Hard Time (1998) - 6.0
Pretty
darn good cast for a TV movie of the week with Burt Reynolds, Charles Durning,
Robert Loggia, Mia Sara and Billy Dee Williams. All of them are favorites
of mine. Had a crush on Mia Sara ever since Ferris Beuller's Day Off. And
Loggia and Durning are two great character actors. Billy Dee is just Billy
Dee. And this is Burt right after his career rebirth in Boogie Nights. Ok,
even with all of the praise he received for his role in that, he was still
primarily stuck in low budget films or TV for the rest of his career. He
deserved better. This is the first of three films TNT signed him up for to
play Det. Logan McQueen on the Miami police force. He directs this one.
This is a fairly standard cop TV plot, but
the actors make it quite watchable, in particular Durning who as Reynold's
partner is terrific. Reynolds and Durning are two older cops assigned to
the graffiti squad. The unambitious Durning seems to have had an orgy with
Dunkin Donuts. He is a walking heart attack. When he chases after a few suspects,
you want someone to bring him a chair to rest in. It is like a garden snail
going after a grasshopper.
While looking for graffiti artists, Reynolds
spots an ongoing crime. Three young hoods stealing a briefcase from a man.
In the chase, Reynolds is knocked down, his gun taken and he finds one of
the hoods dead. Durning is miles behind trying to remember how to breathe.
Reynolds is charged with killing the punk by DA Williams, Sara is his lawyer
(and I prayed that the much older Reynolds doesn't seduce her with his crinkly
eyed charm) and Loggia is a mafia head. 90-minutes. For a TV movie, slightly
better than passable. Good enough to watch the next one. But I am easy.
Hard Time: The
Premonition (1999) - 4.5
At the end of the first film in this three
film set, it looked as if Logan McQueen (Burt Reynolds) might be headed for
the slammer for a crime he didn't commit and that his long time friendship
with his partner (Charles Durning) was on the rocks. And in the second film,
he is in fact in jail with a one year sentence. I wonder if his lawyer was
Mia Sara? If so, he needed a new one. There was no motive and there was a
witness to another person confessing to the crime. In jail, he grows his
gray hair long, gets beat up and eventually gets his own cell in the to be
executed wing. This being Florida, there is a waiting list. One of them is
played by Bruce Dern in psycho mode. A serial killer of sixteen women. And
proud of it.
Someone out there is leaving bombs in women's
cars and Dern claims to be having dreams of them. Accurate ones. After McQueen
is released he contacts the cops with this info. Dern will only tell more
if he gets to talk to his daughter. But even the Reynold's charm won't get
her to do. But it gets him something else. This makes zero sense. I wonder
if those two cops watching the suspect's house ever woke up. But the worst
thing is that Durning is barely in it. We want more Durning.
Hard Time: Hostage
Hotel (1999) - 5.0
The final installment in this three picture
deal with TNT with Burt Reynolds again reprising his role as Logan McQueen,
now ex-cop of the Miami police force after a year in jail for something he
did not do. He is a bounty hunter now and is still on the outs with his old
partner played by Charles Durning. Durning is a fuck up in almost every way
and how he survived years as a cop is a miracle. I think in the real world,
he and Reynolds were buddies and he shows up in a number of Reynold's films.
Vietnam vet played by Keith Carradine takes
a few hostages in an old deserted hotel and sets booby traps all over. He
was a tunnel rat in the war. The FBI show up being assholes and for a reason
we never really understand, Carradine wants Durning as the negotiator. After
they wake him up and sober him up, he goes into the hotel. McQueen knows
he will fuck up and so goes in after him. Not much to it, but did like the
booby traps of bombs and killing nails. This is directed by Hal Needham
who had directed Reynolds in a bunch of films previously. My guess is Needham
needed the work and this was his last film.
