails on him and his crew. But there are loose cannons in the world of the unlawful to foul up the best laid plans. In this case, it is Waingro. He’s the monkey in the wrench, as John McClain would say. Waingro is the serial killing psycho who wants revenge for the roughing up Neil gave him. So, he goes to Van Zant for help.

Neil has his wheel man, Trejo (played by the appropriately named Danny Trejo) lead the police in another direction. Here we have a contrived plot device as Neil just happens to be in the diner where he recognizes the unhappy Breedan and offers him the getaway job because, sadly, it is better than being abused in a legitimate job. He tosses his crappy boss to the ground, and the audience sympathizes with this harsh action because people understand the unfairness of Breedan not getting a fair chance at being legit.

The police get a tip from an informant about where Neil’s team is robbing the targeted bank. What follows is a prolonged modern version of a shootout at the not O.K Coral as Vincent and the police exchange automatic gunfire with Neil’s gang on the streets of LA. The scene shows the upheaval of the safe, civilized life that can be wiped away in a moment. Breedan is killed and Chris is wounded while several policemen are shot. Cheritto, in a cowardly and horrifying act, uses a child as a shield. But Vincent gets an opening and shoots him in the head.

Neil gets Chris to a doctor who he pays to cover up the treatment for a fractured clavicle. Neil wants to follow his discipline, which means getting out, but Chris loves Charlene and doesn’t want to leave without his wife. His attitude shows how the world of crime doesn’t allow for love and marriage. He does go along with Nate with the plan to escape at first, but then leaves to find his wife.

Neil knows that the tip came from Trejo. He looks for the man, but he finds him near death. His naked wife is also dead, and we can assume the rapist/killer Waingro was at the bottom of all that happened, forcing Trejo to reveal Neil’s plans to the cops. Trejo says that Van Zant was involved. Trejo asks for a mercy killing and Neil obliges him. And the hits keep on coming.

Vincent tracks down the snitch who took the information from Trejo and tipped them off because he wants to follow the trail that leads him back to Neil. Meanwhile, Neil wants revenge and finds out from Nate where Van Zant lives and shoots him. He is on the trail to get Waingro. Both Vincent and Neil are hunters despite being on different sides of the law.

The police acquire Marlene and her son. Sergeant Drucker (Mykelti Williamson) uses manipulation to convince Marlene to give up her husband or else she will be considered an accessory, and her young son will go into the system. She gives in to the request. The scene shows again how the police leverage people, here giving Marlene a bad or worse choice. Marlene is able to get around her situation by giving her husband a signal to stay away as he approaches. Of course, even though Chris escapes, husband and wife can’t be together, and that’s the tradeoff.

Meanwhile, Vincent has used a beating to get information out of the tipster, Hugh Benny (Henry Rollins), to find out about the hotel where Waingro is hiding. Here there is more coercion, as the ends justify the means for Vincent here. Vincent leaks the location so that Neil will learn where Waingro is and Vincent can intercept him there.

Eady was living in a naïve romantic dream world about Neil, not really wanting to know how they can go off to New Zealand easily. Now she knows he is on the run and she tries to escape. She is both somebody Neil cares about and is also a loose end. So, he wants her to leave with him. He allows her the choice, however. Now he has come to realize he can’t be alone anymore, and he only wants the rest of his life to be with her. His sincerity wins her over. Nate has provided Neil with a plane and documents to leave the country. Neil looks like he’s ready to take off, but abruptly turns off the road and heads to get Waingro.

Vincent thinks Neil has escaped and heads out, throwing his TV out of the car, busting it up in the process. The shattering of the TV, which he said his wife’s lover was not allowed to watch, represents the breakup of his marriage. He then gets another jolt when he finds his stepdaughter, Lauren, in the bathtub after an attempted suicide attempt by self-inflicted wounds. He wraps towels as torniquets and saves her. Lauren is collateral damage resulting from her father’s neglect and the actions of both her mother and Vincent in their relationship. As Neil has come to a realization about himself, Vincent seems reconciled to who he is. When he asks Justine if there is any hope for the two of them, he is doubtful, He says to her, “all I am is what I’m going after.” Justine realizes that’s true and gives him permission to go to the hotel where Waingro is.

Neil sets off a fire alarm, steals a jacket so he can pretend to be with hotel security, goes to Waingro’s room, and shoots him dead. The police have the room under surveillance, so Vincent knows Neil is there and gives chase. He spots Neil as he approaches the car next to Eady, who is there, waiting for Neil. The crook does what he said earlier, which is to leave behind any possibility of a connection to another when he is at risk. But, he already should have left and then he would have escaped. He pursued his own view of vengeful justice. Now, he pays for it. Vincent follows him and just as Neil is about to shoot Vincent, the policeman sees Neil’s shadow (representing Neil’s dark side?), turns, and shoots his prey.

In the end the two men live up to who they are. Neil repeats what he said earlier about not going back to jail, remaining an outlaw until the end. Vincent remains the hunter. Neil holds out his hand just before he dies and Vincent grabs it, a last handshake representing understanding between the two.

A Woman Under the Influence

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974) was written and directed by John Cassavetes. His films appear uniquely different from other movies of his time. He said he would do long, ten-minute takes which involve sustained acting in very emotional situations. He said that the actors never know which camera is recording them, so that they must be always immersed in their characters. He said in this film he used hand-held cameras about thirty percent of the time, and he did that filming. He said that that technique allowed for more movement and fluidity. Cassavetes makes it appear that the audience is there, in the middle of the whirlwind. His films do not provide a polished look. There is no distancing through artifice. There is no soundtrack here to prompt how the audience should respond. He creates uncomfortable cinema which challenges the viewer to become invested in the story.

In this film, Nick Longhettei (Peter Falk) has a special night planned for him and his wife Mabel (Gena Rowlands, nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. She was Cassavetes’s wife. Cassavetes was nominated for Best Director). Nick is a hardhat blue-collar worker who is yelling at his boss because he doesn’t want to work that same night because of a water main break. The urgency with which he doesn’t want to ruin his plans shows us how things are precarious in his marriage). Mabel is very agitated as she sends her three young children off with her mother, Martha (Lady Rowlands, Gena’s real mother). Mabel feels guilty about letting them go. She appears frazzled, so we know she is having emotional problems. Throughout the film she wavers between her adult responsibilities versus her own needs.

Nick’s work friend says Mabel is delicate and will go off the deep end when she finds out Nick will have to work, Nick says Mabel is special, not crazy, almost like he’s protesting too much, revealing his own concerns. He does admit that she can burn down a house and that “I don’t know what she can do.” So, his own words reveal his wish to keep things stable while he fears the worst can happen.

Mabel adopts a calm voice when her husband calls about having to work, but then hangs up the phone quickly as if letting go of the forced attempt to appear understanding. She is so upset she goes to a bar, downs a large drink, starts singing, and picks up a guy. Mabel’s drunken staggering implies her physical instability mirrors her mental lack of equilibrium. When man at the bar tries to put the moves on her, she starts hitting him, but then it’s the next morning and hey are at Mabel’s house which shows that she again veered away from acting like a responsible adult since the two obviously had sex. She doesn’t seem to know that the stranger is not Nick, because that is supposed to be who she should be intimate with according to societal rules. She starts wanting to know where her kids and her mother are, bouncing back to her guilt over not being unselfishly present for her family.

Nick brings his crew home, maybe to show his family life is okay, but Mabel talks awkwardly as she offers to cook. She hugs one guy too much, and yells at another in the kitchen for patting her behind. She doesn’t remember one of the guys who was there only three weeks prior. She was listening to Italian opera earlier and now two men sing some opera. She gets too close to one man who is singing. Then Mabel comments about how another is handsome and wants to dance with him. Nick quietly tells her to stop her odd behavior. He eventually explodes when she doesn’t give up. But, he has brought this situation on himself for trying to force what he considers to be normal behavior onto his abnormal family life.

Nick says there’s something in the air causing so many babies to be born. One guy says the moon is causing so many births in the neighborhood. The word lunatic comes from the supposed deviant influence of the moon on people. Nick also uses the word “lunatic” at one point.

Nick gets an annoying call from his mother who fights for his attention as she complains about not feeling well. After hearing all these family issues, the men leave. Nick thinks the workers don’t understand Mabel. Nick desperately wants no negative judgments about his home life.

Nick also has his kids draining him for their attention, even though he has worked all night. He exaggerates his desire for family togetherness by putting everyone in bed, including Mabel’s mother. Mabel’s conflicting emotions are evident as she gets everybody out of the house so the children can go to school, and then abruptly says she misses all those who have left.

Mabel’s nonconformist behavior continues as she confronts people on the street by aggressively asking them the time. She is wearing a skimpy outfit even though she appears chilly. She shows exaggerated excitement as she meets her kids at the bus stop. She asks if others think she’s wacky, which shows she worries about her mental stability. She makes the father of her kids’ friends uncomfortable by being too exuberant, dragging him into kid’s play. She wants the children to play dress-up. Mabel is a child at heart, and she doesn’t show the prescribed behavior of the adult world. She likes Swan Lake, and talks about a swan dying, which suggests how tragedy inhabits the adult mindset. Harold Jensen (Mario Gallo), father of the visiting children, is a disciplinarian and is worried about his kids being with Mabel since the children are taking off their clothes to do dress up.

Nick’s antisocial behavior is evident as he explodes when he comes home with his mother, Margaret (Cassavetes’s real mother, Katherine Cassavetes). He slaps Mabel and has a physical altercation with Jensen. He yells that Mabel should be committed. She says she knows he loves her. She claims that was the first time he hit her, but she’s not angry at him. Her words indicate that things are getting worse between them and are now reaching a breaking point. She then does one of her quick turnarounds by calling Nick a “bug.”

Nick called the family physician, Dr. Zepp (Eddie Shaw) and she becomes paranoid about her mother-in-law and Nick. She says that Zepp has something in his bag that will “imprison” her, a sedative which she sees as restricting her. The mother then explodes, yelling that Mabel can’t be in the house. Irrational behavior blossoms all over the place. However, Mabel says that insanity is what the children are subjected to, getting up, going to school, suggesting they are locked into restrictive routines. She tells the doctor he’s the one who is sick, probably implying that someone who would enforce one’s will on another is the person with an illness. Perhaps the "Influence" of the title could refer to this external pressure warping an individual's individuality, the word itself meaning a "flowing in" from the outside. She makes the sign of the cross as if warding off a vampire who would suck out her life force. He commits her to be hospitalized.

Nick is an Italian American male who doesn’t want to appear to be vulnerable. He also wants his privacy. His family life becomes a topic for discussion at work, which just aggravates his position in and out of the home. A worker he yells at falls off a hill, showing how his anti-social anger causes harm to others.

He keeps trying to impose normalcy by taking his kids to the beach to have a good time, but he is so frazzled and yells so much that he makes everything seem tense. His desire to make his children happy leads him to recklessness, as is seen when he lets them sip some beer despite their young ages. They get dizzy and sleepy.

After six months, Nick wants to have a welcoming home party for Mabel, but it is overwhelming because he forces too much of what passes for normalcy onto the situation. But despite his desires, he is not up to managing a party, since he has no refreshments at home for his guests. His mother yells (that may be where he gets his anger from), saying there are too many people and only family members should be present. Nick tells his mother to send everybody except a few guests away, which makes things uncomfortable, the opposite of Nick’s goal.

Mabel arrives and struggles to stay “calm” as she cries when reuniting with her kids. Her father is encouraging but she acts too affectionately toward him because she requires so much support. Nick almost isn’t accepting of her sedate way and yells that she should just be herself. (Falk, in an interview, said there must have been an attraction for Nick toward Mabel’s unconventional behavior). Nick keeps piling pressure on how life should be by saying how everything is going to get better and better. However, Mabel starts making uncomfortable, but honest, statements as she says how big one relative’s ass is, and now she wants everyone to go home so she can go to bed with Nick. Nick again forces what is supposed to be normal when he requires small talk. Mabel starts to talk about shock therapy, which again is frank, unnerving talk. Mabel begs for her father to “stand up” for her. Mabel’s mother makes an enigmatic comment about how Mabel’s father should know what that means. There may be a suggestion that there was inappropriate behavior between father and daughter in the past here.

Mabel starts to act bizarrely, yelling at others, then singing, then running away from Nick. She cuts herself and moves her hands in slow motion while standing on a couch. These unconventional actions seem to be protests against trying to restrain her behavior. Nick is out of control, too, but violently, as he smacks Mabel off the couch, threatening to kill her and the kids. His words may suggest his exasperated way of wishing to escape what he sees as chaos in his life. She quiets down again, and Nick says the kids want her to tuck them in, another attempt to play at an average home life. She keeps saying she loves Nick despite his violence. The little boy hugs mom and shows his dad a fist, shows he is taking a stance to protect his mother.

After the kids are in the bedroom, Mabel, lucidly, says she must really be nuts, and she doesn’t know how all of this started. She seems to be able at this moment to gain some distance and insight from all that has transpired. Nick wants to take care of her cut hand, but at this moment he is unable to reassure her that he still loves her. He is not trying to rationalize here and is finally being honest about things. They do some cleaning up, like a regular husband and wife would do after a party. There is a phone ringing, and Nick ignores it. Falk said that is probably his mother, and Nick is taking a stance to put his wife first at that point.

We finally get music, which features a kazoo, over the closing credits, which fits the unconventional thrust of the story.