Big Trouble

If I could I would rate this film a 4.5. This is John Cassavetes' final film. He did not write it. In fact, he was asked to step into the director's chair after the original director exited for some reason. He did not write it. The director who quit co-wrote it. That was Andrew Bergman. Who knows why he quit and had his name removed. But putting Cassavetes in charge was a very smart rule. The only reason this film has never achieved an audience beyond the devoted Cult Following it has is because Columbia Pictures panicked over the production issues. There is really nothing about this movie's plot that would normally concern the great filmmaker. Or maybe not. The interesting thing is that Cassavetes imprint is most certainly present. Always off-the-collar-brilliant, Peter Falk is in top form. Alan Arkin, a great "straight-man" who is even better when allowed to play "unhinged." The rest of the cast is an amazing group of movie actors, but here it feels as if they've been given a level of freedom to play their roles. Valerie Curtain is clearly having fun. In fact, every actor seems to be having a ball bouncing off each other as if in some strange goofy alternate universe. Like Falk and Arkin, Beverly D'Angelo appears to be given full comedic freedom. These three actors play their roles so well together it is hard to even articulate why or how the manage to create truly hilarious moments. The plot itself is sort of parody of the classic "Double Indemnity" merged with the essential formula utilized for Falk/Arkin in the 1979 hit, "The In-Laws." ...But none of this really matters. It isn't the script that works -- the entire success of this overlooked and often forgotten movie belongs to the cast and the director smart enough to allow them to play outside the edges. It may not be great art or as great a film as you might have wanted to think marked the final turn of one of cinema's true geniuses. But this film is not a "toss-away” cinematic blunder. There is comic gold here.