For further background on the year in film please refer to the Some Other Movies From 1991 entry.
The following things happened in 1991:
- The Cold War came to an end.
- Japan's economy came to a thundering halt.
- The U.N. condemned Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.
- The Gulf War began as U.S.-led forces expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
- Exxon agreed to pay $1 billion to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
- Apartheid ended in South Africa and economic sanctions on that country were lifted.
- The World Wide Web Project was announced.
- Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in London.
Linked entries can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube.
Excellent
1. Other People's Money
Danny DeVito stars as a corporate raider with Penelope Ann Miller as the lawyer hired to thwart him. Norman Jewison directed Other People's Money two years after In Country and four years after Moonstruck. Critics at the time didn't like the ending, but it worked for me.
In 2020 we're more concerned with the workings of government and corporations rigging the system, but toward the late 80s/early 90s figures like DeVito's character were a constant worry. Michael Milken is referenced at one point in the film, alongside a mention of "Trump waiting tables" after a recent fiasco. If they had only known...
Fun Fact: This movie represents Gregory Peck's last big film role. He did a few things later on, but after Other People's Money he retired from active film-making.
Not-So-Fun Fact: DeVito's stature is the result of Fairbank's Disease, a genetic disorder which affects bone growth.
Korean film about a boy battling the school bully. It says a lot about Korea in the late 60s/early 70s, and also speaks to the relationship between political power and an adherence to personal principles. Our Twisted Hero didn't make much of an impression outside South Korea, but the novel it was adapted from was translated into English in 2001.
Some Good Ones
1. The Double Life of Veronique
French-Polish-Norwegian production written and directed by Krzystof Kieslowski. In it a young woman discovers she has a double. I liked it, and star Irene Jacob is very beautiful, but I can't say the ending came together in the way I hoped it would.
2. The Last Boy Scout
If this movie feels Lethal Weapon-y it's because Shane Black wrote both movies. Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Nice Guys... I often feel like he's been trying to write the same script for the past few decades.
In The Last Boy Scout Bruce Willis stars as a detective who uncovers a conspiracy, with Damon Wayans as the ex-football player he teams up with. Tony Scott directed, and I'd have to say that Black's script played to Scott's strengths. One of the best 90s action movies? I think so.
Fun Fact 1: The running back (?) at the beginning of the movie is played by Billy Blanks. In case you're unfamiliar with Billy Blanks, he was the inventor of the fitness regimen Tae Bo. After The Last Boy Scout he'd go on to appear in several memorably bad movies.
Fun Fact 2: Actress Chelsea Field, who plays Willis' wife in this movie, also appeared as Teela in 1987's Masters of the Universe. She began her career as a Solid Gold Dancer.
Fun Fact 3: The original title of the script for this film was Die Hard. Producer Joel Silver, working on another script, asked writer Shane Black if he could use Die Hard for the other script instead. Thus Nothing Lasts Forever became Die Hard, and Die Hard became The Last Boy Scout.
3. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
It's hard to explain to younger folks what a big deal this movie was in 1991. The Terminator came out in 1984, and wasn't the smash success people sometimes it imagine it to be. Instead it was more of a cult film, helped along by the expanding VHS market. By 1991 there was a huge audience for a sequel, and James Cameron was more than ready to give them one. I saw this movie in the theater the day it opened, and yes, the place was packed.
Terminator 2 is still a rock solid action movie, and still the best in the series, even though some of the special effects haven't aged that well. It's a very suspenseful movie, and the ending makes sense on several levels. Sure, some of Linda Hamilton's voice-overs feel shoehorned in, but she was great in this movie and I'm only sorry we had to wait until Dark Fate to see her a second time.
Looking back, T2 was in a weird place in terms of "movie magic." Practical effects were on the wane, and were being replaced by early-stage cgi. Watching many of the 90s action blockbusters makes this trend very obvious.
4. Black Robe
Many of those who read Joseph Boyden's 2013 novel The Orenda will have been reminded of the 1991 film Black Robe. In both The Orenda and Black Robe a Jesuit priest encounters First Nations people in the vicinity of Quebec, and both The Orenda and Black Robe highlight the moral ambiguity inherent in the Catholic mission at that time. Yet where The Orenda offers a very bleak perspective on this topic, Black Robe is a much more conventional affair. The music is a bit overdone and the low budget is apparent at times (especially in the scene where the party is captured), but it's still a very well executed movie featuring a standout performance by star Lothaire Bluteau.
Fun Fact: Actress Tantoo Cardinal, who appeared in this movie, also appeared in Dances With Wolves the year before.
"I'll take on all three of you... full contact, no protection."
And if that doesn't sound like a setup for a gay four-way, I don't know what does.
As far as your late 80s / early 90s action heroes go, you've got your A-listers: Schwarzenegger and Stallone, your.B-listers: Van Damme and Seagal, and then you've got your C-listers: dudes like Jeff Speakman and Mark Dacascos. Were there D-listers? Sure, plenty, but I'd be at pains to remember their names.
In The Perfect Weapon Speakman battles the Korean mafia and tries to reconcile with his estranged father. It's got some good fight scenes, and as these movies go it was surprisingly well written.
Some Bad Ones
1. Career Opportunities
Frank Whaley stars as an ambitious young man trapped in a Target overnight with Jennifer Connelly. John Hughes wrote the screenplay, though later distanced himself from the film.
My biggest problem with this movie is that its characters are hard to like and even harder to sympathize with. Whaley's behavior on the first day of a new job is inexplicable, and Connelly's character isn't developed enough to care about one way or another. Another problem is this movie's ending, which comes out of nowhere. I could easily pick apart other plot elements, but as it is the plot's just barely there.
The above said, f you want to know what people were buying, wearing and listening to in 1991 look no farther than the shelves Whaley skates alongside. You can even see the cassette tapes in those "security sleeves" they used before everyone was buying CDs.
Fun Fact: At age 16 Jennifer Connelly had a hit song in Japan. You can listen to it here.
2. Mississippi Masala
A young Indian woman finds romance in America after her family is forced to leave Uganda. The two leads in this movie, unlike the two leads in Career Opportunities, are very likable, but the plot is just as thin. Bringing the father's struggle to regain his land to the forefront might have fixed that. I also feel like there are British movies that have covered similar themes much better.
Fun Fact: Movies like this were familiar territory for British-Indian actor Roshan Seth. Before Mississippi Masala, he appeared in Gandhi, A Passage to India, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and My Beautiful Laundrette. After Mississippi Masala he would appear as Dhalsim in Street Fighter. Oh, how the mighty sometimes fall!
3. Lower Level
In some ways not a bad movie, but it just creeps along. A hot architect finds herself trapped in an apartment building of her own design! Oh, the irony!
Fun Fact: Elizabeth Gracen, former Miss America and star of this film, had an affair with Bill Clinton.
So Bad It's Good
1. Hudson Hawk
One of the cringiest action movies ever. Bruce Willis stars as a cat burglar with a fondness for coffee, with Danny Aiello as his partner in crime. The dialogue is bad - so bad - and Richard E. Grant has all the worst lines. The director of this movie started his career with Heathers, but hasn't done much since Hudson Hawk.
2. Stone Cold
Ex-Seahawk Brian Bosworth infiltrates Lance Henriksen's biker gang. At a certain point you have to ask yourself: is Bosworth's character helping the situation, or needlessly escalating things? All I know is a lot less people would have died if he hadn't shown up at the state capital.
Fun Fact: In the beginning of this movie you can see boxes of the Batman (89) breakfast cereal on the supermarket shelves. Stone Cold started filming just after that movie hit theaters.
Deep Thoughts: Brian Bosworth, like Eric Roberts, had one of the great mullets of the early 90s.
3. Street Soldiers*
Advertisement for a local swap meet? Advertisement for some guy's dojo? Or both?
Whatever it is, this less-than-gripping take on gang warfare, starring I Don't Know Who and directed by Never Heard of Him, has some seriously funny moments. There's the fake cobra in the box. Most of the dialog. The acting. But best (worst) of all is the bad guy, who insists on doing a Batman voice all the way through the movie.
4. Ring of Fire
D-list action heroes? Oh yeah, Don "The Dragon" Wilson!
In this Romeo and Juliet (or is it West Side Story?) adaptation, Wilson falls in love with a woman who looks like she jumped straight out of a Warrant video - but oh no! - complications arise when she gets mixed up with a rival gang. The love scenes in this movie are hilarious.
Fun Fact 1: There was another movie titled Ring of Fire the same year. The other Ring of Fire was an Imax film about volcanism.
Fun Fact 2: Don Wilson had a small role in Batman Forever as the leader of the neon gang.
Part Red Dawn, part Predator, part I don't know what.
Edge of Honor features DON Swayze, brother of Patrick - as some kind of arms smuggler living on the Olympic Peninsula. Corey Feldman (!) costars as - I kid you not - a boy scout who happens upon his stash. The rest of the plot doesn't make a great deal of sense - I mean, where are they smuggling the arms to? Where from? - but if you've had about four beers it can be a pleasant hour and a half.
In this movie the guy you really sympathize with in this movie is the "British assassin." Either he was a Northwest theater guy who almost had his "big break" with this movie, or he was an actual Brit - some guy who'd been kicking around Hollywood for far too long. Either way Edge of Honor was NOT the movie that made his career.
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