Trouble in Mind (1985)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Alan Rudolph

Writer:

Alan Rudolph (written by)

Release Date:

March 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

The lives of an ex-con, a coffee-shop owner, and a young couple looking to make it rich intersect in the fictional and hypnotic Rain City. |

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Seattle Washington | Independent Film

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Kris Kristofferson	...	Hawk
Keith Carradine	...	Coop
Lori Singer	...	Georgia
Geneviève Bujold	...	Wanda
Joe Morton	...	Solo
Divine	...	Hilly Blue
George Kirby	...	Lieutenant Gunther
John Considine	...	Nate Nathanson
Dirk Blocker	...	Rambo
Albert Hall	...	Leo
Gailard Sartain	...	Fat Adolph
Robert Gould	...	Mardy Stoog
Antonia Dauphin	...	Sonja Nathanson
Billy Silva	...	Elmo
Caitlin Ferguson	...	Spike

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Korean | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | USA:R | West Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Seattle, Washington, USA

Company:

Pfeiffer/Blocker Production

Quotes:

Hilly Blue: I prefer priests. They're *real* hypocrites.

Bladerunner?

The person who compared this film to Bladerunner is not only doing this film a disservice, but is so far from the mark as to be untrue. The chief protagonist is a cop true, and though initially spurned, he does get the girl in the end, but that's about where it ends...

From the opening strains of the muted trumpet, and Marianne Faithfull's beautifuly broken voice, this film is a masterpiece, it's moody, quirky, low key and not without a little menace, especially when Hilly Blue "puts the anchor" on Solo, "they should all blow each other's balls off, make my life easier..." to quote Lt. Gunther.

It's everything that Bladerunner isn't, if anything it's set in some alternate vision of a disfunctional 50's & 80's combined, down at heel low life's, trashy outfits, too much drab neon & hairspray, allied with a little mob glamour and modern art.

I guess I just feel for the characters, Hawk's hunger for a life he never had, the Zen stillness of Wanda, the wild eyed innocence of Georgia and the weirdness that is Coop, Solo freaking out as a Bhudhist, and last but not least, Divine in a suit... "let everybody get what they deserve..."

It's not a fast movie, or an ensemble piece, but at some deep level it resonates.

"what are you looking at?" "you a cop?" "you know damn well I'm not a cop" "that's what I'm looking at then, a woman who isn't a cop..."

It's the film I watch when I get down, I've lost track of the number of times I've watched it, I caught it first at the ICA West Bank in London, on it's last showing before they started a series of Mexican masked wrestling bario movies :) I bought it recently on DVD in a shop in Schipol airport after being delayed in Amsterdam for two hours, I'd been looking for it for years at that point... Even Amazon had it on back order.

It's really a wonderful movie, from icy lake to mountain road, I always come away from it happy, I guess you can ask no more from a movie than that.