GEORGE WASHINGTON (mini-series) (1984)
Character: Lieutenant

review by HermioneO

Plot Summary from IMDb: The early life and career of the American General and President through his participation in the Revolutionary War.

SPOILERS

Characters

Lieutenant at LeBoeuf (Viggo Mortensen): Viggo plays an unnamed lieutenant at Fort LeBoeuf, which was founded originally by the French near what would become Waterford Pennsylvania during the French and Indian war.

George Washington (Barry Bostwick): Whenever I see this guy I can’t help thinking about Brad from Rocky Horror. I wonder if Viggo ever did Rocky? Was he Rocky, or maybe Rif-Raff? Frankenfurter would be too much to hope for.

The cast listing on an epic mini-series is way too long to go into, so forget it.

Story
I don’t remember even watching this thing when it hit the screens the first time around. I assume it’s the story of George Washington’s rise to power or whatever.

Other

Repeat Appearances
Will Lyman reunited with Viggo in A Perfect Murder (1998). Tim Moyer played a detective in Witness (1985). Sam Wells was a stand-in for Jason Beghe in GI Jane (1997).

LeBoeuf is a Place, not a Person

Other Viggo Connections
Patty Duke, who played Martha Washington, is Sean Astin’s mother. Sean, of course, played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. J. Kenneth Campbell appeared in Search for Tomorrow in the 1985 season. Patrick James Clarke appeared in the 1984 season of Search for Tomorrow. Keven Conroy appeared in the 1984-1985 season of Search for Tomorrow (I’m sensing a theme here). John Glover was in Miami Vice in 1987 and Search for Tomorrow in 1983-84. William Prince appeared in the 1986 season of Search for Tomorrow. Mike Hodge played Jimmy Joe in To Wong Foo, the film Viggo tried out for but didn’t get. Brad Sullivan appeared in Miami Vice in 1987.

I think the casting directors for this mini series posted recruiting notices on the sets of several soap operas and other TV series advertising that they needed extras, and Viggo and some of his buddies drove out for auditions.

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 1 out of 10. 1 brief scene that would be called a cameo if it were of any importance. Also, since this was made for TV in the early 80s, the video quality sucks big-time.

Nekkid Viggo: 0 out of 10. This was a TV miniseries. No one got nekkid, least of all the extras.

Viggo Sex: 0 out of 10. What do you think?

Fetish Factor: 2 out of 10. Viggo in costume. Very young Viggo.

Clothes: 1 out of 10. He’s in costume.

Viggo Sound Bytes: 0 out of 10. He gets one line and I don’t even know what it was. Something about a message for George Washington or something.

Total Viggonness Rating: 0.7 out of 10
* This is one of Viggo’s earliest appearances and it was on TV. I have not seen it so I couldn’t say if it was any good. I have only seen the barest of screencaps for this appearance and I feel no urge to hunt down a copy.

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WITNESS (1985)
Character: Moses Hochleitner

review by HermioneO

Plot Summary from IMDb : Samuel Lap is a young Amish boy who witnesses a murder in Philadelphia while traveling with his mother Rachel. A good cop named John Book must go with them into hiding when the killers come after them. All three retreat to Amish country and Book has to adjust to the new life style, and his feelings for the boy's mother. Of course the killers are still on their trail.

This was Viggo’s first appearance on the big screen. He filmed for two other major films before this one but his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. In interviews he said this was a great early experience for him because Peter Weir (director) was very encouraging and easy to work with, which made him want to go on and do more in spite of his later negative experiences. Thank you Peter Weir.

SPOILERS

Characters

John Book (Harrison Ford) : Hero of the film, John Book is a police detective investigating a murder that reaches into corruption within the department.

Rachel Lapp (Kelly McGillis) : Rachel is the widowed Amish mother of the only witness to a brutal murder. Her period of mourning is over and she has a suitor, but feels attracted to the stranger who enters their world.

Samuel Lapp (Lukas Haas) : Lukas Haas had his first major role in this film as a child who is the sole witness to a brutal murder.

Daniel Hochlietner (Alexander Gudenov): Alexander Gudenov was a Russian ballet dancer who defected to the west, but didn’t quite have the press of Barishnakov. He plays the Amish suitor of Rachel Lapp. His brooding presence is at first threatening, but he helps to illustrate the gentle, non-violent nature of the Amish community through his calm acceptance of the presence of his rival.

Moses Hochlietner (Viggo Mortensen): This was Viggo’s first feature film, at least the first where he actually made it into the final cut. Moses is the younger brother of Daniel Hochlietner, who is courting Rachel Lapp before John Book shows up. Moses is so soft and sweet looking, he is like the bright and shining reflection of the dark and brooding Daniel, until we see that Daniel isn’t really dark.

Story
I am not going to do an in-depth review of this movie because the purpose of my reviews is to highlight Viggo. Witness is a classic film that will long be remembered for its beautiful scenery and the glimpse it gave us into Amish life.

Moses is such a minor character that it is easy to overlook him if you’re not a Viggo fanatic, but he serves a purpose other than just filling out a tight blue cotton shirt and black pants. Moses is the opposite of a shadow to the Daniel character. Daniel is the suitor of Rachel, who was expecting to be able to declare himself now that her period of mourning was over. But here comes this outsider, this English, stepping into the scene and Rachel’s head is turned. Because Daniel is so tall and his features severe, he seems threatening in spite of being a pacifist. He is not happy with the presence of Book, and exudes this shadowy aura of menace in spite of being always civil. Moses, as his innocent younger brother, “shadows” him wherever he goes. He obviously admires his older brother and feels a need to stick up for him, but his personality is just too friendly to suppress and then he’s smiling and shaking hands.

Viggo exudes just the right mix of suspicion and country manners, with trepidation and fascination during and after the fight scene in town. He’s been taught his whole life that violence was wrong, but to a young man in the thrall of pubescent hormones there had to be a rush of satisfaction at seeing those bullies put down.

Although Viggo was 27 during the filming of this movie, he could be a teenager just becoming a man, and this makes him an irresistible innocent.

Other

Oh My God
David Cronenberg was originally asked to direct this film. Can you imagine? This was right in between the Fly and the Dead Zone, and the same year as his bit part in Into the Night.

Other Connections
Lukas Haas was in a film called Young Americans (2004), totally unrelated to Viggo’s movie by the same name. He was also thanked in the credits of the Thin Red Line. How many people did this movie thank? Brent Jennings appeared a few times in the Miami Vice series (1984, 1985 and 1988). Sylvester Stallone, who later appeared with Viggo in Daylight (1996), turned down the role of John Book. Talk about dodging a bullet.

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 4 out of 10. Viggo plays a very minor character with only a few lines and almost no close-ups. However, the quality of the video is good so you can get a fair amount of screencaps of a very young, very beautiful Viggo.

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. Innocent Moses Hochleitner would never appear nekkid in public. In our dreams, maybe, but not in public.

Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. Apparently he’s not old enough to have sex.

Fetish Factor : 3 out of 10. Young Viggo. Viggo in a hat. Viggo handling tools. Viggo eating.

Clothes: 2 out of 10. He’s Amish.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 1 out of 10. “He said ‘twas a beesting made him limp.”

Total Viggonness Rating: 1.7 out of 10
Don’t buy this for the Viggo unless you have to have all of Viggo’s movies. However, Witness was a great film all on its own and is a worthy addition to any video collection. Last year they put out a special anniversary edition containing lengthy interviews and background information and Viggo talks more in the interviews and has more screen time than he did in the movie itself. And he has a beard and mustache from when he was experimenting with looks for Alatriste.

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review by HermioneO

Plot Summary from IMDb : A Cincinnati college student breaks off his engagement to his wealthy fiancée after he falls in love with a backwoods Kentucky girl he meets at a party. She claims to be 20 years old, but he learns that she's actually just 16 and already married.

SPOILERS

Characters

Green (Viggo Mortensen) : Green is a back country red neck with far too many guns. Somehow he got himself a 16-year-old wife with obvious mental problems. Maybe he was dazzled by her bright orange hair. Green comes across as a mean-tempered, dangerous man who just might do anything. He appears twice in the film and steals the scene both times. He just may be the most interesting character in the film, for all his screen time is less than 5 minutes total.

Jewel (Molly Ringwald) : Jewel is maybe 20 years old, or maybe 16 – she can’t get her story straight and there is no objective third party to trust. She has been abused from childhood on and is currently in a loveless marriage with a man who she only married to get away from her father. Now she’s met someone different – someone she likes – but it’s too late for her. She’s used up white trash from the wrong side of the tracks and she knows it.

Matt Larkin (Andrew McCarthy) : This spoiled rich boy (by comparison only) has a promising future if he doesn’t screw it up. He has a fiancé with the kind of connections that will ensure him a successful career. But, much like a moth, he is drawn to the fiery temptress Jewel who he encounters at a notorious party house.

Story
To be honest, I’ve never once sat through this entire film, although I have watched large parts of it other than the Viggo bits. I just couldn’t bring myself to care enough to watch the whole thing. This film was made at the tail-end of the brief brat-pack era. Andrew McCarthy and Molly Ringwald got together to make another of their formulaic teen/young adult romances. Only this wasn’t directed by John Huston or anyone else who was any good, and the script wasn’t even passable, and the story was not very believable. You can do without one of these elements but all three? Add in mediocre talent in the lead roles and you’ve got a bad movie whose only reason to exist is to provide promising new talent with a paycheck and possible future work.

There was an interesting supporting cast here, some of whom went on to better careers than those they were supporting. In addition to Viggo, we had Ben Stiller (Mystery Men, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Dodge Ball, Starsky and Hutch) and Doug Hutchison (Green Mile, Con Air, A Time to Kill, Batman & Robin).

Although Viggo’s time in this movie is very short, the character has sparked a lot of conversation in Viggo fan circles. A lot of it is because of the gaping plot holes left by a poorly written script.

Green is a big, mean, evil man reputed to have killed people. But he also married this abused girl to get her out of an incestuous household and since then has never had sex with her. Green is a gun-hoarding survivalist who lays out the whole plot in a few sentences in his brief scene. Green is a violent, unpredictable individual who comes home to find a strange man in his home and just sits back and calmly regards the Larkin character as he destroys a soap sculpture in a childish tantrum.

As Viggo fans, we are inclined to be sympathetic to his characters. Honestly, we even fall in love with a serial killer/stalker. But the inconsistencies in Fresh Horses leave us with unanswered questions that make it too easy to create our own back story, in which the endlessly patient Green becomes a hero and a victim.

Other

Reason to Exist
The best reason for this film to have been made was that Sean Penn watched it, with the sound turned off, while waiting for his girlfriend to get ready for their date. He saw Green on that screen and realized he was looking at the physical embodiment of the angry young man from the movie he wanted to make, Indian Runner.

Other Connections
Patti D’Arbanville, one of the minor characters in this movie, was also a 1985 guest on Miami Vice. I mention her more because of a memorable role she played in the movie Main Event (1979), where she threatened to cut off Barbara Streissand’s tits. Ben Stiller played the uncredited jerk running the nursing home in Happy Gilmore (1996), which is one of Viggo’s favorite movies. Stiller is also another Miami Vice alumnus (1987).

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 4 out of 10. Viggo has a short but vital role in this film, totalling maybe 5 minutes. Most of that time is dedicated to close-ups of his face, especially as he’s delivering the facts of life to Andrew McCarthy with barely concealed malicious glee. The video quality is okay, though it could be better.

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. Not even an inch.

Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. Green gets nothing.

Fetish Factor : 3 out of 10. Viggo in plaid. Viggo with long hair. Viggo wearing a black knit cap. Not a lot to work with here.

Clothes: 2 out of 10. I don’t think anything made it out of this movie. He wears a plaid shirt and a green army jacket.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 4 out of 10. Viggo delivers the plot précis (such as it is) in a few short lines. “I’m not good enough for her and you’re too good.” “You gonna come riding up on your white horse and carry her out of here?”

Total Viggonness Rating: 2.2 out of 10
This is another of those films you can skip unless you want the complete Viggo collection.

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review by HermioneO

Plot Summary from IMDb : When Charles Forsythe was sent to the electric chair for a crime he didn't commit, he forever haunts the prison where it occurred. Flash forward several years the prison is reopened, under the control of its new Warden Eaton Sharpe, a former security guard who framed Charlie. When prisoners are ordered to break down the wall to the electric chair, they unknowingly release the angry spirit of Charles Forsythe, a powerful being suffering from a murderous rage, all leading up to the Warden himself.

SPOILERS

Characters

Burke/Forsythe (Viggo Mortensen) : Viggo plays a sort of dual role. The main character is Burke, a prisoner recently transferred to a re-opened prison. But he looks just like a prisoner who was killed in that same prison over 30 years before - Charles Forsythe. This film begins with the execution scene for Forsythe. Viggo puts in a few subtle nuances of his own, probably desperately trying to inject some interest and depth into his character. When Forsythe is strapped to the chair, the guard (Lane Smith) yanks off his crucifix. Just before he is electrocuted, we see Forsythe cross his fingers.

Burke is beautiful and luminous, reminding many of a young James Dean. Personally, I think more of a young Elvis in those blue-shirt closeups. He doesn't say much, letting others do most of the talking while he just keeps his answers to yes or no or sure or nods or shakes his head.

Warden Sharpe (Lane Smith) : This man is insane. Eaten away inside by the awful things he did, he falls into paranoia, giving crazy orders that no one opposes. He should be taken out and shot.

Annoying social worker (Chelsea Field): This is the worst female costar ever in Viggo history. She shows at least a glimmer of intelligence when she eyes Burke's ass in the cafeteria, but that's it. Stupid bitch should have called the ACLU. It was obvious from the beginning that the state prison board wasn't going to be of any use. They opened the prison and appointed that maniac as Warden in the first place, didn't they?

Supporting Cast
Big Gay Bully. This guy is the biggest guy there and has friends who will back him up. So he sets up the usual prison criminal ring - contraband, haircuts, gambling, and sex. His first victim? His young cellmate. After Burke shows his stuff, Big Gay Bully confronts him in the yard and tries to recruit him. That's when Burke goes for his balls.
Wimpy Androgynous Young Fish. Young and cute and innocent, this is fresh fish on the inside. It was gonna happen. Too bad he didn't get Burke as his cellmate.
Rabbit. This idiot gets everyone in trouble from the outset. I'm surprised he didn't get shivved in the yard his first day out of solitary. And getting his ass saved from being cooked alive didn't improve his attitude.
Voodoo Guy. Okay, I guess they had this guy in there because they needed a sensitive who would say the word - GHOST.
Big Black Guy. Isn't prison full of these? Sorry, just another cliche. He was probably the only guy in prison safe from the attentions of the Big Gay Bully. Unsurprisingly, he made friends with his cellmate, Lasagna.
Lasagna. I’m not kidding. That was his name. Somehow this New Jersey punk ended up in a Wyoming prison. Actually, he tells his story and if he's that stupid, he deserves to be in prison. Anyway, Lasagna makes friends really easy. Gets along with everyone. It probably keeps him from getting raped a lot.
Cresus. This is Burke's cellmate and the witness to the original crime. He recognizes Burke immediately and sees through his drunken haze the unusual events happening at the prison. He shoots himself in the foot to escape but it doesn't work - he's stuck in the film to the bitter, awful end.
Captain of the Guard. Seems like a decent enough sort but no initiative. He doesn't abuse prisoners but follows insane orders because they come from the Warden.
Nasty Guard. Abuses the prisoners. Gets his in the end.

Story

This story takes place in an abandoned, haunted prison. Due to overcrowding, the state decides to re-open this prison and moves the prisoners in before any repairs or renovations have taken place. Don't know what these poor saps did to get transferred but it couldn't have been good. The guy in charge is a warden of the old school - punish the inmates as much as possible and his word is absolute law within the walls. Among the transferred prisoners is Burke, a car thief with a noble heart who goes out of his way to retrieve contraband posters, comfort terrified fellow prisoners, and rescue men from flaming ovens. Who is this guy and why is he in prison?

Fortunately for the plot, Burke is a twin to a guy executed (murdered) in that same prison over 30 years ago. Charles Forsythe, the murdered inmate, was framed for killing another inmate. In truth, the murderer was a prison guard, who also framed Forsythe, thus making him a double murderer. And there was one witness. The guard went on to become Warden Sharp. The witness was Cresus, who got an easy ride after that ... until now.

This film is filled with prison cliches. Everyone is innocent. Somebody has a plan to escape. A bully runs games and services with his enforcers, while sexually abusing his young, innocent cellmate. A smartmouth makes friends with everyone. One of the prison guards is cruel and abusive. The warden is a megalomaniac. Bleeding heart liberal tries ineffectually to fix things. Hero stands up to bully and helps old man drink his hooch. Yadda yadda yadda.

The action really hits when the ghost of Christmas past is released from the ancient execution room. Now, anyone who had seen The Keep could have told them it was a mistake to break through that wall, but apparently Scott Glenn wasn't around when they wrote this script.

Other

Director Mean to Viggo
This is the only film I've heard of where Viggo criticized the director. He yelled at everybody. Renny Harlin also directed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Mindhunters. He definitely goes for the razor wire look.

Goat Herder
Viggo was quoted as saying that after filming finished he was thinking of going into goat herding, like his mother and her mother before her.

Honeymoon in Prison
Viggo and Exene were married in an old abandoned prison. I guess we know where now, huh?

Repeat Appearances
Tom Everett, who plays Rabbit (see above) also appears in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. He plays the sleazy gas station guy who peeps in on the girl at the beginning.

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 8 out of 10. No, he is not in every single scene in the movie. There are several without him, but the director wasn't completely out of his mind and got lots of beautiful closeups of that face. Viggo was absolutely beautiful in this film, with his darkened hair contrasting sharply with those light blue eyes. Much of the film inside the prison is too dark, and the quality of the print is a little on the low side.

Nekkid Viggo : 10 out of 10. CHEST HAIR!!! OMIGOD, thick, dark, beautiful chest hair! The first thing they do when they get him in the prison is strip him down and make him go through a line. For 20 minutes all Viggo does is stand around in his underwear, being well-defined if you know what I mean. He is naked in a shower, water streaming all over his glorious body (we only see it from the chest up but use your imagination). He is placed into solitary confinement and you can see he's naked (why I don't know but WHO CARES).

Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. There is NO SEX in this movie. Nada. Zip. Except for some implied sex between Big Gay Bully and Fish.

Fetish Factor : 10 out of 10. Oh let's see. Viggo in underwear for three scenes. Several hand and foot closeups. Some really great hand closeups at the beginning of the movie. Dirty feet treading through water. Bloody Viggo. Viggo behind bars. Viggo wearing handcuffs. B&W shot of Viggo as Forsythe in the newspaper. Viggo upside down on a prison cot drawing. Viggo grabbing a man's balls and twisting them. Shower scene.

Clothes: 4 out of 10. Viggo looks so luminous and beautiful in closeups with the blue prison shirt that I can forgive the lack of fashion. It is a prison movie, after all. And then we have tidy whities. Yeah, I can forgive a lot for those.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 4 out of 10. The dialogue was not a high point for this film but there were a couple of good lines: "You give me back my ball, I'll give you back yours." "Who you gonna believe, him or us?" - I found this line particularly laughable considering it's delivered by a convict holding a gun to the warden's head.

Total Viggonness Rating: 6 out of 10
Watch it for the Viggo. Turn the sound off, you won't miss much.

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review by HermioneO

Young Guns 2 is the sequel to Young Guns, the story of how Billy the Kid got his start with his group of friends fighting against the injustices of the cattle barons, who destroyed the man who took them all in and gave them a home. This movie stars three of the original gang: Emilio Estevez, Lou Diamond Phillips and Kiefer Sutherland, and brings in new stars William L. Petersen and Christian Slater. As usual, the sequel is inferior to the original, but not by much and there is another story being told here, not simply a rehashing of the same story. This sequel is about the relationship between Billy and Pat, and how Billy changes every life he touches.

Viggo Mortensen is in a supporting role as the government agent John W. Poe, assigned to "assist" Pat Garret as he hunts down Billy the Kid and his gang.

SPOILERS

Characters

John W. Poe (Viggo Mortensen) : John W. Poe is well-groomed and solid, in brown suits, gloves, and dusters. He is a government man solidly on the side of the moneyed men. Billy the Kid must be hunted down and killed, not brought back for trial at the expense of the public. He is a menace to mercantile interests. Poe obviously is a dangerous man, but he is stiff and thinks he knows everything. He may be an experienced tracker but he goes by the book too much and would never catch Billy on his own. There is some character growth here, as he goes from rank suspicion of Pat Garrett and contempt for his man to grudging acknowledgment that the man did his job.

Pat Garrett (William L. Petersen): Pat Garrett is forced to hunt down his best friend and serve him up to the law. Even as he agrees to do it, he knows he will have to kill Billy the Kid because Billy will never forgive his betrayal.

Ashmun Upson (Jack Kehoe) : This guy provides the comic relief for the posse chasing down Billy the Kid. Jack Kehoe portrays the delicate journalist who has to pause frequently to "make a movement." But he also saves their asses when he explains their presence on sacred Indian burial grounds and that they are chasing the ones who did the actual desecration.

Story

So Billy the Kid is a famous outlaw and still running around. Keifer and Lou had gone off to make their own lives but thanks to their relationship with Billy they are hunted down and dragged off to court where they will be hung by the neck until dead, no trial that I saw. Somehow they escape and reunite and manage to royally piss off James Coburn, which is a bad idea no matter what movie you're in. But this is important because it's why he's called in the government man, which is our Viggo and the only reason most of us watch this stuff.

Other

I actually saw this movie before I knew about Viggo. I hated Poe, but we were supposed to hate Poe and besides I had a crush on Lou Diamond at the time.

Trivia: Jack Kehoe also appeared in the Gospel According to Harry, playing Harry the IRS agent. Jack was photographed by Viggo and that B&W picture appears in one of his collections.

Music: Really good, memorable sound track.

Viggonness Ratings
Viggo Screen Time (Quality and Quantity): 6 out of 10. Viggo's part is relatively small. There are two main leads (Billy and Pat) and then the supporting cast, which is Billy's gang and Pat's posse. Viggo is part of Pat's posse and has only a few scenes, but there are some nice closeups, and Viggo looks very masculine and solid, with a nicely groomed mustache. Since this was a large studio film, the DVD is sharp quality so it is possible to get good, clear screencaps.
Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. Not a single goddamn second. I mean, didn't they have public bath houses in the old west? I would think a man of Poe's obvious good grooming would take a bath when they got back from their hunt.
Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. He gets no leg in this film, not even from the hooker. He doesn't even kiss his horse or gun.
Clothes: 5 out of 10. Viggo looks really good in this film. He wears solid brown suits with waistcoats and broad shoulders. He wears GLOVES and a hat too. Unfortunately nothing here is used ever again, but it looks really good.
Fetish Factor : 8 out of 10. Lots of material for the fetishist. Viggo wearing a cowboy hat. Viggo on horseback. Viggo with guns. Viggo sipping tea while wearing gloves. Several closeup shots of Viggo's bare hands checking out the trail. Viggo with facial hair.
Viggo Sound Bytes : 5 out of 10. Viggo has a few good lines, which says a lot because he doesn't have very many lines at all. Most famous is the taunt about Upson taking a "Movement." Then there's "Take your medicine, son."

Total Viggoness rating: 4 out of 10
Viggo's role in this film is minor but potent. If you just fastforward past everything that doesn't have Viggo, then there isn't much story and it's just a visual exercise. Better off just watching clips. But if you like westerns, then watch the whole thing because it's really not a bad movie for the genre and then Viggo becomes an added treat.

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review by HermioneO

Plot Summary from IMDb : A terrorist (Warner) and an FBI agent (Knox) fight out a personal feud with one another.

SPOILERS

Characters

Jack DeForest (Terence Knox) : Jack DeForest is a CIA agent (I think … maybe he’s ATF? Who cares?). After his wife is killed he mourns for a short time before getting close to the only female agent in the movie.

Josef Szabo (David Warner) : Josef is an international terrorist working arms for drugs deals in the U.S. He keeps the business in the family, bringing his beloved younger brother along. Who knew he would get so sensitive about it when the CIA agent trying to stop him actually had to shoot back, and ended up killing the younger Szabo?

Hans (Viggo Mortensen) : Hans is a second-stringer in this movie. He is one of the henchmen of the big bad, Josef. He makes his first appearance about half way through the film, silently following Josef around like a trained Doberman. Finally, near the end of the film, he has his few lines, abuses the kid, and nearly kills the hero of the film, Jack, before his stupid boss shoots him in the back. Note to arch-villains – never shoot into melee unless you WANT to kill your henchmen and let the good guy get away.

Supporting Cast
A bunch of people I’ve never heard of before, except for Yaphet Kotto (one of my favorite cop/spy movie character actors), and Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong fame and more recently a semi-regular stoned out guy on that 70s show).

Story
Jack kills Josef’s kid brother near the beginning of the film and Josef swears revenge. There’s your plot. Josef kills Jack’s wife and kidnaps his teen-aged son, then brainwashes him and starts using him to pull heists. Eventually, Jack tracks them down and he and his son kill all the bad guys. Yea.

For those into the b-movie action flick, this film actually had some not bad reviews. It’s okay for the genre, I guess.

Other
Where are they now?
Well, we all know what happened to Viggo, but what about the star of this movie? Actually, 1990 was about dead center of his career. Terence Knox has a long TV career, including a 3-year stint as a regular (Dr. Peter White) on St. Elsewhere and guest spots on dozens of series. His jump to the big screen just never panned out, but he’s had fairly regular work all along. David Warner has such an impressive career I really cannot encapsulate it here. I just found out he’s in the upcoming Hogfather, the screen adaptation of one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels! I’ll throw out a few titles anyway: Tron, Time Bandits, Star Trek (movies, TV series). He doesn’t look it but Yaphet Kotto is actually older than David Warner! Wow. He’s just got great skin, I guess. He really hasn’t been seen much since the series Homicide: Life on the Streets went off the air. He’s been appearing mostly in documentaries about some of the movies he’s been in (Alien, Live and Let Die).

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 2 out of 10. Viggo has a total of about 5 minutes of screen time, with no good close-ups. The quality of the video is also pretty bad, so it’s hard to get screencaps.

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. He’s not the star. Hell, even the star … wait a minute. I fast-forwarded through the whole thing but there was a bed scene between the star and a female agent, I think. Maybe a chest shot. But it wasn’t Viggo so it doesn’t count.

Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. Viggo gets nothing in this film. Henchmen don’t get nookie.

Fetish Factor : 3 out of 10. While this is a very small role, Viggo makes an appearance during one segment in camo. He’s in disguise. Also, has guns and uses them. Cute German accent for his few lines. Wrestles teen-age boy, threatening to snap his neck.

Clothes: 2 out of 10. Again, minor character so not a lot of clothing, but he wears this horizontal striped shirt that makes another appearance in Boiling Point (1993) and in the kitty stroking pics taken by Lindsay Brice.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 2 out of 10. “I vill snap your neck like a tvig!”

Total Viggonness Rating: 1.5 out of 10
Clips are available for viewing online. Don’t waste your money unless, like me, you have to own every movie Viggo’s ever been in.

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review by HermioneO

Once in a Blue Moon
Release Date: 1990

Plot Summary from IMDB: IMDB does not give a plot summary for this film. Pregnant angel returns to Earth for a second chance.

SPOILERS

Characters

Jack (Jeff Silverman): Bald, fat fanboy. Worships Delroy – there is a shrine in his apartment.

Minnie Mae Weeks (Shawn Modrell): Pregnant fangirl angel. Her boyfriend killed her and she ended up in heaven, where her boyfriend also ended up (never satisfactorily explained). Anyway, her ex is now a bodyguard for Delroy and since he kind of owes her he gets her in to see Delroy alone.

Delroy (Viggo Mortensen): Delroy is a dead rockstar played by Viggo. Yes, he starts off this movie dead. He is now in heaven where he still performs, is surrounded by admirers, and apparently still has the wherewithal to impregnate his worshiping fans. Sorta gives ya hope, huh?

Story
A woman is killed by her boyfriend who is jealous about her crush on a dead rock star. She meets the rockstar in heaven and has an affair with him and becomes pregnant with his love child. She is sent back to earth during a Blue Moon to find a worthy human to take her in and raise her child. She selects an aging, bald, fat loser who worships the same rockstar – his home is a shrine to the guy.

Other
Other Viggo Connections
They didn’t let Viggo sing for himself in this movie, but they brought in John Doe to fill his vocal shoes. Some of the B&W stills shown in Jack’s apartment are obviously from Bruce Weber photo shoots that have since made it into magazines.

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 2 out of 10. This film is only 28 minutes, and Viggo is on screen for about 3 minutes total out of that. The film quality is poor – this was made for TV originally – and Viggo’s shots are soft-focus and deliberately poorly lit. There are no close-ups.

Nekkid Viggo: 0 out of 10. Viggo does not get nekkid.

Viggo Sex: 0 out of 10. Viggo has no sex except implied off-screen.

Fetish Factor: 3 out of 10. Viggo dancing, Viggo in leopard print. Viggo as an Elvis-lookalike. Viggo in black and white (stills seen throughout the fan’s apartment – some of them are from the early Bruce Weber shoot).

Clothes: 2 out of 10. Two words: Leopard Print.

Viggo Sound Bytes: 0 out of 10. Viggo never speaks and does not sing for himself – it’s John Doe instead.

Total Viggonness Rating: 1.2 out of 10
This short film is only available in a UK DVD collection (PAL formatted). It’s one of those quirky little features that only appeals to a limited audience, or to none at all. I didn’t much care for it, and I would only recommend getting this collection if you either have to have a complete Viggo collection or you really like short films, or if you collect obscure John Doe stuff.

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review by HermioneO

This is not a great film and I hesitate to call it good, but it's not really that bad either. I have heard some folks say this was one of those films he did just for the money, when he ran out of options. I used to agree, but now I'm rethinking that. First, this film was released in 1993, along with several other Viggo movies. He wasn't hurting for work. Second, this project allowed him to work with a man he'd worked with before - Dennis Hopper - someone he considered to be a friend. Third - I can see where the script may have looked very interesting, and the final film came out differently from what he expected. It happens all the time.

Basic Plot: It's conmen and killers vs the feds while everybody tries to deal with their relationships outside the job.

SPOILERS

The Characters:

Red Diamond (Dennis Hopper) : Wesley Snipes gets first billing on this film because he was a rising star at the time, but I really feel Dennis Hopper stole the whole show. He was the most interesting thing on the screen and whenever he was in a scene it was hard not to watch him. This was Dennis Hopper at his best. This character, Red Diamond, is one I don't think I'll be forgetting any time soon. Red is a veteran conman who has been in prison several times and is just getting out from a 5-year stretch. He has a problem in that he owes $50,000 to a big-bad who wants his money now or yesterday. I don't think that was very reasonable of the man - how did he expect the guy to come up with that kind of money so quickly? So Red is desperate to get cash quick and comes up with several plans to do so. At the same time, he wants to get back together with his wife, Mona (I hope that's her name, I may not be remembering it correctly), and make a big enough score that they can retire in comfort. Dennis Hopper plays this guy up to the max, with broad, twitchy hand gestures, catch phrases ("And that is no lie") and shoes 30 years out of fashion.

Wesley Snipes : I've already forgotten the character's name he was so stereotypical and forgettable. Treasury agent whose partner was killed so he wants revenge. Add to that the typical ex-wife who divorced him because the life was impossible, and their young son. She's trying to move on and he won't let go. You see why she left him when he keeps showing up in the middle of the night and expects to see his son and talk with her. He also has a sort of relationship with a hooker (Vikki Dunbar) who doesn't mind his schedule. He's a loose cannon known for working outside the system and it got his partner killed, so now he's in trouble. He's going to be transferred to the stix in one week, so that's all the time he has to solve this case and get revenge. Can we add any more stereotypes to this character? Not without a crowbar.

Vikki Dunbar (Lolita Davidovitch): This hooker with a heart of gold makes no apologies for her profession and provides an unnecessary link between Red Diamond and Wesley Snipes. Red hires her to dance with him at a 40s dance club called the Palace. Snipes just has sex with her and ignores everything she says. He actually sees Red with her and doesn't realize who he is.

Mona (Valeri Perrine) : Valeri Perrine plays a tired but sadly pretty mature woman making a living as a waitress when Red Diamond struts back into her life. She apparently prostituted herself for him at one point - to pay off his debts. She knows exactly what kind of man he is but of course can't say no when he asks her out. But after they have sex one last time she tells him to leave and this time she means it. Yeah, sure.

Carole (Christine Elise) : I hope I have her name right. It appears on a name tag on her uniform. This is Ronnie's girlfriend who has been out of jail only a month herself when she comes home from her menial job (either waitressing or cleaning by the uniform) to find Ronnie waiting in her apartment. She tells him to leave but does she really mean it? I don't think so. More later.

Ronnie (Viggo Mortensen) : Ronnie is a very simple man. He kills without hesitation and believes anything Red tells him. He comes across as not very intelligent in his scenes with Red, as though the older man has some sort of hypnotic effect on him. Otherwise, he is very perceptive and even subtle at times. He has a simple relationship with his girlfriend and obviously knows exactly what she wants. In a scene with one of the targets of Red's schemes he holds his own in negotiations and manages to soothe both his and the carrier's fears. He is quick on the draw and comes up with pretty slick tactics on his own, on the violent end of things. It seems only when Red enters the picture he suspends judgment and lets the conman do the thinking.

Dan Hedaya, Paul Gleason - supporting cast of character actors who do a good job.

Story

Red Diamond and Ronnie are two ex-cons who have just gotten out of prison and are trying to drum up some investment capital for some money-making scheme Red has. Over the course of the film we find out that the two met in prison and Red sort of took Ronnie under his wing and started making all these plans in anticipation of their release. No details are given, but you can bet Ronnie protected Red from the usual bullies while Red steered Ronnie clear of complications and kept him out of trouble so his sentence wouldn't get extended.

Red is great at manipulating soft-headed Ronnie but most of the other people in this film see right through him - especially those who have the money. He can run a small-time con but no one wants to trust him. This makes him desperate enough to use Ronnie in a few one-shot swindles where he effectively ensures he will never be able to deal with people again. They set up some sort of deal where someone is supposed to give them money for goods they have - like counterfeit money or drugs - and they don't really have anything. Ronnie kills the delivery man and takes the money and that's it.

Unfortunately, the first person they do this with is actually an undercover treasury agent, Snipes' partner. When they kill him, they ensure the police will hunt them down no matter what. Red is oblivious to this and assures Ronnie the police won't be hunting anyone down because their victim was just another sleazeball thief.

This is the first scene and it sets up the whole film. Immediately following it, the film splits into three subplots, all about the relationships these men have with the women in their lives. This is what I noticed in screencapping and went back so I could see it in live action again.

I began to think that the screenplay for this film began with one concept and got changed by the powers that be in Hollywood. There are three parallel relationship stories, like a Woody Allen film or the guy who did Shortcuts (I think).

First, you have the man-woman relationships: The three main ones are Snipes/Ex-wife, Red/Mona and Ronnie/Carole. Each of these three relationships is broken somehow. Snipes has been thrown out by a wife who has had enough of his impossible schedule and lifestyle. She just wants a stable home for her child and herself, and Snipes can't or won't give it to her. In the other two, you have two ends of the same relationship - Ronnie and Carole are just at the beginning. They know each other and have established their own language. Carole protests she doesn't want Ronnie but I don't see her walking out and calling the police or yelling for help. It's a game they play together, where she yells at him for a while until he flares up and slaps her but it gets her all excited. And when he's holding her up against the wall and telling her she doesn't want him to leave, just who is closing the door? Ronnie's hands are occupied. I suppose he could be nudging it closed with his foot but I didn't get that from his body language. I think she was closing the door.

Mona and Red are at the other end of that relationship. She knows every move, every word, every charming line Red has. She can quote him. Does it make her immune to whatever they've got going between them? No. In the end, she falls for him again. And in the end, as usual, he fails her.

These are all failed relationships, but the film fails to wrap up the Carole/Ronnie loop. I think this is because they forgot what story they were telling.

In addition, you have Red/Vikki and Snipes/Vikki. As the hooker, Vikki knows the vices of men and has no illusions about them, and yet she still holds out hope for Snipes. I'm not sure where to fit this character in, or if she was written in as an afterthought. She just doesn't fit. There was no real conversation between her and Snipes so there was no exposition. Red could have danced with Mona instead and I think it would have made the ending more poignant, with Mona all tricked out in her blue dancing dress watching the love of her life get taken away, again, by the police. At this point I think the Vikki character was totally unnecessary and I wonder if Lolita was involved with someone connected to the film.

This film tries to do too many things. It could have been a film about relationships but the whole treasury agent vendetta plot got too much attention (I think because of Snipes) and so they did a half-assed job on both.

Other Notes

Music
Listen to the music for this film, especially the 40s style song Dream at the opening and closing credits. It's almost worth watching the film just for that music. Red spends the whole film trying to relive his glory days of money-making schemes, and that mood is captured in the music.

Repeat Appearances
This film has no less than THREE actors who have appeared in other Viggo movies. Of course you all know Dennis Hopper (Indian Runner, 1991) and probably most of you know Cristine Elise (Vanishing Point, 1997), but how many of you knew about Dan Hedaya (Daylight, 1996)?

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 7 out of 10. While not in every scene, Viggo is 4th billed and has a lot of quality screen time. The video is sharp, so the closeups are especially good.

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. There is absolutely no nekkid Viggo in this film.

Viggo Sex : 2 out of 10. Viggo doesn't really get any sex in this film. At least, not on-screen. He slaps his girlfriend, which along with arguing appears to be foreplay for them. You see him leaning in for the kiss as the door is closing. He actually lays lips on his shotgun, but that's it. There is sex between other characters but they're not important.

Fetish Factor : 6 out of 10. Viggo kisses his sawed-off shotgun, is into rough sex, wears a really weird tee-shirt in one scene, and there are a few good closeups of just his hands. He chews gum in the opening scene and uses the gum to stick a sign on the pay phone. We get to see Viggo dance for a few seconds too.

Clothes: 8 out of 10. Viggo spends almost the whole movie in tight pants and tight, chest-defining tee-shirts, including the white and blue horizontal stripe tee that he wore for those kitty-stroking pics taken by Lindsay Brice. The mustard-yellow leather jacket he wears in most of the film he later wears in A Perfect Murder as well. He wears a green cotton button shirt with two pockets layered under the mustard yellow leather jacket and over a black or dark blue shirt in the final heist. He wears this same green shirt in 1999 at the Recent Forgeries reading at City Lights. There is a tee-shirt with some weird creature on the front and I am trying to find out if he wore it elsewhere or what the origin of that shirt was. You just KNOW it was a Viggo contribution. Looked like a bootleg concert tee. In his final scene he wears a yellow blazer in the zoot-suit style - oversized with broad, padded shoulders.

Viggo Sound Bytes 4 out of 10. Ronnie is portrayed as none too swift, if you get my meaning, so his lines aren't all that great. However, he has one zinger in the scene where he's setting up a counterfiet money buy. The money man is suspicious and has been rude to Ronnie, and Ronnie asks him if he's going to be the one bringing the money, and the guy says hell no. Ronnie says something like, "That's a shame, I'd feel better if it was you." And he sort of smiles and there's a bit of a laugh in his voice. Of course, you know he's already planning to kill the delivery guy and this is just so cold and casual.

Overall Viggoness Rating: 4.5 out of 10
Not one of Viggo's better films or characters, but far from the worst.

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review by HermioneO

IMDb Plot Summary: Carlito Brigante is released from jail on a technicality after serving five years of a much longer stretch. He vows to go straight and live life as a fine, upstanding citizen. He even rekindles a romance with his ex-lover. However, Carlito's associates cannot seem to leave him in peace: his nephew involves him in a pool-room gunfight, his lawyer asks him for "favors" which spiral out of control, and even an old friend (now a wheelchair-bound paraplegic) wears a wire to trap him. Carlito decides to make a run for Florida and the promise of a new life, but has one final dramatic escape to make from some hoods who believe (wrongly) that he was behind the murder of their boss.

SPOILERS

The Characters:

Lalin (Viggo Mortensen) : In a bit of irony, Carlito remembers Lalin (pronounced lah-leen ) as a standup guy. In a flashback, Lalin is shown wearing a velveteen magenta lounge lizard suit with huge sideburns, and is portrayed as a smooth-talking, good-looking lady’s man. Then Carlito gets a look at Lalin through his office door and is stunned as the camera pans right, and we finally see the greasy wretch in his wheel chair, snorting something as he waits. Lalin was sent up for 30 years (though what he did to get such a sentence is never explained) and, like Carlito, has gotten out early. One might think it’s out of mercy for a man who obviously can no longer survive in a prison environment. However, we learn later it is because he has made a deal with the DA to try to trap Carlito with a revealing conversation while wearing a wire. Lalin is pathetic and a little nauseating, with his whining and wheedling and obvious attempt to get Carlito to admit to some sort of criminal activity. Even his clothes are a far cry from his old lothario days, with his ugly polyester print shirt and grey velour jacket with yellowish tobacco stains.

On top of that he wears diapers. Ya know, Viggo once claimed that a surprising skill he had was changing diapers. I for one assumed he meant diapers on a baby …

Carlito (Al Pacino) : Carlito is an aging former criminal who has been really lucky to get out so quickly. He really does want to get out, but it’s just not that easy.

David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn) : David Kleinfeld is Carlito’s lawyer who gets him sprung on a technicality, so of course the DA has a major hard-on to get him as well as Carlito.

Gail (Penelope Ann Miller) : This is the ex-girlfriend who wants Carlito out of the crime business, and for her he’ll do it.

Pachanga (Luis Guzman) : Why does he always play greasy slimeballs?

Supporting Cast: John Leguizamo, Ingrid Rogers, James Rebhorn, Joseph Siravo, Richard Foronjy, Jorge Porcel, Frank Minucci, Adrian Pasdar, John Ortiz, Angel Salazar.

Story

A lot of folks consider this to be an underrated film, often given short shrift because of comparisons with another Pacino/Scorcese film, Scarface. Viggo’s part in this film is short but very juicy. He comes in about an hour into the 2.5 hour movie, as a character from Carlito’s past who he trusts implicitly. His betrayal is a heavy blow to Carlito, but he also plays the vital part of reminding Carlito of his old girlfriend, la rubia, and telling him where she can be found. After he fulfils this role, you never hear from him again.

This is one of the most pathetic, unattractive characters Viggo has ever portrayed (for my money only Jerome Stample from Salvation is worse).

Other Notes

Phouque
The word "phuk" is said a total of 139 times. This doesn’t really have anything to do with Viggo but I thought I’d include it anyway.

Repeat Appearances
Sean Penn directed Viggo in what was his finest performance until History of Violence (Indian Runner, 1991).

Other Viggo Connections
Both Viggo and Al Pacino have played the Devil. Sean Penn was born in Santa Monica, which is where Viggo’s publishing house is located. Sean actually starred in the Thin Red Line, the film that gave special thanks to everyone, including Viggo. John Leguizamo starred in To Wong Foo, which Viggo auditioned for but did not get (he was going for the Patrick Swayze role). John was also in three episodes of Miami Vice (1986, 1987 and 1989). Luis Guzman is another Miami Vice alum (1985, 1986). James Rebhorn appeared in the soap Search for Tomorrow in 1985 (same year as Viggo) and 1986.

Fanboy Viggo
Viggo is such a San Lorenzo fanboy! He used colored tape to decorate his wheelchair in alternating blue and red stripes.

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 3 out of 10. Viggo’s part is very short and almost unrecognizable. Lalin is one of Viggo’s least desirable characters (but did that stop me?).

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. Considering how greasy and pathetic Lalin is, we probably don’t really want to see him nekkid.

Viggo Sex : 1 out of 10. Well … he says the word “hump,” the only time in recorded film where Viggo says the word “hump.” I’ll give that a 1 just on general principles.

Fetish Factor : 4 out of 10. The kink factor really rides the edge here. But … well, he’s wearing diapers. Viggo in a wheelchair. Viggo smoking. Viggo drinking. Viggo getting slapped around. Viggo with a whiney pathetic Puerto Rican accent. Viggo with facial hair. Long hair Viggo. Blonde pimp Viggo (in the flashback).

Clothes: 2 out of 10. Don’t ever want to see him in a tobacco-stained grey velour suit again. Ever. In a flashback just before we see the new and improved Lalin, he wears a magenta velvet or lamè (sp?) smoking jacket as the pimp/host of a men’s club.

Viggo Sound Bytes 4 out of 10. Lalin gets one big rant, after his duplicity has been exposed and Carlito is slapping him around with a gun. “Look what I got! I mean look at me! You got everything, man! Come on! Look what I got to fucking go around with, fucking diapers! I shit my pants everyday! I can't walk, I can't hump ... you know? Go ahead and kill me, you COCKSUCKER!” Just hearing him say cocksucker and hump in the same line is worth watching the film. The diapers … not so much.

Overall Viggoness Rating: 2.3 out of 10
Viggo gets about 5 minutes of screen time in his short but juicy scene with one of the legends of modern American cinema (that would be Al Pacino for those who weren’t paying attention). He is memorable enough that Lalin is mentioned in almost every review I’ve ever read of this movie. Carlito’s Way was not a successful film but has long been a favorite of Al Pacino fans, who claim it was underrated because it was unfairly compared to Scarface. For us, that would be like comparing Hidalgo to LOTR. There is no comparison, but that doesn’t mean Hidalgo was a bad movie.

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review by HermioneO

IMDb Plot Summary: The London police are having trouble with organized crime committed by juvenile delinquents. Their leader is an American who is an expert at turning young men into ruthless gangsters. American cop John Harris is asked to help the London police to break up the organization.

SPOILERS

Characters

Carl Frazer (Viggo Mortensen) : Carl is a drug dealer from the U.S., taking his business overseas where the pickings are supposedly easier. The police in the U.S. have nearly caught him once too often so he’s cooling off abroad. He finds the London scene easy pickings, a big fish in a little pond. He seduces the disaffected youths in the area, who for whatever reason think Americans are cool and tough and seek to emulate Carl. He plays up to this, recruiting young men to do his dirty work, and starts systematically taking out any local organized crime bosses who refuse to deal with him. Carl is smooth and seductive with his young men, cool and friendly with his peers, and brutally savage to the women in his employ.

John Harris (Harvey Keitel) : John is an agent with a drug task force in the U.S. that had nearly caught the elusive Carl Frazer before he crossed the Atlantic. He chases his prey to London, coming in to assist Scotland Yard who apparently cannot handle one lone drug dealer. As a background to his character, this officer of the law has the stereotypical broken home life and makes phone calls to his ex wife while in London.

Story
Young Americans was apparently the forerunner to a bunch of similar movies set in London in the 1990s – all about the Americanization of organized crime families in the London area. I like how this one dealt with it – the head of the most powerful London family guns down Frazer, the impertinent American, while he’s distracted with the police. Works for me.

Frazer comes to London to sell his drugs when things get too hot for him in the U.S. He seduces local juvenile delinquents into killing his opposition for him. He uses them up, then eliminates them when they are no longer useful – like when they get arrested. Frazer has a partner in an ambitious local club owner who wants to rise in power and will sell out to a foreign interest to do it. He gets arrogant as he sees his former peers eliminated one by one. But he goes too far when he fingers his own cousin for elimination – just because the guy isn’t into the whole crime family thing and wants to be left out of it. That’s when his second cousin – the loving son – gets involved and becomes a mole for the police.

Craig Kelly plays Chris O’Neil, the promising scion of a crime family who wasn’t really in things until his father, also not involved, is killed as punishment for talking bad about his criminal cousin. Chris is well-liked, and his cousin is thrilled when he comes forward to work at his club, indicating he wants to be “part of things.”

Carl Frazer, the silent American partner, takes an instant licking to Chris, taking him out for a ride in his snazzy car and inviting him to a private party. Carl knows how to throw a party – lots of naked and nearly naked women, freely available drugs, and an oversized hot tub. All his boys are there and Carl encourages them to have fun, and shows them how to handle women – ya gotta be firm.

Chris has a hottie girlfriend, played by Thandie Newton, who encourages him to stay out of things and fights with him when he appears to be in them after all. He warns her to stay away from the club when he knows the police are going to raid. But making the typical boyfriend mistake, he doesn’t tell her why, so she of course goes anyway.

Thus, and this is vitally important, she is there to be the helpless female held at gunpoint when Carl Frazer is trapped.

But not to worry, because the local crime boss is there to nail Frazer from behind. All’s well that ends well.

Other

Where are they now?
There were some impressive nobodies in this film. Thandie Newton , who plays the girlfriend held hostage at the end, went on to play the scheming Dame Vaako in the Chronicles of Riddick, and did a turn in Crash, the 2006 Best Picture winner (Thandie won best supporting actress from the BAFTA awards). Ian Glen had villainous roles in Lara Croft: Tom Raider and Resident Evil, and was Richard the Lion Heart in Kingdom of Heaven. Viggo Mortensen later starred in a little fantasy movie that launched him into a career as a cowboy, where he got to costar with the lovely and talented TJ. Harvey Keitel has made a fantastic career out of gritty, juicy characters.

Trivia
During one of the club scenes, a remix of Nine Inch Nails' "Gave Up" is playing. This version has never been released officially or unofficially and the only know fragment can be heard in this movie. It appears to be an alteration of the remix found on NIN's EP "Fixed."

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality and Quantity): 4 out of 10. Viggo’s character is a mysterious, sinister villain always in shadows. Therefore, those few times he appears on screen, his face is often cloaked. Lousy for screencapping.

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. Carl doesn’t even take off his jacket.

Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. A room full of hookers and he doesn’t so much as unzip.

Clothes: 4 out of 10. Carl has a good sense of style but the film is so shadowy it’s hard to appreciate it. In the scene where he comes to the club and meets Chris for the first time, and on through to his party, he's wearing a dark red shirt under that jacket. If you take a screencap and lighten it, this shirt may well be the red shag shirt he also wears in American Yakuza, Passion of Darkly Noon, A Perfect Murder and A Walk on the Moon. It cannot be confirmed positively because of how dark the movie is, but I am as sure as I can be.

Fetish Factor : 5 out of 10. Viggo smoking, Viggo in darkness, Viggo chewing gum, Viggo getting rough with a woman, Viggo with a gun.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 4 out of 10. Viggo plays up the seducer in this flick, so his voice is a sexy burr when he speaks. “I never worry Jack. Makes me look ugly.” "Come on fellows, loosen up. You make me look bad. It's a party. You want something, take it. It's free." Viggo also has an incongruous giggle in one scene.

Total Viggoness rating: 2.8 out of 10
Viggo’s minor role is sexy but not on screen enough. While overall the movie isn’t too bad, unless you’re into the genre (sexy, slick crime drama with a soundtrack), it’s only worth getting if you have to own every Viggo movie. On the plus side, it’s not too hard to get.

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review by HermioneO

IMDb Plot Summary: The film is a biblical soap-opera whose action unfolds in the Californian desert. Karen and Wes's marriage is crumbling apart - like a sandcastle. Karen can't even make love to her husband any more - the sand has managed to get everywhere. Harry, a tax collector, is a witness to this marriage falling apart. As a civil servant he hears Wes confession. However he isn't able to help him. The omnipotent eye of television glitters above the desert - that raw allegory of America where neither the white nor the black have it good. If Samuel Beckett and Joan Collins had a romance, then their child would look like this film.

This movie was released in 1993. It was filmed in Poland in a desert, but was supposed to be set in California in the near future, after the Oceans receded due to some ecological disaster or possibly nuclear war. Think Tank Girl for a similar effect. It is actually in English - the actors speak English, it is not dubbed. But it was produced in Poland and is usually seen with Polish subtitles. I've seen clips that are dubbed in Polish as well, and the dubbing is done over the English so you can hear the actors speaking English and then the Polish obscures it.

This is a surreal, very political film.

SPOILERS

Characters

Wes (Viggo Mortensen) : A golden-bronzed adonis who spends his whole day either in bed or playing golf, when he isn't answering questions from the IRS guy. He is totally passive, hating the world as it is but unable or unwilling to do anything about it. He has lost all hope and anchored his heart and reason to exist on his marriage and relationship with Karen.

Karen (Jennifer Rubin) : Tall, brunette and beautiful, Karen apparently has a job and supports herself and Wes. She wants to have a child - all her friends have had children and she wants one too. She leaves Wes when they argue about it, but comes back after he gives in. She cheats on Wes with a government security guy there for the president's visit, which makes her one of my least favorite Viggo love interests.

Harry (Jack Kehoe) : Harry is an IRS agent who comes to talk to Wes about taxes he owes from a few years ago. Wes protests that he paid his taxes and has proof, but can't find it. Harry, in the guise of being helpful, guides Wes through all the paperwork he has to fill out to save his ass. Since the end result is to hand over his property to the government so they can drill for water, I suspect his motives were not pure.

Story

Wes and Karen live in what is supposed to be an apartment. I don't know if there is a name for this style but there are no walls, all around you see the desert, and their furniture is set up as though for an apartment, complete with bed, desk, computer, TV, two refrigerators, and sink. Didn't see a shower or toilet, though. The wind blows almost constantly and sand gets in everything. We open with Karen VACUUMING and Wes fiddling around with a golf club.

There are lots of religious references too but I'm not too up on the symbolism aside from nailing that prophet sort of guy to a cross. The film attacks taxes, government, health insurance, environmental policies - you name it.

Karen wants to have children and Wes can't understand why she would want to bring an innocent life into their awful world.

Did I mention that the sand gets into everything? I mean EVERYTHING. Karen complains about it to a friend and her advice is to deal with it, it can't be helped, and it's the only way to have children.

In spite of the pain of the sand, Karen has sex with Wes, and then later cheats on him with a government agent, breaking his heart and causing his death. For that alone, I will never forgive her. The guy wasn't even hot.

Other

Repeat Appearances
Jack Kehoe also appeared in Young Guns II as the journalist who traveled with the posse in pursuit of Billy and the gang. He is comic relief with his periodic need to "make a movement." Jack was also photographed by Viggo and that B&W picture appears in one of his collections.

Music
The music in this film has been described as haunting by some, and there is a soundtrack shown on the Internet, but I don’t know anyone who has purchased it.

Viggo Near Death Experience
During the filming Viggo, as he often does, chose to camp out in the natural surroundings of the dunes of the Polish desert. While out wandering one morning he fell into a sand trap and would have died if his girlfriend hadn't called for help.

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality and Quantity): 8 out of 10. He's there almost the whole time and there are some gorgeous closeups. He's absolutely shaggable. He has golden blond hair and light scruff and is deeply tanned. I would give this rating a 10; however, I have yet to find a good, sharp print of this film. Usually it has been copied off of a TV broadcast and is slightly blurry.

Nekkid Viggo : 5 out of 10. We get some chest and lots of back and side and even a peek at leg and thigh.

Viggo Sex : 8 out of 10. He does it on screen, modestly draped by a sheet. This is preceded by a pretty hot kiss. There is a hokey explosion at the "climax," but the use of the bars of the headboard for traction make up for it. Plus graphic pumping action.

Clothes: 2 out of 10. The white pants look good on him but clothing is really not emphasized in this film. There is nothing here that is re-used in his other films or worn later in his life.

Fetish Factor : 3 out of 10. There's really not that much. Viggo fondles a golf club almost the whole time. He is barefoot but you hardly ever see his feet. Brass headboard used to GREAT effect. Viggo's face framed by brass bars. He spends a LOT of time in bed. Dead Viggo for you necros out there.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 0 out of 10. Viggo didn’t have any memorable lines. Karen cries out "Not so hard! Not so hard!" when they're having sex. But she actually means it.

Total Viggoness rating: 4.3 out of 10
This film is worth seeing for Viggo's shining golden gorgiosity, even if you aren't into surreal political post-modern stuff.

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review by HermioneO

IMDb Summary: Reluctantly Bill agrees to spend a weekend on his brother-in-law's boat in the Bahamas. But he and his wife are not the only invited passengers, and instead of a few relaxing days at sea Bill experiences something that shakes his whole existence.

This movie is never gonna win any awards, but if you’re in the mood for beer and popcorn and a few laughs, the Crew is not a waste of time.

SPOILERS

The Characters:
Phillip (Viggo Mortensen) : Phillip is an asshole and he freely admits it with a note of pride in his voice. He’s a successful lawyer who just bought a luxury yacht (probably costs more than I make in five years).and wants to show it off. He has invited his married sister and her lover along for the ride, and hired a hooker to see to his own needs. What a guy, huh? When he sees a burning boat with people in distress, he doesn’t want to stop to help them. Even better. He’s also extremely homophobic and a bigot, and based on his gestures he is probably repressing his own sexuality. This could be why he doesn’t have a girlfriend and needs to bring a hired companion for the weekend.

Phillip has some shady clients, the kind who deal in large amounts of cash, who have chosen to place a lot of that cash in hiding on Phillip’s boat, the Retainer. Nice little joke, huh? This makes Phillip a lot more jumpy than even his anal nature would normally indicate.

Jennifer Pierce (Pamela Gidley) : Phillip’s sister is cut largely from the same cloth. She is cheating on her husband, Bill, with a loser musician and got along better with Bill’s asshole father than she ever did with Bill. She uses the excuse that Bill has closed off from her for the past 3 months while in mourning over his mother’s suicide to justify her infidelity. It still doesn’t account for her poor taste. Maybe I’m just old fashioned but I would think you’d give the supposed love of your life a few months to get over the devastating death of his beloved mother.

Bill Pierce (Donal Logue) : Bill is a sensitive, depressed writer who is just coming out of deep mourning for his mother, who killed herself in the opening scene on the DVD, thus setting up the whole damn film. Wonder why they cut it from the VHS copy? Bill has been a little clueless, but he catches on pretty quick during the boat trip that something is going on between his wife and the loser musician. He is of a more liberal cut than his father and inlaws and immediately sympathizes with the plights of Camilla and Tim. When he feels the stinging betrayal of Jennifer’s infidelity, as well as the additional insult of discovering that Phillip knew all along and he was not expected on the weekend trip, he throws in completely with the two outsiders.

Alex (John Philbin) : Why did they make this guy a musician? According to the credits, they had someone playing the music for him, but the person they hired did a lousy job. I didn’t believe it for a minute. Maybe he’s Phillip’s drug connection? And he wasn’t even good-looking! Jennifer obviously didn’t marry Bill for his looks, but if she’s gonna cheat, at least pick something better.

Catherine Driftwood (Sam Jenkins): Phillip’s hired companion for the weekend is putting herself through medical school. Can you just smell the cliché? They even know what a cliché it is and put it in the script when she’s telling her big story near the end.

Timothy Grant (Jeremy Sisto) : Tim is a pre-operation transsexual trying to raise enough money for his operation by smuggling illegal immigrants into Florida. He is on the hormones, which shows in his feminized physique and emotional unstability. He keeps calling his boyfriend who has apparently decided to drop Tim and we watch his whole life fall apart during the course of the film.

Camilla Marquez (Lara del Sol) : The illegal immigrant is played by a Spanish actress who is far more popular in Europe.

Story
Phillip wants to show off his new yacht and invites his sister and her lover to come along with him and his companion for a weekend in Bimini. Simple enough? Well, his sister is married and her husband decides to come along after all, finally emerging from his depression. I gotta wonder why Jennifer didn’t call Alex or Phillip to warn them. It’s the 90s. I would have thought at least Phillip would have a cellphone.

Oh, and Phillip’s companion is a prostitute he hired for the weekend.

So our happy crew set off for a three-day tour and first thing they find is a burning boat with people needing help. Phillip doesn’t want to pick them up but everyone else comes down on him. As reward for his good deed, Phillip gets held up at gunpoint and his boat is hijacked by Tim the Pre-Transexual Smuggler.

What follows is 90 minutes of melodrama as tempers flare, secrets are revealed and the ugly truth comes out about everyone there.

Phillip is a murdering, homophobic asshole who has a gun and is carrying a lot of cash he probably hasn’t reported to the IRS.
Catherine is a prostitute.
Jennifer is a lying, cheating, cold-hearted bitch.
Alex is a no-talent deadbeat having an affair with a married woman.
Tim is a … well … okay it wasn’t very smart of him to try to make money this way, especially when he is very hormonal and unstable.
Camilla is a stereotype – her husband was killed in a Cuban jail and she’s trying to get to America.
Bill is a grieving son who I don’t particularly like but he’s probably the most sympathetic character in the movie. He didn’t actually do anything wrong.

The whole thing comes to a head as Tim realizes George (his boyfriend) isn’t coming to get him and doesn’t want him anymore and he decides to kill himself, mirroring the scene at the beginning where Bill’s mother kills herself. Without that scene at the beginning, you lose all the parallels and the scene between Bill and Tim becomes another random element in a movie that already lacks cohesion. Even with the scene, it is not enough to save the movie from a bad script.

Other Notes

Repeat Appearances
Grace Zabriskie (Passion of Darkly Noon, 1995) plays Bill’s suicidal mother here in a first scene that is not included on VHS copies. In PODN, she plays Clay’s crazy mother. Coincidentally, both characters shoot themselves.

Nepotism
Walter Mortensen appears very briefly (blink and you’ll miss him) as the co-pilot on the coast guard helicopter.

It’s a Small World
In this movie, Tim claims he has skin like a young Catherine Deneuve (sp?). Earlier this year, at the Golden Globe awards, Catherine was the presenter who introduced History of Violence.

Official Site
Yes, this film actually has an official site. Someone somewhere is proud of this film.
Official Site

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 8 out of 10. Viggo is on screen almost the entire film, with lots of close-ups, but the film quality is pretty bad so you only get about 300 screencaps.

Nekkid Viggo : 4 out of 10. Lots of bare chest starting in the second half of the film, as Viggo lets his shirt hang open, then goes swimming and loses it entirely. He also wears shorts so you get lots of leg in the bargain. When he’s climbing down into the cabin, we get a rear shot that goes very low down on his back.

Viggo Sex : 2 out of 10. Viggo makes out with his hired girl on the deck, but it’s not the best kissing he’s ever done. Ya gotta wonder why he makes out with her in front of everyone instead of taking her down below where they can get really busy.

Fetish Factor : 7 out of 10. Wet Viggo, Viggo in a white fluffy towel, Viggo rubbing white stuff on his skin, Viggo in shades, Viggo in shorts, foot shots, hand sex, Viggo with a gun in his hand, Viggo cussing, injured Viggo in makeshift sling.

Clothes: 4 out of 10. That yellow shirt was ugly but had the redeeming quality that it billowed up nicely in the wind, exposing Viggo’s belly. Otherwise, he had a nice blue shirt, and went shirtless a lot. The shorts were okay. Not a fashion show – more about what he wasn’t wearing. I liked the white fluffy towel.

Viggo Sound Bytes 7 out of 10. Many good lines in this film. Phillip is a total ass hole but his mouth works. “It’s my fucking boat.” “You’re a bad talk show topic.” “I’m a fucking asshole.” “Must be like finding out your wife is cheating on you.” “I looooove your music.” “Do you have a plan, Tim?” The entire yelling on the beach scene. You’ll laugh until you cry.

Overall Viggoness Rating: 5.3 out of 10
Viggo, as usual, is gorgeous, especially to those of us with an appreciation for the Master Chief. The film quality is poor, but there’s lots of opportunity to watch Viggo swishing around in shorts, and in the right mood, you can laugh at everything else.

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review by HermioneO

Crimson Tide
Release Date: 1995

IMDB Summary: In the near future, Russian rebels have taken over one of the ICBM bases in the USSR. Alarmed by the prospect of a rebel strike, the U.S. sends the U.S.S. Alabama, a nuclear ballistic submarine, to watch over the base and retaliate in case they launch. While on patrol, the submarine is attacked and the radio systems are knocked out. An emergency message received during the battle is only partially recovered. Captain Ramsey believes it to be the order to launch on the rebels, while XO Hunter wants to wait for a confirmation message. The conflict escalates into mutiny as Ramsey and Hunter fight for control of the Alabama's nuclear missiles.

SPOILERS

The Characters:
Lt. Peter “Weps” Ince (Viggo Mortensen): How many people can say Gene Hackman threatened to blow their *beep* head off? Well, Viggo is one of them. Aside from Witness, this is the first film where Viggo got to play a normal man with a family, remarkable solely for the situation he was in, and his very active sweat glands. This character proves that there's no such thing as too much sweat on Viggo. Every other character he’d played up to this point was psychotic, a loner, dangerous, weird, evil or disgusting. Sure, Weps smoked, but that’s not a lot to hold against a guy and he was under a lot of stress. And he’s so sweaty. His face just glows. Peter Ince is a nice guy with a young son. He’s an upstanding Naval officer in the elite crew of a nuclear submarine. He has a hell of a future ahead of him if he doesn’t screw up. Plus, he can iron.

Lt. Commander Ron Hunter (Denzel Washington): Hunter is the college-educated new generation of officers gradually replacing the old guard. He has a strong background in philosophy as well as military tactics and history, and thinks about the meaning and consequence of war, not just the object. While he respects the experience of the men who have gone before him, he is not afraid to speak his mind and offer a contradictory opinion, even when it means a smack in the puss.

Captain Frank Ramsey (Gene Hackman): Captain Ramsey is from the older generation of submarine captains, even all Naval Captains, who were a lot more independent than the newer generation – because they had to be. Most of them didn’t go to college but they are well read men not afraid to take action. They were often on their own, cut off from radio contact with the command structure back on the mainland. They were faced with situations and had to make decisions as best they could using the information at hand and their training and experience. Their actions decided policy before it ever got to the bureaucrats. Ramsey could easily resent the college-educated officers coming out to replace him and his peers, and perhaps that bleeds through in his dealings with Hunter, but he is also a product of another era and while he won’t compromise on what he sees as his duty, he is able to recognize when it is time to step aside.

Lt. Roy Zimmer (Matt Craven): This guy’s only job is to repeat what the computer says. Okay, not quite, but all he seems to do is get the printout of the commands and bring them to the Captain.

Chief of the Boat (George Dzundza): I just love seeing George Dzundza’s face on the screen. Who care’s what he’s doing?

Lt. Bobby Dougherty (James Gandolfini): I swear this guy always looks like he’s waiting to kill someone. Dougherty remains loyal to the Captain throughout, but I kind of think he does that because he really wants to blow *beep* up.

Supporting Cast
Rocky Carroll, Jaime Gomez, Michael Milhoan, Scott Burkholder, Danny Nucci, Lillo Brancato, Eric Bruskotter, Rick Schroder, Steve Zahn, Daniel Von Bargen.

Story
A Russian general in possession of the launch codes for some of their nuclear missiles stages a revolution and threatens to launch on the U.S. The U.S.S. Alabama is sent out with orders to remain on stand-by while the situation is monitored. This with a new XO because the old one got sick. The new XO (Hunter) is the best friend of the weapons officer (Weps) and gets introduced around as a good guy.

While on maneuvers the Captain announces a drill in the middle of an actual fire taking place in the kitchen, which irks the new XO. A man dies, not because of the drill. He would have died anyway, but this creates the first note of friction between the Captain and the XO.

This film is not as claustrophobic as you might expect, being for the most part on the interior of a submarine. The main bridge is actually kind of airy and the open grilles between decks give the interior a sense of space. The only problem I would have had was the threat of stepping in a puddle of dog piss since the Captain insisted on bringing his rat-sized pet with him.

Crimson Tide gives a nice glimpse into life on board a modern submarine, with arguments about comic books, pet fish, food, etc. The officers have their discussions and dirty jokes, and smoking is even allowed (or at least it was at the time of filming).

The trouble really starts when the Alabama encounters a Russian sub and they have a brush up that cuts out their antenna just when they were receiving a second launch message. The first told them to go ahead and launch. So what was the second one? That is the question, and Ramsey wants to launch, while Hunter wants confirmation before starting World War III.

Hunter relieves the Captain of command for not following protocol, but those loyal to the Captain talk Weps into opening the weapons locker so they can release the Captain and arrest Hunter and his fellow mutineers. While Weps agrees with Hunter, he has been under Ramsey’s command for a long time.

So now Hunter is under arrest, along with the officers who sided with him. But one of the sailors loyal to Hunter gets them out and the counter-counter-mutiny begins.

Throughout, Weps is the fulcrum on which the whole struggle balances. He is the Weapons Officer of the submarine, the one man who knows the combination to the safe that holds the launch key. Without his cooperation, the submarine cannot launch its nuclear missiles. The Navy does not give this assignment to just any officer. Hunter convinces him not to launch until they receive confirmation, and so even when Ramsey has control of the bridge and has given the launch order, he doesn’t do it. When Ramsey comes down to the weapons bridge himself, gun in hand, to order Weps to open the safe, he refuses. With a gun held to the back of his head, he refuses. Only when Ramsey threatens to shoot one of his men does Weps relent, finally opening the safe. But by that time Hunter has regained control of the bridge and stops the launch sequence.

The rest of the action is played out between Hunter and Ramsey on the main bridge. They finally get the second message, canceling the launch order, and everyone cheers. The relief shows plainly on Weps’ face.

Other Notes

Repeat Appearances
You have to go way down the list, but finally there were a few people who had appeared with Viggo in other films. Marcello Thedford plays Lawson in Crimson Tide and was later in Daylight (1996) as Kadeem. Of course, Henry Mortensen made an appearance in two scenes in this film, as the son of Weps. His first scene is at the beginning at the birthday party for Hunter’s daughter. His second scene was cut from the theatrical release but is included in the extended edition, where the sailors and officers are saying goodbye to their loved ones. Little Henry is so cute saluting his father. Anyway, Henry has also appeared in Floundering (1994), Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003). He also appeared in Blue Tiger, which was a non-sequel to American Yakuza but also featured Ryo Ishibashi and was produced by the same people. Vanessa Bell Calloway (Julia Hunter) was also in Daylight as Grace Calloway. Daniel Von Bargen (Vladimir Radchenko the psycho Russian general) was in GI Jane as Senator Hayes. Steve Gonzales was a Press Hound in GI Jane.

Other Connections
Victoria Thomas was casting director for this and Passion of Darkly Noon, which was filmed at around the same time. Tony Scott, who directed Crimson Tide, is the brother of Ridley Scott, who directed GI Jane. Tony provided extra submarine footage for his brother’s film.

Captain Scarface?
Al Pacino was originally offered the role of Captain Frank Ramsey (Gene Hackman’s role). This would have been Viggo’s second run with him (Carlito’s Way).

Extra Scenes
For a long time the U.S. release of the DVD had almost nothing on it, while European sisters got all these great extras, including new and extended scenes and the behind-the-scenes featurette with Viggo and George Dzundza hugging and Viggo making faces in the Officer’s mess. Now at last, with the unrated extended edition released on the 10th anniversary of the original release, we too have these extras. I will list the extra Viggo scenes only:

-- Briefing: Previously we only saw Weps introduce Hunter to the other officers and then they were walking down the hall. In the extended edition Ramsey gives a full briefing and we get several long close-ups of Weps, including him winking at Hunter. This one has been integrated with the film.
-- Farewell: Families see their loved ones off as the sailors board the bus taking them to the ship. This scene has been extended to show Weps saying goodbye to his son, who salutes him (I dare you not to ovulate), and two older people who may be his mother and step-father. They are not credited. This scene has also been integrated with the film.
-- Hearing: Hunter and Ramsey are waiting outside the hearing chambers. We see first one of the other officers, then Weps come out, stop to light a cigarette, and walk out of the building. This is in the deleted scenes and has that unfinished look.

Behind-the-Scenes Shenanigans
Wanna see Viggo hugging a big guy? Watch the making of featurette on the extended edition DVD. Viggo is wearing a black tee-shirt and shares a tender moment with George Dzundza, until they see the camera and bashfully flee.

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 7 out of 10. Weps is a vital secondary character in this movie, with a lot of lingering, sweaty close-ups. The image quality on the new DVD is excellent, making for lots of great quality screencaps. Viggo himself is clean-cut, toned and in uniform almost the entire time, except at the very beginning where you can still tell he is military by his close-cropped hair. This is the shortest hair Viggo has ever had on screen, leaving his beautiful face fully exposed, and Tony Scott plays that up to the max. He shows such intensity of feeling and great screen presence that he got picked up to play Roy Nord in Daylight.

Nekkid Viggo: 2 out of 10. You get bare arms when he is ironing his clothes in quarters, wearing a tight white tee-shirt.

Viggo Sex: 1 out of 10. None whatsoever, no matter what you’ve heard about sailors. Unless you want to count the hug with George Dzundza in the extras. Okay, we’ll count that.

Fetish Factor: 7 out of 10. Viggo in uniform. Sweaty Viggo. Viggo the sexy smoker. Viggo ironing. Sweaty sweaty Viggo. Viggo wink. Viggo with a gun to his head. Sweaty Viggo. Viggo chewing gum. Hand sex (while ironing).

Clothes: 4 out of 10. He wears uniforms throughout the whole film, and a button down shirt in the first scene. There is nothing re-used here, but he sure do look nice.

Viggo Sound Bytes 5 out of 10.
If they order him to launch, we'll launch, and we'll blow 'em all to hell. But, I rather go down myself than get this one wrong.
You're missin' your daughter's levitation.
So what does that make us, since we're the only nation that's ever dropped a nuclear bomb on anybody?
Maybe it's not as bad as it looks ... It is.
He’s had his head up his ass riding ships for the last 25 years.
It’s his style. He’s a hardass.

Overall Viggoness Rating: 4.3 out of 10
This is another case of Viggo playing a vital secondary role in a film. Crimson Tide is a good movie on its own, for those who like military, suspense films. This also marked the beginning of a new kind of category of roles for Viggo – normal guys who actually survive the film.

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review by HermioneO

IMDb Summary: Angels come to Earth to find a human soul that can end the war in heaven. Humans are caught up in this battle and must find a way to stop the angel Gabriel before he takes the soul back from where the angel Simon has hidden it.

You’ll burn in hell for this character.

SPOILERS

The Characters:
Lucifer (Viggo Mortensen) : Viggo is at his darkly sensual best in this role as the first of the fallen angels. Lucifer comes in as the unlikely savior of mankind about ¾ of the way through the film. He’s not doing it for our sakes, of course. He has his own selfish motives, but that’s what we like about him.

Gabriel (Christopher Walken) : Christopher Walken is scary and brutal as Gabriel, the leader of the rebellious angels. He is God’s jealous and forsaken lover, and he despises humans for stealing God from him.

Thomas Dagget (Elias Koteas) : A police officer who is a former candidate for priesthood, Thomas Dagget has lost his faith. But he’s the only person on the job with the knowledge to understand what is happening.

Katherine Henley (Virginia Madsen): Katherine Henley is a teacher at a school either on or near a reservation. She gets involved to protect her student.

Rachel (Amanda Plummer) : I love Amanda Plummer and I only wish she’d had actual on-screen time with Viggo. Gabriel catches the unfortunate Rachel on her deathbed and traps her in that moment between life and death. She wants so much to die. She can apparently see what is waiting for her, and wants to leave her frail, tortured skinsack behind, but Gabriel is merciless.

Simon (Eric Stoltz) : Beautiful Eric Stoltz plays the one fallen angel who doesn’t want the coming war, and so he steps in to circumvent Gabriel’s plans. This is another one I would have liked to see playing opposite Viggo, rather than either Elias or Virginia. But at least I got Christopher.

Story

A man is murdered or commits suicide and the ensuing investigation creates more mysteries than it solves. The “man” has no eyes and isn’t really human. Just a burned out husk. He left behind a bible with an extra chapter, and it appears genuine. The chapter is in Revelations and describes a war in heaven that will take place in modern day.

The detective tracks his clues to a Reservation, where he finds angels battling with humans over a little girl holding the soul of a dead general who was possibly the nastiest person who ever lived. This detective, who was a former seminary student who lost his faith, finds himself forced to reassess his lost faith as he confronts the devil himself.

When Lucifer appears out of the darkness he eclipses everyone and everything else. His dark menace sends sexual chills up and down your body. It is not possible not to fantasize about this character, and wonder if it might just be worth it to damn your soul to eternal torment.

The Prince of Darkness has his own agenda and helps the “talking monkeys” only because it suits his goals – total domination of the only existing Hell. Gabriel’s plans threaten his dominance and he can’t have that. So, even though he is helping the humans and God, he gives the humans advice and is there to take Gabriel at the end.

Other Notes

Fanboy Viggo
Viggo is known for taking a long time to decide to accept a part, but the Prophecy was one where he made a quick, snap decision. This was largely because he’d always wanted to work with Christopher Walken. "I would do any movie with him, no matter what [it was].” (Viggo Mortensen: A Very Devilish Devil In The Prophecy, by Ferran Viladevall, La Opinión, 1995)

Other Versions
The European release, titled God's Army, runs 90 minutes and features different footage: a sepia-tinted opening sequence shows Thomas Dagget sitting in a swing, talking to Lucifer; the sequence where the first angel falls to Earth is shorter; the exorcism sequence at the end is shorter and has no special effects. Now, what I want to know, European sisters, is Viggo actually in this scene or is Lucifer invisible?

Hollywood Networking
Don Phillips, who produced the Prophecy, was the casting director and producer on American Yakuza and Blue Tiger, and also produced Indian Runner. Virginia Madsen also starred in Blue Tiger, which was sort of a non-sequel to American Yakuza. While Viggo was not in Blue Tiger, his co-star from American Yakuza, Ryo Ishibashi, was, and his son, Henry, played a vital role at the beginning of the film.

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 3 out of 10. He has only three short scenes, but at least there are some close-ups.

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. *sigh* What does the Prince of Darkness need with clothes, anyway?

Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. Zip. Nada. Isn’t Lucifer entitled to some nookie?

Fetish Factor : 5 out of 10. Viggo is the devil, isn’t that enough? Black nails. Bloody Viggo. Eats out Christopher Walken’s heart. Viggo eats a flower.

Clothes: 2 out of 10. Viggo wears a dark suit but it’s nothing special. The whole thing is about his performance.

Viggo Sound Bytes 10 out of 10.
Viggo is only in this film for a few precious minutes, but they are some of the best minutes in the film. The dialogue is knockout at times, including most of Viggo’s scenes. It’s hard to pick and choose, but here goes:
“I can lay your body out and fill your mouth with your mother's feces... or we can talk.” oh you smooth talker you
“God? God is love. I don't love you.”
“Your war is arrogance. That makes it evil. And that's mine.”
“While heaven may be closed I am always open, even on Christmas”
“Humans... and how I love you talking monkeys for this... know more about war and treachery of the spirit than any angel.”
“I was the first angel, loved once above all others... [singing] But like all true love... one day it withered on the vine.”
“You know what Hell really is Thomas? It's not lakes of burning oil or chains of ice. It's being removed from God's sight.”

Overall Viggoness Rating: 3.3 out of 10
While Viggo’s performance in this movie is riveting and certainly worth watching, I have to give this a low viggoness rating. Unlike many of his early movies, Prophecy is a good film on its own, so you should definitely see it.

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review by HermioneO

Passion of Darkly Noon
Release Date: 1995

IMDB Summary: After the death of his strictly religious parents, forlorn young Darkly gets lost in the woods. A truck driver, Jude, rescues the exhausted man, who has only a bible for comfort. He brings him to the house of Callie and Clay, two lovers who live in the forest. While Clay is away in the forest, beautiful Callie nurses Darkly back to health, and he develops an obsession with her that is totally contrary to his upbringing - a sexual obsession. When Clay returns home and Darkly sees the two lovers kiss, it is too much for him. Every night he hears them making love. Darkly's descent into madness has begun.

SPOILERS

The Characters:
Clay (Viggo Mortensen) : Clay is Callie’s mute boyfriend. He is a carpenter and a handyman – nothing in the house works unless he fixes it. He goes for long walks in the woods for days at a time but always comes back to Callie. Clay is a simple man with simple desires. He likes his beer cold and watered down (Budweiser), and he likes his woman in skimpy clothing with no bra. He works with his hands, sports sexy stubble and has a constant, manly sweaty glow. He’s a natural sort of man, with a strong sex drive. Who needs words?

Darkly Noon (Brendan Fraser) : This role is a far cry from the all-American, hale fellow well met type roles Brendan Fraser is known best for. But he’s done a lot of indies with similarly atypical roles, like Gods and Monsters, and School Ties. Darkly has had a twisted upbringing in a radical, fanatical religious crèche.

Callie (Ashley Judd) : Callie is a beautiful blond siren who lives in the woods with her mute boyfriend. She is very accepting of other people and just wants to live with her lover in their forest paradise. She’s a little oblivious about some things, like walking around practically naked in front of a strange man she knows nothing about, or treating a full-grown man who is larger than her boyfriend like a child. Is Callie a witch, like Roxy says? Or just naïve?

Jude (Loren Dean) : Jude is a friend to Callie and Clay. He brings them supplies from town, and is the one who brings Darkly to stay with them. He can see the way Darkly has been affected by Callie and tries to warn him off, but in the end is forced to kill Darkly to protect Callie.

Roxy (Grace Zabriskie) : This is Clay’s estranged mother. She lives in the woods in a silver trailer (again, Ridley’s thing for silver), trains her hunting dog with barbed wire and fires off a shotgun in Callie’s general direction to blow off steam. She hates Callie with a vengeance ever since her husband had a heart attack while trying to rape the girl. She blames Callie for killing her husband and corrupting her boy, and she finds a willing and devout student in Darkly.

Quincy (Lou Myers) : This local caretaker buys caskets from Clay while he dances on the graves of the world. He celebrates death and his gleeful attitude is appreciated by both Clay and Callie.

Story
Callie and Clay live together in the woods, away from the civilization that has rejected them. They have a few friends but otherwise live in complete isolation, until Jude brings a guest. Darkly is the child of religious fanatics who lived in some sort of commune in the area that was destroyed in a Waco-esque raid by the government. With his twisted upbringing, Darkly doesn’t have the emotional or mental tools to handle Callie and Clay’s relationship. They live together but they are not married and don’t care to live by the rigid standards of regular civilization, let alone the fanatical standards of Darkly’s religion.

Clay is away when Darkly comes to play, and Callie is oblivious to the effect she has on men. She freely undresses and bathes in front of Darkly, who is a full grown man even if he behaves like a child, and doesn’t seem to expect him to react. I always had a problem with that.

So the tension all builds here as Darkly experiences sinful thoughts about Callie and starts talking to his dead parents and makes a new friend in the crazy shotgun lady in the woods (Roxy). This is all before Clay shows up and the shit hits the fan because Darkly can’t have Callie.

There’s not much to tell. Clay is of course the best thing on the screen, surly and manly and sweaty, working that wood and playing with coin tricks. Who cares what else was going on? Well, okay.

Darkly started off not too stable, considering his background, but as he is confronted with the contradictory stories from Callie and Roxy, and Callie living in sin with Clay, and his own disturbing emotions, he begins to lose his fragile grip. He makes himself into a barbed wire bird (a training device Roxy uses with her dog – a stuffed bird built around a barbed wire frame to teach her dog not to bite down when retrieving) by wrapping his torso in barbed wire and covering up with warm, thick, concealing clothes. Who is he seeking to train?

Well, of course he is cut by the barbed wire and the cuts get infected and he becomes feverish and delirious and falls further into his delusion of speaking with his dead parents and seeing Roxy as a reasonable person. Jude tries to bring him back towards normality but since he uses a piece of petrified dinosaur shit his attempt is doomed to failure.

We need more giant silver boots floating down rivers in this world. Especially when you can use them as floating biers for pet burial.

The climax of this film involves sex and violence, which is always good. Clay and Callie are just getting to the good stuff when Darkly shows up, wielding Clay’s new wood carving tool that he got at the beginning of the movie, and tries to hack Clay to pieces. He manages to short out the wiring at the same time and the house goes up like kerosene soaked poster board – so maybe Clay wasn’t such a handy man after all.

Jude shows up just in time to keep Darkly from killing Callie, only because Darkly paused when Callie declared she loved him. Not sure what this says about the power of love other than as a delaying tactic to save your ass. Clay and Callie’s home burns to the ground, leaving nothing, but the circus shows up in the morning with their little silver shoe and an elephant and they all walk out of the forest together.

I got no clue what this was supposed to mean. At least Viggo’s character actually survived, even if he was probably maimed for life. I think this marked a turning point for Viggo. He died 7 times before this film, but only 3 times afterwards.

Other Notes

Repeat Appearances
Grace Zabriskie also appeared in the Crew (1994), in an opening scene which was cut from the VHS version. In both movies she blows her own head off. This is also the second Viggo film directed by Philip Ridley (Reflecting Skin, 1990).

Other Connections
Grace Zabriskie is another multi-talented actor who writes poetry, paints and sculpts. Her lamps (sculptures of light) and hand-made wooden boxes are sold at ArtHaus in LA.

Awards
Nominated and won Best Director at International Fantasy Film Fantasporto in 1996. Nominated for Best Film at same. Best Original Soundtrack at Sitges film festival 1995. Bronze Horse at the Stockholm Film Festival, 1995.

Method Actor
Viggo decided when he arrived in Germany for filming that he would go the day without speaking just to get into the role. He liked it so much he just kept up with it, and the other people working the film didn’t even know he could speak. Viggo said he got by writing notes, pointing and whistling, and noticed that people didn’t expect much from him – thinking him retarded just because he couldn’t speak. He remembers feeling much more relaxed and sometimes thinks about doing it again. When he would call home to speak with Henry, he would just breathe and whistle and tap the phone. He did utter one word during the entire one month of filming. Brazil won the world cup in soccer that year and when he heard about it, he uttered a low “no.”

Watch for the Silver
Philip Ridley has a thing about silver. It’s not that obvious because he didn’t go on to direct any other films after Passion, but he had it in Reflecting Skin (the silver skin of the child in the photo) and he has it again here, with the giant silver boot, the miniature silver boot, and the silver trailer where Roxy lives.

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 6 out of 10. Viggo doesn’t make an appearance until 30 minutes into the film, and then he’s second banana to Ashley Judd and Brendan Fraser. However, Clay is physically one of Viggo’s most beautiful characters, with his dark golden blond hair and delicious stubble.

Nekkid Viggo : 4 out of 10. Briefly glimpsed through the bedroom window, we see his back and chest. Clay also wears some tight, sweaty tee-shirts and at one point a buttoned shirt that is unbuttoned enough to show us sweaty chest hair. Mr. Natural also goes bare-footed a lot.

Viggo Sex : 8 out of 10. Woo Hoo! Finally (been reviewing a lot of sexless movies here)! Clay is one horny buck. He and Callie start going at it almost the moment he steps onto the screen. We don’t actually get to see much, just glimpses through a window as Darkly peeps in on them. But they are also quite affectionate in public so you get lots of touching and kissing as well. The final sex scene, where the two love birds start off by playing rough, was supposedly filmed as they “winged” it, making it up as they went along, and they’re going at it on the kitchen table, against a wall, against a support beam, etc., until they finally move into the living room and Clay is all set to go down on miss thing before Darkly shows up and ruins everything. One of the hottest makeout scenes in Viggo film. Also, when Quincy the undertaker is there and going into his rant about death being his business, Clay flicks his tongue in and out rapidly. I dare you to watch it over and over again.

Fetish Factor : 10 out of 10. This is a very kinky film. Sweaty Viggo. Bloody Viggo. Angry Viggo. Sexy Horny Viggo. Dancing Viggo. Mute Viggo. Sweaty Viggo (yeah yeah, but he’s sooooooo sweaty). Viggo with gun. Viggo with tools. Magic tricks Viggo. Playful Viggo. Whistling Viggo. Viggo Tongue, and Viggo the sexy smoker.

Clothes: 7 out of 10. RED SHAG SHIRT!!!!! He wears it while dancing with Callie. I think chronologically this is the third appearance of the red shag shirt (if you credit my theory on Young Americans). The soft, white&blue corderoy shirt also makes an appearance here, which becomes its earliest. I think Passion of Darkly Noon was filmed before Crimson Tide, although they came out in the same year. I just don’t think his hair would have grown back in that quickly. He also wears a long-sleeved white polo shirt which looks a lot like the white long-sleeved polo shirt he wears in Vanishing Point. Other than that, Clay wears tight sweaty shirts that show sweaty chest hair. A lot.

Viggo Sound Bytes 0 out of 10. Whistles and clicking noises. He doesn’t even scream when Darkly busts his leg.

Overall Viggoness Rating: 5.8 out of 10
With its surreal imagery and strongly independent flavor, this film is not to everyone’s taste. It seems typical of the sort of film Viggo would choose. Viggo is the best part of it, both from a visual stance and as the least repugnant character.

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review by HermioneO

Plot Summary from IMDb : Julia runs a trendy bar in Barcelona. She treats men with caution, believing one can love too much and invite pain. She's been dating Pablo, one of her waiters. After his grisly murder (his heart is cut out), she receives anonymous messages and videotapes from a man who says he is in love with her. Another murder follows, the police give her 24-hour protection, and Pablo's replacement at the bar, the virile Antonio, seems to be attracted to her. As Julia's stalker closes in, she's on the verge of a nervous breakdown, then becomes almost serene. Leading the investigation is a police comisario who's eyes are covered as he awaits the completion of treatment. Will we see the murderer?

My take on it: Viggo can make a serial-killing stalker sexy and sympathetic enough so you cry for him. This is a thriller/romance told with little or no special effects. It is pure story and acting, and is well done in a way you don’t often see in mainstream movies these days.

SPOILERS

Characters

Julia (Angela Molina) : She owns a bar and doesn’t trust men. She also picks all the wrong men. If she’d just chosen Hombre from the start, there wouldn’t have been any problem. Julia is a Spanish beauty in the tradition of great Spanish beauties. She has huge, expressive brown eyes and the rest of her is pretty good too. It’s no wonder men are throwing themselves at her left and right. What I really hate about her is she has these large, baggy skin sacks under her eyes and visible wrinkles and is still the babe of the hour, even over the young, pretty female bartender who is her friend. European chicks have it made. Are wrinkles on women considered sexy in Europe? How about cellulite? I’m moving.

Hombre (Viggo Mortensen) : Hombre is a young man with an unhealthy obsession for a women who obviously doesn’t appreciate him. Hombre is never actually named in the movie. Hombre is just Man in Spanish. He cannot bring himself to deal directly with the woman he loves, so he does it through video, where he gradually shows her more of himself with each tape.

Story
Gimlet opens with a shot of Viggo’s beautiful blue eye as Hombre watches a videotape of Julia on her daily jog. Then it’s Julia shopping for clothes for her boyfriend, and the camera pans out and Hombre’s hand crosses the TV screen. The shot zooms out further and you see Hombre from above and behind, lying naked on his bed as he caresses his love interest.

Through about the first 30 minutes of the film you see only partial shots of Hombre, focusing on his hands, or seeing him from behind – you never see his face. You hear his voice only on the videotape as he addresses Julia. It’s like he doesn’t really exist outside of videotape.

Meanwhile, the action commences with Julia discovering the grisly present left by an unknown admirer – a human heart hidden in the overhead lights at her bar. Her boyfriend has recently disappeared, and as he remains missing the authorities realize he is probably the involuntary donor. To protect Julia, and further their investigation, the police place a detective undercover as her new bartender, and he immediately begins to seduce Julia.

As the police narrow down the leads and get closer to discovering Hombre, he becomes more direct in his tactics. He gets an apartment in view of Julia’s home and watches her having drinks with her new bartender. He goes to Julia’s apartment, but her friend is there while Julia is gone for the weekend.

This is one of my favorite scenes, as Hombre fakes his way into the apartment, pretending to be a police officer watching out for Julia. Her friend goes into the other room to fix coffee, and Hombre checks out the living room, looking at the photo I mention further down, then knocks out the girlfriend’s boyfriend. Then he sits on the couch with the girl, knife in hand, mourning over how Julia treats him, declaring his love for her, asking what Julia thinks of him, if she knows the sacrifices he has made. He proudly shows the girl his hand – how he mutilated himself for Julia’s sake. The terrified girl is crying and trying not to scream, and he hands her a handkerchief, always the gentleman.

Finally he goes directly to the bar, even though he knows it is a trap from which he will not escape.

But it doesn’t matter, because he faces Julia, finally touches her, looks into her eyes and kisses her with a passion and earnestness that wins her heart. By this time it is impossible that they will ever be together, and he knows this, so willingly he goes to his death.

In the end, Julia knows that one man was fully honest and open with her, committed totally to her, and will never cheat on her or lie. Of course, he is dead.

Other

The Film that was Never Made
Whenever interviewers mention Viggo’s career in Spanish cinema, they always talk about La Pistola, in which he had a minor role, never Gimlet, where his role was still secondary, but far more vital to the story. Why is this?

Inspiration
During the dinner scene, while Hombre is preparing a meal for Julia, the song Envidia is playing in the background, sung by a woman. Earlier in the film, Hombre is whistling this song as he unpacks his things in his new apartment. Viggo went on to record Envidia himself. It appears on One Less Thing To Worry About, which is out of print and expensive if you can find it. You can also get a recording of that song on Obsession.

Also, when the police are searching his apartment, and when he is doodling, you see sketches and scribblings that are obviously in Viggo’s style.

How long has he loved her?
There is some speculation that Hombre has actually loved Julia for a long time. This is based on a photo in Julia’s apartment that is seen from close up twice during the film. The photo is of Julia and her father, surrounded by bar employees, when she was a young woman. In the photo, a boy, younger than Julia, gazes up at her adoringly. Is this Hombre when he was a boy? Why would the photo be the focus of attention otherwise? And more speculation – does Julia ever recognize Hombre, perhaps in their final moments together?

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 5 out of 10. Viggo has some good screen time in this film, though his part is secondary. He is deliberately mysterious during the first half of the movie, appearing only as hands, or in a nude shot from above, or not at all. Finally we see the man himself and he has several good scenes before the end. The film quality, taken from TV broadcasts, is blurred and grainy, so the screencaps are not good quality.

Nekkid Viggo : 3 out of 10. We get one shot of Hombre from above as he squirms a bit on his bed, watching video he’s shot of Julia. Bare assed nekkid. We also get his naked chest in one video shot of himself sent to Julia.

Viggo Sex : 3 out of 10. We get one kiss, but oh what a kiss, at the very end (for Hombre anyway). This is the best Viggo kiss on screen (I haven’t seen Alatriste yet). Worth buying the movie just for this one kiss.

Fetish Factor : 5 out of 10. Hand sex. At first, that’s all you see. Eye. Viggo with a knife to a woman’s throat. Viggo peeing on a dead guy. Viggo eating. Viggo carving his hand. Viggo whistling. Viggo speaking Spanish. Hand sex. Oh, did I already mention that? Well, it’s worth mentioning again. Facial hair. Viggo being violent. Viggo with his face framed by bars.

Clothes: 4 out of 10. The film is dark and Viggo’s character is in the background for a lot of it. There isn’t much to appreciate in his clothes. He’s wearing them.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 4 out of 10. The entire time he’s speaking is a sound byte. Viggo speaking Spanish is like warm, liquid sex in the ears.

Total Viggonness Rating: 4 out of 10
Viggo is very intense in Gimlet. He’s a serial killer/stalker, but you want to take him home. The ending is beautiful and tragic and I want him. This is in my top ten favorite Viggo films.

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review by HermioneO

IMDb Plot Summary: Three petty thieves are chased by the police who believe that the three are really major criminals into a basement bar and take five hostages including all of the bar's employees. The rest of the movie deals with the cops lurking outside of the bar and the trio trying to get hold of the situation inside.

This film presents a classic example of how an actor might direct for the first time. It shows like an exercise in directing, right out of school.

SPOILERS

Characters

Guy Foucard (Viggo Mortensen) : Does that name mean something in French? Makes me think of this restaurant in downtown San Jose – Dac Phuq – and I think you can guess how we pronounced it. The proper pronunciation was Dock Fook. Where’s Long Duc Dong when you need him? Okay, so Guy is dressed up as a mild-mannered French Canadian businessman, only his suit is way too small (you can see his calves up over his short men socks as the trousers ride up on him) and his bag looks like something a student might carry. He has a really outrageous Quebecois accent, which I have heard is authentic but sounds like a caricature to my uneducated ear. And his hair is slicked back, giving him a greasy slimeball appearance.

Guy (pronounced Ghee) is weasely and clever and comes up with all sorts of ideas to get the bad guys out of trouble but unfortunately not himself. Viggo was supposed to read for the part of Milo but was more interested in Guy and traded off. Director Kevin Spacey told him he could have the part if he could look like a young Laurence Olivier (circa 1945), and part of that process was fitting into a suit two sizes too small.

I couldn’t get a close enough look, but is that a UN button he was wearing?

Viggo gets in a lot of subtle background stuff in this movie, largely because Guy is mostly in the background until he starts talking. You notice him the whole time because he is really out of place in this dive of a bar, wearing his nice suit and paisley tie. Watch his hands. Viggo went with a stiff palm on this one. And when he’s being tortured by Law, watch how gently Guy touches his hands while he begs and whines.

I said somewhere else that Viggo missed his calling as somebody’s prison bitch. You can really see it as Law bends Guy over a table and dominates him. Maybe he could get a guest spot on Oz?

Also watch his eyes. Viggo’s head remains still through most of his scenes. This is something you really notice when screencapping and it gets annoying. But his eyes move a lot, and his face shifts so subtly as he schemes, as he sees his face on the TV, as the tension in the room shifts, while the three idiots play out their drama.

Dova (Matt Dillon) : Matt Dillon has made a career out of playing not-too-bright guys. Sometimes they’re nice and not-too-bright. Sometimes they’re mean and not-too-bright. Too bad he’s in charge, since his smarter older brother is out of it.

Janet Boudreaux (Faye Dunaway) : This aging barmaid is sassy and sexy. She has a mouth on her and keeps up with the cracks even as the bad guys are pointing guns at her. When her boss and friend is beaten to death, she finally realizes the situation is dire and starts trying other strategies to get herself and her son out alive.

Milo (Gary Sinise) : Milo is the bleeding-to-death older brother and voice of reason. He tries to get his brother to surrender when he sees the whole situation spiraling out of control, and when that doesn’t work, he tries to get him to go along with a plan that seems likely to get them out alive. But when each option results in a dead end, he finally takes the only way out he has left.

Law (William Fichtner) : Psycho bayou boy, this is a far cry from the nice guy he played in Grace Under Pressure. Law is all for killing people and tossing them out into the street to show how serious they are. Thinking is not one of his strong points. He also has an unhealthy interest in Janet, the barmaid, especially when he sees meaningful glances between her and the boy, Danny. He immediately assumes something unsavory. Throughout the film this guy is set up as the big bad. But he loves his mama so he can’t be all bad (pay attention, this is important later). He also delivers the film title in dialogue form, which is always jarring.

Danny Boudreaux (Skeet Ulrich) : Skeet said in Interview Magazine in 1996 that he idolized Viggo after working with him on this film. He said he was entering his Viggo Mortensen phase. I wonder what phase he’s in now, with his Jericho TV series? Danny is the youngest cast member and seems to have a relationship with the sexy older barmaid played by Faye Dunaway. Danny is a good kid who just tries to cooperate and not piss the bad guys off.

ATF Agent GD Browning (Joe Mantegna): This guy sure can cuss.

Story
Three losers fumble a burglary, setting off alarms and taking off in a stolen car. In their getaway, they run over an ATF agent, killing him and drawing the rest of the team after them. They take shelter in a bar that unfortunately has no exits and hole up while they try to come up with a plan. The police arrive so quickly because they were staking out a gun-runner and they think these three losers are with him.

Guy Foucard, the gun-runner, arrived at the bar shortly before these guys. He had evaded the police earlier, sensing that he was being set up and taking an alternate car he had sitting around the corner and getting out of their sight before they could give chase. Here his luck ran out.

The brains of the three losers, Milo, has been shot and is clearly dying, and his brother, Dova (where do they get these names anyway?) has no clue. Law and Dova want to avoid jail at any cost and Dova doesn’t really believe his brother is going to die at this point. Law doesn’t care and actually slaps an unconscious Milo around in the bathroom when he’s supposed to be cleaning him up.

When the bartender (Jack) gets out his shotgun and takes Law hostage, things get out of hand. Law goes psycho and kills Jack, beating him to death after taking the shotgun.

What follows is about an hour of psychological drama about being trapped with no way out and no plan. This is broken up a bit by shots of Guy observing everything and shifting from meek, timid French Guy to smart, forceful plan Guy to dangerous, sneaky dart Guy to defensive, whining liar Guy to screaming, begging broken fingers Guy. Plus you get a really great cussing scene with Joe Mantegna and a reporter.

Thanks to TV News, the losers and their hostages find out that Guy Foucard is not who he claims, and in fact the police think he is the one holding everyone hostage, even though he has no history of getting involved in violence himself and is normally a slick operator. This revelation sort of puts a cramp in the escape plan Guy had formulated for them.

When this whole thing began Dova seemed like a reckless but not really bad guy, but over the course of the film he is transformed by the pressure of the situation into someone even more scary than Law. He realizes that witnesses can spoil the whole plan and orders Law to kill the hostages, and at this point we find out Danny is actually Janet’s son as she begs for his life. Law, who remember loves his mother, realizes he was mistaken about their relationship (he had assumed something seedy) and can’t bring himself to kill either of them, so Dova comes up with another plan. He forces Janet to kill the only other hostage left at that point, so they’ll be in league.

The police hear shots fired and storm in and Guy – Mr. Albino Alligator – quits playing possum and rises up and attacks Law and the police open fire and Viggo gets to go out in a dramatic blaze of gunfire. Dova, the only survivor of the three losers, escapes.

Other

Other Connections
Matt Dillon and Viggo have both played characters named Tex. John Spencer appeared on Miami Vice in 1986.

Everybody Loves Viggo
Skeet Ulrich idolized Viggo after working with him. That seems to happen a lot. In the commentary, the editor raves about how even though he was in the background through most of the movie, you can see Viggo constantly working the scene.

Viggonness Ratings
Viggo Screen Time (Quality and Quantity): 5 out of 10. Guy Foucard is a secondary character, often in the background when he is on the screen. He is a plot device used to create this situation, then tossed out like the garbage. As a result, he gets only a few close-ups. I still managed to get over 200 screencaps. Also, the video quality was surprisingly low, probably because this was a low budget independent film. I doubt it will get re-released with anything more. There is a short behind-the-scenes piece but it was shot entirely during the filming of the final scene, when the “hostages” come out of the bar, and does not include Viggo.

Nekkid Viggo : 1 out of 10. Except for some calf skin peeking out between his black socks and the trouser leg, nothing.

Viggo Sex : 1 out of 10. For a sexy and dangerous French-Canadian gun-runner, this guy gets no action except wrestling with psycho bayou boy Law. Okay, I had this at 0, but maybe the play on prison bitch sex deserves a kick up.

Clothes: 5 out of 10. Guy Foucard is all dressed up in a very nice suit and shirt with a paisley tie. Too bad it’s too small. He also appears in a garish knit cap that makes an appearance in the film Daylight on Roy Nord’s golden head, and again later in a sexy photoshoot featuring the soccer jammy tops and Walker Jerome hair.

Fetish Factor : 5 out of 10. Viggo in a suit, Viggo wearing glasses. Viggo drinking. Viggo with an outrageous French accent. Bloody Viggo. Viggo bent ass-up over a table. Viggo being tortured. Hand sex.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 3 out of 10. For a dialogue-driven script, Viggo had very few lines, and most of them weren’t much to talk about. It’s more of a timing thing. When Guy outlines a very obvious plan, the looks on the faces of the three thugs is priceless and apparently sparked laughter at every screening of the film. Other than that, there is “Guy. My name is Guy.” “Send me out to the police. I’d rather be out there than in here with you fucking guys.”

Total Viggoness rating: 3.3 out of 10
This film received mixed reviews by the regular critics. As a first-attempt at directing, it’s not bad, but it is also obviously a first attempt. The camera work can be seen, breaking the mood with techniques right out of a textbook. Considering I am not a student of film-making, it says a lot that I could see it. This film was made during a period when Viggo was getting a lot of work, a rising star on the verge of blockbuster status. He chose to make this film, and chose specifically the part of Guy. This is not a favorite Viggo character for his fans, but I think Albino Alligator is a vital part of any Viggo collection, because it reveals more about his approach to acting than some of his other, more popular movies. Plus, the cussing scene is fantastic.

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Want to review this film?

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review by HermioneO

Daylight is a disaster/adventure film starring Sylvester Stallone as an emergency crew worker who goes alone into a collapsed tunnel to rescue the people trapped there, in the hopes of getting to see "Daylight" again. This movie was a flop in the box office and there's not a lot of mystery as to why. It made a profit internationally but not so much that it would be considered a success in Hollywood.

SPOILERS

Characters

Roy Nord (Viggo Mortensen) : Cocky, athletic and beautiful, this is probably the second most shallow character Viggo has ever played (the first being Phillip from the Crew). He is a powerful, successful businessman who turned his jock career into a sports equipment company that just recently wasn't doing so well. He spares a moment's regret for his driver's death, then moves on to see how the disaster can benefit him. That seems to be his only concern and motivation - climbing up out of the tunnel in a daring escape. Yes, of course he'll rescue everyone while he's at it, but believe that his main thought is for how this will bolster sales for his company. He even calls his secretary while preparing to climb, to set up the publicity. At that point he didn't know they'd contacted the surface - for all he knew they were still cut off - and he didn't use his phone to call for help.

Kit Latura (Sylvester Stallone) : Another cliched adventure hero. Kit is the best there is but made a mistake that got people killed and now he's on the outs. But he's the only one who can save the day so they let him go.

Story
This movie starts off with scenes from everyone's lives explaining why they are in the tunnel when the shit hits the fan. Trucks bearing flamable toxic chemicals are driving through the tunnel for whatever bullshit reason they can come up with. And a police chase turns to disaster as the drug-crazed escape driver crashes into one of the toxic trucks and sets off an explosion that looks like flaming hell, collapsing the tunnel and killing nearly everyone inside.

I didn't see a single Volvo in there.

There are about a dozen survivors and they gradually pull together and assess their situation. They have a tunnel guard with them who tries to keep people from panicking as he tries to establish contact with the surface. His walkie-talkie is not getting through for some reason.

Roy Nord, world-famous athlete, finds out there's an access-way that leads across to the tunnel going in the other direction, and in the hope that 1. he can get through and 2. the other tunnel is still intact, he prepares to go spelunking. Everyone gets their hopes up and they're all laughing as Roy gives his cocky little speech, making sure the little girl with the video camera keeps it on him.

Meanwhile, Kit Latura is on his way. One rescue attempt has already failed as the current leader of emergency rescue tried to get in through the same tunnel Roy is using, and it collapsed on him. Climbing through a bunch of slicing/whirling fanblades (this episode was poorly written), Kit takes a one-way route to get in and rescue these people, knowing he's going to have to find a different way out once he gets in there.

Kit tries to warn Roy that he's climbing a "house of cards" that will collapse at any second, but Roy arrogantly tells the "cowardly paramedic" that he can "feel the torque," (baby, you can feel my torque any time you like) and the tunnel will not collapse. This is just seconds before it starts to collapse. Roy lands on the floor but has only time to spit out his gum and take a defiant posture before being crushed beneath tons of rubble.

And that's basically it. The rest is Kit leading the others out. Some die. Some rebel. Some make a big fuss. They cry, they rant, they hug, they make up. They finally see daylight. Amy Bremmerman goes on to write and star in her own very successful TV series. Yada Yada Yada.

Other
Viggo was flying back and forth between the set for Daylight and the set for Portrait of a Lady when he filmed this. That must mean he wore a wig for POL. Damnit.

Dan Hedaya, who was a supporting character in this film, was also a supporting character in Boiling Point.

On the DVD commentary the Director talks about how seeing Viggo in Crimson Tide convinced him this was the man for the role, with his "intense screen presence."

Viggonness Ratings
Viggo Screen Time (Quality and Quantity): 6 out of 10. Viggo plays a secondary character who gets killed about a third of the way through the film. But for the short time that he is on the screen he fills it. He is a nicely groomed, cocky, athletic, powerful man who owns his own international, multi-million dollar corporation. The film quality is very high so you can get a lot of high-resolution screencaps (I got more than 150).

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. No one got naked in this film.

Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. This guy loves himself so much you'd think he would at least jerk himself off, but noooooooo.

Clothes: 8 out of 10. Roy starts out in a nice suit with fine fashion flare, so of course you know we're never going to see it again. He also wears a tight blue sweatshirt and a harness later on, and a cutely hideous knit cap, which he had already worn in Albino Alligator and wears later in a photo shoot with his soccer jammy top.

Fetish Factor : 5 out of 10. Viggo drinking from a water bottle. Viggo in a climbing harness. Sweaty Viggo. Viggo dangling. Viggo chewing gum.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 7 out of 10. Roy is cocky and brash and gets a lot of snappy come-back lines and catch phrases. His voice for this part was deep and masculine. "It's exhausting being me." "I was born six weeks premature. My own mother couldn't keep me in." "I always make it." "If there is a way out, I will find it." - spoken slowly and with sincerity into the camera.

Total Viggoness rating: 4.3 out of 10
Viggo is only a secondary character here to contrast with the solid, dependable hero. Viggo's scenes are humorous and total eye-candy as the director was fully aware and made sure to get plenty of beautiful closeups. Worth watching at least once. The special effects are pretty good too.

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review by HermioneO

IMDb Summary: When his wife goes into a troubled labor while he is on the road over 1200 miles away James Kowalski, an ex race car driver and a former Army Ranger, attempts to elude police while trying to get home. After numerous chases he turns into a Native American reservation and reflects on his life, and his wife. He then heads off to break through an impenetrable police and FBI roadblock.

Viggo has often stated that TJ was the real star of Hidalgo. I think he could say of this film that the Dodge Challenger was the real star of Vanishing Point.

SPOILERS

The Characters:
Dodge Challenger R/T : Not quite as sexy as Jimmy, but the star of the film, obviously, as everyone is chasing it.

Jimmy Kowalski (Viggo Mortensen) : Jimmy Kowalski is as beautiful as Viggo's characters come. He's a nice guy who loves his wife with unwavering devotion, but he's not real bright. He's reckless and rash and he panicks in an emergency.

Semi (John Doe) : John Doe probably had a lot of fun playing this total nutburger survivalist in Utah. Viggo and John had known each other for years by this time.

Raphinia Kowalski (Crhistine Elise): Angelically beautiful and fragile, Raphinia is our tragic heroine who forces the man who loves her to join her church before she'll be with him. Back in the day we used to call those temple prostitutes.

Motorcycle Girl (Peta Wilson) : Practically naked blond valkrie comes riding up on a motorcycle and rubs up against our hero with her breasts.

The Voice (Jason Priestly) : I thought Jason Priestly was annoying on Beverly Hills 90210, but I was wrong. I don't know what kind of accent he was using, but that and the ridiculous mustache combined to make this guy look like poor white trash trying to sound profound.

Story
I am not going to make any comparisons to the original Vanishing Point because I've never seen it. I hope to correct that soon because I found a copy in the bargain bin. When I do, I may edit this.

This movie looked like pieces of a nostalgia ad for 60s-70s muscle cars spliced together with a plot written as an excuse to get a guy to race across country in a car when flying would get him home in hours. The car, a white 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T with a hemi engine, is the centerpiece for several chase scenes. Car enthusiasts may get a kick out of that part. I didn't think it was done very well - more as an afterthought to placate sponsors than as a core part of the film.

Our hero is very sympathetic. He broke the law - driving 100 mph in what was probably a 50 or 60 zone - but he was trying to get to his sick wife. Okay, so he panicked and took off without thinking, it could happen. Then you get a cantankerous old cop who sees a long-haired punk and goes by the book and can't see outside his narrow world and won't listen to a legitimate emergency situation. If he had listened and been a decent human being, there would have been no movie as Jimmy would have been escorted to the nearest air field and sent on his way.

Jimmy is also a decorated war veteran. There is a flashback of him in uniform, but you can tell his long hair has been tucked up into his uniform cap. What a cheap-ass film.

This film assumes the worst of our authority figures and makes a victim out of everyone else. It is so heavy-handed in this regard that I could not take it seriously. You have one voice of reason - the lesser FBI guy - who is ignored. Finally at the end of the film you get one reasonable county sheriff who tells off the FBI guys and pulls his men out of the road block.

And let's not forget the psycho cop with the black Dodge Charger who wants to play chicken on the highway at 100 mph. He's spouting off all this happy horseshit about honor and the road and how Jimmy knows what it's all about and blah blah blah. Jimmy just wants to get home and isn't intelligent or rational enough to succeed. He's beating his head against a stone wall instead of going to the door and knocking.

And let's throw in a dash of Christian and Native American mysticism, all mixed up and cliched, while we're at it.

This movie was just bad. The more I think about it, the worse it gets. There is only one reason to watch this film more than once, in my opnion: VIGGO IS FUCKING GORGEOUS IN IT.

Other Notes

Cheap piece of crap film
Though the filmmakers originally wanted to use actual Hemi Challengers to make the movie, when they discovered how expensive they are, they used 440 Challengers with Hemi nameplates as a more cost-effective alternative. The Hemi engine shown in the film was actually inside a Charger.

Music
As with the original Vanishing Point, music plays a large hand in illustrating the one-the-edge political and social position of this film. Unfortunately, I doubt the music here ever really reached its intended audience. John Doe is named and played as one of the featured artists.

Repeat Appearances
Cristine Elise (BoilingPoint, 1993) plays Viggo's wife here.

Nepotism
Considering this is a made-for-TV movie and not very good, I wonder who was doing who a favor here? This was made in 1996-1997 and Viggo was very busy during this time, with big name projects, definitely a rising star on the verge of real fame. And two of his friends/previous co-workers got juicy roles in this film.

Comparison to the original
I can really sympathize with the people who hated this version in comparison to the original. I’ve just watched it for the first time myself and, while I didn’t much like it, I could see where the remake was like a fuzzy teddy bear as opposed to the Kodiak bear original. The TV remake can only give you a pale shadow of an impression of the original hard-edged, cynical message. Viggo must have looked at the final edited version and wondered how he ended up looking like such a dip.

I am providing a link to a review that gives an in-depth comparison between the two movies. 1971 to 1997

Other Viggo Connections
Victoria Burrows, a casting agent on this film, was later a casting agent for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 9 out of 10. Maybe the film should have been called Viggo's Point. His pretty face is on screen almost the entire length of the film, with lots of lingering, emotional closeups featuring those incredible blue eyes. Although the video quality (made for TV movie) is not the best, it is better than a lot of his earlier films.

Nekkid Viggo : 2 out of 10. We get 5-10 seconds of slow pan up a nearly nekkid Viggo in a densely fogged steam lodge.

Viggo Sex : 3 out of 10. Viggo kisses his girlfriend/wife several times.

Fetish Factor : 10 out of 10. This film is loaded for our Viggo fetishists. Closeup hand shots, bloody viggo, Viggo driving, Viggo drinking, Viggo steamy, Viggo and animals (cougar and snakes), Viggo in a tight, sweaty tee-shirt showing his nipples, prominent neck shots, viggo in uniform, viggo and ordnance (smoke grenades, night goggles, one brief shot of a rifle in Iraq), Viggo bent over a car with a gun to his head, Viggo in shades, Viggo on the phone, Viggo and a motorcycle, Viggo tongue.

Clothes: 6 out of 10. Okay, he's not gonna win any fashion awards, but there are some redeeming qualities in this film. There are TWO shirts from this film that make appearances elsewhere. The green cotton shirt with pockets and brown/white buttons in the departure scene with his wife was also worn in Boiling Point, and in public at some reading or other. In another flashback scene, when his wife tells him he's pregnant, he is wearing that soft white and blue corderoy shirt he wore in ODENSE when he looked so gorgeous, and more recently in the Julian Broad B&W photoshoot where he's buttoning it up and squinting in the sun. Otherwise, Viggo wore white a lot, and some plaid, and that wonderful wonderful tight skimpy white tee-shirt that defines his chest so nicely. Oh, and blue jeans. There are several nice shots of him from behind wearing those blue jeans.

Viggo Sound Bytes 2 out of 10. "Wild horses couldn't stop me." The dialogue here was pretty bad. Viggo didn't have many good lines. In fact, the only one I can think of is the horses bit. This script was poorly written.

Overall Viggoness Rating: 5.3 out of 10
The dialogue in this film is worse than in the Prison, but the visual factor is stunning.

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review by HermioneO



IMDb Summary: When a crusading chairperson of the military budget committee pressures the would-be Navy secretary to begin full gender integration of the service, he offers the chance for a test case for a female trainee in the elite Navy SEALS commando force. Lt. Jordan O'Neil is given the assignment, but no one expects her to succeed in an inhumanly punishing regime that has a standard 60% dropout rate for men. However, O'Neil is determined to prove everyone wrong.

SPOILERS

The Characters:
Master Chief John James “Jack” Urgayle (Viggo Mortensen): This character is unique in Viggo Mortensen’s lineup in that all Viggo fans either love him or hate him. Even non-Viggo fans have a hard time agreeing about this character. He is described both as a warrior and a gentleman by those who love him, and a sadistic, misogynistic bastard by his detractors. This comes down to one scene – the SERE island test, described below. Did he actually try to rape her or was he just setting a scene to show the trainees what to expect from the enemy? People discuss this at length, all having their own opinions, and it all comes down to whether they like the character.

Master Chief John James Urgayle is old school tough. He is a trained combat operative, experienced at war and so-called peace operations. Though it is never explicitly stated, you can believe he has killed. It is his job to put the best men the various military branches have to offer through the most grueling training program in existence. It is first and foremost a test to weed out those who don’t have the physical and mental endurance to get through the course.

Urgayle is hard on every single trainee, not just Jordan. The film itself focuses on Jordan so that is what we see for the most part, but Urgayle does not hesitate to come down hard on any trainee, whether they get out of line or not.

I guess it’s obvious that I come down firmly in the “liking Urgayle” camp, so I’m just gonna go with it.

Urgayle is a gentleman, a man of education and insight. He reads, not just poetry but also classic literature. He is a family man, with pictures of what may be his wife, or perhaps just a female relative, and her son. He is a dedicated, driven man, striving to better himself all the time. He reads during his infrequent downtime, and also goes out boating. He cleans his own guns.

He pushes Jordan hard, but not really harder than he pushes anyone else. When a situation comes up where he has to put her in charge of a boat crew, he does it. When it is her turn in the torture shack, he hits her, just as hard as they were hitting anyone else. The other trainers can’t bring themselves to do it, but he does.

I’ll get more into the specifics under “Story.”

Lieutenant Jordan O’Neil (Demi Moore): Lieutenant O’Neil is a former triathelete who graduated top of her class. She is an officer in the Navy, working in Navy Intelligence, which is basically where they coordinate any sort of activity around the world using satellites for communication. She is chosen for this trial case because the other candidates looked like they were on steroids. She is ambitious and has a little problem with authority – she likes to do things her way. She accepts the assignment because she is angry and she wants to advance. She knows her advancement will always be slower and limited so long as she has no combat experience. She was refused a position on a submarine because there were no bathrooms for women. These are limitations she refuses to accept. She probably would have left the Navy eventually if things hadn’t changed. This was her chance to break the glass ceiling, but I don’t think she was doing it for all of womankind. This is about her and her career, and being told she can’t do something. Jordan is a maverick plain and simple.

Sgt. Max Pyro (Kevin Gage) : Sgt. Max Pyro is a cult favorite among GI Jane fans. Even those who prefer Urgayle because they are Viggo fans acknowledge a fondness for this sadistic piece of work. Pyro enjoys his work tormenting trainees and you can see the joy in his face every time he causes somebody pain. In effect, he is the sadistic bastard that some characterize in Urgayle. He fails SERE Island when he cannot bring himself to beat up Jordan. And this after he was teasing poor Flea with the wrenched knee.

Senator Lillian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft): Anne Bancroft plays the tough senior Senator from Texas, who sits on the Senate Arms Committee or some such that has approval over who gets to be the next Navy Chief of Staff. This puts her in a good position to negotiate with said Chief over an issue that will get her plenty of press. But then it turns out she’s not really interested in pushing for womens’ rights but rather in preserving her political career, and she set the whole thing up so she’d have leverage when it came time for the proposed Fort closures. She’s a veteran political wheeler dealer and make no mistake she will sacrifice Jordan to save herself.

Royce (Jason Beghe) : Royce is Jordan’s boyfriend, who entered the Navy at the same time she did but who is now a Lieutenant Commander, a higher rank than Jordan. This is because he got to serve on a submarine during the first Iraq war, and she didn’t. He knows just how talented Jordan is, but is content with the situation. He doesn’t actively support her decision to sign up for CT training, but he doesn’t get in her way either. And he uses inside information he gains from her to get an in with the upper Navy brass. But in the end, he comes through for her.

Supporting Cast : Daniel von Bargen, John Michael Higgins, David Warshofsky, David Vadim, Morris Chestnut, Josh Hopkins, James Caviezel, Boyd Kestner, Angel David, Stephen Ramsey, Lucinda Jenney.

Story
G.I. Jane is a fictional story about the first woman to go through the Navy’s CRT training program, purported to be the toughest indoctrination in the military arsenal. This was a test case to see if women should be allowed into combat positions.

The candidate, Lieutenant Jordan O’Neil, is set up to fail with special treatment that alienates her from the men. She is placed in separate quarters and given lower physical standards to meet, so she passes when those who scored higher than her fail. She cannot integrate completely with the others and this will doom her to failure. After enduring a few days of this and seeing where it will lead, Jordan confronts the CO and demands equal treatment … and gets it.

Jordan’s main nemesis in G.I. Jane would seem at first glance to be Master Chief John James Urgayle, the head NCO of the training program. He is a sadistic, ruthless trainer, driving the trainees until they drop and then cutting them off the program. But he does this to everyone, not just Jordan. It is his job to weed out those who cannot cut it. He did not make the rules that set Jordan at a disadvantage, either. They were policy enacted by the CO.

Jordan makes it through hell week, surviving past the majority of her peers and excelling. All the while, the Navy brass has to deal with photos and articles appearing in newspapers about G.I. Jane. They start digging into Jordan’s records but can’t find any dirt to use against her. It’s starting to look as though she’ll actually succeed, when no one thought she would last two weeks.

Jordan makes it to the final exercise, the acid test that determines whether you will be part of the CRT or get cut from the program, SERE Island. She has managed to win over most of the other recruits, or at least get their neutrality. There are one or two holdouts who refuse to see her as anything but a woman, who should not be where she is. One such pulls a classic mistake during the exercise and gets Jordan’s entire squad captured, and one man injured.

The SERE island scene is the cause of the most debate over the Urgayle character. Urgayle works Jordan over pretty severely. In fact, he is the only one of the instructors who has the stomach to beat her – the others leave the torture shack when he starts up. He knocks her around, drags her out into the yard, and continues abusing her where everyone can see it, while the others stand around in shock, unsure if they should stop it or ignore it. In this, I think Urgayle shows he has the greatest dedication to the job, because he does what has to be done, when no one else will. What did it take for this man, with the picture of his wife and child (probably) sitting next to his medal of honor on the nightstand, what did it take for him to beat a woman with her hands bound behind her back?

Urgayle isn’t trying to break Jordan. He’s trying to break the men in the squad. He offers to go easy on her, stop the abuse, if they’ll talk, and some of them are ready to do it, until Jordan herself orders them to shut up. She fights back and we’re all cheering her on as she nails the Master Chief in his balls, knocks him down, kicks him and goes in for more. Tied up as she was, there was really no chance for her to finish him, and Urgayle gets back up and takes her down, leaving her bleeding and stunned on the ground, then notices that the men in the stockade have turned away from him. He goes to them, pleading his case. She’s a danger to them all, she will get them killed. He’s doing this for her own good. Then Jordan gets to her feet, calling out to him.

“Lieutenant, seek life elsewhere.” He says, his face covered with blood from his broken nose.
“SUCK MY DICK!”

The men all cheer, start shaking the bars of the stockade, chanting suck my dick over and over, as Urgayle gives Jordan a little nod and a smile before walking off.

In the denouement behind the torture shack, as Pyro apologizes for not backing Urgayle up, we hear the truth. Urgayle didn’t doubt O’Neil’s ability to fight and die. He doubted the mens’ ability to deal with a woman in a combat situation. He doubted them all, including the trainers, and he was right.

From that point, Jordan is apparently accepted by the entire remaining class. They’ve all passed so now they move on to training for missions, until ugly politics intrude, with insinuations about Jordan’s sexuality based on innocuous photographs and a lesbian witch-hunt. The photographs didn’t even come from the opposition. They came from Senator DeHaven’s office, as proven by Royce. In a testosterone laden confrontation between two women, each coming from a man’s world position, Jordan gets the situation reversed and returns to training after a 48 hour absence.

Why didn’t the movie end with SERE Island? Or even just afterward, when they were celebrating in the bar? There’s something else that needs to happen, and I’m not talking about the exposure of DeHaven’s scheming.

The team goes on a training exercise and suddenly has to perform a real, live mission into hostile territory. Jordan and Urgayle separate off to reconnoiter and encounter unfriendlies. Up until now, Urgayle has been flawless. He saw the problem with women in the military clearly, and pointed it out with ruthless intent. But he thought he was himself immune. He thought he understood and would act accordingly. But when given the real situation, with Jordan about to take on an enemy in a close physical encounter, he couldn’t let her try. He was overwhelmed by the need to protect her, and gave away their position with gunfire.

In effect, he failed his SERE Island.

Of course, Jordan goes on to save the day, even saving Urgayle from the consequences of his own mistake, and everyone is happy.

At least Urgayle, like his men, learned from his mistake, and I think that is what the final scene is saying. He gives his medal of honor, an item of some discussion between he and Jordan earlier in the film, to her, along with a book of poetry containing the poem he quoted at the beginning of their relationship. He won that medal for pulling a 240-lb man from a burning tank, and questioned whether Jordan would be able to do the same. Ironic then that she saved his ass by dragging it out of the line of fire, and he acknowledges this by giving her his medal.

I could just watch this movie over and over. Actually, I have.

Other Notes

Other Connections
Ridley Scott (Director) is the brother of Tony Scott, who directed Viggo in 1995 in Crimson Tide. Tony Scott provided left over submarine footage for GI Jane. John Michael Higgins also made an appearance in the Miami Vice series, in a different episode from Viggo. James Caviezel was in the Thin Red Line, which Viggo receives a special thanks for, though his actual involvement is unknown. Stephen Ramsey played a cop in the Prophecy II. The soundtrack for GI Jane (available everywhere) includes a song written by Exene Cervenka, Viggo’s ex-wife, performed by Auntie Christ: The Future Is a War .

Alternate Ending
An alternate ending was secretly filmed without the knowledge of Disney/Hollywood Pictures Executives. When Ridley Scott first screened the film for execs, he shocked and surprised them with the ending in which Demi Moore dies. Both endings were test screened simultaneously and although the darker ending scored higher with audiences, the happier ending was chosen by executives. Similar to the surprise ending for "Thelma and Louise", the alternate ending for "G.I. Jane" was a dark yet bittersweet one. Jordan (Moore) is killed when she risks her life to save her Commander (Viggo Mortensen) then eulogized on television by the tough Senator (Ann Bancroft), but as time fades through lap dissolves SEAL training begins anew... with a fresh group of SEAL recruits. The camera pans from the many clean-shaven, young, bald-headed men... and in their midst is not one... not two... but more than three more brave women recruits ready to pick up where Jordan left off.

I have seen a screen shot of this alternate ending, with Urgayle checking out the new recruits. I would have liked to have seen that. One of Demi’s stunt women was in that shot as a new recruit.

Repeat Appearances
Daniel von Bargen joins the list of actors who have worked with Viggo more than once. He played the nutjob Russian revolutionary threatening to launch nukes in Crimson Tide (1995). In neither of these films does Daniel have a scene in common with Viggo.

Awards
Nominated for MTV Movie Award Best Fight for Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen.

Extended Version
In 2005 an alternate version of GI Jane was shown on AMC, with no special announcement. There are several extended and entirely new scenes in this version.

New Scene 1: Jordan is headed down to the beach to get in some rowing during one of the few short rest periods granted to the trainees. Urgayle, in a short wet suit, is just coming back from obviously doing the same thing. They spot each other and Urgayle looks surprised.

New Scene 2: This is a shot of the firing range after Jordan has made squad leader, where the guys are giving her a hard time and she loses her temper, firing wildly. Urgayle takes the rifle and demonstrates proper shooting technique, admonishing Jordan to keep cool.

Extended Scene 1: When the boat crews are sent off to tour the bay in less than three hours, Wickwire’s crew at first carries their boats, but Urgayle calls them back and switches them off to the heavy bumpers they’d pushed around on the sand all day.

Extended Scene 2: During that first long day and night, when the trainees are standing in the cold water, Urgayle quizzes them. Jordan is the only one who comes up with the right answer, showing her ability to think straight under adverse conditions, and getting everyone out of the water except the two who answered incorrectly.

There were other extended or entirely new scenes but they did not include Urgayle so I am not writing them up.

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 8 out of 10. Viggo is a major secondary character to the strong female lead in this film. Ridley Scott must have gotten advice from his brother to zoom in on that gorgeous face as much as possible. You always know when Viggo is on the screen. I am hoping for a 10th anniversary special edition with better resolution, as the screencap quality was not as good as with Crimson Tide.

Nekkid Viggo : 4 out of 10. Bare nekkid back, looking so broad you could use it to surf. Chest in one shot as well. Lots of bare leg scenes since he wears very short shorts. Are those regulation?

Viggo Sex : 3 out of 10. Okay, he doesn’t actually have sex in this movie but there is a simulated rape scene that has inspired fantasies across the Viggo fan community.

Fetish Factor : 7 out of 10. Viggo in uniform. Bloody Viggo. Viggo handling guns. Viggo with facial hair. Viggo getting the shit kicked out of him. Viggo handling a woman roughly. Viggo yelling. Viggo spouting poetry in a funny accent. Viggo in shades.

Clothes: 4 out of 10. Very tight, short shorts. Tight black tee-shirts. Uniforms, both camo and dress whites.

Viggo Sound Bytes 10 out of 10. How much space do I have?
“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
“Pain is your friend, your ally, it will tell you when you are seriously injured, it will keep you awake and angry, and remind you to finish the job and get the hell home. But you know the best thing about pain? It lets you know you're not dead yet!” – so good it got quoted in the movie World Trade Center.
“When I want your opinion, I'll give it to ya.”
“Lieutenant, seek life elsewhere.” – I love his accent on this line.
“Remember, there are no bad crews, only bad leaders.”
“I don't know what the hell's been going on the last 48 hours, frankly I don't give a shit.”
“Sergeant Cortes, however brief your stint with this command might be, there are two words you will learn to put together: Team-Mate.”
“I'll never live this one down.”
“60% of you will not pass this course! How do I know? Because that is an historical fact! Now for the bad news, I always like to get one quitter on the first day, and until I do, that first day does not end!”
“The ebb and flow of the Atlantic tides, the drift of the continents, the very position of the sun along its ecliptic. THESE are just a FEW of the things I control in my world.”
“Is there anything else we can do for your celebrity career, Lieutenant?”
“What a goat fuck!” – Again with the goats. Is he obsessed?
“Dilettante.” – This is a word that just doesn’t get used often enough.
“Should I be scared?” (Jordan) “Right down to your worthless womb. This is my island!”
“Do you think we should go easy on women Lieutenant?” “Fuck you!” “I’m sooooo glad we agree.”
“She’s not the problem. We are.”

Overall Viggoness Rating: 6 out of 10
One of Viggo’s best roles and best films. It’s a shame the rating is brought down by the fact that he shows little skin and has no real sex scenes. I realize the story was stronger with Urgayle and Jordan just respecting each other and not having sex, but he still gives me the screaming thigh sweats.

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review by HermioneO

IMDb Summary: There is no IMDb summary for this film.

SPOILERS

The Characters:
Juanito (Viggo Mortensen) : Viggo comes into the story as a vegetarian who works at a meatpacking plant. He wants to sell his house and move somewhere away from it all, taking his small family with him. He thinks the two kids want to see the house.

I really didn’t care about any of the others in this movie.

Story
I’m really not sure what the story is in this film. Something about a kid who shoots someone and then takes off with his girlfriend who tries and fails to commit suicide – apparently that’s why he’s attracted to her. Sounds depressing to me.

Juanito comes across the two young lovers going at it in a field and invites them back to his house, mistakenly thinking they are there to buy it. He has a package of meat from the plant where he works, and he cooks it up for them, but doesn’t eat any himself. He has a charming method of teaching his son not to be afraid – he locks the kid in a closet.

But he is affectionate to the boy in a rough kind of way – when mama lets the kid out, Juanito gives him a sip of his booze and pats his head.

The women go outside to talk about family and life while the menfolk remain inside to talk about the same thing, I guess. I was really just watching Viggo smoke and talk and sigh about his life.

Other Notes

Nepotism
Ray Loriga wrote and directed this film and he and his wife (who plays Juanito’s wife in this film) remain good friends to this day. It was Ray Loriga who introduced Augustine Diaz Yanes to Viggo as a precursor to starring in Alatriste.

German and Spanish
My copy of this movie was dubbed in German and subtitled in Spanish, so I don’t understand what is happening and don’t get the pleasure of hearing Viggo speak Spanish.

Just think
This came out about the same time as G.I. Jane. I wonder which one he did first?

Viggoness Ratings

Viggo On-Screen (Quantity and Quality): 3 out of 10. Viggo’s role is very minor but one of those quirky parts he seems to love so much. The quality of the video is not good and there are very few close-ups of Juanito.

Nekkid Viggo : 0 out of 10. While Juanito sneaks up on the two main characters making it in a field, the man himself never strips off.

Viggo Sex : 0 out of 10. Nothing.

Fetish Factor : 5 out of 10. Viggo handling raw meat, Viggo squatting, Viggo drinking, Viggo smoking, bloody Viggo. Viggo in a beret/hat sort of thing.

Clothes: 4 out of 10. Viggo wears a truly ugly polyester shirt, baggy jeans and a jean jacket. This ugly shirt makes an appearance in a studio still shot for Psycho, and also at an exhibit in 1998. He also wears it in a photo for Bruce Weber. Viggo generously loans this eyesore to his dear friend John Doe for a cover shot for his album, too.

Viggo Sound Bytes 2 out of 10. “I don’t eat meat.” I can only speak indirectly about this as I don’t get to hear anything he says, but this is according to Viggo’s Celluloid Haven, where they have clips.

Overall Viggoness Rating: 2.3 out of 10
There is not much to Viggo’s role in this film. This is another example of something to fill out your Viggo collection.

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review by HermioneO

Release Date: 1999

Plot Summary from IMDB: Summer, 1969: men on the moon, and Woodstock happening near the cabin where the Kantrowitz family stays every summer. The camp's a Jewish fish-bowl. Marty's there weekends; he repairs TVs in Brooklyn. He's square and decent. His wife Pearl and his mother camp with Alison (she's 14) and their younger son. Pearl got pregnant at 17 and feels she missed her youth. While Alison experiences her first date, first kiss, first period, and stealing off to Woodstock with the lifeguard, Pearl has her own sexual awakening with "the blouse man," a peddler who sells at the camp. They too go to Woodstock. Marty confronts Pearl about the affair; she and he have to decide what to do next.

SPOILERS

Characters

Pearl Kantrowitz (Diane Lane): Pearl is an attractive 30-something who feels cheated by life. To give her credit, she tries to kindle passion with her husband, but he just isn’t there enough, and can’t seem to get into the swing of things when he is. She cannot resist the animal magnetism of the traveling salesman, combined with his hippie good looks and the lure of freedom he brings.

Walker Jerome (Viggo Mortensen): Walker Jerome is every middle-aged woman’s dream of wild, free sex without guilt. Walker is young and sexy, free-spirited and uncomplicated. He represents the ultimate temptation to just drop everything and skip off into the desert sunset. This character is often touted as the sexiest of all that Viggo has played. In popularity, he is second only to Aragorn of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Supporting Cast: Leiv Schrieber, Anna Paquin, Tovah Feldshuh

Story

Pearl is a frustrated housewife who became a mother too young and is afraid of growing old before her time. Walker is a man without a past or a future, timeless and forever, promising everlasting love and fun, no worries or complications. He helps Pearl shrug off her middle-class, humdrum existence and swim naked in a river, smoke pot, and ascend into the innocent mass orgy that was Woodstock. Through him, she remembers what it was like to be young and innocent, to be able to throw herself into anything with wild, youthful abandon.

But she’s not young and innocent anymore. She has two children who need her, a husband who gave up his own dreams to support his family, and a mother-in-law who has seen it all. Pearl is tempted to throw her whole life away but in the end, she is drawn back by her responsibilities. And maybe she can get a little wild with her own husband instead.

Set in the summer of love, A Walk on the Moon reminds many of us of our forgotten or misspent youth and perhaps makes us yearn for that lost enthusiasm, that freedom. Walker represents all of that and makes women want to abandon their families and kick up their heels, but what does he offer that would make up for losing your children, your husband, your life?

Other

Animal Magnetism
Leiv Schrieber was quoted as saying that Viggo Mortensen had cornered the market on animal magnetism, and he knew he needed to work out if he was going to be showing his chest in the same film.

Another Side to Walker
Some scenes that never made it to the screen show another side to Walker that might have made him less desirable. Specifically, when Pearl shows up at Walker’s house the first time, he is sitting in the living room with his mother watching cartoons. Taken in that context, his bedroom, with the little-boy’s décor, makes him look like a mama’s boy. It was later revealed, by Viggo at the CUNY interview, that Walker was actually at home because of his brother’s disappearance in Vietnam, taking care of his mother. But all of this was left out of the movie because it made Walker too sympathetic and took attention away from the main character – the story is really about Pearl, after all.

Deleted Sex Scenes
There was a petition once passed around to get a new print of the movie with the much-talked-about deleted scenes shown on the cover of the DVD and VHS tape. A scene from a picnic, a sex scene with Pearl on top.

Diane Wanted Viggo
Diane Lane wanted Viggo Mortensen to be in the film so much that she gave up part of her salary so that the production could afford him.

Repeat Appearances
If things work out, Diane Lane will soon have a repeat appearance with Viggo in Appaloosa (2007).

Other Viggo Connections
Leiv Schrieber is dating Naomi Watts, who is co-starring with Viggo in Eastern Promises (2007). He was also in a movie called His and Hers (1997), which is the title of one of Viggo’s songs.

Music
This soundtrack is evocative and well-researched. The opening sequence sucked me right into the setting. This is the complete list of songs, but many are not included on the official soundtrack.
More (Ti guardero nel cuore), (1962)
(Theme from Mondo cane (1962))
The Name Game (1964)
Theme from King Rat (1965)
Danke Schoen (1962)
Wishin' & Hopin' (1963)
Ripple (1970)
For Your Love (1958)
Sunlight (1969)
Summertime (1935) (From the Broadway show "Porgy and Bess")
Sally Go Round the Roses (1963)
Today (1967)
Embryonic Journey (1967)
Kiss of Fire (1952)
Cactus Tree (1968)
Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1966)
Town Without Pity (1961) (From the movie with the same name)
Uncle John's Band (1970)
Crimson & Clover (1968)
Freedom (1969)
The Fish Cheer (1969)
I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (1968)
Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)
White Bird (1969)
Israelites (1968)
When You're Smiling (the Whole World Smiles with You) (1928)
Purple Haze (1967)
Follow (1967)
Helplessly Hoping (1969)
Crystal Blue Persuasion (1969)

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 5 out of 10. While he is billed as a co-lead, Viggo is really a supporting actor to Diane Lane’s lead, so he doesn’t have that much screen time, comparatively speaking. However, his presence is intense and he gets quite a few good close-ups. The video quality is above average but not as good as in his larger film productions (Crimson Tide, Daylight).

Nekkid Viggo: 10 out of 10. Good, tasty nekkidness in this one. Viggo wears cutoffs to swim in a creek and is briefly nekkid under a waterfall. He also removes his shirt at Woodstock and gets paint in his lovely chest hair. Good shot of his chest in his at-home scene with the open shirt. Considering the percentage of screen time he has and the amount of flesh he shows, I’m giving this a very high rating.

Viggo Sex: 10 out of 10. Two words: BUS SCENE. Every woman in the Viggo Fan Community knows it by name. That alone would be worth a 5 at least, but there’s MORE. Pearl and Walker have a wonderful, romantic sexcapade in the water. Plus there’s covert touching and stolen kisses whenever they can get together.

Fetish Factor: 7 out of 10. Viggo with sideburns. Viggo in a hat. Viggo drinking. Viggo covered in paint. Viggo high. Viggo smoking pot. Viggo driving. Viggo with long hair, Viggo twirling a half-nekkid woman around in his arms.

Clothes: 6 out of 10. Viggo wears lots of tight tee shirts as well as lovely buttoned shirts, and tan corduroys (tan pants! tan pants!). He wears a worn denim jacket that appears in interview photos of him with long red hair. This was the last film appearance of the Red Shag Shirt. I hope that doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. He also wears the hat again in photo shoots and during the Two Towers world promotional tour.

Viggo Sound Bytes: 7 out of 10. You know this is going to get a good rating when I can come up with several quotes off the top of my head.
“The blouseman is on the premises.”
“What kind of girl are ya?”
“Seems to me I’m exactly where I should be.”
“Do you want me to stop, Pearl?”

Total Viggonness Rating: 7.5 out of 10
I think this is the highest Viggoness rating I’ve given. A combination of a good movie, a good role and good, sexual screentime. A Walk on the Moon is a good film for its own sake, so you don’t have to be a fan of Viggo to enjoy it (but it wouldn’t hurt).

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review by HermioneO

Plot Summary from IMDb : After getting into a car accident while drunk on the day of her sister's wedding, Gwen Cummings is given a choice between prison or a rehab center. She chooses rehab, but is extremely resistant to taking part in any of the treatment programs they have to offer, refusing to admit that she has an alcohol addiction. After getting to know some of the other patients, Gwen gradually begins to re-examine her life and see that she does, in fact, have a serious problem. The path to recovery will not be easy, and success will not be guaranteed or even likely, but she is now willing to give it a try.

The one romantic comedy Viggo ever does (I’m beginning to believe Oh What a Day!1914 is just a hoax) and it’s a serious drug rehab story too. C’mon Viggo! Lighten up already. It doesn’t have to be dramatic and serious to be meaningful, damnit.

SPOILERS

Characters

Eddie Boone (Viggo Mortensen) : Eddie Boone is a gorgeous professional baseball pitcher who has a problem with booze, cocaine and too much sex. How can you have too much sex? Okay, it is a serious problem, I understand, but when you have someone as gorgeous as Viggo playing the part … thoughts wander. So Eddie comes to the rehab center to dry out so he can get in one last good season before retiring. He presents a romantic alternative to the enabling Jasper. For me it would be a no-brainer.

Gwen Cummings (Sandra Bullock) : Gwen is the ultimate party girl, making her way through each day getting high on booze, taking pills to function, and then blowing it all again to get drunk. She had an alcoholic mother who died when she was young from drug and alcohol abuse, and looks to be following in her footsteps though thankfully at least she does not have any children. After a particularly nasty episode, Gwen is forced to enter rehab where she follows the predictable path of denial and resignation.

Cornell Shaw (Steve Buscemi) : Cornell Shaw is the director for the rehab center, and a recovering addict himself. He has seen and heard everything an addict can come up with, has probably done most of the same stuff himself. He knows you cannot force an addict to quit – they have to make the decision themselves or it will just happen all over again. He just enforces the rules and makes no exceptions. This was a surprisingly straight role for Steve Buscemi, who I am more accustomed to seeing in warped, psycho or comedic roles. He’s that wacko riding the nuclear bomb in Armageddon. He’s the vicious little killer in Reservoir Dogs and Fargo.

Jasper (Dominic West) : Jasper is the enabling boyfriend who wallows with Gwen in her drunken lifestyle. He loves fun girl Gwen and brings her pills, booze and an engagement ring while she is incarcerated. He says they are the sane ones who understand that the only way to get through life without screaming your head off or killing yourself is by using drugs and booze. This guy has as bad a problem as Gwen – he just hasn’t crashed his car into a lawn gnome yet.

Andrea (Azura Skye) : Gwen’s roommate at the rehab clinic is a self-destructive, quiet, sensitive girl with an obviously goth outlook on life. She has no support from her friends and family – they never come to group counseling or call her or write. She dreads the day she’ll have to leave rehab, because at least here life is bearable.

Supporting Cast : Elizabeth Perkins, Alan Tudyk is fucking hilarious, Dianne Ladd, Reni Santoni.

Story

Gwen Cummings is destroying her life and hurting everyone in it, but she’s having a marvelous time while doing so. When she crashes a stolen limo in someone’s yard, the judge gives her a choice between jail time and rehab. When Gwen arrives in Rehab, she thinks of it as a joke – a place to relax and unwind for four weeks before returning to the life . When she discovers the place is serious and she has no access to drugs (not even caffeine) or booze, she starts to go a little crazy. Memories of her mother hit her like little sledgehammers as the days pass with nothing to do but think.

Finally, desperate for some pills she threw out the window to prove she didn’t need them, Gwen falls out of a tree and sprains her ankle. Enter Eddie Boone, gentleman and drunkard, to carry the wayward Gwen back into Rehab with one of the best entry lines I’ve heard.

“Eddie Boone, checkin’ in.”
“You can’t bring a woman into Rehab.” Says the receptionist.
“I wasn’t gonna keep her.” Eddie replies jauntily.

The next morning the two run into each other in the hallway and Eddie, who was drunk as a lord the night before, doesn’t even remember her. Indeed, he is embarrassed and thinks they had sex – something that often happens with him. Whereby he gives another great line I’m betting not a lot of men say:

“Made a little promise to myself no more ending up naked with some girl I don’t even know her name.”

From this humorous and kinda sexy introduction, things get a little more serious as we get a glimpse of the not-fun aspect of being a famous athlete who gets all the booze and women he wants. On their way back from a trust-building exercise, the group stops at a snack shack and gas station, and Eddie is accosted by two young boys for his autograph. Their father sees the rehab bus and he and Eddie exchange a meaningful glance as he herds the kids off, while an embarrassed Eddie slinks back into the store. Those kids obviously worshiped him, thought he was the greatest hero. But what kind of example is he setting for them? Their father wants to get them away before they understand what is happening and are crushed by the realization.

Gwen witnesses this encounter and gets a little insight into the problems of someone she considered a dilettante – a rich, successful guy who had no excuse for being where he was. But he has just as much excuse as she does, so what does that say about her?

The two are obviously attracted to each other, glancing back and forth as the days follow. Eddie doesn’t say much and is in the background, because after all, this story is about Gwen, but once he is in the story he never quite disappears. We discover he is a huge fan of Santa Cruz, the soap opera that Gwen’s roommate Andrea watches and misses so much now that she is in rehab.

Beginning their dialogue with a quick grope on the sofa, the Gwen and Eddie start talking and getting closer, until Gwen refuses to recount one of her worst deeds and calls Eddie dense.

He’s a little sensitive about his intelligence.

The two make up but Jasper walks in on the tender little scene and accuses Eddie of having sex with his fiancé, and insults his intelligence. Eddie shows why he is a jock and goes away, leaving Gwen to smooth things over.

Things come to a head when Gwen’s roommate Andrea kills herself rather than leave the center. The rehab people are saying she accidentally overdosed, wanting to use one last time, but Gwen knows, because she witnessed other self-destructive behavior in Andrea, the girl killed herself.

She is still dealing with this when she sees Eddie getting dressed after obviously having sex with a recent inmate. Looks like he’s had a relapse.

Eddie’s part in the movie ends when he chases Gwen’s taxi taking her away from rehab at the end of her stay, apologizing and trying to tell her that Jasper is no good for her.

For the longest time I thought that was Eddie’s last scene and didn’t bother watching any more, though Alan Tudyk’s scene at the end in the plant shop is another good funny one. I really like Alan Tudyk.

But, if you wait past the credits, Eddie gets a huge thrill when Falcon from Santa Cruz checks into the rehab center. Of course, the big jerk is nothing like our own Viggo and instead of graciously signing an autograph rudely snubs him and walks off.

Other

Repeat Appearances Steve Buscemi, who is one of my favorite character actors, also appeared in Floundering (1994). I am amazed that he and Viggo have not worked more together.

Other Connections Steve Buscemi and Viggo Mortensen were both “thanked” by the production of Thumbsucker (2005), but did not actually appear in it. They also both appeared on Miami Vice, though in different episodes. Sandra Bullock stayed at Dennis Hopper’s apartment while they were filming in New York. For those who don’t know, Dennis and Viggo have been friends since the early 90s, in addition to appearing together in two films.

Viggo at Baseball Camp Viggo got to train with real professional baseball players for this role. I’m guessing no one had to twist his arm.

Playing Girl Toy This is the 5th film in a row (if you don’t include La Pistola de Mi Hermano) where Viggo is playing 2nd banana to some chick. It started with GI Jane and Demi Moore, then continued with A Perfect Murder (Gwyneth), Psycho (Julianne Moore and Anne Heche) and A Walk on the Moon (Diane Lane). 28 Days (Sandra Bullock) marked the last such film in 2000, although from the description he may well be revisiting 2nd banana status in Eastern Promises. We’ll see.

Viggonness Ratings

Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 6 out of 10. Viggo is a secondary character who enters the film after about half an hour (the whole movie runs 100 minutes). The film is nicely shot, with clear, sharp images for great screencaps. And Eddie Boone himself is beautiful, with gorgeous, blonde hair and a nice solid build.

Nekkid Viggo : 3 out of 10. We get a great chest shot of Eddie Boone, interrupting a dalliance he is having with a fellow sexaholic. Other than that, he remains fully dressed during the entire film.

Viggo Sex : 4 out of 10. Eddie has one great kiss with Sandra on the couch, including groping. Sandra was later quoted describing Viggo as “the greatest kisser in Hollywood.” Sandra apparently kept making mistakes deliberately in that scene so they had to run it again and again. Way to go Sandy! I’ve always liked her. We also see him with a naked woman obviously after they have had sex.

Fetish Factor : 9 out of 10. Viggo the sexaholic. Isn’t that enough? Oh well, Viggo playing catch, Viggo touching a horse’s leg, Viggo carrying a woman, Viggo the sexaholic. I know, I know, but it’s worth mentioning more than once. Viggo playing baseball. Viggo squatting. Viggo chewing gum. Viggo addicted to a soap opera. Viggo wrestling on a couch. Viggo working up a sweat. Two words: push ups. Fanboy Viggo. Viggo dangling a woman on a rope. Oh, and Viggo the sexaholic.

Clothes: 6 out of 10. He’s at a rehab clinic but Viggo/Eddie still manages to wear some very nicely fitting shirts, showing off his broad, muscular (but not too muscular) chest, neck and arms. Dark blue is a very nice color on him, and so is green … and grey. They auctioned off some of the clothing from this production on Ebay.

Viggo Sound Bytes : 6 out of 10. “Who are you talking to?” “I wasn’t gonna keep her.” “Made a little promise to myself no more ending up naked with some girl I don’t even know her name.” Gotta make sure I introduce myself to him first thing. Check. “I bet you can’t sit still and be quiet for even one minute.” Actually, Alan Tudyk has the better lines in this movie. Wouldn’t you like to hear Viggo say “Check out my package!” Well, hedoes say “Don’t grab it.” And “Hold it like an egg.”

Total Viggonness Rating: 5.7 out of 10 This movie is good enough to watch on its own, much like most of Viggo’s movies after the mid-90s. This is the closest thing to a romantic comedy that Viggo has done (at least that I have seen). But it’s about serious problems with drug and alcohol abuse and the whole recovery process.

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GOOD
completed June 2007
Character: Halder

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