I would watch Gene Hackman read from a phone book. Or take a nap. Hell, I’d even stare intently while Gene took a shit. So it stands to reason that when presented with the opportunity to watch one of Hollywood’s finest actors turn his talents to comedy, I would welcome the chance as if being treated to a third installment of The French Connection. Or the long-awaited sequel Mississippi Still Burning. Surely Gene wouldn’t just pick up a paycheck, right? He’d consider and reconsider every job as if his reputation was on the line with every line delivery. I know every house needs an addition, or granite countertops, but wasn’t he fat and happy by 1990? He cared, dammit. Gave too much of a crap to avoid being lumped in with a late-stage Orson Welles or a 1980’s Michael Caine. Never just for the cash. Always for the art. And then came Loose Cannons.
If one had to reduce Loose Cannons to a single paragraph, it would go something like this:
Sometime during the final days of World War II, Adolf Hitler appeared in a porno with assorted Nazi brass. A full film crew was present, though Leni Riefenstahl’s participation cannot be proven. Hitler fucked, got fucked, and then, soon after the bodily fluids had hardened and crisped over, he handed a gun to a senior staff member for the murder to come. Obliging his Fuhrer, the man shot Hitler in the head, grinned like a Cheshire cat, and escaped the bunker, only to run for Chancellor of West Germany some forty-odd years later. That film, tucked away in a canister more akin to an extra-large Domino’s pizza box, became more legend than fact, though Israel and modern-day Nazi sympathizers would fight over it for decades. Naturally, the reel would end up in the hands of Dom DeLuise, an ardent Catholic playing a Jew, and also playing a hired gun who was trying to make a little cash on the side. Cue global intrigue, the FBI, the Mossad, and a series of bizarre murders trying to prevent the movie’s release.
Alas, there was not the same level of commitment from Tri-Star Pictures to keep Loose Cannons away from the American public. But the people would speak on their own, thank you very much. The film was a notorious box office bomb, logging only $5,585,154 in total receipts. Critics from coast to coast were offended, appalled, and quite certain that both Dan Ackroyd and Gene Hackman would never work again. Maybe they’d be forced into exile together, spending their days mumbling assorted regrets while the death threats continued to pour in. But it was not to be. The stars would survive. And thrive. Loose Cannons would not become Hackman’s Norbit, even if appearances on Entertainment Tonight would inevitably begin with the query, “Did you know it involved a Hitler sex tape?” Oh he knew. God, how he knew. That’s Gene. And reason one why he’ll always be remembered as a master thespian, whatever the hell he did to keep the creditors at bay.
Since the film was written, directed (allegedly), and sent to empty theaters at the cusp of political correctness, its insensitivities and crass stereotypes may seem like another world altogether to modern eyes, but fuck them eyes. And fuck them tears. If Loose Cannons works today – and it doesn’t, but that’s beside the point – it’s because it shows nothing but utter contempt for every trauma and trigger experienced by the pearl clutching generations that followed its release. Mental illness (here, Multiple Personality Disorder) is a punchline, not a sad affliction, and based on Ackroyd’s portrayal, one might rightfully conclude that MPD is nothing more than an overwhelming desire to become Rich Little. If MPD exists at all, and I personally don’t believe it does, why not reduce it to crude impersonations and wild gesticulations? Laugh it out of existence, for crying out loud, instead of suggesting that mockery leads to misunderstanding, which further leads to mental hospitals and concentration camps. Loose Cannons revisits a time when we could see a naked nutcase on the street and laugh and point with glee, rather than guiltily reaching for our wallets.
And don’t even get me started on Gene’s Washington Redskins jacket. Yes, kids, D.C.’s gridiron greats used to do battle under an offensive moniker. A very offensive moniker. That his character (MacArthur Stern) never takes it off – even while sleeping in his car – might make sense to a Washington native (like Mac Stern), but what about the Native American viewers who might not appreciate having their noses rubbed in dirt for a full 94 minutes? A fair point, though since only 115 actual living, breathing Americans saw the movie upon its initial release, it’s just as fair to assume not a single Native American actually did. And I’m guessing that when movie prints finally made their way to Pine Ridge or Navajo Nation, Loose Cannons wasn’t one of them. And if it was, it’s arguably a greater criminal act than Wounded Knee. But again, that jacket is why the movie deserves to be preserved. Maybe not at the Library of Congress, but in our hearts. Here, for a time, no one gave a shit. Salad days, indeed.
But finally, we address the elephant in the room. Should a major motion picture, one costing millions of dollars to produce, ever use Adolf Hitler and sex in the same premise? Fine, we never actually see the Fuhrer naked, or getting blown, or anything even remotely controversial, but isn’t the idea enough? And shouldn’t someone have told Gene that well after your death, someone was going to refer to the fact that a mere two years before Unforgiven, you played a cop on the trail of a Nazi porno? Was he comfortable with that stain on his legacy? Clearly he was. My one regret is that when I met him at a book signing some twenty years ago, I didn’t pull out a Loose Cannons DVD for him to sign, an act that likely would have spurred on a red-faced conversation. It may have even gotten me punched in the teeth. But God what a story. Oh well, water under the bridge.
So in the end, the film is secured by the good guys, the Chancellor-to-be is humiliated and disgraced, and Dom DeLuise finds his jam in a hospital, playing the fool for dying children. I wish anything I’ve said in this review was made up, or an exaggeration, but if anything, I understated the insanity. And I stand by every word uttered in defense of Gene. The script, toilet paper. The dialogue, utter trash. But Gene played it like he was readying for Hamlet, and I will never not admire that level of commitment. A consummate professional, even when he knows he’s going to face the whirlwind. Especially when he’s doing so. That twinkle, that sly grin, that roar of exasperation; all there, firmly in place. As constant as the Northern Star. Even when he’s about to arrest a man for not wearing a condom – and yes, that scene was actually written by a human hand – he pops with all the grit of Popeye Doyle, or the righteous purpose of Rupert Anderson. He means every goddamn word, and we stand convinced. Because it’s Gene. And, as stated, I’d watch him taking a shit.
Leave a Reply