Saturday, August 26, 2017

Movie review - "Cat's Eye" (1985) **1/2

I have a fondness for this film because I saw it at the cinema when a kid. I thought then what I do now - it's a patchy half-success with good moments. The device used to cobble the stories together - a cat coming to the rescue - is kind of weird but has a charm, in part because there are so few cat heroes in films.

The stories are all strong - but the first two are very different in tone to the last. "Quitters Inc" is very good - it was great on the page - helped with a cast that includes James Woods and Alan King. I was thrown to see Drew Barrymore as Woods' daughter, who is meant to be disabled (she seems fine); it was fun to see James Rebhorn in the cast and Mary D'Arcy was sweet as Woods' wife.

"The Ledge" benefits from a strong cast, including Robert Hays (why didn't he become a bigger star?) and especially Kenneth McMillan who is terrifying as a mafia style boss. I felt maybe this one was too jokey - the terror of going around a ledge wasn't really nailed; Lewis Teague always had a lot of pace and action in his films but this one perhaps could've used more suspense. And what happened to Mike Starr's hoodlum character? Wasn't he meant to be hanging around McMillan?

"General" is a fun fantasy adventure with some excellent troll work. But it's very different from the others in tone because its fantasy - whereas the others were more realistic. The concept of "General" actually could have made a feature on it's own - it probably raises too many questions as a short (why are the trolls there, why are they doing it, etc). It sightly throws out the film. But it has a strong cast - Barrymore, Candy Clark, James Naughton (their house is elaborate - everyone in this film has a lot of money) and the cat.

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