(1987)
2
Donald Guarisco
This oft-eccentric action potboiler is one of the more diverting Burt Reynolds vehicles from his late 1980's era. The script has a clever paranoid-political thriller plot hook at its heart but basically plays like an updated western, with Reynolds filling the role of a reluctant hero who straps on his gun to save a small town from the forces of corruption. It's over-the-top to the point of campiness, particularly during the overblown action sequences, and has some questionable story elements (like the Cynthia Gibb character flirting heavily with the a-few-decades-her-senior Reynolds). However, the cast of familiar faces and surefooted direction from Harley Cokliss keep it from going off the rails. Reynolds plays his moody role well, allowing his natural star quality to do the heavy lifting, and he receives nice support from Scott Wilson as the small town's last honest man. There's also a memorably intense performance from Cliff Robertson as the obsessed mogul bedeviling the film's small town setting. Cokliss gives the film a sleek, kinetic style and gets lots of mileage from atmospheric lensing by Gerald Hirschfeld and a rousing musical score by David Newman. The end result is essentially a big-budget version a b-movie programmer - but it delivers the goods and has enough distinctive touches to make it worthwhile for b-movie fans with a yen for old-fashioned action flicks.
cast-crew for Malone on AllMovie
Malone (1987)
