Review: Eyewitness

William Hurt plays a janitor whose immigrant boss is murdered one night whilst Hurt is in the bowels of the building on night duty. He discovers the body, but not what led up to it. However, he tells TV news reporter Sigourney Weaver that he has vital information about the case. This is because Hurt has a giant, slightly creepy crush on the woman and wants to get to know her. Weaver works this out pretty quickly, but is oddly attracted to Hurt, and a romance begins, despite her current engagement to Jewish Intelligence agent Christopher Plummer. Plummer is currently involved in a program to help Russian Jews find their way to safety and happiness in America. Weaver’s rich parents (including mother Irene Worth) are also involved in the program. Meanwhile, two investigating cops (Steven Hill and Morgan Freeman) turn up looking for the culprit, and Hurt starts to suspect that his shifty co-worker James Woods might be the guilty party (He was recently fired for being kind of a dick). Pamela Reed plays Woods’ sister, whom he tries to push towards Hurt, even though there are no sparks between them. Kenneth McMillan plays Hurt’s sour, wheelchair-bound father.

 

Well-acted but frustratingly uneven 1981 flick from director Peter Yates (“Bullitt”, “The Dresser”, “Breaking Away”) and screenwriter Steve Tesich (“Breaking Away”, “The World According to Garp”, “American Flyers”) that never quite comes off. There’s not enough focus on the central murder plot, and when it does, it’s neither mysterious nor particularly interesting. The rest of the film is more interesting, but also not nearly as relevant. Also, as good as William Hurt and particularly Christopher Plummer are, I’m not sure I entirely bought Hurt as a motorcycle-riding romantic-type, and Plummer seemed just a tad too old for his role, despite both actors’ best efforts to convince me otherwise (Plummer is typically rock-solid nonetheless). I know a lot of people like Hurt’s awkwardness, but I really felt a more traditional leading man would’ve been better, like Ted Danson, Jeff Bridges, or Kevin Costner (Not sure any of them would convince as a janitor, mind you, but neither does Hurt, really. I didn’t mind that so much, though). It’s not an acting problem, it’s a casting one, if that makes any sense (“Body Heat” is the other film from 1981 that tried to give us William Hurt: Sexy Lover Man, and it was the better film of the two by far). Cast Jeff Bridges for Hurt and maybe Ron Silver or Bruce Dern in the Plummer part, and you’d be closer to the mark without losing the quality of acting.

 

I love Sigourney Weaver, always have, even if she can be a tad chilly at times on screen and has been badly wasted in the last couple of years. When she’s on song, she’s terrific, a mixture of Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway, I think. She’s probably the best piece of casting in this film, in a role that indeed reminded me of a combination of Fonda and Dunaway. James Woods may be accused of trying too hard to get noticed here, but I don’t think it subtracts anything from the film so much as it gives the film some edge and energy that you certainly won’t get from William Bloody Hurt. He’s terrifically shifty in that inimitable Woods way (One of the cops has a great line about how when the Woods character was a kid, he must’ve wanted to grow up to be a suspect!). Y’know, one of these days, someone’s gonna fill me in on why Pamela Reed stopped getting big roles after “Kindergarten Cop”. I swear I’ve barely seen her on screen since 1990 and I very much like her. She’s a lot younger here in a supporting role, and quite good. Playing one of a pair of cops (the other played by the underrated Steven Hill), Morgan Freeman reminds you how much of a shame it is that his career took off so late in life. Aside from his terrible bad guy turns in “Hard Rain” and the appalling “Dreamcatcher”, he’s one of cinema’s finest (He did play one amazing bad guy role in “Street Smart” in 1987, garnering a much deserved Oscar nomination for it), though he doesn’t get much chance to show it in this bland role.

 

The film has been really well-shot by frequent 80s/90s action movie cinematographer Matthew F. Leonetti (“Commando”, “Red Heat”, “Action Jackson”, “Hard to Kill”), it’s a dark and shadowy film without being murky or too dark. Meanwhile, the late Kenneth McMillan is terrific as Hurt’s miserable father, but with only 10-15 minutes left to wrap up the main plot, what the hell were Yates and Tesich (who himself is a former janitor and apparently had an infatuation with a news anchorwoman) doing dicking around with that character? Sure, it adds character, but at what cost? Do they even know what they wanted this movie to really be about? I’m not so sure, it’s seemingly trying to be too many things at once, with not enough time for it all to play out properly. I’ve read that the screenplay is a mixture of two scripts Tesich had written, and perhaps that explains it somewhat (I’ve also read that he cares more about character than plot, and that explains a lot!). Although it’s very easy to work out who the guilty party/parties is/are here, I’m still not entirely sure why the victim was murdered, to be honest, nor did I entirely believe that the person/s responsible would resort to such a thing. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the grievance, I just don’t see why they had to die, and I simply didn’t believe it as played out in the film. Perhaps removing some of the less relevant elements, and beefing up this aspect of the story would’ve improved things overall. Some seem to actually like the scenes with McMillan and Reed, and from a performance POV only I do too, but for me these scenes are at the expense of the central story and energy/pacing.

 

Look, I liked some of this, and although they may not all suit their roles perfectly, there isn’t a bad performance to be found in the film (James Woods and Sigourney Weaver are especially terrific). The story just isn’t very interesting, surprising, or well-told. I wish I liked this one, but I don’t.

 

Rating: C+