of unknown origin (1983)

i'm sure it would've been ultra-hip at the time but having to work in this fishtank environment would be terrible imo. looks very cool tho

the "is it worth watching this for lawrence dane" rating: 3/5

dane only has a handful of scenes, but the story and quality of the acting overall means that the rest is still fun to watch imo. the movie itself has gotten mixed reviews - stephen king loved it, apparently, while other critics felt it didn't have much substance. i think that criticism is fair; it does feel like a story where the strength would be in the interior narration, which we lose without having a voiceover or anything like that in the movie. there's a note in the credit that claims no animals were injured, but i'm not a fan of the use of what looks like footage from lab experiments of rats being made to attack each other. that's still animal cruelty, even if it wasn't instigated for this movie specifically.... could be worse tho, i could be watching the beginning of nothing personal again lmao.

the plot: the one-sentence summary would be something like, a classic wall street yuppie stays home to finish a business deal while his family goes on vacation but discovers he's not alone - a giant rat has decided his house is its territory. when it comes to the office setting, this is a very different beast (heh) than films like, say, scanners or american psycho. whatever the corporation is doing, it's nothing blatantly nefarious or parasitic. (i had to look it up - they're investment bankers? so closer to parasitic than not but at least we're shown them actually doing things rather than dicking around like bateman lol.) i've seen people argue that the film is a type of commentary on the "emptiness" of corporate success and i can see where they're coming from, but in my opinion the movie doesn't really lean into that. maybe the book it's based on is more explicit with this theme? the movie feels more like a classic man versus nature narrative, with the setting serving as a means of visual contrast - the clean buttoned-up office appearances vs the disheveled "uncivilized" look main character bart is rocking by the end.

lawrence dane plays eliot riverton, his boss, who seems to be very sympathetic and tolerant of bart's difficulties - up to a point. the last interaction they have, he tells bart to go home before any of the other employees see him like that. he doesn't inquire after what's been happening, but bart also doesn't choose to seek support. in a way it's a very macho movie - he tries to get help from other men who fail and eventually has to take matters into his own hands, alone, and make his home safe for his heterosexual nuclear family. eliot does what he can to support his employee, but.... despite the big company dinner party, there's no real familiarity there between them. so, again, i can see where the social commentary argument comes from, but it seems largely incidental to the actual plot of the movie.

that said, i did enjoy watching this! i've seen it thrice now in different environments and it's held up each time. peter weller of robocop fame gives us a solid performance as the main character and the supporting cast is great as well. it was fun to see louis del grande in the same movie as dane again, lol, and i look forward to seeing him once more in the dane episode of, well, seeing things. the female actresses aren't given a lot to do with their characters imo. jennifer dale as the secretary gets more screen time than the wife, which isn't saying much given the depth of their roles or lack thereof. their acting helps them sell what they're told to hawk. the practical effects with the giant rat are fun and there's a lot of close-ups of cute little rat feet. the overall tone of the movie feels a bit tongue-in-cheek/self-aware at times but not to its detriment. (eliot keeps expressing disapproval of a minor character smoking, which is morbidly amusing to me since afaik dane kept smoking most/all of his life.)

i had to upload the dane cut to the internet archive here, since i guess warner brothers doesn't want people sharing the dinner party scene on youtube? lol whatever. but that means it's not easy for me to include autocaptions or anything like that, since i chose to keep subtitles off when i was editing the original video. the movie isn't hard to find with subtitles/captions though; i checked out a library dvd the first time i watched this, and it's easy to find online whether torrenting or streaming.

highlight:

as a buddy said, "he's presenting himself so sluttily"

( none of these screencaps has been altered )