Blow Out (1981)

This isn't a popular opinion but here it is anyway. I'm not a huge fan of Brian De Palma. To film buffs, this idea is largely considered sacrilege as he is often viewed as the heir to Alfred Hitchcock's throne. The new master of suspense. Quentin Tarantino went as far as to call him 'the greatest director of his generation', which is high praise indeed considering his classmates include Spielberg, Coppola and Scorsese. My beef is similar to my beef with, you guessed it, Hitchcock himself. I always find their films good, but never great. Maybe it's a matter of personal taste, we are after all talking about art and not the 100m finals of the Olympics, but, for me, the films of these two directors always start strong, and end up descending into silliness, thus taking away from all the good set-up work done previous. 1981's 'Blow Out' is, unfortunately, no exception. 

Set in Philadelphia, the story follows John Travolta playing a foley artist for a low-rent movie company. For anyone not familiar, foley artists basically record sound effects for films to sound good in a cinema. Every door creak, footstep, raindrop, will have been either recorded or enhanced by the foley team in the post-production process. Having once done a tour of the foley studio at Warner Bros, I can say it's actually pretty wildly fascinating how this exercise takes place. 

Anyway, Travolta and his sleazy boss are having trouble with their latest slasher flick. Not only do they need a convincing scream, which the lead actress was unable to provide, but they need some exterior sounds (wind, owls, nighttime in general) to complete the film. So Travolta packs up his shotgun mic and heads to the wilderness for an evening of recording. This is where things get interesting. On this excursion he is not only witness to the apparent murder of a government official, but he also manages to save the life of the call girl said official was riding with (played by Nancy Allen, at the time De Palma's wife, which says all we need to say about her chops in this one). 

So begins a thriller wherein Travolta is trying to avert what seems to be a big cover-up, all while keeping Nancy Allen safe from a murderous, mysterious, man (John Lithgow), who begins killing prostitutes, serial-killer style, to stop the trail leading back to the crime. The world thinks this man died in an accident, Travolta knows that's not true and is now involved in a cat and mouse game with an entity who is never made clear, but they do not want the truth coming out, and are willing to leave a trail of bodies to ensure that it doesn't happen. 

One thing Brian De Palma's films always have are an interesting visual style and that is laid on here in abundance. Even the opening, which is a first-person perspective of the slasher film they are all working on, is expertly done in terms of visual style. No one does a meandering shot, weaving through lots of inanimate objects before landing on an actor's face better than De Palma and he uses this technique multiple times here. There's even a great scene where Travolta is listening to the murder take place and meticulously puts himself back at the scene, through sense memory. Indeed it is flourishes like this that really gave me hope for this to be an outstanding film. The first hour or so plays out like a more high-octane version of Coppolla's 'The Conversation' (1974), wherein we are treated to the intricacies of sound engineering to piece together a crime. Which sounds sarcastic but it's actually pretty fascinating. 

The problem with this film, yet again, comes in the third act. As I feared, it all gets silly. John Lithgow's character goes from being very believable and, as a result, quite sinister, to behaving like a bumbling nincompoop and there are suddenly so many things that happen in quick succession which are simply beyond any sort of reasonable belief. For example, Lithgow mercilessly strangles a prostitute in a busy train station. Quick, quiet, no fuss. It's quite chilling. Ish. She probs could've got away quite easily, if truth be told. However, when he finally comes into contact with his intended target, Nancy Allen, he potters around town into all manner of quiet back alleys and suddenly can't seem to find the perfect place to kill her. It just doesn't ring true and reeks of a simple plot device to buy Travolta more time to save her. And, in his desperate pursuit, John boy even manages to speed his jeep through the middle of the Liberty Parade, which, again, just makes no sense. I'm not sure how we're expected to root for a protagonist who is mowing down bystanders at a clip of ten a second. Finally, when we discover Nancy Allen has been killed by Lithgow, in the most public setting imaginable after going through many alleyways and under many deserted bridges, the make-up department does such a woeful job of creating a 'slash' on her neck that you end up laughing. I was thinking "oh, she's not actually dead. That's nice." But no, she is. Even though she has a wound that looks like it was drawn on by my 4 year-old with a red felt pen. 

All of these incidents happen within 15 minutes of each other and, unfortunately, all of this silliness torpedos some outstanding set-up. Travolta is absolutely excellent in this film and his performance deserves more. But this, to me at least, is what De Palma does. It always descends back to these weird genre sensibilities which take you out of what was a previous well-rooted and interesting storyline. The only two films I've seen where he doesn't really lean on this style as much are 'Scarface' (1983) and Carlito's Way (1993) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, both are my favorite films from his canon. So, as I say, maybe it's what the kids call a "me problem" but I found myself frustrated, quite disappointed, and largely disengaged by the end of this film. The final shot is honestly not even worth mention, such is the silliness on display. It's a shame because the elements are in place for this to be a superior film, and there are moments which qualify as outstanding, but ultimately it becomes a victim of its own style by the time the final credits roll. 

★★☆☆☆