| movie review: Payday |
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This is why I love Netflix—because where else but Netflix will you stumble across a movie like Payday—featuring Rip Torn in the lead supported by a star studded cast including the likes of Elayne Heilveil, Cliff Emmich, Michael Gwynne, Ahna Capri, etc and directed by Daryl Duke. But I will always watch a film featuring Rip Torn and if he has been in better form than this one I do not recall. Rip is always at his best playing a lowlife, a scumbag, an asshole. And in payday he has found the role of his dreams. Asshole could be a euphemism. It is always interesting to me that people will pay $12.50—not including popcorn--to watch a movie about someone they would cross the street to avoid in their daily life but there you have it. Rip plays Maury Dann, a country western singer, something of a star and even, maybe, on the way to superstardom. Maury is a simple man with but one interest in life: Maury. Everything else must be and is subordinated to this concept. The movie has no plot. Its a series of snapshots of life on the road—the perfect life for Maury because he is a man whose middle name is Trouble and for someone like this its best to present a moving target. The Cast. Clarence the manager. Clarence is sharp, always thinking, always thinking one step ahead, he misses nothing. He is sharp and he dresses sharp—a sharp suit, the custom shirt, a cool tie, there are shades to complete the look and even following 12 hours in a Range Rover with 4 musicians and their gear he exits the vehicle with his cool intact—-perfectly. Clarence was born to manage and specifically to manage Maury Dann whose middle name is Trouble. Maury causes the problems, Clarence solves the problems. Its his gift. The bimbos come and go but Clarence would be hard to replace. Mayleen the Bimbo. Picture Mayleen in raspberry bellbottoms and raspberry blouse open to mid level to reveal terrific jugs. She sports a ‘do teased to within an inch of its life, 70’s style, and here is the gum, bubble gum, a sizable wad she chews with a vengeance, the jaw muscles of a lion tearing meat from a zebra and here comes the bubble, it expands, expands some more, collapses, the mouth resumes chewing as the process repeats. You get the picture. Chicago. Chicago is the driver/bodyguard. Hes the large type, built like a safe and a neck joining up with the head at an indeterminate point. There is something about the face, a sweetness that contradicts the body and the nature of the job. But in this job its all about attitude. He is ready at all times for whatever the night might bring and if things begin to slide—its shotgun city. The car. Next to Maury the car is the star of the film—a two tone cream and sky blue ‘71 Cadillac Brougham, the boat model, with the tinted interior window to separate the driver from Maury in the back seat, upholstered in cowhide, and its here, in the back seat of the Cad with Chicago up front and the pedal is to the metal hauling ass on the way to the next job that Maury is happiest—smoking weed, drinking bourbon, popping an upper while writing music or banging Mayleen. Its the car of a star and as Mayleen says: a star is someone who gets what they want. Rosamond the new girlfriend. Mayleen is the bimbo type and Rosamond would be perfect teaching Sunday school or during the service up in the loft singing with the choir. She is 22 or maybe 20 or even 18—-its hard to say and even harder to figure what she is doing in the vicinity of Maury Dann and Co—that puzzles her as well—but there she is, in the parking lot dressed in plaid checking out the Cad—all that great upholstered in cowhide action in the back seat—and when Maury says: we only pass this way once darlin’—ya might as well do it in a Cadillac—she is inclined to agree. The marriage Of all the people in the world who should never marry, let alone have children, Maury tops the list but at some point he crossed paths with a good woman—i.e. clean living—with whom he exchanged vows and fathered two children. He visits the house from time to time when the schedule permits—with Chicago in the Cad parked out front and Mayleen in the back seat and here comes Maury carrying presents for the kids—of the cheap shit kind that combined would not suffice to pay for a quart of Wild Turkey--and guess what—the kids are in school. Maury says: call the school. Maurys wife: I cant do that. Well goddammit! You could wait. I cant wait! Etc, etc. Two Mayleen scenes Mayleen is is asleep in the car, over to Maurys left with the new girlfriend, Rosamond to his right and he in the middle humming some blues on the harp. Maury decides the time has come to give Rosamond a taste of life on the road Maury Dann style and he breaks out a joint and takes a hit and passes it over to Rosamond and demonstrates the proper method of inhaling and they finish the joint. He lightly tugs at the blanket covering Mayleen and tugs a bit more until it no longer covers Mayleen but Maury and Rosamond and a bit of squirming as Maury works himself into position and the moaning and groaning and thumping and bumping begins and continues on as Mayleen retreats more deeply into her snooze. Thats one scene. In the other scene He throws Mayleen out of the car. Shes been around too long. A bimbo has one function and it isnt to get on her mans nerves. Shes starting to bitch, about this, that and the other and the result is ejection from the car, standing there on the side of the road in the raspberry bell bottom ensemble, the middle of nowhere and the Cad peels away, throwing up a spray of gravel, travels 100 feet and now there is a squeal of rubber as the car suddenly brakes hard, jams into reverse, backs up 100 feet. Hes changed his mind. But he hasnt changed his mind. Down comes the window and he pitches out a wad of bills, the Cad peels off, travels 100 feet, brakes hard, into reverse and backs up. Now hes changed his mind. He exits the car and retrieves the wad, still lying on the ground, back into the car and it peels away. I loved that scene. Notes The acting. The acting doesnt look like acting. Rip Torn is acting because he is an actor, likewise Michael Gwynne and Ahna Capri but for everyone else they seem to have been recruited from the street to participate in the film, to do the same things in the same way they do in everyday life, playing cards, eating takeout, attending the country western concert, etc. The music. There is no music. From time to time Maury will whip out his harp to fiddle with some blues in the car or a bit of a traveling theme while the car hauls ass on the interstate but otherwise the absence of a score allows the action—-or non-action--to speak for itself and it does so—eloquently. Pacing. Its a slow film. The camera lingers. Here is a meaty hand entering a frame, the hand of Chicago, traveling through space, motel room space, to hover briefly over a card game in a haze of cigar smoke, and deposits a carton of takeout onto the table. Or: a barbershop scene with Clarence in the chair, the barber finishing up. He brushes Clarence off, retrieves the coat, holds the coat. Clarence slips into the coat, a final brushoff by the barber and Clarence checks things out in the mirror. Straightens the tie a bit, on with the shades. Looking good. Tips the barber. Thats the scene. There is no dialogue, no music, no nothing. But the point is made: the meticulous type who attends to the details and, as someone has said—genius is in the details. Ending. A film needs an ending, even a film like Payday—the anti-film—and it happens in this way: Maury has a heart attack while behind the wheel of the Cad—fleeing the police on a manslaughter rap—a long story. But there he is hauling ass in the Cad on a country road and a lifetime of popping uppers and guzzling Wild Turkey, the smoking of 4 cigars a day and a steady diet of double Big Macs and Kentucky Fried have caught up to him and he drops dead. The Cad rockets off the road into the bush, bounces off a few trees and rolls over twice pitching Maury out the door, a bloody mess. End of movie. Maury is dead and the Cad is totaled and your sympathies are more for the car. |
Rip as Maury Dann