6. Frantic (1988)
Harrison Ford’s various characters throughout his career have had multiple problems with women, and Roman Polanski’s Parisian set thriller puts Ford back in familiar territory (although admittedly Presumed Innocent [1990] and The Fugitive [1993] were yet to come). In Frantic, Ford, just like latterly in The Fugitive, plays a doctor named Richard, who is visiting Paris with his wife for a medical convention. They arrive at their hotel, Richard takes a shower, and when he emerges his wife has disappeared.
This is the set-up for Frantic, one in which Polanski shows you the dank underbelly and back alley dealings of Paris, unfurling in nightclubs (frequently spouting the sounds of Grace Jones’s Nightclubbing) and parking garages, sliding into dark and murky territory as the first half flashes by while you grip your armchair in suspense. Emmanuelle Seigner provides ample support for Ford as Michelle, a mercenary courier who helps Richard along the way despite her intentions always being somewhat questionable.
Although the conclusion might not provide satisfaction for all, for the most part Frantic is one of Polanski’s finest works, and even if it’s perhaps not up there with something like Chinatown (1974), this provides another string to both Polanski and Ford’s formidable bows.
7. The Vanishing (1988)
Few films capture the horror of the unknown like The Vanishing, a psychological thriller that will haunt you long after the credits roll. George Sluizer’s film (not to be confused with the 1993 remake) begins with a couple driving through France on their way to a cycling holiday, when they pull into a motorway service station. After they’ve had a sit-down, thrown a frisbee around and had a rest, the wife goes back into the store to buy some beer, and never returns.
Right from the get-go, this is evidently disparate to your average missing person chiller. We know almost from the opening scenes who the culprit is, but the husband (Rex Hoffman) doesn’t, meaning that we’re constantly one step ahead of him without knowing exactly what’s happened. What unfurls is deeply unsettling, as Hoffman’s Bernard goes through years of obsessing over what happened to his wife, utterly unable to move on in any way. He keeps returning to a polaroid he took whilst waiting for her, in which she can be glimpsed, even after he’s lost all hope of finding her alive, he simply wants to know what happened.
Sluizer’s film isn’t for the faint hearted despite being largely void of any sort of violence, what really makes it stick out is the unrelenting feeling of terror throughout its run time. A masterclass in slow-building dread, this is not just an underrated thriller, it’s one of the most unsettling films of the eighties.
8. Deadly Pursuit (1988)
Deadly Pursuit (AKA Shoot To Kill) was heralded on is opening if only for the fact that it contained a return to acting for Sidney Poitier after a ten-year absence. Poitier plays FBI Agent Warren Stantin, who inadvertently causes the death of a jeweller’s wife in the opening sequence whilst trying to apprehend a brutal extortionist (Clancy Brown), and the man ultimately escapes.
Stantin is wracked with guilt and anger and trails the man to Washington where he ends up tracking the extortionist through a dangerous mountainous forest with the help of Tom Berenger.
Deadly Pursuit is an absolute blast, genuinely nerve-wracking at times as well as falling into the sub-genre of buddy comedy on occasion. Poitier is just as keen on proving to us that he still has it (and he does) as he is on demonstrating to Berenger that despite being a city man, he’s more than capable of traversing the rocky rural surroundings and keeping pace.
With Poitier’s return to acting and a tension-filled game of survival, Deadly Pursuit is a forgotten gem that blends action and suspense effortlessly.
9. Blue Steel (1989)
Jamie Lee Curtis has blasted back onto our screens last year in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, proving she still has a lot to offer. Her first ever full-length feature as an actress was of course Halloween (1979), and Blue Steel, Kathryn Bigelow’s third feature film as director, shares many strands of DNA with John Carpenter’s groundbreaking slasher. Curtis is a New York cop, who on her first day on the job shoots and kills a man holding up a supermarket. One of the customers at the time is Ron Silver, a very unstable Wall Street broker who somehow ends up with Curtis’ gun and swiftly begins to obsess about her.
Blue Steel is undoubtedly one of Bigelow’s lesser seen films, understandable when she has such huge hits as Point Break (1991) or Oscar winning behemoths like The Hurt Locker (2008) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012). But Blue Steel is a much more low-key affair with interesting ideas.
For example, the plot takes an unexpected turn when Silver’s Eugene Hunt appears a nice guy who ‘accidentally’ bumps into Curtis publicly and they get on so well, they begin dating. It’s an intriguing set up considering the knowledge we as the audience have over Curtis; she still doesn’t suspect a thing when a string of people are shot, with bullets that have her name engraved on.
With Bigelow being the first female director to win an Oscar for The Hurt Locker and much rightly being made of it at the time, it’s a shame that Blue Steel hasn’t ever had the resurgence it should have done. Dark, intense, and featuring a powerhouse Jamie Lee Curtis, Blue Steel is proof that Bigelow was always destined to redefine action cinema.
10. The Mighty Quinn (1989)
Carl Schenkel is far from being a well-known director. Much of his output is straight to DVD work or TV movies, but The Mighty Quinn, fronted by Denzel Washington, perhaps proves that he had much more to offer if he’d had the chance.
Washington plays Chief of Police Xavier Quinn on a small island in the Caribbean, and after the murder of a high-profile millionaire, sets about clearing the name of his best friend who in his mind has been framed. Quinn’s problem is that he’s pretty much the only one who believes his friend is innocent, and his friend’s criminal past doesn’t help matters.
The Mighty Quinn by its very nature and setting remind you of the 2003 Carl Franklin film Out of Time, which also stars Washington; but Schenkel’s film has a lot more depth under its seemingly simple surface. Washington is terrific as Quinn, a big name and figure on such a small island where everybody knows everybody else. A murder like this doesn’t just put the police under pressure, there’s political pressure to solve the case for the tourism industry. Quinn has personal problems at home as well, although his relationship with his wife (an excellent Sheryl Lee Ralph) sparkles on the screen; the pair of them are a delight to watch.
An energetic, layered thriller with a brilliant Denzel performance, The Mighty Quinn deserves rediscovery as one of the eighties’ most entertaining crime films.