Warning Sign

With the rise of nuclear power in the 1970s fear of its misuse became something of a mini-fascination in Hollywood with films like The China Syndrome (1979) and Silkwood (1983) that dealt with the misuse and subsequent cover-up of this energy source. These were serious-minded message films. Riding on their coattails was Warning Sign (1985), which dealt with a virus outbreak, the cinematic sibling of the nuclear power disaster film sub-genre, with notable efforts like The Andromeda Strain (1971) and The Crazies (1973). These films were more grounded in the science fiction and horror genres but the message was still the same – we will pay dearly for messing with things we don’t fully understand, resulting in our destruction despite even the best intentions. Director Hal Barwood’s film falls somewhere in-between, with pretentions towards the hard SF of the former and yet delivering the visceral thrills of the latter albeit with a solid cast of notable character actors like Sam Waterston (The Killing Fields), Kathleen Quinlan (Twilight Zone: The Movie), and Yaphet Kotto (Alien).

When a scientist (G.W. Bailey) accidentally steps on a beaker of highly dangerous chemicals unknowingly dropped by another (Richard Dysart), in a sequence that strains credibility, an alarm goes off forcing the plant’s head of security Joanie Morse (Kathleen Quinlan) to lock the place down. Just another day at BioTek Agronomics, a research center for agricultural innovations but is actually a secret laboratory that makes bioweapons for the United States government. Sound familiar? It should. The first few minutes of this film were ripped off pretty heavily by Resident Evil (2002).

Frustrated friends and loved ones gather outside the plant trying to find out what happened, including Sheriff Cal Morse (Sam Waterston), Joanie’s husband. Pretty soon the government arrives to assess the situation led by a Major Connolly (Yaphet Kotto) of the U.S. Accident Containment team. Something doesn’t seem quite right what with Connolly and his men arriving so quickly and Cal figures out the experimental yeast cover story is a bunch of hokum. So, he tracks down ex-BioTek employee Dr. Dan Fairchild (Jeffrey DeMunn) who tells him about the company’s true nature.

Once BioTek is locked down, Barwood (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Matthew Robbins) does a nice job of ratcheting up the tension as Cal figures out what’s really going on. The director also doesn’t waste much time introducing the threat, setting things in motion pretty much right from the get-go and then letting it all play out, first as a procedural and then, as the situation in the lab worsens, a horror film with a government away team encountering people driven into murderous rages by the viral outbreak.

The always watchable Jeffrey DeMunn (The Blob) is excellent as the jaded ex-employee who begrudgingly helps Cal. Along with the local lawman, he acts as a voice of reason and the only hope the former has of being reunited with his wife Joanie. He also gets to deliver a lot of expositional dialogue, filling us and Cal in on how the virus works. DeMunn is such good actor that he can make this dialogue so interesting that we want to know more. A pre-Law & Order Sam Waterston is also believably convincing as the concerned husband who will do anything to get his wife out of the contaminated facility despite his near-paralyzing fear of germs (a tacked on bit of business that is never really developed). The actor brings his customary gravitas to the role, which helps cut down the cringe-inducing bits of dialogue, like at one point saying he feels like Dirty Harry. Fortunately, he and DeMunn do the best they can and play well off each other, Waterston the stand-up lawman and DeMunn the burnout scientist. They make an even better team after breaking into the facility, looking for Quinlan’s beleaguered security chief.

Kathleen Quinlan gives a solid performance as the resourceful security chief faced with the frightening realization that she is trapped in a sealed off facility with co-workers driven crazy by chemicals. She is smart, following protocol to lock things down, and then tough as she bravely navigates the various dangers brought on by the outbreak. She and Waterston have nice chemistry together, even when they are reduced to talking to each other via walkie talkies. They make for believable couple that you want to see reunited. It is also interesting to see these two actors cast against type in action-oriented roles.

Hal Barwood got his start as a screenwriter, often working with Matthew Robbins on films like Corvette Summer (1978) and Dragonslayer (1981), but he always wanted to direct: “In writing, you’re always watching directors ruin your stuff … There’s a tendency to want to get your hands on the controls and do it yourself.” After his screenplay for MacArthur (1977) was butchered (according to Barwood), he and Robbins decided to write and direct their own material. The inspiration for Warning Sign came from history. While researching genetic engineering, they discovered the Borna virus, which occurred in Germany during World War I. It was very rare and only affected horses and other animals, driving them crazy until attacked each other. The other historical factoid they came across was the 1976 outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease in Philadelphia. Robbins found the notion of a “new and hitherto unknown disease infecting people,” fascinating.

He and Robbins did a fair amount of research on viral outbreaks and uncovered little-known germ warfare experiments conducted by the United States in the 1950s, including an incident where the government dispersed a disease by plane off the coast of San Francisco. Interestingly, Barwood didn’t draw upon other viral outbreak films like The Andromeda Strain (1971) for inspiration but rather Night of the Living Dead (1968) because it had the “sensibility of horror happening in the midst of everyday events.” For some time, he planned on Warning Sign to be his directorial debut, done quickly and on a modest $7 million budget originally from the Ladd Company in early 1982 but at some point moving the project to 20th Century Fox. To help temper his inexperience as a director, Barwood cast actors who were skilled and experienced enough that he wouldn’t have to worry about getting good performances out of them.

Warning Sign received mostly mixed to negative reviews from critics. In his review for The New York Times, Jon Pareles wrote, “Warning Sign is unlikely to start a national debate on biological warfare; it does, however, while away the minutes kinetically.” The Globe and Mail’s Salem Alaton said of Barwood’s approach: “He's got a didactic melodrama full of hackneyed messages when he could have made a lively comedy called Night of the Living Post-Graduates.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas praised the performances of DeMunn, Quinlan and Waterston but felt that “for all its energy and considerable technical finesse, it's never fully engaging either.”

Barwood does a nice job of creating a real sense of dread and danger as he utilizes tried and true horror conventions, like fear of the unknown to great effect. He also adopts a siege mentality a la George Romero, making Warning Sign a kind of retroactive prequel to The Crazies as one imagines BioTek being the company that creates the bioweapon unleashed on the unsuspecting townsfolk in Romero’s film. It’s just a shame that time and time again Barwood’s film is let down by its pedestrian script. It is also kind of alarming just how much Resident Evil cribs from Warning Sign only with a bigger budget and an emphasis on action and spectacle. Because Barwood’s film isn’t that well known, disappearing soon after it was released, the connections between the two films are rarely made. For all of its clunky dialogue, Warning Sign is still enjoyable thanks to the performances of DeMunn, Quinlan and Waterston who manage to rise above the material.

SOURCES

Lowry, Brian. “On the set of Warning Sign.” Starlog. September 1985. Pg. 64-66.

Lowry, Brian. “Hal Barwood: The Shock of Directing.” Starlog. December 1985.

Midnight Run

One of the most popular trends in the 1980s cinema was the buddy-action film. The best ones to come out of this period were 48 HRS. (1982), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Lethal Weapon (1987), and Midnight Run (1988), which spawned numerous imitators and sequels. Along with Lethal Weapon, Midnight Run is arguably the genre's last gasp before slipping into formulaic predictability and self-parody (see Rush Hour, Blue Streak, et al). What makes Midnight Run so good, even after all these years, is the unbeatable combination of an excellent cast, a witty script and solid direction.

Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) is a bounty hunter hired by his bail bondsman Eddie Moscone (Joe Pantoliano) to find and transport to Los Angeles, one Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin) — a.k.a. “The Duke,” an accountant who stole $15 million from Las Vegas gangster Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina). What is initially a simple "midnight run" from New York City to Los Angeles, turns into the road trip from hell as Walsh and Mardukas are pursued across the country via plane, train, and automobile by dim-witted gangsters, frustrated FBI agents led by Alonzo Mosely (Yaphet Kotto), and a rival bounty hunter named Marvin Dorfler (John Ashton).

While this film may be a comedy, Brest lets us know right from the get-go that it’s going to have a slightly unpredictable edge to it as Walsh is almost killed by a deadbeat he’s supposed to bring in. If that wasn’t bad enough, his guy is almost snatched away from him by Dorfler. I like that Brest takes the time to show Walsh doing his job and that he’s good at it. The bounty hunter is able to track down and find Mardukas where the Feds and the Mob were unable.

Brest wastes no time introducing the film’s various antagonists starting with Mosely who approaches Walsh on the street. The bounty hunter quickly finds himself surrounded by four FBI agents. Walsh knows what they want and gives them nothing but smartass replies to their questions. Yaphet Kotto doesn’t play Mosely as an inept bumbler but instead brings an impressive intensity to the role that makes his character something of an intimidating figure which, of course, makes his kind of incompetent lackeys that much funnier the more frustrated he gets when they are repeatedly unable to catch Walsh and Markdukas. For example, there’s the withering glare Mosely gives one of his flunkies when he states the painfully obvious – that Walsh has his identification.

Midnight Run adheres to the basic formula of the buddy-action film with two diametrically opposed characters teaming up to fight the bad guys. Inevitably, humorous situations arise from constant bickering while the duo shoots, punches, and fights their way out of action-packed set pieces. Ultimately, what makes Midnight Run work so well is how it messes around with the formula. Instead of having one funny guy and one straight man, you have two straight men with De Niro and Grodin. And yet it works, due in large part to the skill of the two leads who complement each other perfectly — De Niro plays Walsh as a gruff, foul-mouthed guy constantly annoyed by Grodin's clean-cut accountant, armed with a seemingly endless supply of personal questions to ask his traveling companion. Their scenes together seem very spontaneous and real as they annoy the hell out of each other.

Fresh from his scene-stealing appearance in The Untouchables (1987), Robert De Niro was eager to try something different. He wanted to do a comedy and to this end, pursued the lead role in Penny Marshall's film, Big (1988). Marshall was interested but the studio was not and thankfully the role went to Tom Hanks. Martin Brest, who directed Beverly Hills Cop, had found another script by George Gallo in the same vein — one that blended elements of comedy and action. He sent it to De Niro and was very up front with the actor: Midnight Run was a commercial film, not an in-depth character study. Regardless, De Niro researched his role by working with real-life bounty hunters and police officers.

Paramount was originally interested in backing Midnight Run but they wanted a big name star opposite De Niro in order to improve the film's chances at the box office. Their production executives suggested that the Mardukas character be changed to a woman and wanted Cher for the role in the hopes that she would provide some "sexual overtones." Brest wisely rejected the idea and so Paramount suggested teaming De Niro up with Robin Williams. Williams was a big star in his own right and eager to get the role. He even offered to do an audition for Brest — a rarity for the comedian whose name alone could green light projects. However, Brest was impressed by Charles Grodin's audition with De Niro. The director felt that there was a real chemistry between the two actors. As a result, Paramount backed out and the studio’s president Ned Tanen claimed that the budget became too high and decided that “it wasn’t worth it.” Universal Pictures became interested in the project. It is to Brest's credit that he supported Grodin down the line and refused to change his decision despite studio pressure.

Brest brought Grodin aboard with the understanding that the actor would have the opportunity to improvise. Grodin was very much open to De Niro's improvisational technique. He remembered that De Niro "was all about 'work,' plain and simple, and being with him felt like breathing pure oxygen." Some of their best scenes feel like the screenplay was just thrown out and that they simply riffed off one another. For example, the night boxcar scene where Walsh and Mardukas bond, after illegally stowing away on a train, was improvised entirely.

Much of Midnight Run’s humor comes from these moments as they constantly antagonize each other. This relationship is believable because the film takes the time to develop it with many scenes where the two men just talk, and this allows us to get to know them. Most buddy films spend only the bare minimum amount of time on character development and instead cram as many action set pieces and explosions in as possible. As a result, we do not become attached to the characters. Midnight Run does not fall into this trap.

For all of its commercial elements, George Gallo's script has very strong, three-dimensional characters that transcend their stereotypes. It was the script that first drew Grodin to the project. He said in an interview that "the script had dimension beyond what I'm used to seeing. The dimension of character. It looked like a good action-adventure genre picture with strong character evolution." De Niro, being the consummate actor that he is, still manages to inject little touches and details, like a habit of constantly checking his faulty watch, or the nice bit of comedy when he checks out Mosely’s identification that he pickpocketed during their first meeting. De Niro walks away from the camera only to quickly turn around and flash the stolen ID in an amusing parody of an FBI agent. It is these little bits of business that provide insights into his character. Brest commented in an interview that, "sometimes I'd let the camera run after finishing a scene to see if he did any bits, and invariably he did."

From the two leads to the rest of the supporting cast, each character is given a moment or two to say or do something that makes them distinctive and funny. For example, there is John Ashton as Dorfler, a rival bounty hunter who falls for the same stupid trick every time. Dorfler is not just some generic bounty hunter. Ashton transforms him into a self-absorbed idiot who is completely oblivious to the big picture. Even though Dorfler is always on the receiving end of many jokes, he gets his chances to prevail. However, you know that, ultimately, he is destined to fail. Dorfler has a distinctive personality instead of being merely a cardboard cutout.

Joe Pantoliano is so good as the increasingly exasperated bail bondsman. His opening exchange with De Niro early on in the film is so well played. In a matter of moments De Niro and Pantoliano suggest a long history between their two characters in the way they act towards each other. Eddie is a consummate bullshit artist but Walsh sees right through that. I like the nice little detail that Brest throws into this scene where Eddie pays Walsh by taking out a wad of cash stashed in his pink and white socks. It’s details like this that say so much about a character. Eddie cares only about money and his reputation. These characters could have been presented as clichéd stereotypes but Brest wisely casts veteran character actors like Ashton and Pantoliano in these roles.

Many of the supporting characters appear constantly throughout the film in a series of recurring gags, like Mosely running into people who’ve encountered Walsh posing as him, or Mardukas’ never-ending questions about Walsh’s personal life (“Why were you so unpopular with the Chicago Police Department?”), or Dorfler getting fooled by the same trick time and time again. Then there’s Joey (Robert Miranda) and Tony (Richard Foronjy), two dumb Vegas wiseguys that work for Serrano. Tony’s the slightly smarter one but not by much. The give and take between these two minor characters is really funny and the script gives them a moment of actual competency which makes them more than just one-dimensional thugs. It helps that the two actors playing them do such a good job bringing these characters to life.

Much like Yaphet Kotto does with Agent Mosely, Dennis Farina plays his character as if he were in a drama and not a comedy. Unlike his goofier mobsters in Get Shorty (1995) and Snatch (2000), the actor transforms Jimmy Serrano into an imposing figure best illustrated in the scene where he confronts Mardukas and tells him that he’s going to die. For a brief moment, Midnight Run stops being a comedy and there’s a real sense of danger thanks to Farina’s chilling presence in this scene. He’s also quite funny in the scenes where he threatens his underlings with all sorts over-the-top violent acts if they don’t do his bidding.

Midnight Run received mixed reviews from critics of the day. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "What Midnight Run does with these two characters is astonishing, because it's accomplished within the structure of a comic thriller ... It's rare for a thriller to end with a scene of genuinely moving intimacy, but this one does, and it earns it." In his review for the Globe and Mail, Jay Scott praised the performances: "De Niro has the time of his acting life lightening up and sending up all those raging bulls that won him all those Oscars ... Charles Grodin, master of the double-take and maestro of the slow burn, the best light character comic since Jack Benny stopped playing himself." However, The New York Time’s Vincent Canby wrote, "Mr. De Niro and Mr. Grodin are lunatic delights, which is somewhat more than can be said for the movie, whose mechanics keep getting in the way of the performances.” In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson criticized director Martin Brest for, "carrying the dead weight of George Gallo's script, Brest isn't up to the strenuous task of transforming his uninspired genre material in something deeper, and so the attempts to mix pathos with comedy strike us merely as wild and disorienting vacillations in tone.” Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, "The outline of George Gallo's script – odd-couple antagonists become buddies under perilous circumstances – was stale five years ago, and the outcome offers no surprises. Too bad: a lot of good work has been wasted on an unworthy cause.”

Nowadays, it’s hard to remember when De Niro doing a comedy was something of an anomaly. Sure, he had done The King of Comedy (1983) but by and large he was known at the time as a dramatic actor. So, teaming him up with veteran comedic actor Charles Grodin in an action comedy must’ve seemed like a risky prospect to the studio. But this would be tempered with director Brest behind the camera. This was years before Gigli (2003) when he was still enjoying the good will from the smash hit Beverly Hills Cop. If anybody could make De Niro funny while still retaining his trademark intensity, it was Brest.

Now, there is a whole generation of filmgoers that only knows De Niro from comedies like Meet the Parents (2000) and Analyze That (2002). Charles Grodin has, for the most part, shunned the limelight. He had a short-lived talk show and appears occasionally on The Tonight Show but has, unfortunately, not done anything on par with his work in Midnight Run. In fact, he hasn’t acted since 1994 and said in a recent interview that he has quit acting altogether. By the late 1980s, early 1990s, the buddy-action film had become a tired and hackneyed cliche. Screenwriter Shane Black offered a brief breath of fresh air with Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout (1991) but generic time-wasters, like De Niro’s own Showtime (2002), Serving Sara (2002), which blatantly rips off Midnight Run, or the more recent The Bounty Hunter (2010), are still cranked out with predictable regularity by the studios. Back in 1988, Brest delivered the goods in a big way, serving up an R-rated film that mixed exciting car chases and shoot-outs with hilarious recurring gags and assortment of colorful characters.

SOURCES

“De Niro is Making the Publicity Rounds.” St. Petersburg Times. May 23, 1988.

Grodin, Charles. It Would Be So Nice If You Weren’t Here. William & Morrow & Company, Inc. 1989.

O’Regan, Michael. “The Private De Niro.” Sunday Mail. July 17, 1988.

Parker, John. De Niro. Victor Gollancz. 1995.

Van Gelder, Laurence. “Off a Cliff, Across an Ocean: Splash!” The New York Times. July 21, 1988.