The Crossing Guard (1985) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Sean Penn and Kevin Smith. Two men in search of each other.

The movie "The Crossing Guard" was written and directed by Sean Penn. I believe he is already a first rate director, and has the potential to be one of the best ever, since he is still young and inexperienced in director's years. He really has a natural gift for knowing how to compose a shot, when to do a long shot, when to zoom in and catch the reactions of the actors. I've always thought he was a fine actor, and he uses his knowledge of the craft to let others do what they can do best. Several actors in this movie (John Savage and David Morse, in addition to Nicholson and Huston) deliver performances that really cut close to the bone.

The only thing that kept director Sean Penn from the very summit in "The Crossing Guard" was author Sean Penn.

As a writer, he has no concept of what is or isn't believable, he writes dialogue that sounds like speeches rather than people talking, and he can't seem to sort out what isn't essential to the story. To give the most obvious example of a credibility problem -  in a great expanse of city where one man chases down another, where the father of a little girl killed by a drunk driver tries to kill the driver five years after the incident, guess where the chase takes them? After starting in a trailer, running through the streets, taking a random ride on the first bus that appears, running through some more streets, and some grassy areas, the pursued runs out of breath and falls. When he moves his shoulder away slowly and dramatically, we see that he has fallen on the grave of the little girl he killed. You believe that plot device? I sure didn't. That's just one example. I could cite more, but you get the idea.

On a related topic, I saw another writer-director in action the same day I saw The Crossing Guard. I watched Kevin Smith's Dogma. It seems to me that he has the opposite problem from Penn. He is a truly interesting and gifted comic writer - his long thoughtful comic monologues and philosophical repartee remind me of the great Irish playwrights like Shaw and Wilde. But this guy ain't got a clue on the visual side. His movies still look like they were shot in someone's basement, even though Dogma is his fifth movie. "Clerks" was inept, but charmingly inept. The charm is starting to dissipate. Kevin should promote himself to producer, and hire Sean Penn to direct.

Actually, that's not a serious idea. Their styles don't mesh at all, but I do wonder if Penn, Mr Intensity, Mr Wound-too-fucking-tight, could still do comedy. T'was a time when he was one of the best.

When Nicholson's seven year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver, Nicholson pretty much fell apart, and his marriage to Anjelica Huston ended. His days are spent running his jewelry store, and his nights are spent in a strip club, getting wasted. He is living for the day when the drunk driver, David Morse, gets out of jail, so he can shoot him.

The film paints a great portrait of how Nicholson and Huston deal with the death of their child, and shows great insight into how Morse must also deal with what he has done. Near the end, there is a great moment of irony, when Nicholson is stopped for drunk driving.

Nicholson was a little over the top, and the film seem a little long for what it covered, but Huston was nominated for a Golden Globe, and deservedly so.