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I, the Jury
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I
went to this movie excited, for one major reason: it was scripted by the great
Larry Cohen. In fact, he started off directing it, too, but was replaced by
Richard Heffron (Futureworld, 1976).
It’s
a film about myths and heroes – about control, power and
judgment. About who has the right to make the call, the verdict over life and
death. But it’s in a different universe from Clint Eastwood’s 1980s movies on
these themes. We are somewhere sleazier, less in control here. That’s
interesting enough, already.
Its
approach to the myths of the crime/detective/cop/gangster genre is unusual: it
picks up Mickey Spillane’s infamous character of Mike Hammer (reincarnated by
contemporary B movie star Armand Assante) long after the already brutal era of
Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955) – now
the guy is an odd cipher at the fag end of the genre’s history, coming after
Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1972),
after a wave of parodies such as Gumshoe (1971).
Hammer
here is tagged as “Mr Unnecessary Violence”. He works from the gut instinct of
righteous anger over the death of his one-armed best friend. But who is the “I”
in this tale? Power is always deferred and displaced in the typically
labyrinthine crime/gangster proceedings. It’s everywhere and nowhere.
The
film has the intriguing and rather kinky theme of sexual perversion, sexual
therapy, sexual control and surveillance. Sex is drawn into a system of power
and control. It is a rather Foucauldian vision, thanks to Larry C.!
Every
note of triumphalism here is defused: the story is keyed into futility. Yes,
the revenge story resolves itself, but in an empty, Pyrrhic way: “How could you
do it?” / “It was easy”. There’s no real motivation, no uplifting or even satisfying
moral consequence.
I, the Jury is full of bland
wisecracks and empty violence – for instance, the scene involving a Japanese
chef and a hot plate. All up, it’s a strange movie that negates itself and its
appeal throughout but, along the way, produces valuable insights into its genre
and its era.
MORE Larry Cohen: Special Effects © Adrian Martin June 1982 |
