Enjoyable, fast-moving action flick which manages to make the most of its single situation – two white men in search of gold hidden years before are besieged inside a dilapidated building in a black neighborhood by a local street gang.
Despite the modern trappings (street-smart attitude, rap music, excessive foul language), the film is distinctly old-fashioned – in a good way – in its characters’ moral codes and plot development. One can see affiliations with John Huston’s THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) with the squabbling white men in the Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt roles, and the wily old black tramp who inhabits the apartment where the loot is stashed filling in the old Walter Huston part (the black gang, then, would be the Mexican bandits led by the scheming Alfonso Bedoya). Of course, this connection is tenuous at best (since the Huston film has much more scope, whereas this is mostly confined to its apartment-building setting) – but director Hill, or the surprising writer/producer team of Robert Zemeckis(!) and Bob Gale, may well have looked at the earlier classic for inspiration.
Needless to say, the cast of this one (led by Bill Paxton) is no comparison to Bogart et al but the rude and suspicious tramp character is fun – and, unsurprisingly, is the one to come out on top at the end. Thankfully, too, Hill has lost none of his flair in the handling of action sequences…even if, in the long run, the film doesn’t have the lasting power of his best work, namely THE DRIVER (1978), THE WARRIORS (1979) and SOUTHERN COMFORT (1981).
Despite the modern trappings (street-smart attitude, rap music, excessive foul language), the film is distinctly old-fashioned – in a good way – in its characters’ moral codes and plot development. One can see affiliations with John Huston’s THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) with the squabbling white men in the Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt roles, and the wily old black tramp who inhabits the apartment where the loot is stashed filling in the old Walter Huston part (the black gang, then, would be the Mexican bandits led by the scheming Alfonso Bedoya). Of course, this connection is tenuous at best (since the Huston film has much more scope, whereas this is mostly confined to its apartment-building setting) – but director Hill, or the surprising writer/producer team of Robert Zemeckis(!) and Bob Gale, may well have looked at the earlier classic for inspiration.
Needless to say, the cast of this one (led by Bill Paxton) is no comparison to Bogart et al but the rude and suspicious tramp character is fun – and, unsurprisingly, is the one to come out on top at the end. Thankfully, too, Hill has lost none of his flair in the handling of action sequences…even if, in the long run, the film doesn’t have the lasting power of his best work, namely THE DRIVER (1978), THE WARRIORS (1979) and SOUTHERN COMFORT (1981).