Point Blank (1967)

Based very loosely on Donald Westlake's crime novel 'The Hunter', John Boorman's dazzling 'Point Blank' is a fusion of 1960's New Wave aesthetics on a traditional Noir revenge plot - with decidedly fascinating results.

A man named Walker (Lee Marvin) assists his friend Mal Reese (John Vernon) in intercepting a large mob-money drop on Alcatraz island. They succeed, but Mal deems his cut insufficient - and guns Walker down as Walker's wife Lynne, who has been cheating with Reese, looks on.

One year later, with the help of a mysterious stranger named Yost (Keenan Wynn) – who is presumed to be a cop - Walker hunts down those who betrayed him, and ran off with his $93,000, leaving him for dead. First stop is Lynne's - who has her door smashed in and bed shot up before sitting down to answer Walker's unasked questions. She explains what happened with Mal, who has left her, and they turn in for the night - Walker taking the sofa. In the morning he finds that she has died overnight - an intentional drug overdose. With the address given him by a reluctant mob courier, Walker appears at the car dealership of Big John Stegman (Michael Strong), an organization member who knows Mal - and who accompanies Walker on what becomes the test-drive from Hell. Having jolted more needed info. from Big John - Walker seeks out Lynne's sister Chris (Angie Dickinson), at the nightclub she runs - and where Walker engages in a vicious backstage brawl with 2 thugs sent to cut short his quest.

But his fighting tactics, which are quite literally below the belt, sideline them indefinitely. Finding Chris at her home, in a prone position eerily similar to a post-suicide Lynne's, Walker insists she aid him in his mission. She agrees to help
Walker penetrate Mal's home at the 'Huntley', a large heavily-guarded apt. building that few if any uninvited visitors survive entering or exiting. Mal's got it bad for Chris, so acting as a Trojan horse she agrees to meet him up in his penthouse lair, which will create the distraction needed for Walker to slip in, ghost-like. It works. With Chris nude in his bed, and an amusing 2nd distraction created across the street, Walker goes inside, upstairs, and drags a trembling Mal from his bed, still clutching the sheets while Chris dresses, relieved her role didn't require more. Walker demands his money from Mal - or at least the name of someone who can furnish him with it - but when Mal makes a move to escape he gets tangled in the sheets and accidentally spins off the balcony – plummeting nude to the street below.



Yost, having supervised Walker's every move, reappears and directs him to Carter - the next rung up the organization ladder, and the man Stegman and Mal have been taking orders from. Walker muscles his way into Carter's office demanding his money, which Carter instructs Stegman to provide at a payoff in the L.A. storm drains. Dragged by Walker to the meet, Carter is then pushed from the shadows - and met by a sniper's bullet - a bullet meant for Walker. The Carter-hired marksman, believing he's killed Walker, then takes out Big John before driving away. Walker, now forced to go even higher, opens the payoff bundle, and finds blank bills. Yost guides Walker to the home of Brewster (Carroll O'Connor), and brings Chris who now needs protection from the mob. They quarrel there, later make love, and await Brewster, who shows up with a quickly eliminated henchman. At gunpoint - Brewster phones a 'Fairfax' who scoffs at Walker's demand. Walker shoots the phone. Brewster, now petrified, takes Walker to another Alcatraz drop - promising him the cash. From the shadows - the paid sniper kills Brewster, who while dying identifies the also present Yost as 'Fairfax' - who as the actual head of the organization has used Walker to eliminate his competition. Fairfax offers the owed money and a cushy position to a hiding Walker - who silently slips into the shadows, his motives unclear.

'Point Blank' is at once an exiting and brutal revenge Noir, and an elliptical fragmented, art film influenced by New Wave filmmakers like Resnais and Antonioni. It's fairly apparent that the story is a revenge fantasy taking place in Walker's mind as he lay dying - this theory reinforced early during the credit sequence when a bullet-ridden Walker whispers "..a dream, a dream" and bizarre freeze-frames track his unlikely exit off Alcatraz. As is often the case in dreams, actions or activities are hampered or blocked altogether.

In 'Point Blank', despite it's violent reputation, Walker never actually kills anyone(!) He kills a bed, a car, a pay telescope, a phone. Characters repeatedly comment on Walker's very existence. They're surprised he's alive, or suggest that he really isn't. Marvin, at the top of his game here – and perfectly cast - brings exactly what is needed to this complex role, and not one bit more. He's the anti-hero as ghost - a man of action who sits zombified when there isn't a need for any. But when the chillingly determined, granite faced Walker is provoked - he detonates - and the effect is riveting.

Along with displaying a mesmerizing, rigorous color scheme (suits matching decor, dresses matching cars), and a consistently chilly use of widescreen isolation (characters divided by columns, doorways, or space),'Point Blank' is easily the sexiest of early neo-noirs. It is replete with stimulating images, and a strong homo-erotic undercurrent is present. When Walker asks Chris if she wants Mal, he follows up with "I want him", the meaning murky.
While struggling with Walker in the penthouse Mal pleads " Let me get dressed!" but Walker demands, "I want you this way". Semi-erotic compositions are lingered on throughout the film; Lynne's lifeless body in bed, buttocks raised and nearly revealed; Mal's slow unbuttoning of Chris' outfit; Stegman's salesman flirting with a sexy customer - who strokes the small dog he holds in his lap; etc., etc.

Despite the Technicolor, 'Point Blank' is Noir at it's pitch-blackest – for even Walker's dying fantasy betrays him. In death, as in life, he has been duped. Walker doesn't so much retreat during the film's puzzling coda - as dematerialize. His dream over, his point blank.

Written by Dave