Review: Against the Wall

The story of the Attica prison riot in 1971, with second generation guard Kyle MacLachlan being caught in the middle so new to the job. He’s disgusted at the conditions within the prison as well as the brutal behaviour of many of his fellow guards, all of which contribute to the eventual violent unrest. Frederic Forrest plays the most antagonistic of the guards, whilst Clarence Williams III and Steve Harris whoop their fellow prisoners up into a frenzy as the situation gets completely out of control and the power dynamic shifts. Samuel L. Jackson is Jamaal X, who initially stands back and observes, occasionally trying to reason with his more psychotic comrades that killing guards probably won’t get things to improve within Attica. Harry Dean Stanton plays MacLachlan’s dad, Tom Bower is MacLachlan’s uncle and fellow guard, Anne Heche is MacLachlan’s wife, who needs more financial support for their growing family. Carmen Argenziano and Philip Bosco play Superintendent Mancusi and the Corrections Commissioner Oswald, respectively.

 

Although it won director John Frankenheimer (“The Birdman of Alcatraz”, “The Train”, “Seven Days in May”, “Ronin”) an Emmy, this 1994 TV drama from HBO is a bit of a lumpy affair. Some of it is very powerful indeed, and some of it very interesting. Some of it however, is overblown, and in the case of lead Kyle MacLachlan, miscast. It’s a heck of a true story and overall still works well enough to be recommended, though I think I’d much rather watch a documentary about the subject. The situation at Attica was beyond fucked up. It was a senseless bloodbath, and a truly harrowing and shameful event that will make you angry – especially when you read the postscript. Wow. Just…wow.

 

Scripted by Ron Hutchinson (A lot of TV work, plus Frankenheimer’s notorious misfire “The Island of Dr. Moreau”), the basic idea here is that Attica was somewhat more of an asylum than a prison, run by idiots and bullies, and eventually overtaken by the lunatics. The most lunatic of them all is the inciting Chaka, played with wild-eyed ferocity by intense veteran character actor Clarence Williams III (whose intense stare always keeps you on edge in every role he plays), who goes big. Real big. Perhaps slightly too big at times, but you’ll remember him and I think it’s the performance that the character necessitated. Also going a little too big, especially in one scene at the climax is Frederic Forrest as the biggest idiot running the joint, a guard supervisor named Welsbad. Like Williams’ performance, for the most part what Forrest brings to the part is what it needs – he’s an antagonising bullying moron on a power trip who still tries to wield his big stick long after he’s lost power and control.

 

What the film doesn’t need is Kyle MacLachlan as essentially the audience surrogate, a little lamb of a new recruit who is clearly in over his head. In anything that isn’t involving David Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan just plain sucks and that’s true to form here. Unlike the rest of the cast, MacLachlan (who is seemingly 10 years too old and starts the film with the most absurdly unconvincing long hair you’ll see outside of “This is Spinal Tap”) simply isn’t convincing at any point. When he’s not in Lynch territory he’s got no clue what he’s doing and ends up going overboard playing the one guy for whom histrionics is never called for. MacLachlan’s best scenes are in the second half of the film where he basically starts playing “Spartacus”, angering both inmates and guards alike. Character actor Carmen Argenziano plays one of the characters tasked with how to handle the situation from the outside, albeit a mess he somewhat contributed to the start of. Argenziano does good, if thankless work, as does the always solid Philip Bosco as an ineffective Corrections Commissioner who tries to negotiate with the prisoners. The best performances in the film come from Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Bower, and a particularly outstanding Steve Harris. I’ve always felt TV veteran Harris was destined for bigger and better things (he was the highlight for me of “The Practice” until James Spader turned up late in the series as the smug but irresistible Alan Shore). A physically towering presence, he’s also a commanding and powerful performer and doesn’t disappoint here as one of the angrier, trouble-making antagonising prisoners. Bower, a familiar character face for many years is in rock-solid form as MacLachlan’s uncle and co-worker.

 

Samuel L. Jackson was having his best-ever year as an actor with this and his Oscar-nominated turn in “Pulp Fiction” (I’m not a fan of the film, but I would’ve given him or Gary Sinise from “Forrest Gump” the Oscar). Here he plays one of the more contemplative reactionary inmates. Gone for stretches of the film, it’s more of a ‘guest role’ if anything, but when Jackson is on screen, everyone else is rendered invisible. He’s a towering, powerful presence on screen, you just wish he were on screen more here. In fact, that’s a bit of a problem. The film actually needed to be longer in order to flesh out a lot of these potentially interesting characters. The plot ends up being more interesting than the people populating it, and mostly that’s just due to the more interesting characters (those played by Jackson, Williams, and Harris) being left a little underdeveloped. Aside from HBO’s mantra of ‘We can say “fuck” a lot!’ (and boy do they…), there’s nothing here to really suggest a made-for-TV film, which is nice. However, there’s also nothing to suggest someone with the stature and filmography of Mr. Frankenheimer at the helm, either. He does an…OK job, nothing terribly remarkable.

 

An interesting, shameful story and a few fiery performances keep you engaged in this solid, but lumpy re-telling of the dreadful true event. Kyle MacLachlan is out of his depth in the lead, and the film is far too short. Still, it’s a story needing to be told and this film tells it adequately. Really fine music score by Gary Chang (“Death Warrant”, “Under Siege”), too.

 

Rating: B-