Charles Bronson in The Stone Killer, most likely trying to figure out Gerald Wilson's deliriously convoluted screenplay...
Another film watched over Christmas, Michael Winner's 1973 film is a rollicking big-budget exploitation picture with Bronson supplying serious star wattage. His Lou Torrey is short on subtleties, but the physicality of his performance is impressive, whether he's crashing his car through market stalls in pursuit of a motorcycle, or scrambling up staircases blasting everyone in sight. Gerald Wilson's screenplay had me tied up in knots from the get-go, and for the most part the film was barely comprehensible, but Winner knows how to deliver the thrills and spills and one can at least enjoy the breakneck outrageousness of it all. In fact the film is genuinely bizarre at times, as if two or three other films were intruding upon it, and afterwards I had to wonder if I did actually see a scene where Bronson visits an Easy Rider-style hippie commune (complete with camel) and did I really spot Angelo Rossitto perched on a hotel reception counter ? It seems I did...
No comments:
Post a Comment