steven@ism70.UUCP (04/15/85)
LADYHAWKE Starring Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. Also starring Leo McKern, John Wood and Ken Hutchison. Directed by Richard Donner. Written by Edward Khmara and Michael Thomas and Tom Mankiewicz. Story by Edward Khmara. Produced by Lauren Shuler and Richard Donner. Photographed by Vittorio Storaro. Production Designed by Wolf Kroeger. Edited by Stuart Baird. Music by Andrew Powell. From Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox. (1985) Monday I'm eating dinner at this pizza restaurant on Ventura, right? And these two guys are sitting next to me; they must be transplanted New Yorker biz types (one of them has on a red rugby shirt with the Paramount logo) and they're talking about movies they've missed in the theater but caught on cable, right? So, it's like everything is a "cute piccha." "Yeah, I saw, uh, what wuz that? _R_o_m_a_n_c_i_n_g_ _t_h_e_ _S_t_o_n_e on HBO de udda night. Cute piccha. Cute piccha." I'm sure these same two guys will be sitting around two years from now waiting for their Porsches to come down off the rack and going, "Yeah, I saw, uh, that Broderick kid last night on cable. _L_a_d_y_h_a_w_k_e. Cute piccha." "Yeah, dat wuz a _c_u_t_e piccha." We're somewhere in the Middle of the Middle Ages. Broderick is Phillipe Gaston, aka Phillipe the Mouse, notorious pickpocket who does the impossible as the movie begins: escape from the dungeons of the Castle of Aquila. Well, the evil Bishop of Aquila (John Wood) cannot let this go unpunished. Bad knights wielding huge, nasty looking broadswords take off on horseback, chase down the Mouse and just as they are about to get to the point of the matter... ... enter the hero. Rutger Hauer. Etienne of Navarre. A manly looking guy on a manly looking steed with cool black armor and a command of hand weapons that would send James Bond skittering to the pavement. Now, Hauer has this curse placed on himself and his lady by none other than the Bishop of Aquila. And common enemies make strange bedfellows, eh what? _L_a_d_y_h_a_w_k_e is a period film straining to escape being called a period film. It has a sense of humor, which most period films lack, and a sense of contemporaneity to its dialogue that makes it _s_o_u_n_d different than, say, _G_r_e_y_s_t_o_k_e. It feels fresh, I think in part because Hollywood has made so few fantasy films of this stripe lately, and they've mostly been dull and dreary. _E_x_c_a_l_i_b_u_r (not even Hollywood, per se) was wonderful, but pretty heavy going at times. _L_a_d_y_h_a_w_k_e has a light, giddy tone to it. And it has a young lead (for the kids), romance (for the young adults), action (for the guys), and a touch of magic (for the diehard sword-and-sorcery folks). It's mostly hit, though it misses in a few spots. The effects are a little cheap. The ending is pretty protracted; they must have wanted to squeeze every last little subclimax they could out of the plot. The performances are all excellent, but sometimes the film feels out of its time rather badly. The orchestral-rockish score works better than I'd expect, but it too seems incongruous at times. The other thing that _L_a_d_y_h_a_w_k_e has going for it is beauty. Not just Michelle Pfeiffer, who has a face that inspires me to write bad poetry, but the scenery and sets and costumes and photography. Vittorio Storaro is generally regarded as one of the world's premiere cinematographers, and this film is the kind of example that you'd point to to prove it. Every frame is so rich with color and composition and... well, you'll see for yourself, hopefully. Three stars out of four.