Directed by: John Carpenter
Screenplay by: John Carpenter
Cinematography by: Douglas Knapp
Editor: John Carpenter
Cast: Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston and Laurie Zimmer
Year: 1976
As an avid fan of most of John Carpenter's work, it pains me to say this film was a big disappointment for me. Although he was as ballsy as ever in portraying brutal, almost unthinkable levels of violence in his film, he has yet to fully create a believable hyper-real world for it to acceptably take place, as in Escape From NY or Big Trouble In Little China.
Maybe it's the reality of low-budget exploitation film making which Carpenter was still tethered to which makes the film so mundane in it's setting and characterization compared to subsequent works. For a film which relies on an ensemble performance, most of the characters except for the lieutenant and convict are TOTALLY uninteresting and immediately forgettable. I found it hilarious to see how useless the second office secretary (the one in yellow at the operator switchboard) was so totally inconsequential to the plot, they just killed her off-screen during one of the fire-fights. I can imagine Carpenter realizing how useless her character was and cutting her loose by resorting to a few cutaways of her lifeless body.
Maybe I missed something here, but the film just seemed to waste so much of the first act on unimportant or illogical plot points. For example, what baring does the opening scene have on the main plot at all? Was the gang out for revenge on the cops? If so, why THE FUCK do they kill a random ice cream man and a small girl? (in a painfully drawn out, yet totally confounding scene). Trust me, if somebody wanted to put a gun in my mouth, I don't think I would be as willing as that ice cream dude. So much of the set-up to the precinct scenes make NO SENSE at all (other than to purely exploit the audience's desire to see somebody innocent get it).
Also, when confronted by the bereaved father after a brief nocturnal car chase, why do all the other gang members (except for the silent white dude) scatter out of the car like cockroaches? Were all the other guys just pussies? Don't they all stand a better chance with AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ganging up on one man with a revolver? And what is with the white guy's reaction to being shot? At first, I was like, "Oh, he's just standing there taking the shots like a bad-ass because he's wearing a bullet-proof vest. Ha-ha, nice one. Oh, wait, no, he's actually dead... WHAAAAAA?"
And when the father shambles into the police station, he suddenly gets autism or something from his recent traumas and goes into a sort of half-coma. OH, COME ON! This is pretty sloppy writing (Carpenter claims to have written the screenplay in under a week and never rehearsed, and it really shows). Once we have our A, B, and C plot converge in the ill-fated precinct (which is referred to Precinct 9, Division 13 for some strange reason), it pretty much writes itself. Never having seen Rio Bravo, I immediately began thinking of Night of the Living Dead; A pragmatic black protagonist with a collection of opposing characters lock themselves in a building, trying to resist the onslaught of a faceless, limitless enemy looming in the shadows. They even make a desperate last stand in the basement.
Anyhow, there are many more strange and illogical moments in this film, it makes me just want to turn off my brain and enjoy the senseless action. Much as fans of Star Wars can brush away such storytelling inconsistencies aside by simply invoking "The Force", I guess John Carpenter can always claim "Sunspots" as his excuse. But I think we all know he can do much better than that.
Maybe it's the reality of low-budget exploitation film making which Carpenter was still tethered to which makes the film so mundane in it's setting and characterization compared to subsequent works. For a film which relies on an ensemble performance, most of the characters except for the lieutenant and convict are TOTALLY uninteresting and immediately forgettable. I found it hilarious to see how useless the second office secretary (the one in yellow at the operator switchboard) was so totally inconsequential to the plot, they just killed her off-screen during one of the fire-fights. I can imagine Carpenter realizing how useless her character was and cutting her loose by resorting to a few cutaways of her lifeless body.
Maybe I missed something here, but the film just seemed to waste so much of the first act on unimportant or illogical plot points. For example, what baring does the opening scene have on the main plot at all? Was the gang out for revenge on the cops? If so, why THE FUCK do they kill a random ice cream man and a small girl? (in a painfully drawn out, yet totally confounding scene). Trust me, if somebody wanted to put a gun in my mouth, I don't think I would be as willing as that ice cream dude. So much of the set-up to the precinct scenes make NO SENSE at all (other than to purely exploit the audience's desire to see somebody innocent get it).
Also, when confronted by the bereaved father after a brief nocturnal car chase, why do all the other gang members (except for the silent white dude) scatter out of the car like cockroaches? Were all the other guys just pussies? Don't they all stand a better chance with AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ganging up on one man with a revolver? And what is with the white guy's reaction to being shot? At first, I was like, "Oh, he's just standing there taking the shots like a bad-ass because he's wearing a bullet-proof vest. Ha-ha, nice one. Oh, wait, no, he's actually dead... WHAAAAAA?"
And when the father shambles into the police station, he suddenly gets autism or something from his recent traumas and goes into a sort of half-coma. OH, COME ON! This is pretty sloppy writing (Carpenter claims to have written the screenplay in under a week and never rehearsed, and it really shows). Once we have our A, B, and C plot converge in the ill-fated precinct (which is referred to Precinct 9, Division 13 for some strange reason), it pretty much writes itself. Never having seen Rio Bravo, I immediately began thinking of Night of the Living Dead; A pragmatic black protagonist with a collection of opposing characters lock themselves in a building, trying to resist the onslaught of a faceless, limitless enemy looming in the shadows. They even make a desperate last stand in the basement.
Anyhow, there are many more strange and illogical moments in this film, it makes me just want to turn off my brain and enjoy the senseless action. Much as fans of Star Wars can brush away such storytelling inconsistencies aside by simply invoking "The Force", I guess John Carpenter can always claim "Sunspots" as his excuse. But I think we all know he can do much better than that.
2.5 out of 5
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