Day 80/84 - The Missing Person (2009)

Add two parts the thirties Humphrey Bogart, one part film noir, and one part September 11. Top off with two mysterious women. Mix slowly to some atmospheric jazz and several plot twists and you will have the surprisingly effective The Missing Person, written by director Noah Buschel. Buschel wrote the script and directed Neal Cassady, which I wasn’t very fond of, but here he hooked me in by playing with the rules of the detective film noir genre.

Michael Shannon (who I was knocked out by in 2011’s Take Shelter) plays hardboiled hard-drinking detective John Rosow who gets hired over the phone to follow Harold Fullmer (Frank Wood), who is taking a train from Chicago to California. Miss Charley (effectively played by Amy Ryan) acts as his go-between with his employer. His job starts at merely following Fullmer, but half-way through the film changes to bringing him home to New York City.

The greatest thing about the storyline are the swirves and curves Buschel gives us. As with any film noir, we and the hero often have to discover the subtext and real story going on. Is Fullmer, who is traveling with a young Mexican boy, a pediphile, or are we reading the situation wrong? Why are the FBI following him? I knew when Rosow jumps in the trunk of a cab to follow Fullmer without him seeing him that we were in for some twists and updating of the genre. The cabbie, named appropriately Hero Furillo (John Ventimiglia) keeps telling Rosow, just do the right thing—and we see that Rosow is a moral man who can perceive right moves from wrong.

The first part of the film feels like we are evoking the 1940s, especially with the train travel. Someone once mused that all great mysteries involve train travel. Certainly this sequence brings a smile as Rosow sits in the dining car watching Fullmer. But as the film progresses the color loses some of its sepia layering, we begin to learn Rosow’s ties to New York City and why he moved to Chicago and became a drunk.

I definitely enjoyed the film.

The Missing Person (2009) ****

Day 61/64 - Neal Cassady (2007)

I’ve been reading the original unexpurgated version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I’ve become a fan of Kerouac’s lust for adventure and experience and his often poetic style of writing. For that reason, I wanted to like the film Neal Cassady which attempts to explain the Cassady after the On the Road years.

The indie film was written and directed by Noah Buschel. The script gives unfortunately gives only wikipedic highlights of Cassady’s life—his endless search for his vagabond father, his romantic escapades, his wife Carolyn raising their two children with Neal off somewhere, his 1964 driving of the psychedelic bus Further as Ken Kesey’s mentor, and his ultimate overdose in 1968 along a Mexican railway track. Somehow, few of the scenes really delve deeply into what makes the character who he is--the most famous Beat Generation writer who never wrote anything. Unfortunately the film makes the ideas of the Beats seem shallow and pretty boring. 

Tate Donovan, starring as Cassady, is passable, but he doesn’t seem to project the charisma needed for the part. Glenn Fitzgerald’s Jack Kerouac has a little more emotional variety, but watching “drunk” on film loses its attraction quickly. I usually like the work of Amy Ryan (better known as Holly Flax, the character who lures Michael Scott away from The Office), but ultimately her only scenes tend to be of her scowling and chastising either Neal or Jack. The outstanding actor in the film for me was Chris Bauer (known for his role of Andy Bellefleur in True Blood) as Ken Kesey. He gave a finely nuanced role and generally steals most of his scenes.

For a deeper view of Kerouac and Cassady, check out these You Tube videos. 

Kerouac on Steve Allen's show reading from On the Road.

This video works on the assumption that Cassady was the center of the Beat Generation and offers perspectives from Carolyn Cassady and her two children. 

To get a real feeling of the energy of the Beats, watch James Franco as Allen Ginsberg in Howl, where Franco reads much of the poem and shows us real depth and passion.

Neal Cassady (2007) **