Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Well I’m listening and all I’m hearing is a lot of hot air’
Unbelievably, after Return of the Jedi, it would be six years before Mark Hamill
returned to the big screen in anything but a voice role.
And when he did, he wanted a part as far away from Luke Skywalker as possible.
‘Crazy bastard’
He went with Slipstream
‘Terrible, isn’t it’
Now give it a chance.
This is a post-apocalyptic film, but the apocalypse is environmental,
causing weird weather conditions
‘And of the emergence of a river of wind called the slipstream’
This is one of those sci-fi movies that hangs it’s whole vision of the future on a single hook,
there’s a river of wind;
'We'll have to stream it.'
That’s it, this is not a complete world.
‘Why I could die of embarrassment’
Hamill’s violent cop Tasker and his sidekick Belitski
‘Every time a piece of human trash is put under a rock pile the world’s a better place’
have captured wanted murderer, Byron played by Bob Peck.
‘I have slipped the surly bonds of earth’
On their way to hand him in they stop at this hive of scum and villainy.
‘Low lives, bottom feeders, you know who you are’
Here we meet Bill Paxton’s Matt Owens, just as he tries to trade a cat for sex.
‘What would say to an even trade?’
He, God help us, is our hero.
‘You wanna cut yourself a slice of this pie don’t you? Believe me the ride’ll be worth it’
Despite falling for this trick and being poisoned, he escapes with Byron,
planning to claim the reward for himself, which Byron seems fine with.
‘I think I deserve to be punished.’
There’s something about Byron isn’t there?
‘He fixed my boy’s eyes’
Something Messianic.
‘Children are God’s gift to man’
This is a buddy movie; two very different characters...
‘You know I bet you’re the kind of guy who gets out of the shower to take a piss, right?’
learning to trust each other. Except.
‘What happened to your hand cuffs’
'Oh, I'm sorry, here you go.'
Matt makes no effort to secure him and is then surprised he doesn’t hang around.
‘There is my fu…’
Later. ..
‘And don’t think I’m gonna be dumb enough to take my eyes off you for a second’
and now I’m going to sleep.
‘You tried to strangle me’
I go to sleep next to the wanted murderer I’m planning to turn into the police and this is the thanks I get.
Of course Byron’s not trying to escape or kill him because this is Byron,
but Matt’s surprise is baffling
‘I guess I’m gonna have to trust you here’
How would that be any different?
‘I’m still cashing your ass in’
This is also a road movie without roads.
‘I’m going down a part of the slipstream even I’ve never been down before’
So your plan is to get lost?
‘The bad news is we’re lost’
What do you know.
Along the way they meet Robbie Coltrane eating lobster in a hot tub,
and Sir Ben Kingsley as the religious leader of a group of wind worshippers,
who joins Byron is a game of ‘who can talk the most portentous crap’
‘Maybe this is a sign’
‘All that will be left of me is bits of gold in the sand’
I guess Byron loses because they crucify him on a kite.
Just in case that religious metaphor had escaped you.
‘He’s a false prophet’
but now the cops catch up and we learn Byron’s true nature.
‘Androids don’t have feelings’
A robot in search of humanity, and he finds it at their next stop.
‘Don’t tell me all this isn’t getting through to you cos I know it is’
These people have sealed themselves into what seems to be V&A museum
to see out the end of the world surrounded by art and debauchery, but this life has its price.
‘I know, I’m so bored with this body’
Let me see what I can do.
‘Bore me to death’
Byron finds a woman too.
‘I’m not accustomed to being loved’
Go Byron.
‘You’ll never guess what happened to me last night’
Alright we don’t need details.
‘I fell asleep’
Better luck next time.
But the cops again catch up.
‘Wrong again’
Remember several days ago when he was poisoned?
There’s so far been no ill-effects or tension and that was the antidote.
‘Well that’s very interesting’
This a is a film in which characters don’t talk, they trade lines, which are either quasi philosophical
‘True hope is swift and flies with swallows wings’
or hard bitten cliché.
‘He flew suicide missions to hell and back’
Just for the record, no suicide mission is to somewhere and back.
‘Buzz off and die, fly’
This is Blade Runner,
if all that subtext that kept people debating its real meaning for decades was on the surface.
‘I am tired of talking’
How ironic.
But even if that was well handled, there’s problems; Byron is a killer.
‘He killed a man, he’s got to go in’
but why he killed a man is never fully answered.
All that talking and the one thing which, more than any other, should be a clue to his nascent humanity is written off in one line.
‘Whoever he was he was probably asking for it anyway, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes he was’
All through the film he talks about...
‘Somewhere I think I belong. I didn’t grow up there but that’s where I was going’
Likewise, unresolved.
‘Perhaps I’d dream about that place I was going to.
’At the end Byron takes Tasker out.
‘We’re gonna make it!’
How did that look like you were going to make it?
I would buy the Terminator walking away from that, but this guy’s a robot butler,
why the hell was he built to withstand an explosion?
'There goes my best friend.'
You've known him three days!
‘It’s over! It’s finished’
On the bright side, this movie didn’t typecast Mark Hamill, because nobody saw it.
'This is all you need to know.'
thanks for watching, to see more post-apocalyptic film reviews, click here.
What other actors have made bad missteps coming out of a major franchise, let us know in the comments below.
'Slipstream bought you here, Slipstream will take you back.'
