Point Blank (1967)

Disturbing yet enthralling

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Blistering performances.

After reading some of the negative reviews on this board, I'm compelled to warn future viewers that it's not recommended for those with attention deficit. There's a myriad of flashback sequences, some only seconds long, that take gangster Walker (Lee Marvin) back to an event that turned him into a veritable revenge machine. All over a ninety three grand payday that he was screwed out of after a partner double crossed him. Too bad, the hierarchy of 'The Organization' is about to experience some forced retirements.Walker doles out punishment in unique fashion and the film itself has some artistically rendered violence, but even for 1967, I didn't find it to be all that ground breaking as the host of Turner Classics found it to be. "Bonnie and Clyde" came out the same year and that one had it's own fair share of grisly rub outs. The idea here was that Marvin's character was a loner depending only on himself; the back story of Walker having a wife who committed suicide didn't even seem particularly necessary for taking on the mob.Angie Dickinson has a pretty thankless role as the sister of Walker's dead wife. She has a great scene pounding away on Walker's chest following the flight lesson he gives to former partner Mal Reese (John Vernon), going at it until she dropped from tiring herself out. The scene highlighted Walker's stoic nature in accepting virtually anything that came his way with principled self assurance. The guy was like a great white shark waiting out his enemies and circling his victims until dead in his sights.The picture's slickest move had the the unnamed sniper hired by The Organization (James Sikking) taking out one of his own bosses when Walker sniffed out a set-up. How he knew that is one of the mysteries of the story, but then again, he was quite the intelligent guy under that cold exterior. One word of warning though, don't go with him on a test drive.

Point Blank is the movie Playback's predecessor. Porter for Walker! Gibson for Marvin! The premise of the story is exact. Marvin gets robbed, left for dead and wants his money back. The Porter/Walker characters are excellent, as harden robbers who are all so professional. The mechanics of the both stories are exciting to watch. Regrettably Point Blank has lulls. Angie Dickinson's character slows and or drags the story. The 60's flashbacks direction kills the tempo. Payback has better double cross side stories. The Chinese mob, and dirty cops side stories brought Payback to a higher level than Point Blank's side story. John Vernon aka Mal Reese character is good, but the Gregg Henry, Val Resnick, character put slime to a new art form. Point Blank had a statement ending and come across dull!

This was one of several films released at a time when English Directors were shooting not only in Hollywood but working in distinctly US genres not normally associated with roast beef and two veg and as such it is no better or no worse than any of the others. Like many prolific authors associated with one genre Donald E. Westlake, who had made both a name and a young fortune out of light-hearted crime novels, thought he'd try the real thing and created a second persona under which he published a much smaller output including Point Blank in which an ultra 'hard' man, left for dead, recovers and possibly mistaking himself for Richard, Duke of York, works his way up the hierarchy of the 'organisation', offing them systematically until he reaches the top. This is, of course, the kind of role that Lee Marvin can phone in and he brings it off to a fare-thee- well leaving the undemanding entertained with it.

Lee Marvin was a quintessential man of action in 1960s cinema, always acting, never explaining. While he enjoyed a run of good films and an Oscar for one that wasn't, this remains his finest hour-and-a-half on film.Marvin is Walker, a man with no first name and a burning desire for getting back $93,000 stolen from him by his faithless wife and his false friend, Reese (John Vernon). As if by magic, a mystery man named Yost (Keenan Wynn) materializes to offer him a shot at the money...and revenge. Reese is now a part of something called the Organization, and Yost wants Walker's help bringing Reese down."You want Reese, and I want the Organization, you understand," Yost explains. "I'm going to help you and you're going to help me."Marvin's spare approach to acting was never on better display than it is here. His face is granite inexpressiveness, but he never stops until he gets what he is after. The result is a grimly satisfying piece of pure cinema expertly directed by John Boorman and drawing from Marvin's own real-life combat experience. Walker's walking wounded, but never shows pain or much of anything else except when it helps him get what he's after.The riddle of "Point Blank" rests in who Walker really is; the film is designed magnificently to keep you guessing. Normal human interaction is played at a curious minimum. Walker doesn't even ask questions when he confronts his wife, she simply talks in a monotone while he stares into space. Later, confronting a messenger, he just repeats whatever the fellow blurts out. For about ten minutes, from the time he meets Yost to the reunion with his wife, Walker doesn't speak at all. We just hear his footsteps echoing down an endless corridor.Is he a ghost? Is he having a vision, perhaps in a dying dream? It's hard to say, and people have had a field day guessing about it. He appears and disappears in elevators and parking garages seemingly at will. Everyone he meets says they thought he was dead. He doesn't even kill anyone directly, except perhaps one death which Walker operates with the help of a bedsheet, something we associate with ghosts. The bedsheet even blows up and covers Walker at the climactic moment.I'm still not sure what Walker is, but I enjoy watching Marvin make me guess. He doesn't even seem bothered when his sister-in-law Chris (Angie Dickinson) batters him with his hands for a couple of minutes, though her tagging him with a pool cue does get his attention for a little while. Mostly he just moves and watches, self-contained.He gets off a couple of funny lines, too, though you have to pay attention. At one point, Chris asks him why he brought her along for a meeting with a top Organization guy. "I thought you'd be safer with me than you would be by yourself," he answers. We have seen a lot of people by this point in the film who would have been much safer by themselves.Occasionally "Point Blank's" arid tone and zen vibe are bothersome elements, and there's a scene in a modern home (actually the same pad the Beatles hung out in when they visited Los Angeles) where Chris and Walker seem a bit too caught up in the movie's farther-out elements. But mostly this is a very involving and crafty movie, with a left- field ending that sticks.The film's unique style and rapid pace make for the kind of entertainment that is completely of its time and yet timeless, too. The same can be said for Lee Marvin, the hard-living man who left us this study of a man too hard for his own good.