8 Million Ways to Die
                                                                                                  
Director: Hal Ashby
Year: 1986
Rating: 5.5
Director Hal Ashby and scriptwriter Oliver Stone for some reason decided to take private eye Matthew Scudder out of the grit and grime of New York City and transport him to sunny Los Angeles. This wasn't as bad a decision as taking Philip Marlowe out of L.A. and placing him in London in Robert Mitchum's The Big Sleep - but Scudder is as New York as Sabrett hot dogs and prostitutes of unknown gender on 11th avenue. They cut the heart out of the character and turn him into a genial smiling blonde-haired dude who should be riding surfboards. My guess is they did it because they didn't want to leave home and go live in NYC for a few months. It's not like great fictional detectives haven't worked in Los Angeles - Marlowe, Archer, Easy Rawlins - but Lawrence Block's character of Scudder feels like he has NYC in his blood and the smell of every lowlife bar in his hair. Every bartender from Brooklyn to the Bronx can call Scudder by name and name his drink. L.A. is a floating city, nothing is permanent or solid. Not even the drunks.



But this is now the home of Scudder (Jeff Bridges). In this one he shoots a man holding a baseball bat right in the chest in front of his family. That is his tipping point. And losing his wife and daughter to the demon alcohol. He goes to AA and straightens out - a big theme in the books - and takes on off the book jobs after leaving the sheriff's department. When one of his AA folks hands him a $100 bill and asks him to see a friend, off he goes. It is an upscale gentleman's club of sorts that you need to take a vehicular to get to. Inside the plush interior are betting tables and women with time on their hands. It is run by Chance (Randy Brooks) a pimp that Scudder once bounced. Playing the tables is Angel (Andy Garcia) who wears his malice like chain armor. Don't fuck with me should be inscribed on his forehead. He has the eyes of a cobra. Garcia is the best thing in the film seething with a beast inside that desperately wants to break out.



The woman who sent him the $100 invitation is one of the available women - Sunny (Alexandra Paul) - plays cool but once she gets Scudder away tells him that she is frightened for her life from Chance and needs his help to protect her till she gets on a plane the next day. Simple enough except for that stop at the cleaners - she is taken and murdered - and he hits the bottle like a security blanket. Once he sobers up, he decides he needs to find the killer to redeem himself. He fucked up. He hooks up with another one of the girls at the club - Sarah (Rosanna Arquette) - a favorite of both Chance and Angel. The film is poorly paced and there seems to be no real story to hang on to. Bridges plays Scudder like a lightweight among heavies - nothing he does seems to make sense but then none of the characters seem to have much of a motivation to do what they do. The stand-off in the warehouse though is done really well - it has the tension that the rest of the film is missing.