{"id":3871,"date":"2024-09-06T14:08:28","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T14:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3871"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:19:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:19:42","slug":"malone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/06\/malone\/","title":{"rendered":"Malone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Malone<\/strong> (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Harley Cokeliss\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Christopher Frank\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Newman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gerald Hirschfeld\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 1, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Burt Reynolds, Kenneth McMillan, Cynthia Gibb, Scott Wilson, Lauren Hutton, Cliff Robertson, Philip Anglim, Tracey Walter, Dennis Burkley, Alex Diakun, Brooks Gardner, Mike Kirton.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $3M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

I’m categorizing the Burt Reynolds actioner\u00a0Malone\u00a0<\/strong>as a B-movie because that’s what it is at heart even though it features a few big name stars- e.g. Reynolds, Kenneth McMillan (The Pope of Greenwich Village), Lauren Hutton (American Gigolo) and Cliff Robertson (Charly). I saw it with my father on a Saturday afternoon, the perfect day and time to view a movie that demands nothing of the viewer other than 92 minutes worth of suspension of disbelief.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Reynolds plays the title role, a CIA assassin who decides to pack it in and hit the road. While driving aimlessly to destination anywhere, his car breaks down leaving him stranded in a small Oregon mountain town. Since it\u2019ll take a few days for his car to be fixed, he accepts garage owner Paul Barlow\u2019s (Wilson, The Ninth Configuration) offer of a play to stay.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It doesn\u2019t take long for trouble to find Malone. The town is controlled by Charles Delaney (Robertson), a shady businessman buying up everybody’s land for a fraction of their actual worth. Those who refuse to sell are harassed until they change their minds. Paul, whose teenage daughter Jo (Gibb, Youngblood) works the gas pumps, has no intention of selling out. Naturally, Delaney is curious about the stranger in town. Whoever he is, he can\u2019t afford to have somebody snooping around. You see, Delaney is the leader of a white nationalist group. His intention, I think, is to clear everybody out of town and turn it into a training camp for his followers. He\u2019ll stop at nothing to attain his goal. Unfortunately for him, Malone doesn\u2019t scare easily. If he\u2019s pushed far enough, he\u2019ll push back.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Based on the William Wingate novel Shotgun, Malone<\/strong> contains the usual plot elements found in movies like this. For instance, the town\u2019s pot-bellied sheriff (McMillan) really works for Delaney. At one point, one of his deputies tries to kill Malone. Delaney has a psychotic right-hand man (Diakun, The Hitman) who deals with the townie thugs on the payroll. Jo develops a crush on Malone after he makes short work of a thug attempting to intimidate them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Malone<\/strong> isn\u2019t without its problems. A subplot involving a former CIA colleague (Hutton) sent by her superiors to kill Malone feels superfluous. They seem to have a romantic past, but it\u2019s never explained; it\u2019s only hinted at. The part of the screenplay dealing with Delaney\u2019s ultimate plan is rather vague, but it somehow involves sending one of his guys to kill a black politician. If it\u2019s any help, he has a barn filled with enough automatic weapons, ammo and explosives to start a war. Delaney\u2019s plan isn\u2019t even made clear when he lapses into Talking Villain mode at the end. What he says is mostly rhetoric about patriotism and maintaining an American way of life. I\u2019ve been giving Robertson\u2019s performance as Delaney a lot of thought. I\u2019ve decided it\u2019s a good thing he doesn\u2019t ham it up. He\u2019s essentially a wealthy guy with some nutty ideas. The fact that his character has the money and power to make terrible things happen makes him extremely dangerous. He doesn\u2019t need to act crazy too.<\/p>\n

\u00a0By this point in Burt\u2019s career, he wasn\u2019t bringing in audiences like he used to back in the days of Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run. He made Malone<\/strong> after a steady series of flops- i.e. Stroker Ace, Cannonball Run II, Stick and Heat. I didn\u2019t expect a lot from Malone<\/strong> when I bought my ticket nor did I expect it to restart his career. I liked it and I liked him in it. Burt does his usual macho guy thing in what\u2019s essentially a variation on Shane. At 50, he was starting to slow down a bit. Check out the tricky editing when he beats the hell out of one of Delaney\u2019s goons on a bridge. Still, it\u2019s great seeing him do his thing. McMillan is perfectly cast as a corrupt small town sheriff who just wants Malone to go away. I\u2019m not sure if I buy Hutton as a gun-toting CIA agent, but what the hell. In addition to all else, two of my favorite character actors, Dennis Burkley (Wanted Dead or Alive) and Tracey Walter (Repo Man), show up as local toughs on Delaney\u2019s payroll. It\u2019s always great seeing these guys!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Harley Cokeliss (Black Moon Rising), Malone <\/strong>is a decent action movie. He has a knack for this type of film. I\u2019m amazed he managed to assemble a cast this good. The action scenes are sufficiently exciting and violent. A few baddies get some big holes blown through them. It won\u2019t go down as one of Burt\u2019s shining moments, but it\u2019s good enough that you\u2019ll overlook its weaknesses.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malone (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Harley Cokeliss\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Christopher Frank\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Newman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gerald Hirschfeld\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 1, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Burt Reynolds, Kenneth McMillan, Cynthia Gibb, Scott Wilson, Lauren Hutton, Cliff Robertson, Philip Anglim, Tracey Walter, Dennis Burkley, Alex Diakun, Brooks Gardner, Mike Kirton.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Malone-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5077,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871\/revisions\/5077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}