Tucker: The Man and His Dream

 Year:  1988

Director:  Francis Ford Coppola

Screenplay:  Arnold Schulman and David Seidler

Starring:  Jeff Bridges, Joan Allen, Martin Landau, Frederic Forrest, Mako, Elias Koteas, Christian Slater, Dean Stockwell

Running Time:  110 minutes

Genre:  Comedy, drama, biography

The Man:  Preston Tucker (Bridges), ambitious engineer who made his fortune designing and building gun turrets for aircraft during World War II.

His Dream:  To manufacture the 'car of the future'.  His "Tucker Torpedo" features an engine mounted in the rear of the car, and revolutionary safety features, such as seatbelts.  

However, the manufacture of the car is plagued with issues, and as enthusiasm for the car mounts, Tucker runs afoul of the "Big Three" car manufacturers (Ford, General Motors and Chrysler) as well as accusations of fraud from the U. S Securities and Exchange Commission.

You might not think of Francis Ford Coppola, director of such films as The Godfather (1973) and Apocalypse Now (1979), as the person to direct a gentle, charming comedy-drama based on real-life failed automobile entrepreneur Preston Tucker.  Coppola had first conceived of the project in the 1970s, and originally envisioned Marlon Brando or Jack Nicholson in the title role, and later planned to make the film as a musical, although the plan collapsed.  With Coppola's friend, George Lucas, serving as executive producer the project eventually came to fruition in 1988, to good reviews but poor box office receipts.  Jeff Bridges brings all of his considerable charisma to bear as the charming, confident Preston Tucker, and Joan Allen is very good, in the slightly underwritten role as Tucker's loyal wife Joan, although she has a great scene where she confronts a boardroom full of patronising men.  Martin Landau was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as financier Abe Karatz, who helps Tucker raise funds for his dream, and Christian Slater has a small role as Tucker's teenage son.  Dean Stockwell has a memorable cameo as a creepy Howard Hughes.  The film looks great with a real feel for the 1940s style, and the action is punctuated by amusing 1940s style adverts for Tucker's car.  While this is not a great film by any means, and far from Coppola's best, it actually deserves to be a lot better remembered than it is, because it is a good film.  In the end, Tucker made 51 of his Tucker Torpedoes.  Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas each own two.

Jeff Bridges in Tucker: The Man and His Dream

The Big Lebowski

Year of Release:  1998
Director:  Joel Coen
Screenplay:  Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring:  Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Running Time:  117 minutes
Genre:  Comedy

Los Angeles, 1991:  Jeff Lebowski (Bridges), who prefers to be known as "The Dude", is a good natured slacker, an ex-hippie who spends his time bowling and smoking weed.  One night two strangers break into his small apartment, mistaking him for a millionaire who is also named Jeff Lewbowki (Huddleston).  They leave after realising their mistake, but not before one of them ruins the Dude's rug.  Believing that the "Big Lebowski" owes him for his rug, the Dude finds himself unwitting drawn into a complex kidnapping plot involving an experimental artist, German nihilists, wealthy pornographers, a million dollars and a hungry marmot. 

This is a very funny shaggy-dog story from the Coen Brothers.  Influenced by the detective fiction of author Raymond Chandler, the story doesn't really make a lot of sense, but then, it's not supposed to.  the episodic narrative is packed with jokes and memorable characters:  Aggressive Vietnam veteran Walter (John Goodman), avant-garde artist Maude (Julianne Moore) who works naked flying on a swing, and flamboyant bowler Jesus (John Turturro).  The Coen Brothers have a real gift for idiosyncratic dialogue, and a strong ear for individual speech patterns.  It's sylishly directed, and visually striking, particularly the surreal dream sequences, and a great soundtrack of late sixties and seventies psychedelic rock.  Most importantly it is very funny, and full of quotable lines.  The film wasn't a big success on it's first release, but it has since become a major cult hit, to the point where some people pattern their lives on the film, there is even a semi-religion known as "Dudeism".  It's set against the backdrop of the first Gulf War, which is seen on TV sets and occasionally mentioned (in one scene the Dude hallucinates Saddam Hussein as a bowling alley employee) but doesn't really impact the characters lives at all, even the militaristic Walter is pretty much fixated on Vietnam, and these characters are living in the past, and are still stuck in the early seventies.  Their nostalgic worldview isn't criticised by the film, seeming to exist apart from the rest of the world, in a mythic Shangri-La for white middle-aged men, of bowling and weed.  The Dude's problems occur when he is forces himself out of his own world, but despite everything that happens, all he really wants is a rug.  Everything the Dude does in the film is because he has been pushed to do it, or talked into it by others, to the extent that he frequently parrots what people say to him to others, word for word, as if they are his own ideas, and he seems to think they are.  The Dude elevates laziness into an artform.  Everyone in the talented cast gives a good performance, and it seems like it was a lot of fun for all concerned.  While the Coes Brothers have definitively stated that there will not be a sequel, John Tuturro has written, directed and stars in a spin-off film called The Jesus Rolls which is due for release in 2020.

            Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi and John Goodman prepare to roll in The Big Lebowski

Hell or High Water

Year of Release:  2016
Director:  David Mackenzie
Screenplay:  Taylor Sheridan
Starring:   Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham
Running Time:  102 minutes
Genre:  thriller, crime

This neo-Western crime thriller tells the story of the Howard brothers, divorced father Toby (Pine) and violent, ex-con Tanner (Foster) who embark on a string of bank robberies throughout Texas, always targeting branches of the same bank, in order to stop the foreclosure of their family's farm, and also to take revenge on the bank.  they are pursued by a pair of laconic Texas Rangers:  Marcus Hamilton (Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Birmingham).

This is similar in style to Coen Brothers films such as Blood Simple (1984) and No Country for Old Men  (2008), but it stands up on it's own, and is probably the best thriller of the year.  The film is suspenseful, exciting and often very funny.  The audience is on the side of the troubled Howard brothers, and Toby Howard's desire to provide for his children but we're also in no doubt about the wrongness of their actions.  While Toby is calm, collected, reasonable and abhors "unnecessary" violence, Tanner is a violent maniac with a hair-trigger temper and at the very least terrorizes any number of innocent cashiers.  Jeff Bridges is at his best as the wisecracking, ageing and world-weary Texas Ranger, and his relationship with his Native American / Mexican partner Alberto is genuinely touching.  There is a real sense of a long-standing friendship there.  They insult each other  and crack wise on each other constantly, but there Bridges and Birmingham play it with real heart.  Chris Pine also deserves praise for his portrayal of the essentially decent  Toby Howard.  The film takes place among washed out, sunbleached Texas landscapes, full of dying small towns, and houses and farms either foreclosed or selling up, and endless billboards advertising quick cash loans, providing contemporary social relevance.   It's also very much a guy film, there are very few key roles for women, and Tanner Howard is portrayed as a violent misogynist.  The film's haunting score is provided by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

Ben Foster and Chris Pine in Hell or High Water
 

True Grit

Year: 2010
Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, based on the novel True Grit by Charles Portis
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld, Barry Pepper, Domhnall Gleeson
Running Time: 110 minutes
Genre: Western, adventure

Summary: Arkansas, 1878: While collecting the body of her murdered father and settling his business affairs, fourteen year old Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) decides to hire a US Marshall to track down her father's killer, a hired hand named Tom Chaney (Brolin). Searching for a man with "true grit" Mattie decides to hire Rueben "Rooster" Cogburn (Bridges), an alcoholic who nevertheless has a reputation of being the toughest and most ruthless Marshall around. Eventually Cogburn reluctantly agrees to be hired by Mattie, however he is much less agreeable to her condition that she accompany him on the trail. However, she follows Cogburn anyway, and discovers that he has formed an uneasy partnership with a Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf (Damon), who is also on the hunt for Chaney, who is wanted in Texas for killing a Senator. The three embark on the dangerous trail through wild hostile terrain on the hunt for Chaney, who has joined up with a gang of violent armed robbers.

Summary: True Grit was previously made into a film in 1969 with John Wayne playing "Rooster" Cogburn (a performance for which Wayne won the only Academy Award of his career) and has since become a staple of Sunday afternoon television.
The new version is certainly more intense and violent than the earlier film, but it also has more heart. It has a witty and intelligent script and makes good use of wintery New Mexico and Texan locations. It also boasts a strong cast with Jeff Bridges perfectly cast as the mean, tough, but fundamentally decent Cogburn, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld (who was 13 years old at the time of filming) delivering a superb performance as the intelligent and determined Mattie. The movie also boasts a strong soundtrack, primarily consisting of 19th Century Church music which works perfectly with the film's time and location.
Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote and directed the film, are among the best film-makers working today, and the film has a genuine stately grandeur in both it's powerful visuals and soundtrack, and also delivers in the all-important action sequences with some brilliant shootouts.
This film is a great return to the classic Western, which is a must-see for fans of the genre as well as delivering enough action and humour to appeal to those who ordinarily would never watch a Western.



Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges hit the trail in True Grit