Tag: William Friedkin
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The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023)
In his final feature as a director, William Friedkin’s career comes full circle as he goes back to his television roots and crafts a solid, well-acted, old-fashioned entertainment. Similar to the programs Friedkin helmed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, based on Herman Wouk’s adaptation for the stage from his…
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Killer Joe (2011)
Building on his redemptive adaptation of Bug, William Friedkin reunited with playwright Tracy Letts to bring to the screen Killer Joe, an earlier Letts play that in some ways is darker and more sinister than the rampant paranoia and insecurity of their previous collaboration. Unlike Bug, which focuses on lonely and drifting individuals, Killer Joe…
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Bug (2006)
Paranoia is a hell of a drug. It feeds on fear and fuels the individual’s thinking that anything and everything can or has been weaponized against them. It never gives its victims release from the tension, rather creating a positive feedback loop of future distrust and disbelief. While this is a well-known phenomenon, rarely has…
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The Hunted (2003)
After the sclerotic and emotionally awkward Rules of Engagement, William Friedkin went back to basics. The Hunted is a stripped-down mano a mano plot centered around one of the oldest relationships in drama: the teacher and the pupil who has surpassed him. This leads to predictable but compelling complications between two men that nevertheless are…
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Rules of Engagement (2000)
Rules of Engagement represents an ebb in William Friedkin’s protean career. There is nothing here, other than the very common theme of good vs evil, that illustrates his strengths and capabilities. Truly this could have been made by anyone. In many ways, the script owes much to A Few Good Men, except the man on…
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The Guardian (1990)
In his memoir, William Friedkin fails to mention two films: Deal of the Century and The Guardian, despite the latter being aggressively marketed as “the latest horror movie from the director of The Exorcist.” In later interviews he claimed it was because he had very little memory of the production, but that could be an…
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Rampage (1987)
Returning to a theme he wrestled with at the beginning of his career, William Friedkin’s Rampage is an intriguing dialectic regarding the moral implications of the death penalty and whether or not such a decision can truly be justified in a court of law. Of course, this idea has been explored in many movies before…
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To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
After the flat and uninspired comedy Deal of the Century, William Friedkin made perhaps his most stylistically satisfying picture, To Live and Die in L.A., based on a novel by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich. The story follows two Secret Service agents as they attempt to bring down a successful counterfeiter, and like Friedkin’s…
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Deal of the Century (1983)
Deal of the Century is one of only two movies William Friedkin gives no mention at all in his 2013 memoir, and seeing the movie illustrates why. The movie, designed to be a contemporary homage to Dr. Strangelove and the ever-present dangers of nuclear war, fails to be either demonstrably funny or serious about the…
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Cruising (1980)
Does the current cultural climate allow for a movie like Cruising to be considered, let alone greenlit? The brazen attitude with which William Friedkin infuses this story takes it far beyond what the source material, Gerald Walker’s novel, would allow. Utilizing an entirely different backdrop, one that would cause many audiences to do a double…