The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (1971)

Here’s some irony for you: This comedy about inept gangsters it itself ineptly made. If the irony doesn’t strike you as funny, that’s appropriate, because The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight isn’t funny, either. In fact, the most noteworthy thing about this brainless flick is how many talented people worked on the project. Venerable Big Apple columnist/novelist Jimmy Breslin co-wrote the script, which was based on his novel, which was in turn based on the exploits of a real-life crime figure. Ace New York cinematographer Owen Roizman shot the picture, though you wouldn’t know it from the choppy editing that makes Roizman’s frames feel amateurish. And the cast includes a number of reliable professionals—including Jerry Orbach, Lionel Stander, and Burt Young—to say nothing of Robert De Niro, appearing in one of his earliest films. The story revolves around a mid-level gangster (Orbach) enlisting his idiot cronies for attempts on the life of a villainous don (Stander). De Niro’s character, who seems to drift in from another movie, is an Italian bicyclist brought to America by Orbach’s character; the cyclist then gets his own uninteresting subplot. The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight is such a mess that even De Niro comes off badly, mostly because director James Goldstone can’t maintain a consistent tone. The bulk of the picture is played as broadly as slapstick, but certain sequences have a dramatic vibe, notably those involving the love story between De Niro’s character and a mafia princess played by a miscast Leigh Tayl0r-Young. Alas, the comedic sequences are numbingly stupid, and the dramatic sequences are lifeless. From start to finish, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight is disjointed, episodic, and loud, with long stretches of screen time consumed by stupid contrivances: The mobsters steal a circus lion and use the animal to intimidate robbery victims; a little person (Hervé Villechaize) is the butt of assorted crass jokes; an old Italian mother (Jo Van Fleet) spews lines line, “You no take-a no bull-sheet!”; and so on. It’s all very tiring to watch.

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight: LAME

Swashbuckler (1976)

Two depressing facts emerge when one surveys actor Robert Shaw’s career following his breakout performance in Jaws (1975): Shaw’s days on this earth were numbered, so he only had three years in which to enjoy his newfound fame, and almost every post-Jaws movie in which he starred was terrible. Nonetheless, one gets the impression that Shaw had a blast play-acting in macho leading roles, so, for instance, he exudes contagious joie de vivre in this terrible pirate movie. On some metaphysical level, the possibility that Shaw had fun making Swashbuckler compensates for the lack of enjoyment viewers derive from watching the movie. On the plus side, Swashbuckler is a fairly lavish production about an 18th-century buccaneer battling a crazed tyrant in Jamaica. Additionally, even though director James Goldstone can’t come close to matching the lighthearted approach to swordfighting featured in Richard Lester’s Musketeer movies of the same era, at least Goldstone fills the screen with talented actors. Dressed in a silly costume of red tights and a flowing red blouse, Shaw presents a lusty copy of Errol Flynn’s patented derring-do, and he shares mildly amusing interplay with his cheerful second-in-command, played by James Earl Jones. (The cast also includes Beau Bridges, Geneviève Bujold, Geoffrey Holder, and a young Angelica Huston.) However, the material is so generic that copious screen time is wasted on clichés like peg-legged pirates brandishing their cutlasses and growling. Worse, Peter Boyle’s performance as Lord Durant, the aforementioned tyrant, is atrocious. Woefully miscast, his contemporary American patois seeping through the fruity period jargon he’s forced to spew, Boyle tries to enrich his characterization with perverse qualities, but he seems like he’s in a different movie than everyone else. Unfortunately, the movie he’s in isn’t any better than Swashbuckler.

Swashbuckler: LAME

Brother John (1971)

          Because Sidney Poitier had been playing saintly characters since the 1950s, it was only a matter of time before he portrayed an actual messiah, as he does in the compelling allegorical drama Brother John. Imaginatively written by veteran TV scribe Ernest Kinoy, the movie takes place in the small Alabama town to which long-gone native son John Kane (Poitier) returns on the occasion of his sister’s funeral. The town is mired in racially charged turmoil, so John’s appearance raises eyebrows among conservative whites like Lloyd Thomas (Bradford Dillman), who suspect John of being an outside agitator. Lloyd pressures the local sheriff (Ramon Bieri) to investigate John, which reveals the mystery man has traveled all around the world; this leads to allegations that John is some sort of communist operative.

          The whites’ paranoia is exacerbated when John starts keeping company with a local woman (Louisa MacGill), because if he’s just home for the funeral, they ask, why is he setting down roots? Adding another layer of intrigue, John reveals lethal martial-arts skills when assaulted by local thugs and, later, a redneck cop; though he doesn’t kill anyone, he makes it clear that doing so is well within his bare-handed power.

          Yet not everyone sees John as a threat. Lloyd’s freethinking father, small-town physician Doc Thomas (Will Geer), is nearing the end of his life and feeling spiritual, so he starts to wonder if John is part of a larger design. Eventually, Doc becomes convinced that John is a harbinger come to test the mettle of mortal man—and that man is failing the test miserably. The most riveting scenes of this unusual picture are one-on-one exchanges in which Doc asks for perspective from the celestial realm and John cagily avoids verifying whether Doc has guessed his true identity.

          As directed by workmanlike helmer James Goldstone, Brother John has sensitivity but lacks the visual poetry the material demands, and the story takes a while to get cooking. Furthermore, some viewers will find the cryptic ending highly unsatisfying. However, the concept is alluring and the acting is great. Poitier is effectively restrained, yet he ensures that the soul-deep disappointment behind his eyes is plainly visible. As for Geer, he brings the same avuncular sensitivity that later distinguished his work on the long-running TV show The Waltons. So, even though it’s far from perfect, Brother John presents such an unusual story with such care in front of and behind the camera that its best passages are hypnotic.

Brother John: GROOVY