Since I just watched Innerspace with Dennis Quaid, since this film was also atop the video cabinets (since I just bought it at the Friends of the Springfield-Christian County Library Book Sale in May), I thought I would watch it to properly be on a Dennis Quaid kick.
The film is a thriller set in New Orleans. Quaid plays a police officer lightly on the take–they all are–who starts looking into the death of a mafia heavy that was probably to be a message to his mob. Ellen Barkin plays an assistant district attorney who is assigned to look into it as well–but she’s really looking into police corruption. They become lovers (hot and spicy for the 1980s scenes follow), but when Quaid’s Remy McSwain is caught in a bribery stakeout, they fall out (and she prosecutes him). He engineers getting the charges dropped, and she challenges him to reflect on whether he’s even a good guy any more–so he leaves the “Widows and Orphans” group of police sharing in bribes.
As McSwain continues to investigate the “gang war,” he finds that police officers might be involved in several, or all, of the deaths, which leads him to confront his captain–the man who plans to marry McSwain’s widowed mother.
It’s a slow burn film, not as kinetic as you get in the 21st century, and the final climax is rather tame by comparison as well. But it’s a good film, although everyone plays it with a pronounced Cajun accent which, in at least my personal post-The Waterboy, seems funny. Although I might end sentences for some time with cher for a while. Given I am still coming out of my personal post-ShÅgun period, my sentences are likely to end with Karma, neh, cher? which will lead to people with whom I speak to beg me to return to my native ainna?
So, I thought I would next watch Bull Durham to continue on my Quaid-kick, but, c’mon, man, a moment’s reflection made me realize that was Kevin Costner, not Dennis Quaid. Then I thought, boy, they are of different eras, neh, cher? Dennis Quaid, whose most noteworthy films come from the 1980s, kinda hams it up. I associate Kevin Costner, who had a string of successes in the late 1980s, more with the 1990s. And he’s so damned earnest in his roles. I suppose if I could turn this into a term paper were I still in college, but you’ll have to just live with my thesis and contemplate it on your own if you’re so inclined.
Also, it led to a little tension at Nogglestead. She said Dennis Quaid was in her favorite Saturday Night Live skit, Mustang Calhoun, from 1990. I said, no, that was Randy Quaid.
In my defense, and in the post-Independence Day world where Randy Quaid played a pilot, you tell me:
That is Dennis, who is Randy’s younger brother.
So maybe my Dennis Quaid kick is over. Which is a shame. He’s fun to watch. In a way Kevin Costner is not. In a 1980s way.
