Rating: 
Summary: sexy sean
Review: sean penn is my favorite actor because he uses his characters to take the veiwer on a journey. that is amazing to me. "at close range" took my breath away. favorite scene is the kitchen gun scene! i didn't breathe during that whole part. chris walken played his evil dad role so well that you love to hate him. as for sean penn i just love to love him.
Rating:
Summary: Live to tell
Review: The First time I saw this film in 1986. It bothered me for day I couldn't shake the feeling it left me with. 14 years later it's just as moving. Christopher Walken and Sean Penn are simply amazing as a father and son who have never known each other and only truly know each other after it is far to late for Penn's character to save himself or anyone else. Walken Plays Brad Whitewood Sr. A Career criminal in a small town Sean Penn Plays Brad Jr a nobody trying to become somebody and win his fathers approval at the same time. The result is disasterous. The film is beautifully photographed and directed by James Foley who also directed the brilliant "After Dark My Sweet". So if your looking for a film that you'll be talking about days after you've seen it. This is it.
Rating: 
Summary: well crafted morality play
Review: The plot's fairly simple and we've seen it a thousand times: a young man on the brink of adulthood has to choose between good and evil, responsibility and recklessness, an honest life or a life of crime. Been there, done that.What makes this movie memorable is the setting (rural Pennsylvania, as far as I could tell) and its excellent deromanticizing of the criminal life. Consider it an anti-Godfather film; instead of the luscious sepia-toned interiors and National Geographic ethnic-portrait, period quality of Coppola's masterpiece, this is plain ol' America, this is the 70's, and this is crass, ordinary, everyday crime. It's the same thing, really: Brad Whitewood Senior is a wannabe Godfather, but he's being shown without the ritual and romance of the Sicilian tradition. He's just a brutal, amoral thief, and his gang are all of the same stamp. His son, already on his way to some kind of trouble in a going-nowhere back-of-beyond small town, is fascinated by Dad. Dad has money, Dad has fast cars. Dad has the keys to the good life; at home there's just Mom and Mom's downer boyfriend who gets upset if you smoke dope and make a racket at night when the rest of the family wants to sleep. What's a troubled teen to do? Run away to Dad, of course. Walken does a terrific job as the charismatic but snake-evil Whitewood Senior. Though the accent seems to slip a bit at times, he has the charm and the blarney and the musical, (self)hypnotizing delivery of the practised con man. Penn is well-cast as the not-too-bright boy with ambitions beyond his abilities. The supporting cast is solid. The cinematography is a style and era that I find very enjoyable. I was disappointed by the kitschy "back from the dead" ending. Admittedly, we can glimpse that the gunman sent to wipe out the last witness against dear old Dad is Patch, the most incompetent crook ever born; so it figures he would mess up even something so simple as a gangland shooting. But the heroic "bullet-ridden boy drags self across country to confront bad guy" sequence left me skeptical and bored rather than riveted. Based on a true story or not, it was hard to take. Right up until that moment I was hooked, and I would have been fine with the film ending on the long still shot of the car sitting by the silent farmhouse in the night. However, we had to have the final confrontation, and I give the film makers credit for letting Whitewood Jr. pass his final moral test: rather than putting Dad away for good in the family tradition, he votes for law and order and chooses to testify in court. The courtroom scene at the end was for me more tense, and more genuinely moving, than the kitchen confrontation scene (though I admit the line "Is this the family gun?" was a winner!) I give the film makers full marks for resisting the usual cloying Daddy/Sonny reconciliation schlock (probably typified at its saccharine worst in Lucas' Star Wars saga), instead voting for Sonny's eyes at last opening to the fact that Daddy is irredeemably wicked. One thing that's a bit bothersome is the strongly implied rape of Whitewood Jr's girlfriend by Whitewood Sr. The incident is handled without a lot of exploitative detail, yet it's also quietly buried in the plot. We never know if the kid finds out about this; did she ever tell him? would she ever have told him? It certainly destroys any lingering shred of sympathy we might ever have had for Daddy, but the way it disappears completely from the plot is somehow disturbing, as if it was of no consequence in the end. Well portrayed throughout is the appalling ignorance and gullibility of young boys, and their vulnerability to any kind of opportunistic manipulator. The film works well, I should think, as an antidote to any appeal that the life of crime might have for an adolescent viewer. It's a sharp, harsh moral tale about the kind of people you get involved with in that line of work, and though it's a lesser achievement than Coppola's classic, I have to admit that it is ethically a better work; it does not lure the viewer into sympathizing and identifying with ruthless criminals, instead it more sanely encourages us to see them as they are and pity or despise them. It also paints a convincing portrait of the kind of dead-end rural poverty and semi-poverty that can make the life of crime seem dangerously attractive. Very American, very realistic, quite suspenseful, and of course Walken is revelling in his character's villainy and loopy, sociopathic, treacherous charm; the film would be worth the price of admission just to enjoy his performance. Penn I can take or leave, but Walken is very fine here.
Rating:
Summary: Walken at his best!
Review: This film is hands down Walken's finest performance! He's witty, funny, scummy, and downright scary in one of the more underrated films of the 80's. Both Penn brothers turn in good performances, not to mention Crispin Glover.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This film is probably the best film I have ever seen and probably the reason I ended up working in the entertainment industry. From the acting (remember the scene where Walken instructs Penn to be quiet as he drowns a snitch) to the photography, to the flawless script and first-rate direction (Foley's best work..ever) - this is masterpiece in it's own right. Also take note of stunning score by Patrick Leonard that I hope is one day released as a soundtrack. And it is also a movie that allows you to see new elements every time you watch (notice Walken's gang sitting around the table at the bar designed like the last supper). With the new DVD - I hope new generations will come to realize what a small number of us already know - it does not, and has not, gotten much better than this.
Rating:
Summary: Penn and Walken Terrific Together
Review: This film shows Sean Penn as a young man who is saddled with a father mired in low level living and constant crime. The criminal father is played by Walken but not as you've seen him in the movies before. Usually Walken plays top crime figures in major US cities. I've gotten very tired of seeing him in that role, in fact. However, here he is a hick and a criminal. His crimes are anything and everything that will get him through the night. The fascinating part is that Walken's character is more horrific than a mafia crime boss because he has no rules or limits whatsoever in his narrow, primitive world. He will harm anyone or anything, including kith or kin, who gets in his way. At times Walken seems like an ordinary bloke you'd see at your neighborhood tavern yet, in others, he is quietly chilling. Penn, as his son, is caught in a number of different directions as he's coming of age. Penn's character is sufficiently young and unformed and he could still turn out good or bad as an adult. It could go either way. However, what catalyzes him into growing up even faster is that his father undertakes his most vicious acts yet, acts that cry out for justice. Just to show you how young Penn was in this movie, he was then married to Madonna and she sings the big song on the movie soundtrack! The scene I can never forget is the one where Walken puts his finger up to his mouth, signalling "quiet," in almost a playful fashion. He has just committed his most atrocious crime to date and that is how laid back he is about it.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Flick, Unforgettable
Review: This is a film that will stand out in your mind for years. The story is riveting in itself, but the acting makes the film unforgettable. Sean Penn is at his absolute best portraying Brad Jr., and Chris Walken as his father is just plain scary. It's a fairly depressing movie, all in all, but the acting is so fantastic that it makes it more than worthwhile. Believe me, you will never forget this film.
Rating:
Summary: Classic stuff
Review: This is Sean Penn and Christopher Walken at their best. The title song written and performed by Madonna enhances the movie perfectly. You will love this movie.
Rating:
Summary: This one remains in my essentials collection.
Review: This was based on a true story. Some was filmed closeby to me, as can be observed by the actual Franklin, TN courthouse. The fictious Brad Whitewood Sr, flattered by dashing Christopher Walken, is based on a real person with another name that was a hillbilly thug with a gang of same, who is still serving time. I heard quite a while ago that he tried to escape but was easily recaptured, being unfamiliar with newer theft-proof devices on vehicles. The casting of this film was perfect. I wonder every time I see it if Sean Penn studied the mannerisms of his character's peers in the seedier sections of middle TN, at least in the movie he had the walk and the talk. I first saw this movie in the late 80s and was impressed by him and have been a fan of Penn & Walken ever since.
Rating:
Summary: The Writing
Review: Yes, the performances are great, but don't forget about the writing. Nicholas Kazan's script has some great lines, mostly spoken by Walken. For example:
"You'll come back, crawlin' back sayin' daddy daddy give me somethin." and
"Whatever I see that moves, has my name writ on it: Brad Whitewood, please hold for delivery."or
"What do you want to hear? I love ya? Is that it? I love ya. I got feelin' for ya."
I could go on. Kazan captures the vernacular of the mid-Atlantic Pennsylvanian perfectly. And Walken sounds like he grew up there. Fast forward through some of Foley's excesses (the swimming hole scene, the corn field scene with M.ST. Mast.) to get to the heart of the matter.
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