#43 — Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)
Films centering on revenge are easy, perhaps too easy. The motivation for the central character or characters are built right in–only the simplest backstory is needed in order to convince the audience of the fevered urgency of their undertaking–often leading to such narrative shortcuts bleeding into every portion of the film. Why developed character when one clearly defined motivation drives the plot just fine all on its own? John Boorman’s Point Blank, the British director’s first film for Hollywood, doesn’t side step that problem exactly. Instead, it embraces it, comically playing up the lead character’s taciturn single-mindedness. There’s also a bounteous infusion of style that gives the whole endeavor a thrilling energy, a sense of creative release that theoretically matches the hard satisfaction felt by putting all who’ve done wrong in their proper place. Where other filmmakers might use the handy simplicity of a revenge story to do all the heavy lifting of making a film come (theoretically) to life, Boorman and his collaborators use it as a starting point, followed by continually answering their own question of “How much cooler can we make this?”

Based on a 1962 novel by Richard Stark (a pen name used by Donald E. Westlake), the film renames the hero (maybe more accurately termed an antihero) from Parker to Walker. Lee Marvin plays this role with the aggravated remorselessness of a praying mantis made of steel. After Walker’s partner in a heist betrays him, shooting him and leaving him for dead, the durable criminal nurses himself back to health and goes out hunting his former compatriot, along with the hefty bundle of money he feels is rightfully his. Marvin is fierce, but with the calm certainty of a man fully accustomed to getting what he wants, when he wants it. Excepting probably Robert Mitchum in his prime, no one else could have pulled off this role quite like Marvin, who had the capability to enter a scene and immediately change its temperature with a potent glower.

Boorman was handed the reins of the film by Marvin, who used his own clout as a star to earn his relatively untested director (it was only Boorman’s second feature) an amazing amount of control. It did not go to waste. Boorman responds with a keen sense of pacing, a eye for shot constructions that were enticing in their clean beauty and a willingness to push into ever darker territory while maintaining a certain gallows wit. The film is beautifully shot by Philip H. Lathrop and has a arty, jazzy, occasionally off-kilter score by Johnny Mandel that precisely dates it but also feels exactly right, giving the whole thing the sense of the exploratory unexpected. Mandel’s music sometimes seems as if its groping its way to make sense of the dangerous world it aurally shadows, and its occasionally discordance with what’s on screen only serves to mirror the edginess of the film’s protagonist.

As I noted, Boorman and everyone involved with Point Blank could have taken the easy route to making the film; all the basic tools were there for them to do so. They didn’t, though. Instead, they made a deeply complex, utterly fascinating film. They just made it look easy.