I used to watch this on either HBO or Showtime or Cinemax during the one summer in the mid 90's that my parents subscribed to those channels. I came across it several times in various parts and always found it dark, bizarre and fascinating. I was young then, in my early teens; and now years later after having discovered the great Arliss Howard and being blown away by "Big Bad Love" I bought the DVD of "Wilder Napalm" and re-watched it with my girlfriend for the first time in many years. I absolutely loved it! I was really impressed and affected by it. There are so many dynamic fluid complexities and cleverness within the camera movements and cinematography; all of which perfectly gel with the intelligent, intense and immediate chemistry between the three leads, their story, the music and all the other actors as well. It's truly "Cinematic". I love Arliss Howard's subtle intensity, ambivalent strength and hidden intelligence, I'm a big fan of anything he does; and his interplay with Debra Winger's manic glee (they are of course married) has that magic charming reality to it that goes past the camera. (I wonder if they watch this on wedding anniversaries?......."Big Bad Love" should be the next stop for anyone who has not seen it; it's brilliant.) And, Dennis Quaid in full clown make-up, sneakily introduced, angled, hidden and displayed by the shot selection and full bloomed delivery is of the kind of pure dark movie magic you don't see very often. Quaid has always had a sinister quality to him for me anyways, with that huge slit mouth span, hiding behind his flicker eyes lying in wait to unleash itself as either mischievous charm or diabolical weirdness (here as both). Both Howard and Quaid have the insane fire behind the eyes to pull off their wonderful intense internal gunslinger square-offs in darkly cool fashion. In fact the whole film has a darkly cool energy and hip intensity. It's really a fantastic film, put together by intelligence, imagination, agility and chemistry by all parties involved. I really cannot imagine how this got funded, and it looks pretty expensive to me, by such a conventional, imagination-less system, but I thank God films like this slip through the system every once in awhile. In a great way, with all of its day-glo bright carnival colors, hip intelligence, darkly warped truthful humor and enthralling chemistry it reminds me of one of my favorite films of all time: "Grosse Pointe Blank".......now that's a compliment in my book!
Review of Wilder Napalm
