Silver City

It's meant as no insult to John Sayles to say his films usually play better on television - with their multiple characters and interlocking stories, mysteries that probe at both the pains of the human heart and the greater issues facing our society, and talky, sometimes meandering scenes - his films are a natural for the smaller screen, American telenovelas. Silver City, Sayles' most recent film - which I finally caught on cable this week - is a perfect example. It reminds of Sayles' earlier, superior Lone Star (with some ingredients from Chinatown and Cutter's Way thrown in). It's easy to see why it wasn't a hit with audiences or critics - it continues the recent trend of Sayles films becoming overly long, favoring the didactic over dramatic, offers a thinly veiled characterization of President Bush in the guise of Chris Cooper's straight-shooting, unsharp gubernatorial candidate (though Kris kristofferson's range-roving father character won't remind many of Bush, Sr.), certainly not unforgivable, but besides giving more ammunition to conservative critics who rail against the "liberal agenda" in films (hardly an unassailable case), it adds to the overall feeling that this is a film about A Point, rather than trying to tell a story with any political agenda flowing natural from that story. 

That said, with the excellent cast expected of a Sayles film and the  writer-director's knack for deft characterization and acute ear for dialogue, the film offers many good scenes and interesting ideas about what ails the American political system. 

Danny Huston, fast becoming one of the most underrated of film actors (See: Constant Gardener and The Proposition [which I reviewed here] for more evidence) makes for a strong, complex and likable lead - his journalist investigates a murder that may have something to do with Cooper's candidate, much like Cooper's sheriff in Lone Star poked his nose around a multi-layered mystery, much like Chinatown's Jake Gittes pokes his nose in a mystery and gets in over his head (and gets that nose sliced, as well).   

It's not that i disagree with Sayles points, these are issues politically close to my heart but it reminds me of UCLA screenwriting professor Richard Walters' anecdote about the student who proudly said they wanted to write a screenplay about pollution. "Well, what's the story?" he asked. "I don't know yet," they answered, "just that it should be a film against pollution."   

Sayles writes his scripts like novels and many times this has served him well - in Matewan, Lone Star, and Eight Men Out, among others. Silver City's more like an overlong novel, full of interesting (and a few too many) tangents - with a love story with Darryl Hannah's wayward sister-of-the-candidate a particular sticking point, sharp diaolgue, preachy parts and an overreaching aim that becomes tiresome.

Still, there is much to appreciate in Silver City, and a good amount of it centers around Huston's smilng, probing performance. When he's on screen, the film holds your attention. If it had only managed to narrow its focus to his character and the investigation he obsesses over, with the political corruption angle more naturally woven into the script (and taking a good 40 minutes of fat out with it), this would have been a stronger film. But as it is, during this election season, and after months of headlines about political corruption and ethical transgressions, the film is certainly timely and deserves a watch.

From the screenplay:

DANNY (Danny Huston)
I always pictured you in some smoky hole in the wall, hunched over your computer, spewing your bile at the military-industrial complex.

MITCH PAINE (Tim Roth)
Well, it is a hole in the wall--but I'm surrounded by a bunch of anti-tobacco Fascists.

DANNY
I think they call them "pro-oxygen" these days.