Into the Night (1985)Every day is the same for mild-mannered aerospace engineer, Ed Okin (Jeff Goldblum); and its so boring that it's keeping him from sleeping at night. He lives in a small house almost under a freeway overpass in Los Angeles, and carpools every day through bumper-to-bumper traffic in his rundown beige (actually custard-colored) Toyota sedan. He overhears his wife having an affair after coming home from work early one day, and decides to take up the advice of a co-worker to catch a flight to Las Vegas that night. But as he parks in the airport garage, a lovely--and terrified--young woman named Diana (Michelle Pfeiffer) leaps onto the hood of his car, and begs for him to drive her to safety--the first dose of excitement in Ed's humdrum life.
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Into the Night (1985) is a romantic action film directed by John Landis, and set in the "City of Angels"; residents will likely see familiar locales or landmarks here, like the famous giant donut above Randy's Donuts. Because Diana has Ed drive her to places where she could lie low, including a meetup with a movie star friend of hers, Ed's trek also takes him to Hollywood. Into the Night features a copious amount of cameos of other filmmakers and screenwriters, including David Cronenberg, Lawrence Kasdan, Paul Bartel, and even Jim Henson. Even Landis plays one of the Iranian mobsters pursuing Diana, a killer who has a problem opening doors. Ed is a quiet and non-confrontational man; his energies may be muted by his sleep deprivation, but he is also a thinker with a scientific mind. Ed is an "anti-action hero", because he bucks the tropes of other action film protagonists--he never resorts to force to solve a problem. He rarely courts danger, even if it is Diana's allure which subtly entices him to stay by her side and see her safe through her ordeal. When he first saves her at the airport, he doesn't do it because he has exceptional instincts or is trained for it, but because he is a good person. There is an implication that he was considering cheating on his wife in retaliation--following the suggestion by his colleague, Herb (Dan Aykroyd), to visit a prostitute in Vegas--but it seems unlikely that Ed would go through with it. Despite Diana's sexy vivacity, Ed is not the kind of guy to take advantage of a woman who needs help. Ed initially tries to find a way to politely distance himself from this mysterious young woman, but is too kind to decline her earnest requests for help. Ed's also smart enough to know that she's using him, but he's too gallant to refuse. As Diana's prospects at finding a safe place to evade her pursuers dry up, she discloses to Ed why she's being chased: she smuggled a half-dozen "perfect" emeralds from Iran into the United States for a friend, with the promise of a return of twenty-five thousand dollars. Diana realizes too late that she has gotten mixed up in a complicated conspiracy and hunt for the treasure, where multiple parties are willing to kill anyone in their way to obtain the stones. Diana tries to contact a former lover and millionaire for help, leaving her and Ed scrambling across the city in the mean time, trying to outfox her friend's killers.
Ed sticks with Diana past the point of being reasonable, even at the risk of his safety. Ed should know when he's putting himself in danger; so why does he do it? It's easy to say that he's falling for Diana, and that wouldn't be untrue. She's very pretty, and isn't shy about her body, like when she changes clothes with the door open at her brother's apartment, lying on the bed to zip up her tight jeans. The relation between these two mismatched characters--and the plot--foreshadows Roman Polanski's Frantic; even the chase involving "perfect emeralds" has echoes of Romancing the Stone. Diana resembles the epitome of cool freedom, and is a stark contrast to Ed--he wears a green corduroy sport coat and tie, while she has a red leather jacket that recalls the iconic coat worn by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Diana represents an awakening from the torpor of Ed's everyday life--a world at night that is different from his stale existence under the sun. When he and Diana leave her brother's apartment, he catches sight of some of the killers working for Shaheen Parvici (Irene Papas) waiting for them, and sneaks away in the most conspicuous of getaway vehicles. The plan seems crazy, but proves to be effective, and Ed loves that his cleverness pays off--it's a lot more entertaining than being stuck in traffic. After Ed drops Diana off at a hotel where she is supposed to be safe, his newfound instincts tell him that he still needs to be with her; this is when he encounters an English assassin (David Bowie) who has killed almost everyone else and taken Diana hostage. Ed makes a tactical decision and endangers himself to save her, living out a true action movie moment. Ed and Diana begin to develop a simpatico which saves them from a couple sticky situations, like when they describe themselves as married without discussing it in advance. Ed serves as the point man in a dangerous deal with Shaheen over the emeralds, where he musters up some real chutzpah by telling her wildly conflicting stories about "who he really is". (Ed even plays to his undiscovered James Bond fantasy by joking with her that he is in "her Majesty's secret service".) The pervading question in Into the Night is whether Diana--intimated to be unpredictable and self-serving--will actually betray Ed's trust or whether she has acquired some measure of honor from her time with Ed. It becomes evident that Ed and Diana rub off on one another more and more as they keep in each other's company, forging a mutually beneficial relationship.
Recommended for: Fans of a romantic action film featuring an unlikely duo bouncing from one conflict to the next in Los Angeles, pursued by various people after the purloined jewels. Into the Night has a disparate and complicated plot that strings together scenes with characters that are rarely revisited, giving it echoes of The Big Sleep; Ed's milquetoast "everyman" qualities makes his adventure with the lovely Diana something of a subdued male fantasy.
Ed sticks with Diana past the point of being reasonable, even at the risk of his safety. Ed should know when he's putting himself in danger; so why does he do it? It's easy to say that he's falling for Diana, and that wouldn't be untrue. She's very pretty, and isn't shy about her body, like when she changes clothes with the door open at her brother's apartment, lying on the bed to zip up her tight jeans. The relation between these two mismatched characters--and the plot--foreshadows Roman Polanski's Frantic; even the chase involving "perfect emeralds" has echoes of Romancing the Stone. Diana resembles the epitome of cool freedom, and is a stark contrast to Ed--he wears a green corduroy sport coat and tie, while she has a red leather jacket that recalls the iconic coat worn by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Diana represents an awakening from the torpor of Ed's everyday life--a world at night that is different from his stale existence under the sun. When he and Diana leave her brother's apartment, he catches sight of some of the killers working for Shaheen Parvici (Irene Papas) waiting for them, and sneaks away in the most conspicuous of getaway vehicles. The plan seems crazy, but proves to be effective, and Ed loves that his cleverness pays off--it's a lot more entertaining than being stuck in traffic. After Ed drops Diana off at a hotel where she is supposed to be safe, his newfound instincts tell him that he still needs to be with her; this is when he encounters an English assassin (David Bowie) who has killed almost everyone else and taken Diana hostage. Ed makes a tactical decision and endangers himself to save her, living out a true action movie moment. Ed and Diana begin to develop a simpatico which saves them from a couple sticky situations, like when they describe themselves as married without discussing it in advance. Ed serves as the point man in a dangerous deal with Shaheen over the emeralds, where he musters up some real chutzpah by telling her wildly conflicting stories about "who he really is". (Ed even plays to his undiscovered James Bond fantasy by joking with her that he is in "her Majesty's secret service".) The pervading question in Into the Night is whether Diana--intimated to be unpredictable and self-serving--will actually betray Ed's trust or whether she has acquired some measure of honor from her time with Ed. It becomes evident that Ed and Diana rub off on one another more and more as they keep in each other's company, forging a mutually beneficial relationship.
Recommended for: Fans of a romantic action film featuring an unlikely duo bouncing from one conflict to the next in Los Angeles, pursued by various people after the purloined jewels. Into the Night has a disparate and complicated plot that strings together scenes with characters that are rarely revisited, giving it echoes of The Big Sleep; Ed's milquetoast "everyman" qualities makes his adventure with the lovely Diana something of a subdued male fantasy.