Kings And Desperate Men
(1981)
Director: Alexis Kanner
Cast: Patrick McGoohan, Alexis Kanner, Andrea Marcovicci
Once again
it's time for me to moan about the many problems to be found in the
Canadian film industry. As I've mentioned many times before, the
biggest problem in the industry is that very few Canadian movies are
being made that are not real
movies. But there are other big problems that need to be addressed. One
of the biggest ones is that marketing for Canadian movies is almost
always bad. Not just that there's little marketing, but the marketing
materials tend to be poor in nature. For example, click this link
and scroll down to see how ugly and quickly whipped up most Canadian
movie posters look like; they all scream, "For a very marginal
audience!" instead of promising wider audience appeal. I once heard
some true stories coming from the owner of an independent theater in
English Canada concerning his encounters with poor marketing of
Canadian films. He mentioned that often when he scheduled a Canadian
film to be shown at his theater, the distributor would often provide
marketing materials so poor in nature that he and his staff would have
to piece together salvagable parts from the material and combine it
with their own new material so that his marketing of the Canadian films
playing in his theater would have a fighting chance. He also mentioned
one time when he was
talking to a representative of a Canadian distribution company and
commented to the representative that the marketing materials for the
company's latest Canadian film were of poor quality. The representative
of the distribution company sheepishly said something like, "Yeah, they
were
originally designed for the Quebec market." The theater owner simply
couldn't believe that the distributor knew that the marketing material
was
lousy, but had done nothing about it.
But there are additional problems with the Canadian
movie industry beyond the shabby marketing and the fact few real
movies are being made. One of those problems is that Canadian movies
almost always are poorly distributed. Not just in theaters, but their
post-theatrical life; Canadian movies get little to no release in
theaters by their distributors, get a small release on DVD if they are
lucky, and often are never seen after that, not even on television.
Most of the blame for all this is from the fact that most Canadian
movies are not real movies,
and the distributors feel correctly that there will never be a demand
for them even if they go to the expense of marketing and distributing
them
substantially. And Canadian television networks feel that same way
about the prospect of them broadcasting these movies. Occasionally a
Canadian movie gets made that is real
in
nature, but usually the distributor (and the Canadian television
networks) still don't make much of an effort to get these movies widely
available. One reason is that the distributors and TV networks don't
want to take a risk, in part because they see the (American)
competition they are up against. Some people have tried to improve
things here. In 2013, Canadian movie producer Robert Lantos wanted to
start up a Canadian TV channel (named Starlight) that would broadcast
nothing but Canadian movies twenty-four hours a day all across Canada.
There was a lot of publicity about his efforts, and also a lot of
debate whether this would be a good or bad thing. Ultimately, when
Lantos applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommuications
Commission to try and get a green light for starting Starlight, the
CRTC turned down his request, and the dream died.
Personally, I was glad about the CRTC's decision,
because Lantos' plan would have required a lot of funding from the
public, funding which would have resulted in a great increase in the
public's monthly bills from their television providers. Also, as I've
mentioned before, with most Canadian movies not being real movies,
I wouldn't have wanted to pay for movies I would almost never watch.
Still, as I've admitted, there are occasionally some real
Canadian movies that have been made, and some of them I've heard about
have sounded interesting enough to me that I want to track them down
and watch them. But as you know, distribution of Canadian films is
terrible. So many Canadian movies have disappeared over the decades
from public access. When I heard many years ago about the Canadian
movie Kings And
Desperate Men,
I couldn't find it anywhere. Not anywhere! But I kept searching, and
recently I found it on YouTube. Not the best way to watch a movie, but
sometimes you have to accept what you get. The headline star of the
movie, Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner),
plays a man named John Kingsley, whose job is that of a successful yet
controversial radio talk show host in his unnamed city. He is married
to a woman named Elizabeth (Margaret Trudeau, mother of future Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), and they have a young son. All three
don't know that some homegrown terrorists have plans for them. Angry
that a judge (Budd Knapp, In Praise Of Older Women)
gave a harsh jail sentence to one of their fellow terrorists, the
terrorists' leaders Lucas (Kanner, who also directed the movie) and his
girlfriend (Marcovicci, Spacehunter: Adventures
In The Forbidden Zone)
arrange with their comrades to kidnap the judge as well as Kingsley's
wife and son. While that happens, Lucas and his girlfriend abduct
Kingsley and take him to his radio studio. In full control of
the studio, Lucas and his girlfriend force Kingsley via a shotgun to
broadcast their
demand that the judge and their imprisoned comrade be judged by the
public. With the police outside unable to get in due to
bombs planted in the building, Kingsley soon realizes it's up to him to
fight with his wits with Lucas in order to save his family and the
judge.
Kidnapping, hostage taking, a shotgun, and bombs? Yep,
from the plot description you can tell that Kings And Desperate Men,
unlike most Canadian cinematic exercises, is a real movie. However, just because a
movie is real doesn't
automatically mean it's good. And unfortunately, this movie for the
most part failed in my eyes. The main reason for this is that while it
tries to be unconventional, it does it in a very off-putting manner.
One of these ways is with the depiction of the lead characters, such as
how these characters are interpreted by the cast. McGoohan doesn't seem
to be putting his heart into his performance even when the chips are
down. He seems very distracted, almost drunkard in his behavior, so
much so that his character seems like too much of an oddball to have
managed to have a successful radio career and a family. When his
character sings to his son, for example, there is no conviction or
warmth in his voice, and he has a prickly tone towards the other
characters as well. As McGoohan's adversary, Kanner also sticks with a
very wrong tone. As I was watching his character commit his terrorist
acts and spout his beliefs, the sight of this gave me the feeling of
one of the cast members of Monty
Python
trying extremely hard (and failing) to successfully tackle a very
dramatic role. It's just as silly a sight as you are probably thinking,
and it simply isn't what you imagine a man who is extremely desperate
to set things straight in his eyes. As for the rest of the
performances, none of them really stand out except maybe for Trudeau -
and not in a good way. She manages to be bland despite giving off a
goofy grin at times, and it's easy to see why she never had much of an
acting career.
The characters are not just irritating with how the
actors perform in these roles, but also how they were written. Viewers
will observe that the protagonists aren't given much time before the
kidnappings to see what they are like (such as Kingsley's connection
with the radio station) and how the situation influences them. They
seem to freely accept things for the convenience of the story, such as
when McGoohan's character doesn't question when the lead terrorist's
seductive girlfriend appears in his car. Things are not much better
written with the various terrorists. Though occasionally some mildly
interesting details come up, such that the fact that head terrorist
Lucas was once a professor but got disillusioned, for the most part
they are mysterious people. We don't really get to know what exact
causes they are championing and what changes they want society to
adopt. It also takes forever to find out what their comrade was jailed
for and for what exact reason. So it probably comes as no surprise that
when the two polar opposites are forced together, things feel more limp
than heated and suspenseful. With the lack of sparks, viewers will
probably glaze their eyes for much of the running time, awakened
temporarily by a small gem of an idea. There are a few nice touches
here and there such as when the planned radio broadcast starts off in a
believably awkward manner, one later scene where Kingsley cuts to a
commercial break over the objections of Lucas, and not long afterwards
when something extremely unexpected happens that drastically changes
the situation for both parties. But more often than not the script
simply doesn't cut it. There are so many questions that come up that
are not answered, like how one woman taken hostage abruptly disappears
and doesn't appear again until the very end, why the police are showing
very little attempt to diffuse the situation, or what the public at
large thinks of this entire situation.
It also doesn't help that most of Kings And Desperate Men
goes by in an extremely slow manner, such as the fact that it takes
forever for the hostage radio broadcast to start up. I think what actor
and director Kanner was hoping for was that his very unconventional
direction would patch up the many holes and slowly evolving story in
his script. At first, it does seem to be working; the opening of the
movie showcasing touches such as medieval music and wild camera angles
does take you off guard and holds your attention for a while. Also, I
will admit that the almost documentary style of a few dramatic
sequences is effective at times - the story then almost becomes real in
our eyes. And the Montreal winter atmosphere is well depicted and puts
in some effective grit. But ultimately, the direction is so
unconventional that it becomes distracting and annoying. The musical
score becomes repetitive and shrill, the constant depiction of people
all talking at once makes it difficult to hear what all the characters
are saying, and the at times rapid and/or awkward editing is jarring.
The worst thing about the direction, however, is that there is not only
no heart to the movie - nobody involved with this movie seems to be
very emotionally invested - there is also no suspense or any kind of
strong constant atmosphere to keep viewers involved. You would think
that a movie with the plot description I listed would be highly
charged, but that is not the case at all. It's too soft. Too reluctant.
Too Canadian. Though the unconventional manner of Kings And Desperate Men
does, I admit, generate a little interest here and there, in the end I
think that the movie would have worked much better had it been made in
a more conventional manner. It's very clear why no one has made
much effort over the years to make this particular Canadian movie more
accessible.
(Posted March 25, 2020)
Click here to watch the movie on YouTube
See also: Hostile Takeover,
Lethal Tender, Siege
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