- Directed by John McTiernan
- Written by Jim and John Thomas
- Starring
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Carl Weathers
- Elpidia Carrillo
- Bill Duke
- Jesse Ventura
What with the theatrical release of John McTiernan’s remake of Rollerball being pushed back from this summer to “uh, sometime next year, really, we mean it,” it’s an appropriate time to ponder McTiernan’s skills as a director. Bluntly put, his greatest skill seems to be directing really good scripts. His most popular (and imitated) movie, Die Hard, owes its success not to his “artistic vision,” but to the fact that the script by Jeb Stuart and Steven de Sousa is flat-out fantastic. And his other successful movie, Hunt For Red October, is very much a product of a bestselling book; who couldn’t have directed that? On the other side of the tracks, you’ve got movies like The 13th Warrior (tepid at best — and again, script-dominated) and [shudder] Last Action Hero.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the future President of the United States! |
Predator was the movie he made right before Die Hard, and right after his debut, the thoughtful (but scarcely exciting) Nomads. And once again, it’s a script that could practically direct itself.
Schwarzenegger is Major “Dutch” Schaefer, called in with his crack rescue team to an unnamed Central American country to cross the border to another unnamed Central American country and rescue some crashlanded higher-ups from the friendly country who have fallen into the hands of guerillas. He’s a bit disgruntled that he’s been put under the command of Dillon (Carl Weathers), a former brother-in-arms who now works for the CIA, but hey, he’s a professional. So is his team. So off they go, into the jungle.
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That’s one hell of a tattoo. |
But along the way, they find the wreckage of the downed chopper, plus the remains of another American team sent in previously for a rescue. “Remains” is about all you can call them; they’ve been skinned and hung from high tree limbs. And there are no tracks showing who could have done it.
It’s naught but child’s play for Dutch & Co. to find the guerilla camp and dispense some Ah-nuld style mayhem: Bullets and explosions and hideous one-liners. Alas, the hostages are also casualties, but all in all, it’s a successful mission. But that’s not the half of it.
Because whatever killed the previous team is still in the jungle. Watching them. Hunting them. Something that hunts from the trees and is almost invisible.
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This is just so… so… male. |
Obviously, this is a much more truncated plot summary than the ones I normally write. Why? Because a) every damned one of you should have seen this by now, and b) details are really irrelevant. This is a very pure movie, a very simple movie. That doesn’t mean that it’s dumb, but it is very focused.
To wit: Subplots? We don’t need no steekin’s subplots! All right, there is one, involving some subterfuge on Dillon’s part as the the actual covert nature of the mission; but that whole thread disappears by the midpoint of the movie. Its real purpose was to help fill out the first half, until the suspense starts in in earnest.
Characterization? It’s perfect for this kind of movie. Common wisdom has the modern action hero with some kind of emotional trauma, dark secret, etc., which he must overcome in order to beat the bad guys. That’s all well and good, but in this case it would be excess baggage. Instead, we’ve got subtle quirks for each team member. Mac (Bill Duke) keeps his shaven head smooth as a big black bowling ball, and shares quite the male bond with über-macho braggart Blain (Jesse “The Body” Ventura). Billy (Sonny Landham) is quietly Indian. Poncho (Richard Chaves) is, well, he’s got no real quirk, but it does turn out useful to have a Spanish speaker along. Hawkins (Shane Black — yes, the Shane Black, screenwriter of Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight) has glasses and tries to be funny. And Dutch, well, he’s Ah-nuld. He’s got muscles. Not a one of them is a stereotype; not a one of them is a complete person. They don’t need to be.
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“So, Dutch — how come you’re gradually losing all the clothing on your torso?” |
A romantic subplot? Thank heavens, no! This is a very, very male movie. It’s about men in the jungle, hunted by an alien trophy-hunter. You just can’t get more male than that. There’s only one female character in the whole movie, a prisoner they take from the guerilla camp (Elpidia Carrillo), and her presence only serves to show by contrast just how male everything else is. And no, no one gets cozy with her. The closest thing to an honest-to-goodness relationship here is that between Mac and Blain, and if you want to read veiled homoerotic attraction into that, you’re welcome to, but there’s no real need to. (I mean, unless you need to. In which case, that’s your business.)
In essence, this is the best of the Alien imitators, though the change of setting to the jungle helps disguise that fact. Nevertheless, it’s the same situation: A group of people caught in an inescapable locale (in this case, they can’t get airlifted out until they get back across the border on foot) with a nasty that’s picking them off one by one. And unlike most other Alien ripoffs, the Predator here has a reason to toy with its victims and pick them off one by one. It’s a hunter. It’s in it for the sport. Not that it’s above stacking the deck in its favor (the aaaaalmost invisible cloaking device is one of the great elements here), but it’s devoted to the thrill of the chase, the rush of the kill; when Dutch realizes this, he helps the girl escape by preventing her from taking a weapon. She won’t be a target then: No sport.
Yes, there are flaws here. As I said, there’s a subplot about covert ops that really goes nowhere. And the presence of the guerilla girl is almost inexplicable: Why in the world would they choose to spare her, except that, y’know, Ah-nuld can’t kill a girl? Sure, she provides a small amount of exposition a little later on, but otherwise she’s not really necessary. And the entire denouement, in which the Predator decides to go up against Dutch mano-a-thingie, is so awash in testosterone that it almost crosses the border into parody.
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The Nitey-Lite PredatorTM didn’t go over as well as expected. |
But it’s a slickly shot movie (yes, McTiernan, you can take credit for that), and the lush thick jungle acts almost as an extension of the Predator, concealing and abetting its cat-and-mouse games. And the Predator POV shots, showing his infrared vision, are a great device for showing the otherness of their opponent. Top it off with a staccato Alan Sylvestri score that’s become almost as imitated as John Williams’ work, and you’ve got one of the best ways to waste ninety minutes ever devised by man.
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 62
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 43
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
- Richard Chaves (Poncho) played an Indian chief in the Voyager episode “Tattoo”
- Kevin Peter Hall (the man inside the Predator suit) played “Leyor” in the TNG episode “The Price”
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