2 great performances

Put Sean Penn and Christopher Walken in a movie and you can almost guarantee that movie will be something of a skeezy classic. And “At Close Range” not only fits that bill, but it’s also based on a real-life story that happened in 1978. Kinda like “Goodfellas” if it was filled with backwood hillbillies and scuzzy individuals, Penn is a go-nowhere dropout who spends his time either drunk, high, or getting tossed out of the house by one of his mom’s new boyfriends. Walken is his real dad, a man who’s hardly been around and has low-key become the face of crime in the rural Pennsylvania community where they’re both from. Penn is warned to stay away from the man but the pull of Walken’s easy money is too strong. The family dynamic here is great. In one scene Penn gets hit right in the face with a buckshot and the old man basically tells him to “fuck off”. Why? Basically he only cares about what he can trust. His guys know to keep their mouth shut. When one guy does start talking to the Feds, we know that what happens to him has to be done but still shocked by the coldness in which he’s dispatched. Penn has to prove his way in, but once in, how far is he willing to go? James Foley’s film is suspenseful, filled with bleak surroundings. It doesn't have the pacing or the great attention to detail of the Scorsese masterpiece but you can see the story of loyalty starting to form early on and it's brought to great life by Walken, who is scary, volatile, and says lines in that charming/chilling way only he can, and Penn. These guys make the phrase “I Love You” take on so many different meanings that they don’t even have to say “fuck you” by the end.

*Part of a film series i'm doing on 1986, which is part of a larger review/ranking series on the 80's
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