At Close Range (1986)

At Close Range (James Foley, 1986)
Walken plays: Brad Whitewood Sr. - Tractor thief, Filicidal rapist, all-around awful person



Synopsis: The unholy love-child of The Godfather era's homespun crime drama and other 80s 'broken family, coming of age' ballads like Rumble Fish and Stand By Me, At Close Range is certainly one of the grimmer moments in Walken's career. Brad Whitewood Jr. (Sean Penn) is already a low level hood, stewing around farmland Pennsylvania and nearly at the bursting point, before being abruptly reintroduced to his estranged criminal father, Brad Sr. (Walken). Brad Jr. is initially intoxicated by his father's lifestyle of used car hustling and larger-scale machinery theft. But, inevitably, second thoughts start to bubble up after his brother (Chris Penn) and girlfriend (Mary Stuart Masterson) are endangered after he's made accessory to a murder - not to mention that the FBI encroaching on the Whitewoods' action leads to Brad Sr. taking some pretty drastic steps in witness elimination. Fun fact: director James Foley went on to helm the stupendous Glengarry Glenn Ross (1992), and...um... the two sequels to 50 Shades of Grey. Womp womp.



Playing a part turned down by Robert De Niro for being "too dark" (yikes...), Walken's Brad Whitewood is truly bad news from the moment his moustache first inauspiciously struts onscreen. That said, Walken is ingenious enough to play the long game here, luring us, for over half the movie, into thinking that maybe, maybe, he isn't all that bad. Sure, he's a seedy hustler and perennial drinker, and there's that omnipresent murderous glint in his eye, particularly when cornered by a former gang member. His sparking interplay with 26 year-old Sean Penn, who's giving 110% as a scene partner, makes their scenes crackle with palpable tension. But gosh darn it, maybe, maybe, he does just want to bond with his sons through a bunch of criminal hijinx. Would that really be too much to ask for...?

Look at all of their happy father/son times! 

This kind of happiness could never end...right?

Yes. It absolutely would. The second Whitewood's shadowy, Deep Throat-style informant (David Strathairn, in a shadowy cameo) lets him know that the FBI are on his tail, Walken's former ballsy charisma snaps away like a bear trap. Suddenly, we're watching him tearing around a corn field in his car, bellowing like a maniac. Then, when his jokey charisma returns, it's with an unmistakable edge of visceral threat. And then, before you can say 'How much Whitewood could a Whitewoodchuck chuck,' BOOM: he's in a hotel room vindictively raping his son's girlfriend. Next scene: BOOM - he's shot his younger son in cold blood, for fear of him informing to the FBI. Are we still laughing now?



I often refer to Walken as a performer rather than an actor (a term he uses himself, amidst a confession that he still sees himself as a dancer rather than an actor who's been faking it all these years). His unique style is unpredictable and eminently watchable, but always with a veneer of playful mediation - he may play creepy or intimidating, but there's always a Vaudevillian wink that, 'don't worry, it's all part of the act,' and there's a comfort to that. It's only in his most live wire performances - The Deer Hunter, and, yes, At Close Range - that he loses that, and fully commits to the immersive darkness of his legendary psychopaths. The year after Max Zorin guffawed while cheerfully gunning down his henchmen, here we have Walken disappearing into the skin of a real, gruesomely convincing villain. And he is terrifyingly convincing.

Little did Penn know that 'Brad Whitewood' was merely the most recent alias used by Magneto

Wacky Walken dialogue: He gets a cracking monologue about coyotes, but it's a bit too loaded with the subtext of HE'S ABOUT TO MURDER HIS SON for the word 'wacky' to apply. A couple of his earlier lines blend zany with sinister a bit more seamlessly:

• "I gotta see something in you. I gotta see you got something here... between the legs... Then I'll give you a real present." [he's actually discussing giving his sons a gun here, but Walken's lingering gaze lets the innuendo fly as much as your wildest dreams. Colonel Angus, eat your... heart... out]
• [after his son calls, announcing he's just been shot in the face] "Get a woman. Get a life." Ouch.
  

  

  Putting the combined weirdness of Walken and Crispin Glover into a single shot somehow didn't cause the film to erupt into a deluge of winged snails before erupting into flames

DOES HE DANCE: You wouldn't expect it, but yes! Walken manages to sneak in a couple of joyful pirouettes after Whitewood sells a particularly big crop of stolen tractors to a factory. Amazingly, he's working his cocksure charm so hard at this stage of the game that the moment feeds into his bombastic charisma rather than feeling like an out-of-place Walken tic. Sonofagun.


Overall Walken-o-meter: 8/10 cowbells. The definitive performance to turn to when justifying that, yes, Walken is sometime as terrifying as the aura he projects, At Close Range showcases his best emotional glissando from affable and charming to unbelievably sadistic. There's some of his usual weirdness, but no artifice here, so it bleeds into only make Whitewood seem all the more strung-out and scarily unpredictable. Still, terrific as he is, watching Walken cash in on the psychopathic aura he's cultivated throughout his career, sexual violence and all: well, let's just say that I don't wike it.