Plot in one sentence: Five troublesome Miami youths are trained to become a squad of elite urban warriors.

Extras:

• Trailers for LITTLE NIKITA and NEW BEST FRIEND

Perhaps in anticipation of SURVIVOR: AMAZON, Columbia Tristar comes out with BAND OF THE HAND, an unintentional mini-version of the TV series. In its way, the film anticipated that whole grim genre of reality television, but to little effect in its time. We weren't ready then for graphic portrayals of exhausted urbanites living in mud huts and consuming squirming worms against their will. Instead we all thought it was THE MOD SQUAD redux, with five-o'clock shadow and Ferraris instead of aviator glasses and a Woody.

Michael Mann produced this movie in 1986, but he was in the middle of supervising Miami Vice and so turned the directing reins over to Starsky-turned-director Paul Michael Glaser. BAND tells the somewhat oblique, somewhat cold tale of five violent youths pulled out of a youth detention facility and transported to the everglades, where they are abandoned to the supervision of the mysterious, stoic Joe (Mann-regular Stephen Lang in a unusually calm and cool performance).

The five kids are Carlos (Danny Quinn, the son of Anthony Quinn), Moss (Leon) who is at odds with Ruben (the late Michael Carmine, an Hispanic Robert Downey, Jr. clone in a Stepin' Fetchit role), Dorcey, an Oakie type with Everly Brothers hair (Al Shannon in his first film), the silent, father-murdering explosives expert JL (James Cameron Mitchell, with Flock of Seagulls hair out of PULP FICTION).

Out in the bush, the quintet has encounters with snakes, boars, bugs, rain, and even a bear (Ursus americanus floridanus) instead of the more predictable crocodile. When Joe deems them toughened up, he takes them to a truly dangerous place: an abandoned crack house in a dejected Miami urban hell. It's not exactly clear why Joe wants to take the kids to the house, but in the process the "band" takes on several gangs who, also for unclear reasons, don't want them around. Meanwhile, Carlos is trying to find his girlfriend (Lauren Holly) who has fallen into servitude to the film's resident drug kingpin (James Remar). In the end, the kids take on the kingpin and sort of come to realize Joe's vision for their future.

BAND OF THE HAND intersects with a lot of other films and thoughts in the air at the time: residue issues of Vietnam as seen in a lot of TV movies and Stone's PLATOON, Miami mobsters popularized by De Palma's SCARFACE, for example. The theme is racial harmony through working together, of course, but unlike, say, Hal Ashby's THE LANDLORD or social cause films such as THE DEFIANT ONES, BAND comes with guns and an exotic locale. In the BAND's universe, violence is a valid answer to social conflicts. Cheeks are not turned the other way, which raises other complicated issues that self-appointed media censors such as Senator Lieberman seems to have easy answers for. There's a tradition in Hollywood films of the drive for peacemaking masking violence for its own sake. It's a conundrum seen in HIGH NOON (Quaker pacifist wife must shoot final bad guy) and BILLY JACK (peace loving hippie protector must use his karate skills to best mobs). The probably is that everything about movies emphasizes action; pacifism is not "cinematic" enough.

BAND squeezes a SURVIVOR tale, or at least half a SURVIVOR tale, out of the familiar story of a strong military figure willing and able to whip a bunch of slackers into shape. It's a fantasy mocked in STRIPES but taken seriously in several other film of equal vintage, most importantly 1982's AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN FILM. BAND pretends that human beings are malleable, eager to change, and are able to return to their original environment and thrive without recidivism (unlike in the bleaker A CLOCKWORK ORANGE). None of this cogitation makes the BAND OF THE HAND any more interesting, however.

BAND OF THE HAND comes across and also ends on a note very much like the pilot for a TV show, especially given that Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment has chosen to release the film in a good but full frame size instead of widescreen. No explanation is offered on the box for this choice, which seems to be a carry over from the movie's laser disc release, which was also praised at the time for being a good transfer, if disappointingly TV like in aspect ratio. It's possible that BAND was shot full frame but matted for theatrical release, but it's hard to come up with any information about this situation. In any case, full frame movies seem to be endemic to CTHE's January releases. If there is a rationale behind the choice it might something along the lines that mostly kids will rent or buy BAND OF THE HAND and kids, in their appraisal of what is entertaining, prefer their television screen to be filled out to the maximum. I wish they'd get over that notion. DVDs are collectible items; it's video tapes people turn to for quick, junky, disposable movies-on-TV experiences.

One of the fun things about older movies such as HAND (sometimes the only fun thing) is seeing non-prominent stars in early, outrageous roles. In HAND the viewer gets quite an odd assortment of future minor stars. Besides Remar and Fishburne, who turn in acceptable, solid, relatively quiet performances, there is Lauren Holly, in her third film, and looking a lot like Elizabeth Berkley instead of the gaunt, wiry red head of PICKET FENCES and DUMB AND DUMBER. Leon is really Leon Robinson, the guy Stallone beat the crap out of in CLIFFHANGER). Perhaps the biggest selling point is James Cameron Mitchell, who later went on to cult fame as Hedwig HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, seemingly everyone's favorite musical of last year.

In the end, BAND OF THE HAND is a medium effort, entertaining more for its historical interest than its programmatic story. For example, a listless action scene at the end would have benefited from Mann's able hand, because he would have made sure the viewer knew the layout, where everybody was in relation to the others, what they were doing and what was at stake. But comparing this TV-ish sequence to HEAT is cruel. Few films could survive that.

The Legacy of QT

WHO IS CLETUS TOUT?

• Theatrical release: July 26, 2002
  
• Paramount Home Entertainment Widescreen Collection
  
• $29.99
  
• 92 minutes
  
• Rated R
  
• Region 1
  
• Street Date: January 07, 2002

• Single disc
  
• Color
  
• Good widescreen (2.35:1) transfer enhanced for widescreen televisions
  
• Static, silent menu with 15-chapter scene selection
  
• Single-sided single-layered disc
  
• Dolby Digital 2.0 surround and DD 5.1
  
• English subtitles
  
• One page insert with chapter list
  
• Keep case

• Cast: Christian Slater, Tim Allen, Portia de Rossi, Richard Dreyfuss, Billy Connolly, RuPaul
  
• Directed by Chris Ver Wiel
  
• Credited writer: Chris Ver Wiel

Plot in one sentence: Prison escapee inadvertently takes on the new identity of someone the mob is after.

Extras:

• Zero

WHO IS CLETIS TOUT is a movie with 16 credited movie producers, not one of whom could manage to get the film released to theaters. The movie business probably doesn't quite work that way, but still, why were so many people involved in one project that really didn’t go anywhere? On the surface the film seems attractive, with a fine cast that includes Christian Slater, Tim Allen, Portia de Rossi, and Richard Dreyfuss. The problem seems to be that audiences are finally fed up with Quentin Tarantino inspired rip-offs, and at first blush this seems to be one of them.

Let's not blame QT for the rash of imitators such as 8 HEADS IN A DUFFEL BAG or 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY that appeared in the wake of RESERVOIR DOGS, with its exquisite existential violence, and PULP FICTION, with its more pronounced narrative tricks. Nor is QT is not to be blamed for dyspeptic tales such as FEELING MINNESOTTA, which speak to the somber, impoverished feel of most indie films. Tarantino's movies still bear a remarkable appeal, a lasting attractiveness, born of his earnest command of the frame and what goes on in it. Of course, little of that quality is adopted by his imitators. Instead, what they mimic is his style of pop culture references and his reverence for the cult of the killer. Here we have lots of shoulder shrugging hoods out of THE SOPRANOS talking about the gay ironies of DELIVERENCE.

There was a time when a young filmmaker made a cheap exploitation horror film in order to get a foot in the door to Hollywood. Now, thanks to Tarantino's influence, budding filmmakers make cheap exploitation crime films. CLETIS TOUT, however, ends up not having the courage of its convicts. The film is Tarantino lite; a softer, gentler Tarantino for a new generation. Most crime dramas use mournful saxophones to evoke the bleak anomie of urban life. TOUT is a crime film that uses chimes. It's a Tarantino-style screenplay directed by Herbert Ross (note the lush music when Portia de Rossi shows up).

That's because, as with many crime films, it’s really a love story. WHO IS CLETUS TOUT is about one Finch (Slater), who is locked up in the pen with a magician-jewel thief named Micah Donnelly (Dreyfuss). Finch helps Donnelly break out, and they adopt new identities thanks to Finch's friend Savian (Connolly). But when the jewel thief dies under harsh circumstances, Finch ends up partnered with Donnelly's long lost daughter Tess (de Rossi) in an attempt to recover the jewels Donnelly hid many years ago. Meanwhile, the identity Finch has adopted is that of one Cletis Tout, a scurvy photojournalist the mob wants to kill. To that end, gangsters hire Critical Jim (Allen), a movie-quoting hit man, to rub out Tout/Finch.

Soon, the romance between Finch and Tess takes over everything. This leads to a nice, romantic shot where the two lovers are separated by a door, neither knowing that the other is pining away. And in its leisurely way, TOUT has a couple of narrative surprises in store for the viewer. But in the end, despite the solid widescreen transfer and the big name stars, the film is more like the TV show. Actually, it is like a specific TV show, REMINGTON STEEL, whose central character also liked to quote movies, citing them by studio and producer rather than star and director. Here it is Tim Allen, who quotes the odd movie (usually a Paramount release), to illustrate his philosophical points. Other literal, visual media quotes include a lukewarm citation of THE FRENCH CONNECTION's marvelous subway cat and mouse game.

When you stop to think about it, it's odd to see a movie in which a hit man is presented as a likable character and moral arbiter of social order. But then, the hit man, like the stalker, is just about the only character type you see in movies these days, so it's inevitable that they are going to become heroes. That's not really QT's fault either. One can't blame a god for his worst acolytes, who turn his reservoir dogs into pulp.

NEXT TIME: SIMONE, SERVING SARA, PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED, and more!

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