The 1980s were a lucrative time for American cinema, a decade in where films were consistently making previously unimaginable sums of money at the box office. Largely unpoliticized, much of the most popular cinema of the 1980s was about having a good time, living a rich and fulfilled life, overcoming the odds, and getting the girl at the end before the credits rolled.
Beneath the glossy surface though, there was more gritty, edgy fare being released, films that were far less feel-good in tone and delivered a harder punch. Given these movies pre-dated the political correctness that often stifles modern films, they often went into areas that were daring and controversial, unflinching human dramas that were fearless in their approach. Below are ten 1980s films that may have passed you by, but are well worth seeking out.
1. Best Seller (1987)
One of the least talked of, yet most impressive 1980’s films to feature James Woods, is Best Seller (1987), where he starred alongside the late and great Brian Dennehy. This sharp thriller has Woods as a hit-man named Cleve who wants the help of seasoned cop Dennis Meechum (Dennehy), who also happens to be a best selling writer, to adapt his admittedly fascinating story into book form.
Things aren’t straight forward though. Years earlier, as part of a masked gang, Cleve had killed two of Meechum’s colleagues, and once this fact is revealed he is adamant on busting him. At the start of the film though, Woods appears out of nowhere during Dennehy’s pursuit of a criminal and saves his life. Meechum is therefore torn and also genuinely intrigued by the tale Cleve has to tell him, that he was a paid assassin for Kappa International, a huge empire run by David Madlock (Paul Schena). What follows is a strange game between Woods and Dennehy, a kind of dance of psych outs and double bluffs. Is this relationship, this weird friendship that has developed between the officer and the criminal, at all healthy? Will he turn the hit man in as soon as the book is finished?
As anyone who’s seen it will know, there is much more to the film than a straight forward thriller. One can look into hidden subtext a little too intensely, yet I feel there is something being said about 80’s America here, the era of aspiration, of success being all, of suited yuppies making everything a commodity. Woods gives Cleve a believability, and not once do we roll our eyes when he takes a man down with his gun with ease, or breaks another’s neck because he is in the way. We buy it, and also swallow the fact he could quietly leave the room without you even knowing he’d been there. It’s a subtle performance.
It helps of course that he was cast opposite an actor as good as Dennehy, who also settles into his role with apparent ease. Cleve sees them as soul brothers, is adamant they have a bond. “Cop and killer,” he says, adding “two sides to the same coin.” As he did with De Niro in Once Upon a Time in America, Woods plays off Dennehy splendidly, and Dennehy works against Woods’ snake-like deviousness with a stony determination.
Best Seller is not the standard 80’s thriller it looks to be on its DVD cover. An intelligently written and constructed cat and mouse game, it’s a film about morals, about motives and personal redemption. At its centre are two wonderful performances by a pair of actors who work so well together that you wish they had teamed up more often.
2. The Big Town (1987)
Matt Dillon was one of the best of the young movie brats whose profile was on the rise during the mid to late 80s, and though he didn’t become a mega star like some of his contemporaries did, he always made excellent choices and consistently played challenging, intriguing characters. One of these came in 1987’s The Big Town, in which he portrays Cullen, a small time crap-shooter who moves to Chicago in hopes of making his fortune. He immediately falls in with two hustlers, one of whom is played by Bruce Dern, and meets Lorry (Diane Lane), a stripper who wants vengeance on her husband, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Cullen finds himself stuck between two women, Suzy Amis as the sensitive Aggy, and the bad girl Lorry, all the while working away on making as much money as he can.
Seedy, sleazy and gripping, this cool noir thriller is one of those lost treasures you get a kick out of discovering. Directed by Ben Bolt (who was helped out by an uncredited Harold Becker), and adapted from Clark Howard’s book The Arm by Robert Roy Pool, The Big Town was not a box office success (clearly, it had none of the shallow appeal of the more mainstream pictures), though it did attract some solid reviews. Stylish in an unforced kind of way, it’s simply an enthralling story acted thoroughly well by a top cast. As ever, the likes of Bruce Dern and Tommy Lee Jones are superb, though the film arguably belongs to Dillon and Lane. They had starred in two films together before this (Rumble Fish and The Outsiders) and always enjoyed a lively chemistry. The Big Town is worth watching for these characterisations alone, but it’s also just a good old fashioned thriller with all the twists and turns you want and expect.
3. The Package (1989)
The Package is a murky tale of intrigue set during the Cold War. The Package of the title is none other than Tommy Lee Jones, a prisoner called Walter Henke, who must be transported from East Berlin to America by US Special Forces Sergeant Johnny Gallagher, played by Gene Hackman, where he will face a court martial. However, things do not go smoothly to plan and he proves to be a slippery customer, escaping at the airport. Only then do the complications mount, and Hackman ends up working against the clock to solve the mystery and save the life of a politician who is due to be assassinated.
A slick, smart, beautifully played thriller, The Package is directed with panache by Andrew Davis, who keeps the action coming while also leaving enough room for his cast to flesh out their roles. John Bishop’s script stays clear of cliches, though it also sticks to the rules of a good thriller. Indeed, the movie never lets you relax and become complacent as the twists and shifts in the plot arrive to take you by surprise.
The cast are great too. Hackman and Jones are marvellous in their roles, and there is a real thrill to be had in their interactions and the unfolding plot which reveals Jones’ character to be a much more dangerous figure than expected. There are also fine supporting turns from Joanna Cassidy, Dennis Franz and John Heard, the latter at his most villainous and slimy. Though it wasn’t a big hit at the time, it does have a healthy reputation as a solid entry in the paranoiac Cold War genre. That said, it definitely deserves more acclaim, as well as a decent Blu-ray release, too.
4. True Believer (1989)
Director Joseph Ruben’s True Believer (1989) is another solid movie featuring yet another committed 80s James Woods performance. Here he excels as maverick defence attorney Eddie Dodd, a man who, slightly disenfranchised with the legal system, finds himself stirred once again by a prison murder which takes him back to a Chinatown killing from a decade earlier.
Way back when, Dodd was a man excited and enthralled by the very idea of seeking justice. In the late sixties and early seventies he was a famous civil rights lawyer, but twenty years on, at the end of the yuppie era, he’s slightly burnt out. He still has the long hair, but it’s tied back in a weird mullet. (In a later interview, Woods joked that he had kept the wig as a pet.) He is still on the edge, but he doesn’t have the faith and passion he once had. This case however, immediately landing him in hot water, gets his blood flowing again, and he is in his element once more, as if the 1980s never happened.
Robert Downey Jr. is effective as the rookie straight out of law school sent over to work with Dodd, but this is Woods at centre stage. Of course this does not mean he chews scenery and asserts himself over the rest of the cast, but Dodd is such a charismatic role that there was no way Woods wasn’t going to make him the heart of the picture. Embodied in this one character is the hope of a whole generation, one that believed that justice would win in the end, that truth and integrity were absolute. The fact he’s frazzled, let down by the system, only makes his resurgence all the more exciting. Woods plays it with perfection.
Overall the film is consistently gripping and keeps you fully invested and guessing away until the final reel. Though popular at the time (it even spawned a spin off TV series), it’s overlooked today and deserves a lot more attention.
5. Split Decisions (1988)
Split Decisions (1988) is a raw urban drama from director David Drury, with Gene Hackman at his grisly best as boxing trainer Danny McGuinn. He’s getting his son Eddie into the ring, while his other son, Ray, is mixing with the wrong sorts. When Ray gets killed, Eddie finds out the murderer was a mobster who also boxes, so naturally he challenges him to a match.
Some have compared the tone of the film to Rocky (1976), and though it’s very much a film which triumphs the underdog, this is a very different tale. Gritty in some ways, perhaps a little familiar in others, it is a film elevated by a subtle, multi layered performance by Hackman. Totally overlooked today, I would single it out as a minor gem in Hackman’s filmography, worth watching for his portrayal of the trainer who also happens to be a father.
Hackman played fathers very well in the 1980s, perhaps because he himself was by then an established dad to grown up kids. In Twice in a Lifetime he portrayed the wandering, tired, weary middle aged dad brilliantly, torn between his family and his fresh new love, but not torn enough to actually put his family first. Here, as in the later Wyatt Earp, family is the key word and blood comes before all else. Though some have said he sleepwalked through the part of Danny McGuinn, even a sleepwalking Hackman is better than 99 percent of other actors at their peak.
Thankfully, Split Decisions is easy to find these days and is readily available on both DVD and various digital platforms. Boxing buffs will love it, of course, but I would argue it would mainly appeal to die hard Hackman fans. Made the same year as the far more acclaimed and popular Mississippi Burning, Hackman is just as good here.