Scanners (1981)

(he's too tall for his chair again lmao)

the "is it worth watching this for lawrence dane" rating: a qualified 4/5
imo the mid-1970s through the early 1980s has dane in his absolute prime. (no judgement towards his later work - i'm just not as familiar with it yet, and imo he's at his most attractive during this time period lmao.) he does wonderfully with the material he's given and is arguably one of the strongest actors of the film after michael ironside. top three would probably be ironside, dane, and mcgoohan. o'neill is fine but it feels a little as though she's trying to match the lead actor's presence and her performance suffers as a result.

why the "qualified" 4? because the lead actor is...not great. he was probably chosen for his looks, which are indeed very striking, but his acting is so wooden it's painful to sit through at times. that said, it's certainly an aesthetically interesting movie to watch and dane is fantastic when he's on camera.

the plot: honestly? i watched this via the criterion channel and my initial reaction was to be unsure why it was on there. after doing some reading about how it was innovative for its time with the mixing of genres (among other things) and watching the second half again i'm able to understand its inclusion better. it was just difficult for me to see past the stiffness of the lead actor, and the ending being so abrupt didn't help either. i'm all for open-ended stories, no need to spoon-feed me anything, but imo it would've worked better if they'd given themselves a little more time to breathe in the last stretch of the story. apparently the movie went into production without a finished script and was written on the fly, and it really shows in places. i agree with the conclusion of that av club essay i just linked - it feels like a transitional rather than essential film. but i've definitely seen way worse, lol.

with regards to lawrence dane - his role isn't the meatiest of the secondary characters but there's still plenty there to chew on. while i wish we'd learned just a little more about braedon keller's motives, he communicates so much with his eyes alone during that absolute chef-kiss of an interrogation scene and then the follow-up with mcgoohan's character. (i'll dig into this a little more under the relevant screenshots below.) and he's very fun in general - quite good at being menacing in a banal way, which serves to make his character feel even more dangerous and helps him hold his own against ironside in their scene(s) together. undoubtedly a presence refined by all his years of playing tv villains. bonus for me: while this isn't the role that made me fixate on him and also see him as an embodiment of my oc maurice (that would be mitzi in rituals) the apparent ease with which he flips the switch between polite and violent is big maurice energy. a delight to watch :3



highlight:
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD



selected screencaps and some actual film commentary below. none of these images have been altered.

( if you think this is a lot of screenshots you should see the literal thousands i didnt choose )

 thanks for reading!