Blu-ray

I can’t help but feel a bit hoodwinked by this film.  From the director of Friday the 13^th, we are talking the original film before Jason decided to take over the duties of slaughtering camp counselors. Yes, I’m talking the Sean S. Cunningham who also delivered us the guilty pleasure The New Kids and a little later in his career Deep Star Six.  As though to sweeten the deal and make this film all the more tempting to horror fans, Bruce Campbell even stars in the film.  Campbell at this point had been successful with the Evil Dead films, Maniac Cop, and the criminally underrated but cult classic TV series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. I thought for sure I had stumbled across a gem of a film and that I’d be excited to write about it. Sadly, within 20 minutes of watching the film, I immediately understood how this film had slipped past my radar.  Thankfully the film isn’t rotten, but it is the kind of straight-to-video or late-night film that is meant for a rare breed of cinephile, one who can ignore the cheap effects and generic plot; in other words, people not so different from myself.
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Nothing like a corruption charge to damper the romance between a cop and an assistant district attorney. The Big Easy is a lighthearted look at where the line is between right and wrong in more ways than one. Dennis Quaid is Lt. Remy McSwain, a native of New Orleans, who reckons that he is an honest cop, despite his willingness go along with the kickbacks from his precinct’s “Widows and Orphans Fund.” To put it plainly, he teeters on the line between being corrupt and being good police. On the one hand, he is a capable investigator and believes in justice. However, on the other, he is aware of and takes advantage of the extra incentives, such as free meals and the occasional envelope of money for extra protection. To him, it’s just the cost of doing business and how things work. That view is challenged when he meets straitlaced and by-the-book assistant district attorney Anne Osborne, played by Ellen Barkin. Each represents everything that the other hates about the law. To him, she is uptight and has no idea how the law really works; and to her, he is nonchalant and knows nothing about the slippery slope of corruption. By all accounts, they should hate each other, and yet they are drawn to one another like magnets.
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In 1962, I can understand why Hell is for Heroes would be a successful film. You have Steve McQueen just getting hot after his success with The Magnificent Seven, and then you have a cast with Bobby Darin, James Coburn, and Bob Newhart making his big screen debut, not to mention that war films were still pretty popular at the time; and then you had director Don Siegel at the helm. Some films are simply a product of their time, and they simply don’t age well; then there are films that are classics and are simply timeless.  Hell is for Heroes ends up somewhere in the middle for me. It’s not a bad film; actually I think it is pretty good, but I think its legacy is more about how it manages to have so much talent together before these actors and filmmakers really hit their stride or were in their prime.
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“Well, I’ve been knocked down, blown up, lied to, s$#t on, shot at; I’m not a virgin except in my heart. Nothing much surprises me anymore except what people do to each other. I’m a licensed pilot, I lectured on economics at Yale, and I can memorize the front page of the New York Times in five minutes and read it back to you in five weeks. I was national Golden Gloves Champion three years in a row, and I’m fluent in four languages. And I lie … a lot.”

This was quite the experience for me. While watching this film, I keep experiencing an intense feeling of deja vu. It was as if I’d watched the film before. Burt Reynolds stars as a chaperone who hires himself out to escort folks while gambling in Las Vegas. He is eventually approached by an old friend after being roughed up, and he becomes embroiled in a situation that is far more complex than initially thought.
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