Review of Night Moves (1975) by Joseph S — 12 Jan 2009
This film cements in my mind the Gene Hackman curse, to always either know too much or not enough, and to never be able to kill Super-Man.
It's tempting to compare his character here to other screen detectives Nicholson in China town, any of the Philip Marlowe's, but the biggest difference between them and him, is he's not very good. He's an ex football player who entered the detective game for personal reasons, to figure out the identity of and track down, his father. Nowadays he takes small odd jobs, thrown his way by more successful "Agency" freinds, but deals mostly with divorces. Meanwhile, his own marriage is on the rocks, he tails his wife the way he would any cheating spouse.
Then comes the case, a missing girl runaway, who is pretty easy to track down(she's at her step-dads house). Sherlock Holmes Hackman's Harold Mosby, is not, and his wife, friends, and pretty much everyone he meets take pleasure in reminding him of this. "Why do you have to pretend your solving something"..."go ahead, hit me like Sam Spade would"..."Youre' not on of those truth seking types are you?". The deeper he gets into the case the more answers begin to fall away from him like crashing planes out of the sky. "Night Moves" is almost a genre unto intself, the first soft boiled detective.
What's Mosby's motivation, well it has to do with what he did when he found his father, all those years ago. You won't find any Huckabees mega stores in this movie but Mosby is everry bit the existential detective. He really hasn't a clue.
I loved all the performances, the dialogue, the cris editing, it avoids many of the noir cleche's, there are only two or three brief scenes at night, and the story takes place mostly in the Florida Keys. No shadowy takes here.
The title is a chess reference, one of the few things Mosby takes with him everywhere he goes is chess set, and of course true to form, he's only every really playing against himself.
The last five minutes will leave you on the edge of your seat.
This review of Night Moves (1975) was written by Joseph S on 12 Jan 2009.
Night Moves has generally received positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
