I watched this instead of the VP debates. Glad I did. Haven't seen it since its HBO days 20 years ago! An underrated '80s crime drama with great performances from Penn & Walken, cool '80s synth score (Madonna's "Live to Tell" w/o lyrics!), moody cinematography, & a cool climactic confrontation (the title gives you a hint). Great death scene with Chris Penn, alas. "Is this the family gun, Dad?!" Damn.
You see Christopher Walken and Sean Penn in a movie together. You hear that this movie was greatly overlooked in the 80?s and should have garnered some Oscar noms. You think this movie will be good, right? Wrong. At Close Range is just completely dull. It?s unclear whether this is a result of the script, or the acting. The story itself has a lot of boring and unnecessary scenes, and only figures out where it wants to go in the last 45 minutes. The characters were unrealistic and not developed. A father that shares pot and beer with his sons and *SPOILER* kills them to save his own ass? Not very true to life. *END SPOILER *. Sean Penn is alright in the lead and has some truly great moments, but he was not the magnificent actor he would become in Mystic River and I Am Sam. Christopher Walken is amusing, but mostly because of his fantastic moustache. His acting here is nowhere close to his best work, despite what others are saying. There is also one of Walken?s henchmen, who plays a cartoon character hick, complete with corny accent and yellowing teeth. Even the soundtrack is corny, using typical 80?s synth music and to create tension, ominous drones. On the whole, the movie just feels dead and unsatisfying. With two actors as good as Penn and Walken, this should have been a classic.
Excellent movie! Relentlessly intense and depressing. Powerhouse performances by Sean Penn and Christopher Walken. At Close Range is based on the true story of one of the most notorious gangs in the history of Pennsylvania that was led by Bruce Johnston.
The True Story -
The gang and its wide network stole primarily in Chester County, according to a 1980 Pennsylvania Crime Commission report, but they made their way into Lancaster County on several occasions. They also crossed the state lines to Maryland and Delaware. They stole items ranging from antiques to drugs.
In each break-in or theft, gang members used their skill in picking locks, cracking safes and disarming or averting security systems. They used walkie-talkies and police scanners. While planning a job in one part of the county, they would divert the state police by phoning a false report elsewhere.
The Crimes -
1971
August 1971: Dutch Wonderland's castle on Lincoln Highway East. One of the men pried open the door to the park's shop, a small building hidden from the road. The burglars gathered a hammer, crowbar, rope and torch. They brought their own walkie-talkies. The men prepared for descent into the park office, in what would later become the worst-ever burglary of the popular tourist attraction. The police believe the culprits were David, Norman and Bruce Johnston Sr and their associates - all members of the "Johnston Gang". The burglars got
$33,000 worth of loot.
1975
The gang broke into the Meadie Heights Country Club's pro shop. They made off with $15,000 in money and golf equipment later that year. They drilled holes in the side of the Meadia Heights pro shop and disarmed the alarm system. They dynamited the safe. None of the merchandise was recovered.
1976
Janet Gazzerro and her husband Frank were convicted of bribing a juror who was on the Chester County Common Pleas Court where among others Bruce Johnston Sr was accused of the theft of a tractor. Janet and Frank received $83,000 in stolen Oriental rugs, jewelry and furs. Janet said that Bruce Sr gave her two or three garden tractors, she kept one or two and the third one went to the juror. Bruce Sr, David and Norman Johnston and Roy Myers were acquitted of the theft charges.
1978
April: The brothers transported $21,900 in stolen cigarettes across state lines. They all pleaded guilty to this crime in 1981.
May: The three brothers stole $28,000 from Longwood Gardens in Chester County. In 1981 they were serving two-to-four year sentences for convictions on state charges of this crime.
The Kiddy Gang -
In 1977 Bruce Johnston Jr. started the Kiddy gang under supervision of his dad Bruce Sr. With the Kiddy gang, they stole small garden tractors, dealt in cigarettes and a lot more. They also stole car parts for Bruce Sr. to resell.
In the summer of 1977, while Bruce Jr. was in prison for petty crimes, his girlfriend Robin Miller claimed she had been raped. Bruce Jr., then 20, agreed to testify against the family, according to newspaper accounts of the gang.
As investigators began questioning other members of the gang, including Bruce Sr.'s stepson Jimmy Johnston, the three senior Johnstons plotted to kill the informants.
In August 1977, Jimmy Johnston and three other members of the Kiddy gang were shot in the head and dumped in a hole. Kiddy gang member James Sampson - whose younger brother was killed earlier - demanded to know where his brother was and was killed in the same way.
Norman and David tried to carry out a $15,000 contract placed by Bruce Sr. on his son. On August 30, 1977, Bruce Jr. was shot nine times during an attack outside his then-fiancée Robin Miller's area home. He survived and later testified against his father and uncles. Miller died in the attack.
Bruce Jr was placed in the federal witness protection program . He has since left the program and goes by his real name.
Although the movie doesn't cover all of this it does show a great deal of what really happened. Very intense movie and very sad too. This is definitely a must see. Powerful, powerful film...and scary as well(in the real life sense). Highly Recommended!
At one point, I was looking at how many films I owned with certain actors in them, amongst the names on that list were Sam Neill, Christopher Walken and Kiefer Sutherland--essentially actors I'm a big enough fan of that I felt their miniscule appearances in my DVD collection were not accurately representative of my appreciation of their talents. As such, I began browsing their filmographies on IMDb and adding films that were well-reviewed overall and/or sounded interesting.
Imagine my surprise when I stumble across a film I'd never heard of that stars Christopher Walken and Sean Penn (!). A glance at the credits further adds Sean's brother Chris, who I like as well, and looking further down we can even find a pre-Lost Boys Kiefer Sutherland, Crispin Glover and even Tracey Walter (aka "Bob," the Joker's "number one guy" in Tim Burton's Batman). As I was watching, a voice and face jumped out attached to a name that wouldn't immediately do so--Stephen Geoffreys, known to fans of 80s horror as Fright Night's "Evil Ed." Great voice that guy had then (I'd imagine he still has it, but perhaps it has flattened itself out from that oddly jerky calliope of constantly nervous tone).
Brad Whitewood, Jr. (Sean Penn) is a slacker in a small family, living with his mother, brother Tommy (naturally his real brother Chris) and grandmother (Eileen Ryan--MOTHER of Chris and Sean), smoking pot, working on his truck and generally having fun but doing little of responsibility. He meets a girl, Terry (Mary Stuart Masterson), and falls hard. Randomly one day, a man enters their home and leaves money for their mother. Brad is transfixed and begins to follow the man--his father, Brad Whitewood, Sr. (Walken), who gives him a car and some money, then eventually lets him join up with Big Brad's gang of thieves who often work by stealing tractors then laundering money in simplistic ways. When he is exposed to the ruthlessness of his father, Brad begins to forge out on his own, a misfiring tractor theft plan with his friends (including Geoffreys, Glover and Sutherland) leads to his arrest. Now he begins to really see the man his father is, and it's not quite who he thought, nor even quite what we thought.
Is it any surprise to say performances in this movie are excellent? I sure hope not. If it is, you are either unfamiliar with the names I've mentioned or mis-read them. Walken is disturbingly intense and cold as the unforgiving and amoral Brad, Sr. and Penn brings an appreciable sense of worship to the father he has just discovered, as well as an appropriate sense of ignorant naïveté as regards the life of crime his father lives. Masterson is excellent as a young girl trying to act older than herself to match the men around her, defending Penn--foolishly--against his father's gang as they snicker at his desire to enter the gang.
The movie is dark, it's bleak, it's unhappy and it pulls no punches. Apparently based on a true story (I normally read about them before writing reviews when this occurs, but have not this time) but seeming most definitely like something we hope is NOT real. The tone and atmosphere, though, are my favourite. Most of the score is actually an instrumental version of Penn's then-wife Madonna's song "Live to Tell," an aching synthetic piano and keyboard line which, in my 80's-infected brain is the perfect example of heartstring-pulling, over even some of the most beautiful scores of the likes of Morricone. This is not to say it's better, but I feel some kind of greater identification with these half-false sounds than I do with the real ones, thanks to the things that I grew up with. It has a feel similar to Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 opus Near Dark, which has a fantastic Tangerine Dream score, and is a film I openly identify as perfectly capturing the kind of feel and cinematography that hits something deep inside me. A sort of darkness to everything, but one filled with thick, rich colours that are just above reality without crossing into the more modern lines of the carefully controlled and orchestrated colouration. It feels like reality, in some ways, as this richness enhances existing elements of reality in the film, bringing things that would otherwise seem like real theatricality--i.e., events we can see and identify with--and bringing them more to life by giving them that extra edge of sense-battering feeling, using the artificially enhanced colour to bring a flat screen to life, simply by having that much greater an effect on our sense of sight.
There's a very haunting scene toward the end composed primarily of extreme close-ups against a black background with that same synthetic instrumental pop ballad scoring which perfectly captures the correct usage of music video editing in a non-action film. It is not about how many cuts or how many close-ups and images can be crammed into a space of time, but what simple images can be used to rapidly convey ideas and feelings in a reduced amount of time.
I've just got to point out that Crispin Glover's hairstyle and behaviour, including his acting, in this movie further worry me about his actual mental state. I think this guy is at least slightly nuts, or possibly some sort of alien. I suppose he just blazes his own path and all, which I can identify with, but, man, I hope for his sake that this strange insanity does not get him into trouble or leave him FEELING as alienated as he looks. If you doubt what I say, look for some of his late night interviews. Something is going on there. Maybe he just enjoys playing with people (a la Andy Kaufman) but I don't know. Perhaps there are chemicals involved...
It was clear to see in this film what a great actor Sean Penn was going to become. A very slender Chris Penn plays his on and off screen brother and the talented Christopher Walken his father.
Slightly drawn out, this film shows a teenage delinquent who is impressed by his real father's reputation and gets deeper and deeper into crime. The moral of the story gives out a very strong messge.
VERDICT: An enjoyable, but slightly slow to watch, but worth watching
Sean Penn, sooooooooooooo hot in this film , oh please berlin sing it one more time he took my breath away lol lol lol i did enjoy this film very much and christopher walken very rich
it wasnt as good as i thought it would have been with the actors that are in it the storyline was pretty crap and the actors didnt do that good of a job
This is a great film based on a true story. Sean Penn and Christopher Walken are great in this film. A great 1986 drama film that is a classic that should be seen.
Christopher Walken is outstanding as a low-life criminal. His character throughout is spooky and unpredictable. Sean Penn is great as a son trying to make sense of his family roots. Overall, a good film, but was never highly touted in Hollywood.
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