No.52 : The Bridge (2006)

The Bridge at the IMDb

Here’s nice uplifting documentary to cheers you up - bunch of folk killing themselves by flinging themselves off the Golden Gate Bridge. If that’s not enough to put a spring in your step the clips of the suicides are inter cut with interviews of those left behinds, sometimes to literally pick up the pieces.

The film was made in 2004 and caught most of the 24 suicides who plummeted off the bridge to their near certain deaths. The director set up a long lensed camera at a suicide hot spot on the bridge and over the months he filmed he gained dubious footage of damaged people ending it all.

The actual suicide footage, although tremendously powerful lasts a matter of seconds so clearly he had to go and find some padding in the shape of talking head relatives who were largely trying to find some sense in the senseless and selfish acts. There is also further padding with long and arty establishing shots of the bridge and of various bridge users which soon causes a sense of ‘is he over next’ in the viewer.

There is no narration to the film and it seems somewhat random. There is an attempt at a central spine to the film in the shape of Gene, a long haired layabout, who pops up throughout.If I was being cynical I’d say that Gene’s story is focused upon because he was the one that they had the best death footage of. His relatives were also quite eloquent but unable to add much to what a pretty straightforward tale of depression followed by suicide.

The point of the film is hard to establish and it’s almost pornographic the way the ‘money shots’ are carefully doled out through the 90 minutes running time. I’m sure the random and uneven feel to the film would be explained as a narrative on the damaged people’s motivations but it’s more likely it was cobbled together using the best footage and the relatives who were willing to talk for reasons unknown.

It would be hard not to be moved by the film given that we share the last seconds of several peoples’ lives and the big finale is genuinely shocking but the lasting impression is one of sadness that these desperate people never got the help they needed.

I would have liked to see more of the other side, the poor buggers charged with recovering the bodies and State officials who could explain why the world’s favourite suicide spot doesn’t have higher barriers or catch nets. I guess the attitude is that if they are going to kill themselves it’s better to do it here than onto a busy freeway.

Almost every suicidee found a positive advocate but for the most part the tales were consistent in terms of depression and escalating attempts to take their own lives. Sometimes suicide attempts can be cries for help or for attention but the guys we saw here knew there was no going back.

The overall feel of the film is of one built around a few seconds of footage with bricks of worthiness and head shaking. The actual effect is one of grubby exploitation with no message I could see.

THE Tag Line : Take Me Away From The Bridge 52%

No.14 : The Enforcer (1976)

The Enforcer at the IMDb

This is the middle film of Clint Eastwood’s five outings as ‘Dirty’ Harry Callaghan, the no-nonsense San Francisco police inspector, and is easily the bloodiest. In short it’s the Tyne Daly one that ends at Alcatraz.

The film opens in pretty low key fashion with a foxy chick luring two city workers to their deaths at the hands of her blonde, blue eyed boyfriend. Meanwhile Harry is doing what he does best by shooting the asses off a gang of liquor store robbers. ‘I wanna come in and talk’ says Harry and is invited in by the gang who clearly missed the first two movies. After Harry turns the store into a drive thru he gets his customary dressing down from his by the book boss. It’s only a cliché because Clint started it!

With him transferred off homicide Harry starts his new role in personnel even though “personnel is for ass holes”. After some glorious PC bashing with a ‘Ms.’ from the mayor’s office, in a scene that is a bit too broad for my taste, Harry is teamed up with Tyne Daly’s fresh faced new recruit after his partner get knifed by the creeps we saw at the start. It turns out that they are a bunch of ex-hookers and Vietnam vet revolutionaries who have raided the arms depot and want $1 million - well that was a lot of money then.

There are a few scenes where Daly struggles to be accepted in the man’s world and we’re pretty sure she’ll turn out all right. Some of these, the autopsy one for a start, seemed a bit contrived as did the captain telling her to be quiet when we all knew she had the juicy info to impart. The bad guys make their first mistake when they send a man in floppy hat to bomb the police station and after an overlong chase to an overbearing jazz soundtrack they get their man by way of a porno shoot.

Harry’s investigation is derailed by an ambitious mayor who is soon undone himself when the revolutionaries take him hostage. With Harry on suspension and the mayor locked up in Alcatraz the ransom due there’s just time for the .44 to be reloaded and for Tyne to get her life insurance up to date.

This is a film of its age and it’s hard to criticise things that were fine then and seem strange now. The portrayals of woman and ethnic minorities are almost charming in their sexist and racial naivety. It’s plainly signposted that Daly is going to come good despite her various faux pas and once she bonds with Harry you know the writing’s on the wall.

The white revolutionaries are poorly drawn and are off the screen too long in the first hour. By the time we see them plotting to kidnap the mayor we’ve almost forgotten they exist amid all the inter departmental bickering. The lead bad guy does a reasonable crazy stare but he’s certainly no Scorpio out of ‘Dirty Harry’ and barely a David Soul out of ‘Magnum Force’.

Some of the action is OK but it’s only the scenes at Alcatraz that take this away from run of the mill fare. The best parts are Harry’s run ins with his superiors but by now in the third film it is getting a bit samey. Harry is stuck off the force for a record short period with the ink barely dry on his suspension before they go crawling back.

The anti-liberal theme is fine, and really what you’d expect when you watch a ‘Dirty Harry’, but when the agitators are all a bunch of dumb clucks it makes it less satisfying when Clint makes his day. It is still quite an enjoyable film with a few classic ‘Harry’ moments but for the most part this film is largely superfluous and not a patch on the original.

THE Tag Line : Harry Rotter 62%