|
Alphabetic Index
|
Ratings Index
|
Web Resources
|
Alphabetic Index
|
Ratings Index
|
Web Resources
While Mary attends the odd victim support session, giving voice to her internal scars, Freddy has decided that his own therapy lies in strip-joints. Every night he gets drunk with his bar-fly friends and attempts to bed yet another young dancer (with remarkable success). These empty, worthless exchanges of fluid numb the pain just enough to let Freddy (barely) function as a jeweller. Mary is rebuilding her life with new husband Roger (Robbie Robertson) and two children; Freddy suspends himself in limbo, counting down the days until his personal nemesis John Booth (David Morse) is released from prison. Then Freddy can kill him.
As expected, John is spat out by the justice system and into the arms of his ever-loving parents Helen (Piper Laurie) and Stuart (Richard Bradford). Glad just to be with their son, to touch and talk to him, the Booth's are soon back in suburbia. With a trailer in the yard, John has a chance to reorientate himself and rebuild some sort of life. The only thing stopping him is his own corrosive guilt, a crushing weight that colours his waking hours. His fatal mistake still haunts him, to the extent that John is compelled to track down his victim's grave (where he glimpses Mary). Of course, the other barrier preventing John's return to normality is the sudden appearance of Freddy during his first night of freedom. Despite the fact that Mary is bitterly opposed to this action and that Freddy has never visited Emile's grave, he is determined to seek a twisted form of justice.
The central theme of The Crossing Guard, which is that isolated actions should not be used as the basis of life-or-death decisions, is a simple one. In this case the presumption that John is an evil, unrepentant drunk who would do the same thing again is plainly false. There are people like that but sweeping judgements cannot be made just on that stereotype, instead only on individual cases. Freddy, with his internalised, seething rage, is guilty of this generalisation, although he is shown the error of his ways. In many respects John and Freddy are two sides of the same man, bound by an accident and expressing linked reactions. In other words, they are human (and thus fallible).
However, this connection and the overall tone of The Crossing Guard suffers from being pushed too hard by director Sean Penn. Instead of allowing the pain to breath he suffocates it, overloading the anger and grinding frustration which comprise the kernel of the story. The result of this over- eagerness is a surfeit of superfluous scenes and tendency to complicate shots with slow-motion when there's no call for it (which deadens its impact). Added to this is the drawback that the characters are too simple, although Nicholson and Morse do well with what they're given. Forcing the point by demonizing Freddy and beatifying John, the ambiguity which real people contain is washed out.
Beneath this dead-wood The Crossing Guard is at least sincere. Penn obviously cares for this topic and works hard to make it come across, which it does to a certain degree. Unfortunately immature handling condemns this worthy attempt with its overtly manipulative feel, not to mention the cinematic baggage which Nicholson brings with him.
|
Alphabetic Index
|
Ratings Index
|
Web Resources