The Crushed Film Festival presents: Turk 182!
by Sarah D. Bunting
The Movie: Turk 182!
The Crush Object: Timothy Hutton
The Story: When his firefighter brother Terry (Robert Urich) gets hurt saving a little moppet from a blaze while intoxicated (Terry is intoxicated, not the moppet) and loses his pension, Jimmy Lynch (Hutton) goes on an elaborate graffiti crusade in the name of justice, and also of bedding Terry’s public defender (Kim Cattrall) (and: don’t ask).
Although I’ve gotten cross-country amounts of mileage out of slagging it over the years, Turk 182! isn’t terrible — but the concept is slight, and when the script runs out of plausible plot and turns to the magazine-cover montage/”Turk is every-where, and New Yorkers love him” VO, the film starts to drag; the end sequence, with Hutton dangling from the rafters of the 59th St. Bridge, is edited juuuuust a beat too slow to sell a climax that is kind of dumb and not real impressive.
The dialogue is less gooby than I’d remembered, and I can forgive most of the storytelling clichés; you can’t escape the times in which you live, and the failure of studio execs to see that not every variation on the theme of “working-class hero against the system” is worth playing is responsible for a whole shelf of ’80s cinema (The Legend of Billie Jean, Wisdom, I could go on).But it’s still clichéd, and it’s not the kind of writing that’s going to hide the actors’ limitations, of which there is, alas, a healthy supply.
Perhaps the late Bob Clark’s direction is partially responsible.Clark, who directed A Christmas Story, also directed From The Hip, possibly the most unrestrained orgy of scenery-guzzling of the era compliments of Mr. Judd Nelson, and Clark seemed similarly unable to rein in his company here.Leaving aside the fact that the accent coaching confused “Brooklyn” with “developmentally delayed” (viz. Hutton’s repeated bellows of “haaaayyy HOOLY”), Urich is going back for third and fourth helpings at the $3.99 Ham Buffet.And it is often possible for an actor to bail out a character who’s poorly thought out and all over the place, but it is…not possible for Cattrall.
Paul Sorvino, onscreen for only a few minutes, outclasses everyone else immediately and by a mile (with a Howard Cosell imitation, of all damn things), but everyone else is pretty bad, even Peter Boyle.
The Backstory: I’d like to tell you that my crush on Timothy Hutton, who plays Jimmy, derived from Ordinary People, for which Hutton won his Oscar; it didn’t.It derived from this, which, if I am permitted a defense (and I…am not), ran on HBO twice a day for like six months back in the ’80s.
But it’s not my crush on Hutton that’s the face-reddener; it’s that I also found the character very appealing — the beret worn at a cocky angle, the giant sweater vests, the scrawniness because he’s too busy to eat.At the time, a rebellious artiste/kooky try-hard who drove a vintage motorcycle with a side car made me swoon…but at the time, I had never kissed a boy, and had no idea how annoying that guy is to date in real life.
The Embarrassment Level: Graded on a contemporary curve, the movie isn’t that awful.The crush on Hutton isn’t that shameful either; he should probably return the Oscar (and the bronzer), but he used to be pretty foxy if you’re into that “all hair, no ass” kind of thing.On a scale of 1 to killing myself, I’d give this one a 3.
Tags: Kim Cattrall movies Peter Boyle Robert Urich The Crushed Film Festival Timothy Hutton try-hards
A non-embarrassing reason to drool over Timothy Hutton is the Nero Wolfe mysteries, with Hutton and Archie Goodwin.
D’oh! That’s “with Hutton *as* Archie Goodwin”.
I’ve never heard of this movie so please forgive me, but… I don’t understand.
His brother loses his pension and the answer is graffiti?
What?
Are you saying something *negative* about “The Legend Of Billie Jean” here? HOW DARE YOU! SHE WAS PERSECUTED! SAME AS JOAN OF ARC!
I’m glad I didn’t have a crush on anyone in that movie, because otherwise, it would totally belong in this series.
Now pardon me while I allow myself to be possessed by the spirit of Pat Benatar, Christian Slater in a dress, and that rich goober Bille Jean meets along the way.
Do you mean that Hutton should return the Oscar because he didn’t deserve it at the time (because if so, I’d have to disagree; his work in Ordinary People still looks awfully good to me), or because he used up the goodwill it gave him by doing a string of movies like this?
Even so, I see no shame in having liked him. He seems to have managed his career pretty well in the end, too. The Nero Wolfe series (which he produced, as well as costarring in) and his more recent work, e.g. in Kinsey. He remains a good actor, and I admire the handful who are willing to age onscreen like regular people, jowls and hair loss and all.
You saw this on HBO? I Paid to see this in the theater. Twice!
Can’t help it. I’ll always love Hutton for Ordinary People (even if he/his agents did steal the Oscar). Never saw this one.
@Catherine: It’s more complicated that that, sort of? But then the complexity doesn’t really…explain that part. Trust me, having seen the movie 132 times doesn’t clarify matters.
I love Turk 182 for all of its cheesy glory.
Who Flew?
Zimmerman flews and Tyler Knew.
As a Queens girl, it is will always be the Queensboro Bridge not the 59th Street Bridge.
The two paragraphs of ‘Backstory’? You could have been talking about me… I made my brother watch this soooo many times. Don’t think he knew it was because of my enormous teen-girl crush…
@Linda : I’m with you! I still love trying to explain the plot of LOBJ to people. And right now our 4 year old daughter loves it when we turn up “Invincible” and sing along. I’m waiting for that day where she rolls her eyes and pretends she has no idea how she ended up in the car with these people.
Sars, I was a fan of that guy too before I dated him. ;) I actually am way more hot for TH now then I was then!
Hey, I totally remember The Summer of Turk 182 on HBO. You could NOT get away from the damn thing!
Oh, Timothy Hutton… You and Sean Penn won my heart with “Taps.” Tom Cruise? Not so much.
I loved the Nero Wolfe Mysteries, and am glad to see others do too. Hmmm, Timothy as Man in the Yellow Hat….
Sarah, I thought you hated Timothy Hutton, and I never understood it. I’ve been in love with him forever, despite the fact that he was in Ordinary People. It’s one of those movies I rail against and actively loath at any opportunity, like Dances With Wolves and Mission:Impossible.
Anyway, I’ve never seen Turk 182, but geez. That’s a double crush for me – Hutton, and Robert Urich. I cried a little when he died. What? Oh, be quiet.
Rinaldo said: “He remains a good actor, and I admire the handful who are willing to age onscreen like regular people, jowls and hair loss and all.”
I agree, and I’m loving him in Leverage. He still looks adorable in a hat.
I don’t have the excuse of a crush; I watch”Turk 182″ for the story. Endlessly. Little brother sticking up for his big brother? Yes, sir! And one more round of that, please …
I’ve been hearting Timothy Hutton since Ordinary People, partially on his own merits and partially because I was a big fan of his father, Jim Hutton. There’s no shame in crushing on Timothy Hutton for any reason, even if it was Turk 182 (which I saw in the theater). And yes, he was most yummy in the Nero Wolfe series. As a fan of the novels, I can say he made a fantastic Archie Goodwin.
Gotta chime in with the Nero Wolfe love — as a producer on the show, I have to give him a lot of credit for incredible faithfulness to the source material and for going with some wacky concepts, like an company cast playing different roles every week, and making them work.
Plus, in the sharp suits and fedoras? Yummy.
Is there something wrong with me that this description makes me want to put Turk 182! on my Netflix queue?
I was at a wedding reception some years ago, and my social scene is kind of mixed among those are in their thirties and those in their twenties. A bunch of us sat around a table, and we old guard mused about those dozen or so now-faded movies that were viewable *daily* on HBO, Showtime, or both in the mid-1980s (this one, C*H*U*D*, Irreconcilable Differences, Night of the Comet, etc.). At one point I decided to separate the (something) from the (something), and I yelled out “Zimmerman flew!” And those in the know, almost in unison, completed it, “…and Tyler knew!”
The other half of the table, for all they knew, thought we were talking about dishonorable behavior in a duel between some Founding Fathers.
One of the UHD channels has been showing this recently and my husband makes me watch it every time. He puts it on the DVR, I delete it because… HBO. The 80’s. It was on every fifteen minutes and that’s back when there was only ONE HBO.
Still… not the worst movie ever made. And not the worst movie I ever watched because of the people in it (that would be Music From Another Room, due to Jude Law before he got all scrawny and… Sienna Miller).
I don’t hate Timothy Hutton; I think he’s overrated as an actor. He’s not bad, he’s just not as good as everyone says he is, and as a result he has in my opinion been miscast egregiously on a number of occasions (see: my review of The Dark Half; guy had no business in that role).
I have also heard that he’s a douche in real life. My source was 1) reliable and 2) obliged to vacate his office in the art gallery where he worked so that Hutton could have sex with Angelina Jolie on the couch therein. Just: no.