Ms. 45 (1981)

Ms. 45 (UR)

"...Deadlier than the Male"

A beautiful young woman is sexually assaulted on her way home from her job in New York's garment district.  He wears a mask, puts a gun in her face and tells her he'll shoot if she makes a sound.  She drags herself home afterwards only to find a burglar ransacking her home.  Taking her for an easy target, and not finding any easy cash, he too begins to assault the poor girl.  Her name is Thana and ironically she is mute, the only sound she makes is with the business end of the .45 caliber  pistol that she soon uses on any man she lures into her violent web of revenge and obsession in cult director Abel Ferrara's gritty street level tale of deadly Miss out for misandry and murder.

Ms. 45 is almost a female retelling of the  anti-hero mythos, one that crosses society taboos and laws into vigilantism and psychopathic behavior with a feminine wile.  Ferrara's grounding of the world in 80s New York is as solid here as in his other,  more well known film Bad Lieutenant (1992).  The city in these films is a character unto itself, completely alive in it's own place and time.  His ability to build tension and produce entertainment while maintaining quality on an independant budget is astonishing, as is his star Zoe Lund's exceptionally beautiful, cold personification of feminine wrath.  She goes through a transformation from mousy mute virgin to stone cold man-murdering black widow without an eyelash out of place.  She just wants to be left alone,and apparently the only way she can do that is by murdering the entire male population of New York City

On paper, Ms.45 sounds like just another of the era's "video nasties," an exploitative WHAM-BAM- "DON'T KILL ME"-MA'AM shooter for those male film geeks salivating for more I Spit On Your Grave's sadomasochistic pleasures.  It has a thread bare story with one gimmick and no plot turns, gritty locations and weak side stories (like the one about a nosy landlady and Phil her dog who are both iffy actors).  Yet it thrives because of Zoe Lund's unreadable eyes can seem to mask a palpable pain afloat in a lake of ice cold revenge, turning the film into a horror story of a woman wronged by an entire gender who better watch out.  The violence she perpetrates is less explicit on screen than the double rape that "created" her, allowing for forgiveness of her crimes that, combined with her beauty and grace, generate a remarkable anti-hero cum psychopath with real pathos and considerable pull into cult status.  Despite her own overcompensating quest for vengeance (lots of innocent men suffer her wrath), she is never reviled or scorned, neither on or off the screen.  She is both pitied and cheered by those watching, and as a result the femsploitation genre gets delightfully turned on its ear.  In the 70s if Pam Grier shot some dudes in cold blood it was ok because she was nude for most of the film and no ones going to complain, and they were usually rapey drug dealers or something.  Ferrara used that same cinema-bait as a starting point, but keeps Thana clothed like an unattainable supermodel in a fashion advertisement, cold and aloof behind a wall of unrequited rage.  As her wrath grows so does her skirt's hem length, subverting the usual primal drives of exploitation cinema to empower female characters and audience members alike.

Culminating in a slow motion fueled bullet ridden Halloween party with Thana armed as a slutty Nun (mmm, symbolism!), Ms. 45 ends with a BANG, a whisper and a well deserved reputation for entertainment with a bullet.

8 Don't Eat Her Sausage Phil! out of 10 (GREAT)

Thief (1981)

Thief (R)

"Honor among Films"

Before electrifying 80s television with the cinematic crime series "Miami Vice" that catapulted him to fame, Director Micheal Mann wrote and directed this superb noir starring James Caan as a safecracker trying to do one more heist and go straight for his new found love and life.

Mann brings such a hard edge and slick sense of style to the film it's pulse is palpable.  Caan's thief is a palpable antihero, an ultimate professional who has pulled himself by his bootstraps above street crime to profitability and self-righteous dignity.  Unfortunately those he works among are missed the notice about honor among thieves, and through a disconnected series of events makes his last play at love, life and respectability while his new bosses try to suck him farther and farther into a new career of crime.  One of Caan's most powerful roles, he is trapped between the need for wealth, need for love and the need for legitimacy.  He is an uneducated, brutal bleeding heart whose only fear is a return to prison.

The rough edges of character and directly balanced out by Mann's best visuals and style.  Thief crackles with energy, even in the shadows, and the final shootout brings a neon-lit Peckinpah vibe to the violence.  His most visually striking film is also his first, and his best written characterization on screen until the release of Heat, Thief steals the show for both Mann and Caan.

9 Blue Jeans and Windbreakers with a .45 out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)

Blow Out (1981)

Blow Out (R) - Review

"Sounds like..."

Brian De Palma (Scarface) directs John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever) as a B-Movie sound fx editor who witnesses a murder made out to be an accident with his audio recording equipment.   He and the surviving woman (Nancy Allen) must evade a political assassin (John Lithgow) as they attempt to unravel the mystery without losing their lives.

De Palma also wrote the film, which is almost a too direct homage/mash-up of two earlier and far superior films:  Blow Up and The Conversation.  The movie is very well made (though considering the 2 templates he used that is no surprise) yet almost over stylized in its camera work, especially the finale.  It does have an interesting look inside late 70s, early 80s independant movies, in particular showcasing the process and ingenuity of sound editing of a bygone era.  An entertaining movie, yet no where near as powerful or artistic as its source material.

7 Literally Shotgun Mics out of 10 (GOOD)