Night MovesSome mysteries only lead to more mysteries. Night Moves is a detective story and thriller about an erstwhile professional football player turned bargain bin sleuth, Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), who's given a job lead to investigate the disappearance of a "liberated" teenage girl named Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith). Clues from ex-lovers and movie crews point her to the Florida Keys, where he discovers that she has been crashing with her ex-stepfather, Tom Iverson (John Crawford), and his live-in girlfriend, Paula (Jennifer Warren). Harry has to convince the girl to come home to her mother (and his client), a crumpled film star named Arlene (Janet Ward); but doubts creep in as details fail to add up, and Harry becomes increasingly concerned that something more sinister is at play.
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Directed by Arthur Penn, Night Moves has since become lumped into that most ephemeral of film genres, "neo-noir". Definitions of neo-noir vary, but some have described it as embodying the spirit of "film noir" from the Forties and Fifties--often featuring morally gray plots and detectives as protagonists--along with disillusionment and fatalism. Certainly Night Moves is kin to the likes of Robert Altman's deconstruction of the detective story in the form of The Long Goodbye or even Roman Polanski's homage/evolution of it in Chinatown. Made in and around the same time, Hackman's Moseby is like a twin separated at birth to his Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation. Both men are idiosyncratic and obsessed with pursuing a kind of illusory "truth" made muddy by convoluted conspiracies, alongside the total fracturing of trust in others and faith in themselves and their respective professions. Night Moves follows a story model very much in the Chandler vein, as Moseby does his private eye work while ingratiating himself with movie stars and directors, and antagonizing visibly untrustworthy hoodlums, like Delly's ex-boyfriend and mechanic, Quentin (James Woods). Arguably, some of the best and most memorable detective stories have plots that are like a fireworks show: lots of clues whizzing about, and building to a finale that makes it all seem to fit into the bigger picture. But the revisionist detective stories of the Seventies prefer ambiguity and the deliberate deflating of audience expectations to drive home a more genuine sense of unease. Moseby's case has him travel across the country on a hunch; his intuition suggests that Delly is seducing her mother's former lovers. Why? He surmises that Arlene is withholding something important about Delly's late father not just from him, but from her daughter, too. Moseby did his research and learned that as a part of a divorce settlement with Arlene's first husband, Delly had to live with her mother for Arlene to keep receiving a stipend from Delly's trust fund. So while Arlene's motivation in reclaiming Delly is clear, what is less so is why Delly is suddenly so interested in playing detective herself. But because of this, Moseby starts to sympathize with the young girl. Despite her flirting with him when he does finally meet her in Florida, he treats her with warmth and sincerity, even in moments where she is stricken with sadness...like after she discovers the decomposing corpse of a pilot in its Beachcraft while diving in the ocean at night. (Of course, Moseby should be thinking more about why they're doing late-night diving in the first place.)
The subplot of Night Moves concerns Moseby's unfaithful wife, Ellen (Susan Clark), who has been stepping out with a beau named Marty Heller (Harris Yulin). Yet even this revelation only further supports that Moseby isn't as great of a detective as he thinks he is; he stumbled into this knowledge after going to visit his wife at the movies, not as a result of any investigative acumen. Afterward, he probes to see if his wife will come clean about her affair; she does not. Instead, he confronts Marty, who turns the tables by telling Moseby that he should be asking his wife why she's sleeping around instead. It isn't outright explained why she has the affair, but it is safe to presume from Moseby's behavior that she is tired of living with someone who is spinning his wheels in a career that gives him no real satisfaction, yet keeps himself too busy to be with her for any meaningful length of time. Small moments of conversation reveal that Moseby had a brief stint as a pro footballer, but for one reason or another abandoned that profession in favor of one with no real direction. Moseby is clever and determined, but he does less "detecting" than merely following clues to their end. He exercises little to no real control over his life. He isn't reckless, per se, but is unwilling to concede that he treats being a detective like little more than play acting. It's apparent that he isn't getting business, and part of the bone of contention between him and Ellen comes from his reluctance to join an agency and give up his autonomy for something more secure...more recognizable in the public eye. This seems like a part of why Moseby is dragged into this case in the first place. He operates alone, and as the tangled plot unfurls, there is the sense that like those detectives turned chump in The Long Goodbye and Chinatown, he's really the one being played here. Like those movies, Night Moves relies on crushing the pride of its protagonist as a necessary sacrifice to summon the clarion call for a brave new world, or a blaring alarm clock, if you're feeling less loquacious. The world of Night Moves is one where those nostalgic (if inaccurate) memories from those silver screen gems of yesteryear of good-hearted gumshoes and taciturn femme fatales are nothing but dreams vanishing with the morning, leaving a wicked hangover in its stead.
Recommended for: Fans of a detective story with twists and turns that is also a character study of a man who becomes increasingly disillusioned as the story progresses. Night Moves is a reunion between Arthur Penn and Gene Hackman, who worked together on Bonnie and Clyde years earlier; this movie has more mature content, making it better suited for older audiences, however.
The subplot of Night Moves concerns Moseby's unfaithful wife, Ellen (Susan Clark), who has been stepping out with a beau named Marty Heller (Harris Yulin). Yet even this revelation only further supports that Moseby isn't as great of a detective as he thinks he is; he stumbled into this knowledge after going to visit his wife at the movies, not as a result of any investigative acumen. Afterward, he probes to see if his wife will come clean about her affair; she does not. Instead, he confronts Marty, who turns the tables by telling Moseby that he should be asking his wife why she's sleeping around instead. It isn't outright explained why she has the affair, but it is safe to presume from Moseby's behavior that she is tired of living with someone who is spinning his wheels in a career that gives him no real satisfaction, yet keeps himself too busy to be with her for any meaningful length of time. Small moments of conversation reveal that Moseby had a brief stint as a pro footballer, but for one reason or another abandoned that profession in favor of one with no real direction. Moseby is clever and determined, but he does less "detecting" than merely following clues to their end. He exercises little to no real control over his life. He isn't reckless, per se, but is unwilling to concede that he treats being a detective like little more than play acting. It's apparent that he isn't getting business, and part of the bone of contention between him and Ellen comes from his reluctance to join an agency and give up his autonomy for something more secure...more recognizable in the public eye. This seems like a part of why Moseby is dragged into this case in the first place. He operates alone, and as the tangled plot unfurls, there is the sense that like those detectives turned chump in The Long Goodbye and Chinatown, he's really the one being played here. Like those movies, Night Moves relies on crushing the pride of its protagonist as a necessary sacrifice to summon the clarion call for a brave new world, or a blaring alarm clock, if you're feeling less loquacious. The world of Night Moves is one where those nostalgic (if inaccurate) memories from those silver screen gems of yesteryear of good-hearted gumshoes and taciturn femme fatales are nothing but dreams vanishing with the morning, leaving a wicked hangover in its stead.
Recommended for: Fans of a detective story with twists and turns that is also a character study of a man who becomes increasingly disillusioned as the story progresses. Night Moves is a reunion between Arthur Penn and Gene Hackman, who worked together on Bonnie and Clyde years earlier; this movie has more mature content, making it better suited for older audiences, however.