The Crushed Film Festival presents: Suspect
by Sarah D. Bunting
The Movie: Suspect
The Crush Object: Dennis Quaid
The Story: Public defender Kathleen Riley (Cher) gets saddled with what looks like an unwinnable case — her homeless client, Carl Wayne Anderson (Liam Neeson), has circumstantial evidence stacked up against him like cordwood, plus he’s deaf and can’t assist her very well in his defense, and the judge in the case (John Mahoney, struggling with a horrid mustache) seems to have it in for her. Juror Eddie Sanger (Quaid) decides to help her dig up the evidence she needs, even though that’s illegal.
I feel like this movie is nearly forgotten now, and that’s not surprising. It’s the lowest-profile of Cher’s 1987 releases (Moonstruck and Witches of Eastwick were the others, so there you go), and suspending your disbelief plot-wise for this one requires a complex system of pulleys, but if you can manage it, Suspect isn’t a bad watch. (It’s a bit painful wardrobe-wise, but everyone’s in business-wear most of the time, which helps.) The cast is very solid and, overall, avoids the overacting that the frequently-ludicrous exposition might seem to call for (Joe Mantegna as the D.A. has a few shouty moments…and an unfortunate butt-cut).
But the central mystery is both needlessly complicated and simplistic at the same time, and Sanger’s role in it is not credible. In fact, Sanger’s everyday life — he’s a semi-sleazy lobbyist who’s willing to boink committee chairs to get legislation turned his way, and, we’re to infer, throws his weight behind Riley to make up for the injustices he himself is responsible for — is only credible because it’s Quaid, who is at his foxiness peak here.
The Backstory: See previous sentence. This is another one of those movies I watched a kabrillion times because HBO had the rights to it for a period of months (I have parts of Innerspace memorized for the same reason)…and because Quaid, who I would still jump on if he went past me any slower than a sprint, has never looked foxier than he does here. Yeah, yeah, The Big Easy — I feel you, but I thought that accent was corny. Just my opinion; talk amongst yourselves.
Also: a fetal Michael Beach plays the parking-lot attendant. He is wearing tight cargo pants and, you know, being Michael Beach. I didn’t care about that back in the day, but it does increase the movie’s net worth for me now, because: hot. Does he do audiobooks? Because I would like to listen to them. I really don’t care what they’re about. That guy’s voice is butter.
…Anyway.
The Embarrassment Level: It’s not the movie itself; it’s that I’ve seen it dozens of times, and that I used to await Quaid’s shirtless scene eagerly, even though he’s shirtless because his character has just gotten knifed in the stomach. So, that’s not a point of pride, but it’s still not that bad. One and a half.
Tags: Cher Dennis Quaid Joe Mantegna John Mahoney Liam Neeson Michael Beach movies The Crushed Film Festival
I rented this movie during my year of study abroad in Japan. There’s an early scene of Cher stopped at a traffic light. A hoodlum throws a rock/brick at her windshield. While she’s reacting to that, his accomplice tears her necklace right off her neck through the open driver side window. As she turns to react to that, hoodlum #1 opens the passenger door & takes her purse off the passenger seat. My Japanese host mother walked in the room during this scene & gasped, “Does this happen all the time?” “No!” I responded. I don’t think she believed me. Everyone in Japan knows someone who knows someone who got mugged in New York.
I’m repeatedly disappointed that Neeson doen’t have a showers-while-he-cleans-up-for-court scene. Now that’s value added!
Other than that, though, this flick’s not horrid. 1.5 seems a good mark.
“I’m repeatedly disappointed that Neeson doen’t have a showers-while-he-cleans-up-for-court scene.”
Which makes the “getting-out-of-the-lake-after-bathing” scene in Rob Roy all the sweeter. (sigh)
So…a juror helps the DA investigate the case they are both currently involved with? That’s just … wow. I’m not certain pulleys would be sufficient for my disbelief. Then again, the Quaid Hawtness Factor might help. (heh)
Look, I watch Eastern Promises once a month for…you know. So I feel you when it comes to Dennis Quaid’s shirtless moment here.
Yeah, yeah, The Big Easy — I feel you, but I thought that accent was corny. Just my opinion; talk amongst yourselves.
Oh, co-signed … chère. Heh.
It IS cheesy. Hmm…know what? Y’all can scrape all that extra cheese onto my plate and I’ll take care of it for you. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
This is one of those films my mother watches every time it comes on TV. Unbelievably, it does NOT feature the world’s silliest courtroom scene; that, I believe, should be held by an old Gene Tierney film called “Leave Her to Heaven,” where the DA, played by Vincent Price, is allowed to skewer Cornell Wilde with an amazing amount of nonsense. Wilde’s lawyer just sits there and shakes his head the entire time.
Also, I developed a massive crush on Quaid (the crush is now long-deceased) some time in my teens. I actually sat through “Enemy Mine.”
Hey, I still catch “Enemy Mine” any time I can!
Yes, I saw it in the theatre (by myself), and I cried. *snf*
This was my Mom’s favourite movie for awhile – before Jagged Edge and Shattered came out. I seem to rememebr a very scary scene where Cher is walking through a prison, or maybe an underground parking lot near the courthouse, and is being followed… I know it scared the bejesus out of me when I was 9.
For additional Quaid perfection from the same era, try D.O.A. with Meg Ryan. I think the plot of the movie has been re-used 80 times since then. I’ve never forgotten Meg’s Halloween costume.
You said that about “The Big Easy” to pre-empt me! You know you did! I deny your pre-emption! There is no foxiness peak of DQ that does not take place during that movie, and you know why, and I know you know, and you know you know, and all ladies know you know, so I AM LEAVING IT AT THAT.
I’m not sure how I didn’t wind up with a Dennis Quaid crush as a kid, but I was all over Innerspace (for the…compelling story?). It was just on TV the other day, and there are two prominent wows, because that is some painful wardrobe, right there. But also, shirtless DQ. That towel-in-the-cab-door shot is just…wow. Can’t argue with the costume department on that one, no sir.
I myself have seen many a movie due to the Dennis Quaid crush. Oh yes.
“I actually sat through “Enemy Mine.” ” @RJ: You and me both sister. Every time it was on cable. There was a time where HBO had Enemy Mine and Willow on back to back. They had me seated for four or five hours straight! (Yes that Willow. Talk about embarrassing, even if it was long-haired Val Kilmer, I think the Val Kilmer is outweighed by a very annoying Keven Pollack.)
RJ, it is Vincent Price. Cornell Wilde was probably just basking Price’s presence. Can’t really blame the guy.
It makes me feel like some sort of withered crone just to say it, but my crush on Dennis Quaid began with to “Breaking Away,” and extends to “The Rookie.”
Oh, Liz C: Breaking Away is made of awesome. Shirtless diving into the quarry awesome.
Oh, no, Breaking Away is a very respectable Quaid-loving starting point.
I hope.
Dennis Quaid. DQ. Dairy Queen. Also DQ. Coincidence I find them both yummy?
@Linda: I know why, and I know what, and meh. And the problem wasn’t Quaid, but Ellen Barkin threw a wet blanket on his fox-fire in my opinion. And yes, I understand that that was part of the point, but her whole shtick either works or REALLY grates, and for me, in “The Big Easy,” it was the latter.
I will fight you to the death regarding Ellen Barkin!
Oh, wait. I totally will not. Point Bunting!
I find that Ellen Barkin’s presence can bring just about any movie down.
Oh, I thought Ellen Barkin gave a clever and appealing performance within her tightass character’s strictures. I haven’t seen TBE in many years, but one of the vivid images is of her walking away from her oil-and-water first night out with Quaid (right before she runs afoul of street crime?) and mouthing off to herself and rolling her eyes. It felt lived-in. She also managed a good tightrope of the superior affectations and the sexual longing in her dealings with Quaid/Remy.
Additional points, always, for Grace Zabriskie (“You’re ‘running’? Why?!”).
“Suspect” always struck as slightly better than it needed to be, being on the surface exactly the kind of procedural vehicle I usually pass on. The filmmakers here had some talents in texture and atmosphere, which are qualities that, had they been just hacks, would never even have been on their agenda. A ot of the quotidian details of getting around in Washington (literally and figuratively) were nicely observed. I liked Ebert’s observation that everyone in the film, not just Liam Neeson, is “homeless” in some way…not poor and discarded by society but still lonely, cut off, unfilfilled by the motions through which they go. I did guess the “villain” way in advance, not so much for anything he did but because critics had assured me the film would “cheat” by producing a killer no one could be expected to guess; and from frame one I was just zeroing in on the least likely character, also factoring in on his prominence in the story and where his decisions were leading.
All this talk of DQ and I now I want soft-serve. I blame all of you. And, wow, Quaid and Barkin have absolutely NO chemistry in The Big Easy. None. It’s actually kind of remarkable, in its way.
Barkin can be good if she’s used correctly — Diner, Ocean’s 13 — but her frailty verges into whining easily and not every director/script is set up to contain that.
@LaBellaDonna/ The Bloody Munchkin – I don’t know why… but something about Lou Gossett Jr. knitting baby clothes while made up as an alien was great then, scary to think about now. :) It’s a good thing I didn’t have cable back when they were running that movie!
@Carol Elaine – I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie (it was recently re-released on VHS/DVD, I think) but Price played a DA who had been in love with Tierney, who played an extremely possessive, jealous woman who went on to marry Wilde. Through some rather implausible developments, Wilde ends up on trial for Tierney’s murder; Price really hammed it up with all kinds of accusations while Wilde was on the stand. It wasn’t Price’s peformance that was the problem for me – it was the fact that Wilde’s lawyer sat there, not doing anything whatsoever (and he should have been objecting all over the place, not to mention asking the witnesses QUESTIONS once in a while!!!). He just sort of shook his head and patted Wilde’s arm and basically said, “You’re so going to hang. Can I have a check now?” Even more implausibly, Wilde was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of not stopping his wife from killing herself and went to prison.
Hence my aggravation with that movie LOL.
@RJ: I saw the movie many many years ago – back when late night TV was for 40s and 50s B movies, not infomercials. (Yes, I’m old. Where’s my walker, you young whippersnapper. And get offa my lawn.) I more or less remember the scene you’re talking about and its implausibility, but when Price is on the screen, my care for implausibility goes out the window. Hence my love for his Roger Corman work.
I totally understand where you’re coming from, though. If it had been Errol Flynn instead of Vincent Price, I would’ve been right there with ya.
I may have seen this film (and The Big Easy; and I declare these films crush-moment ties) more than I care to admit, but it’s been eons. What do you mean by butt-cutt?
@Cindy: Parted down the middle, feathered around the sides. If it poufs up a little around the part, it looks like buttocks. Hairy buttocks.
You’re welcome! Enjoy your lunch!
@Carol Elaine – I never met such an avid Vincent Price fan before! I do like his (forgive me, very cheesy LOL) horror films, though. My mother does, too, so we watched a lot of very silly, but fun films together.
You know what I really liked him in – “Laura.” He was really pretty good as her weak, pathetic ex-fiance (and I liked Judith Anderson’s cold but honest understanding of the character).
My parents used to love that late night TV. They raised us on all the classics (and as you can see, some not so classic – “The Pit and the Pendulum,” anyone?) :).
OH now I have a picture in my head that will never ever go away and I hate you for it. I didn’t even want to THINK the words “Joe Mantegna” and “butt” together, and now look what you made me do. Now I must stare at photos of old nuns petting ducks, just to cleanse my mind’s eye.
@Jay: Sorry, dude.
Heh and ew. But oh, Sars, Sars, Sars. I graduated from high school in 1985. Words can never hurt me the way the actual hair actually did.
@RJ: I’ve been a Vincent Price fan since my teens and even saw him give a lecture in the early 80s, when I lived in San Diego. He was a very funny and gracious man. The thing about his Roger Corman films is yes, they’re cheesy, but he knew it and just had fun with them. And yes, he was fantastic in Laura. But he was also excellent in Last Man on Earth and so touching in Edward Scissorhands.
(PS: I’m also an avid fan of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. And don’t even get me started on Basil Rathbone.)
(PPS: I do like many contemporary actors as well – Liam Neeson and Hugh Jackman? Talented and hot. Rawr.)
Vincent Price was geniunely awesome in Leave Her To Heaven. I can never work out whether that was despite the film’s high-strung, pearl-clutch-y cheese factor, or because of it. And Laura is one of my all-time favourites.
Let’s make that “genuinely,” shall we?
I unapologetically love Suspect. Some of that love has to do with the fact that my dad was one of the extras in the film so I have fond memories of hanging out on K street on the day his scenes were filming; but the rest of the love is all about Cher and Quaid’s chemistry together.
And I actually find the “mystery” of the story really watchable.
Oh, and Word Up! on the cuteness of Michael Beach in the 2 min he’s on screen.
Every single time I look at that photo of Cher above, I think of “Honey and the Beaz” from “Stuck on You”, and I die a little inside. While I laugh.
I didn’t think Cher and Quaid had chemistry either, but they made a good-looking couple. I thought Cher did a nice job in a change-of-pace role, too. Not letting Neeson use his melodious voice? That was the movie’s real crime.