8 Million Ways to Die

Summary

By the Eighties, the great director Hal Ashby had fallen on some hard times. From what I have read, Hal Ashby developed a serious drug problem that began to interfere with his work. This led to a tumultuous relationship with the studios. Unfortunately his final film 8 Million Ways to Die was wrestled out of his control as it went into post production. From reports of the cast and crew, Ashby was not on drugs during the shooting and had maintained good control of the film. Because Ashby contracted pancreatic cancer and died two years later, his vision for the film was never compiled. It’s a shame because inside 8 Million Ways to Die are the traces of a great film. I watched the new Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics the other night.

As the film begins, Los Angeles Detective Matt Scutter (Jeff Bridges) leads a police force to arrest a drug dealer named Hector at his home. When Hector begins to beat the cops with a baseball bat, Matt shoots the man and kills him. This takes place in front of Hector’s wife and children. Matt gets in trouble with the department for firing his weapon on a man who didn’t have a firearm. Matt gets drunk as hell and asks for a leave of absence so that he can get his life back in order. While in his alcohol induced slump, he loses his wife and house in the divorce. His daughter Luanne is the reason he decides to run his life around. Six months of sobriety later, he attends AA meetings. At a meeting he gets invited to a strangers house via a note and is given a thousand dollar bill to come to a party. Once he arrives he meets Sunny (Alexandra Paul) who seems to know him since she gives him a kiss and pretends that they are an item. At the party he encounters a dope dealer named Angel (Andy Garcia) and a man he had busted a few years earlier named Chance (Randy Brooks.) Chance used to be called Willy when he had gotten busted year earlier. Scutter also meets Sarah (Rosanna Arquette) who is the madame of the house. Sunny convinces Matt to let her come to his apartment. He immediately understands that she is a hooker and sets her straight on trying to use her body to solicit his help. Sunny asks Matt to break things off for her with Chance by offering him $2500 for her freedom. Matt agrees to help. Chance says he is not a pimp and refuses the $2500, saying that Sunny is free to do as she pleases. He seems confused as to why she would be afraid of him. When Matt returns to his place, Sunny asks for him to take her to the airport. When they stop by the dry cleaners to pick up some clothes, she is abducted and killed. Matt is unable to stop the murder despite his best efforts. He wakes up out of an alcohol induced confinement at a hospital. He has lost five days of his memory. He sets out to solve the case while trying to avoid his vices that put him into the hospital. The first step he takes is snatching Sarah and enlisting her help to track down the killers.

This movie should have been incredible. The screenplay was written by Oliver Stone and David Lee Henry based on a book by famous novelist Lawrence Block. The cinematography was done by Stephen H. Burum who is best known for his cinematography work for Brian De Palma’s films. The director Hal Ashby was an acclaimed director. Jeff Bridges remains a great actor and the supporting cast is solid also. Unfortunately- the film does not quite pull it off. As I watched the film, it felt like there was honestly a very good movie in there that was lost in the editing room. When Hal Ashby was taken off the film the editing duties fell on Robert Lawrence and Stuart H. Pappe. While both men are solid editors, the fact that Ashby was taken out of the film process before post production must have seemed like a horrifying slap in the face. Keep in mind that Hal Ashby cut his teeth as an editor and his only Academy Award win was for editing In the Heat of the Night. Without Ashby at the helm to let his intentions be known, the film falls somewhat flat. Something gets lost in translation.

The performances in the film for the most part work. Jeff Bridges is great in the lead role, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. He is one of the most reliable leading men of the new Hollywood scene of the Seventies. Rosanna Arquette brings a sultriness to her role that works. She is well cast. Alexandra Paul is enjoyable in the role of Sunny. The only actor that seemed a little off in the film is Andy Garcia. Something about the pacing of his performance pulled me out of the film. At first it was hard to describe, but his performance didn’t really click for me. The special feature with Lawrence Block revealed why Garcia’s performance didn’t quite work for me. It turns out that Hal Ashby has his actors begin by doing really outrageous first takes, and then taking them down a notch progressively. Apparently, some of these first takes made it into the film. Randy Brooks was enjoyable in the role of Chance.

Another aspect of the film that I enjoyed was the cinematography by Stephen H. Burum in the film, which has echoes of his work on De Palma’s Body Double. The film opens with a really interesting helicopter shot that is as applauded as it is lauded on the forums, but I thought the shot was pretty cool personally.

At the end of the day, I am glad that I watched 8 Million Ways to Die so that I could catch the glimpses of what Ashby was intending. It’s too bad that it could not have been completed by the director so that it could be judged on its own terms. 

Video

Presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio with an MPEG-4 AVC Encoded image, the presentation of 8 Million Ways to Die looked pretty good to my eyes. Fine detail is pretty strong although the transfer might not be from a brand new scan of the film. The film has a decent amount of grain at times and uses some soft focus, but the cinematography by Stephen H. Burum was very appealing to me. Fans should be very pleased.

Audio

The audio presentation on 8 Million Ways to Die sounds good. The film features a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track that is not incredibly immersive, but it also seems to preserve the original sound design well. One of the issues with the film is that the soundtrack by James Newton Howard is very much “of its time.” It is preserved well, but it is a little bit cheesy at time.

Supplements:

Commentary – features film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson.

Interview – Rosanna Arquette gives a quick but interesting discussion of working on the film with Hal 

Interview – Andy Garcia gives a really in-depth an enjoyable interview that covers everything from how he landed the part of Angel, his affection for Hal Ashby, his enjoyment of adlibbing with Jeff Bridges, and his disappointment that the film was cut without Ashby’s approval. This is a really solid interview that made me like Andy Garcia even more.

Interview – Alexandra Paul discusses how she landed the role of Sunny which is a character that is not at all like her personality since she has no background of drug use and was a “sexy” role. This is a pretty good interview and she also discusses how the film has remained a topic of contention between fans and haters.

Interview – author Lawrence Block gives my favorite interview on the disc. He discusses how the novels were written, how the film became a reality with Oliver Stone approaching him to write (and direct originally,) and a great conversation he had with Jeff Bridges about how the film could have turned out fantastic. Don’t skip this feature!

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4/5

Supplements – 4.5/5

Overall – 4/5

8 Million Ways to Die is an interesting failure. There is a good film inside of what is presented, but Hal Ashby never got the chance he deserved to cut the film his way. I am really thankful that Kino Lorber has given the film a chance to find an audience on Blu-ray and it was great to see it in high definition. The special features are also of very high quality. Fans of the film should buy it immediately, but casual viewers will probably want to understand what exactly the film offers.