“Do you want to know if I’m innocent? The last time I was innocent was 15 years ago in court. Innocence doesn’t exist in prison. It doesn’t matter. Nobody cares. If you care, stay away from me. Don’t ask me out to dinner. I get confused.”
In January of 1992 at the Sundance Movie Festival the world was discovering a new filmmaker who brought his first effort, Reservoir Dogs, to the festival where it was highly celebrated and acclaimed. The world knew Quentin Tarantino. But that wasn’t really his first film credit. Three months earlier at another film festival in Vancouver, Jan Eliasberg’s Past Midnight with Rutger Hauer and Natasha Richardson was having its own place on the screen. So what’s the connection? Screenwriter Frank Norwood was struggling with the film’s script, and an unknown writer was brought in to give it some life. He was so unknown that he didn’t even rate a writing credit, but the buzz is he wrote most of what appeared on the screen. Instead he gets a throwaway associate producer credit, and that might have been the end of a short career. Of course, it wasn’t, and there are obvious Tarantino staples in the film, which might make a great drinking game if you’re up for spotting them all.
“I think he’s changed over the years. I read all of the paperwork on him. He deserves that parole. He’s intelligent. He has a kind of charm. He got his master’s degree in psychology while he was inside. I don’t think he is the same man he was 15 years ago.”
Rutger Hauer plays Ben Jordan. He spent 15 years in prison for the brutal murder of his wife. He was spotted leaving the house holding a knife in his bloody hands. He took off and got drunk and was quickly arrested. Now he has been released on parole, and he’s back in the world. In order to help him navigate his new freedom, he must see a social worker. Laura Matthews (Richarson) happens to be next up in the bullpen. She’s also dating one of her co-workers, Steve Lundy, played by a young Clancy Brown. She starts to have doubts about his guilt. She turns investigator and goes over the line by interviewing witnesses and going through all the evidence. The more she is convinced of his innocence, the closer she gets to him, which confuses Ben and upsets Steve.
The film becomes one of those did-he-or-didn’t-he affairs, and honestly, whoever wrote the thing, it’s very well put together. Everything works on this film. The pacing is perfect. It never lets up on what the truth might be while dangling all of these clues in front of us. I think the thing that makes it work isn’t just the script, but Rutger Hauer. He’s played a lot of bad guys and a few good guys in his career. He’s perfectly cast here. Everything he does. The way he carries himself. The expressions he wears. They all could go either way. When we get to the truth, it works. It works because it doesn’t matter. The performance fits if he’s guilty. The performance fits if he’s innocent. Few films manage to hide the climax so well without just withholding things from us. It’s the perfect whodunit.
Paul Giamatti has his first film role here in a small part of a witness and brother to Ben’s best friend. He’s mentally challenged, and you can already see the skill of Giamatti coming out here. He’s subtle and resists the temptation to overreach. It’s a very small part, but it’s a herald of what’s to come. Giamatti has become one of my favorite actors over the years. And this is where it all starts for that talented performer.
One of the clever elements to this film is that the murderer filmed the murder with an old silent 8mm camera. Of course, you can’t see who is doing the deed, and the camera was Ben’s. It’s here that I see the biggest Tarantino influence. The black & white footage is silent, so gestures really sell it, and I can’t put my finger on it, but these scenes are absolutely Tarantino. If you’re a fan, you’re going to spot it instantly.
Of course, many of these performers went on to great careers. That was sadly not true of Natasha Richardson, who suffered a skiing accident in 2009 and died from her internal injuries at just 45. She has some really nice chemistry with both Hauer and Clancy Brown, and there’s really not a weak link in the performances. Director Eliasberg gets out of the way and lets the movie happen. The studio actually had little confidence in the film, and it ended up a Canadian television movie before home video markets picked it up. That’s a shame. This one deserved a shot at some box office, but thanks to this Mill Creek Retro VHS release you get a chance to find a hidden gem. “It makes Nightmare On Elm Street look like Charlotte’s Web“.
