Slayground (1983) Universal/Action-Thriller RT: 89 minutes Rated R (language, violence) Director: Terry Bedford Screenplay: Trevor Preston Music: Colin Towns Cinematography: Stephen Smith Release date: February 1984 (US) Cast: Peter Coyote, Mel Smith, Billie Whitelaw, Philip Sayer, Bill Luhrs, Marie Masters, Clarence Felder, Ned Eisenberg, David Hayward, Michael Ryan, Barrett Mulligan, Kelli Maroney, Margareta Arvidssen, Rosemary Martin, Malcolm Terris, Jon Morrison. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
You probably never heard of the crime thriller Slayground but you’re probably familiar with the protagonist Stone. I’m sure you are. Did you ever see Point Blank with Lee Marvin or Payback starring Mel Gibson? How about the Jason Statham actioner Parker? THEY”RE ALL THE SAME GUY! That’s right, the same guy. Novelist Donald Westlake, using the pseudonym “Richard Stark”, wrote 24 books featuring Parker, a ruthless career criminal with but one ethical principle, to never double-cross his partners. However, if somebody double-crosses him, he better watch out. All of the previously mentioned titles are adaptations of Westlake’s work.
He’s called Walker in Point Blank and Porter in Payback (actually a remake of Point Blank). In Slayground, he’s called Stone and is played by Peter Coyote of E.T. Adapted from the Westlake/Stark novel of the same name, the action centers on the fallout from the accidental death of a child during a botched getaway. Stone nearly calls off his latest job, an armored car robbery, when the driver doesn’t show up. The poor dumb bastard (Hayward, Eaten Alive) gets himself killed by a sexy hitchhiker (Maroney, Night of the Comet) en route. Stone’s partner-in-crime Joey (Luhrs, See No Evil, Hear No Evil) convinces him to recruit a new driver, a young car thief named Lonzini (Eisenberg, Moving Violations).
The heist itself goes off without a hitch; the getaway is where things go south. A little girl is killed in a hit-and-run collision. Her distraught father, her distraught wealthy father (Ryan, Body Heat) hires a shadowy hitman (Sayer, Xtro) to even the score. Known only as “The Shadowman”, he easily kills Lonzini and Joey. Stone isn’t so easy to kill. After a couple of failed attempts on his life, he hightails it to England to seek the help of his old friend Terry (Smith, Brain Donors), a former criminal cohort since gone straight. When he gets there, he learns his old friend is dead. Rather, he’s playing dead. The hired killer follows Stone to the UK to finish what he started.
Slayground didn’t go over with audiences and I know why. They went in expecting a straight-up action movie and it’s not that. It’s more of a noirish crime drama with a non-heroic hero who moves through a criminal underworld where life and death are of equal value. It’s a dark, moody piece, bleak and nihilistic, set in the most drab, depressing locations the makers could find in New York- Rockland County, just across the Hudson from New Jersey- and Blackpool. It’s violent, but the protagonist doesn’t amass a body count that reaches the triple-digits. About the only thing it has in common with the average 80s action flick is its implausibility.
Director Terry Bedford (his only feature film credit) trims the narrative fat to make Slayground a lean, mean crime thriller with but a few story deficiencies. The script by TV writer Trevor Preston (The Sweeney) is seriously underdeveloped. A few examples come to mind. The first one that comes to mind is Stone’s brutal encounter with two Scottish thugs who threaten to kill him if he doesn’t stop looking for Terry. We never find out what their association with Terry is. After they beat Stone, we never see or hear of them again. We also never learn exactly why Terry faked his own death. Is he hiding from somebody or is it a symbolic gesture for starting a new, straight life? What about the other passengers- one of them the girl’s mother- in the car that got hit? Did they survive or not? Nothing is said either way; only the child is spoken of. A bit more exposition in these areas would have served the story well. I could also question how the father knows who was driving the car that killed his daughter, but it can be argued that any information is attainable for the right price in the criminal underworld.
Coyote delivers a tough performance as the hard-edged antihero Stone, a man whose only emotional weakness is his wife (Masters, Scream for Help), the prototypical spouse who gets on his case about never being around when he pays her a visit. He’s scared more for her than himself with this Shadowman on his trail. Physically, he’s a wreck. He takes drugs for a spinal injury that will likely leave him paralyzed within a year if he doesn’t have an operation. It beats being shot dead by a stone cold killer. Coyote, although no Lee Marvin, does solid work here. Smith, in a rare dramatic performance, is also quite good as an ex-thief trying to stay flush while his legal business venture, a sad-looking amusement park, goes down the loo. Billie Whitelaw (The Omen) shows up as Terry’s business partner Madge who thinks accepting a financial bail-out from a known gangster is a good idea (another plot thread not followed up on).
I like how Bedford handles The Shadowman. We never really get a good look at the guy. He’s mainly seen in silhouette. We see his hat or shoes but never his face. He has a scary, threatening voice he uses to maximum effect. In the role, Sayer is very good. The climactic scene of Stone and Shadowman playing cat-and-mouse in the amusement park is well done. The score by Colin Towns augments rather than overwhelms. Things get off to a running start musically speaking with George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone”, the ultimate bad guy introductory song, playing over the opening credits.
Slayground, while flawed, is a nice mix of American noir and British gangster tropes. Uneven pacing and development issues hinder a bit, but it’s pretty good for the most part. Under any name, Parker-Porter-Walker-Stone is a cool antihero. It may be largely forgotten, but it’s not gone.
