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DVD REVIEW ARCHIVE
THE EVIL THAT MEN DO (1984)
Columbia DVD (region 4)
d. J. Lee Thompson; pr. Pancho Kohner; scr. David Lee Henry, John Crowther; novel. R. Lance Hill; ph. Xavier Cruz; m. Ken Thorne; ed. Enrique Estevez; cast. Charles Bronson, Theresa Saldana, Joseph Maher, Jose Ferrer, John Glover, Raymond St. Jacques (90 mins)
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Misanthropic Subversion in Disreputable Exploitation Cinema
Although actor Charles Bronson became a popular star in American film in the 1970s, his longevity is attributable to his partnership with two English directors.
The first and arguably best known of these provocative teamings was with director Michael Winner for Chato’s Land, The Mechanic, The Stone Killer and the first three Death Wish movies, bringing the actor into the 1980s and perfecting his vigilante persona. Whilst these films were only begrudgingly critically accepted (and never exactly championed), Bronson’s second spell of such creative collaborations – with veteran director J. Lee Thompson – beginning in the 1970s with The White Buffalo, St. Ives and Caboblanco and continuing through the 1980s, have found no ready supporters. Even recent published works on Thompson’s career tend to gloss over his American work. That is a shame for the resultant 1980s films in particular – including 10 to Midnight, Messenger of Death, The Evil That Men Do, Murphy’s Law and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects – are a resoundingly misanthropic and even subversive body of work, taking the Bronson image about as far into moral ambiguity and even perversion as it could go. Indeed, much of the hostility to these films was on moral grounds and the subsequent tendency was to dismiss them as mere exploitation. Within that most disreputable field, however, some of these films are outstanding.
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Synopsis (contains spoilers)
The Evil That Men Do stars Charles Bronson as a retired killer. He is approached by a man (Jose Ferrer) to come out of retirement for one last assassination – the target being a known torturer (Joseph Macher) who has been instructing South American governments in the use of torture (as a political weapon) with apparent American sanction.
Bronson is at first reluctant but even this killer’s sense of moral outrage is breached by Macher’s actions (which are described in an unbearable scene of videotape confessions). Thus, Bronson poses as a married tourist (to an especially selected Theresa Saldana and her child) in order to get into Guatemala where Macher and his abnormally devoted sister are hiding, protected by brutal bodyguards. Bronson develops a plan to target the main bodyguard, finally hoping to kidnap Macher’s sister in order to force him out into the open. However, this plan soon goes awry and Bronson must face the retributive vengeance of the world’s most feared torturer, intent on getting information on Bronson and the people who have helped him. Macher even appeals to the American authorities to assist him in getting rid of Bronson and finding himself a safe refuge. Bronson fears Saldana may be the next target and realizes he may have allowed his emotions and his professional priorities to intermingle. Bronson’s fears prove well founded when Macher has specific demands.
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Sadism, Torture & Moral Ambivalence in the Inability to Recognize One's Evil
The film is scathing in its depiction and analysis of what director Thompson considers the human potential for sadistic, conscienceless action. Yet, it frames this in a clear indictment of US foreign policy as Macher can validate his sadism as a proper means of the demonstration of torture as a valuable political instrument and be accordingly condoned by all governments.
Morally devoid from the repugnant cruelty of his actions, he even believes that he is a good man. Bronson too is a killer, but in form true to the actor’s image he is one who acts with care and discretion, however solid in his self-righteousness. Even in the world of killers there is a moral code which apparently must be maintained: the torturer is the nadir of this persona, at one end of an already questionable moral spectrum. With his incestuous love for his sister nicely implied throughout the movie, Macher represents the depths of human perversity, in the process making the morally ambiguous Bronson a figure of moral restitution – indeed, in his developing relationship to Saldana and her child he even has the potential to assume the role of father, the most valuable responsibility in any patriarchal order and even the proof of redemption. Despite the potential for human warmth in the relationship between these two characters The Evil That Men Do is an unrelentingly depressing movie experience, powerful and disturbing in its moral implications and ambiguities.
Even in such a body of work as that between Bronson and Thompson The Evil That Men Do is despairing in its irony, Macher at one point even stating that his real reward will be in heaven. The implication is that the human quality of evil is its very inability to recognize or accept that it is in effect doing evil.
The quality of moral self-righteousness can thus condone the worst actions – an idea making the film amongst the most corrosive of the vigilante cycle of films that began in earnest with Death Wish. Bronson’s exercise of moral choice is thus seen as a responsible decision: indeed, with a past as murky as this character’s, punishing Macher may be Bronson’s final act of validation. Unlike his other vigilante characters on film, Bronson here gets little visible enjoyment out of his mission – he is a professional avenger but still a moral man with a grasp of good and evil, the last bastion left the vigilante. Still, as in all of the Thompson / Bronson output, the vigilante figure remains morally ambiguous. It is as if in a world where evil has spread to the extent that it can no longer recognize itself, good (let alone absolute good) is now accordingly relative. Morality and justice can only be restored through acts that are morally compromised in themselves. The innate fallen-world despair in this systemic dissolution of morality is a theme essayed throughout the Bronson / Thompson films and one which grows from seeing the films in sequence.
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Psychotic Subjectivity in an Objective South American Nightmare
The 16:9 enhanced widescreen transfer may reflect the inherent limitations of a low budget film and functional transfer but is effective within this field.
Nevertheless, it is worn, indistinct and grainy at times and often murky after an oddly hallucinatory start that suggests a rather psychotic subjectivity through which the film unfolds as a nightmarish reckoning. The torture scenes are disturbingly explicit as some scenes flirt with faux snuff-film conventions, the film emerging as an unflinching look at human aberration. In this scheme of aberrant behaviour Macher’s cold performance is central, the man as professional as Bronson. Ironically, Macher has rather softer features than Bronson and indeed looks comparatively helpless. The South American settings are convincing (filmed in Mexico) and the slow transition from urban areas to undeveloped desert communities captures a mounting sense of moral desolation leading to a stunning conclusion in a mining development. This gradual change from urbanity to desert also suggests a step back in time to another order of moral reckoning (and perhaps inevitable moral regression) as the film starts slowly to resemble a kind of modern Western in its use of landscape. Having an immediate visceral impact throughout, the film is always convincing in look and production design, constantly stressing a cumulative inhospitability in order to keep the viewer edgy and uncomfortable.
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Searching in Vain for Humanity's Voice
The sound transfer is a functional Dolby Digital mono affair. It too reveals a film that is desolate and outraged in its design, searching in vain for some passion in the human voice amidst such horrendous developments.
Ironically and most disturbingly, it finds such passion only in the sounds of pain under intense torture in scenes that are as unnerving to listen to as they are to watch. Pain is thus a key motif in this film. The tense, sparse score reinforces the disturbing qualities of the picture – it is not a pleasant entertainment, instead wholly resolute in despair and cynicism. Sadly, much of the vivid but understated background is flat in this transfer although at least nicely suggestive of such activity when needed, adding individuality to some of the more seedier settings utilized by Thompson. Voices are under-directed and when mixed with detailed, necessary diegetic sounds make for a deliberate low-key intensity, erupting into sudden and abrasively violent moments and then again retreating. It is almost wave-like in design and intention. The bass may seem to split up and vibrate on some levels but holds together most of the time. The score mixes the tense with the melancholic outrage Bronson gradually feels, contributing to the conjoined senses of desolation and desperation. The final use of echoing voices in the mine complex adds an unnerving quality as the entire film is a profoundly disconcerting experience.
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Not a Lot for the DVD Collector
The only special features are trailers for The Evil That Men Do, Hard Times (another excellent Bronson film, this one by Walter Hill) and the unrelated Hong-Kong cinema inspired action DVD releases of The Replacement Killers and The Big Hit. Six Bronson / Thompson films of the 1980s have been released on region 1 DVD individually and there is a Box Set of four (minus The Evil That Men Do and Death Wish 4). At time of writing, three (Messenger of Death; Murphy’s Law; Ten to Midnight) have also been released on region 4 in the 5-movie Box Set Charles Bronson DVD Action Pack (along with the non-Thompson The Mechanic and Mr. Majestyk). St. Ives has been released seperately.
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