5/12/09: 10 to Midnight (1983)
We did a pretty good job here not just killing entries with vigilante films. It was tough to resist some of those later
Death Wish movies, though. We still have a special fondness for Charles Bronson in
10 to Midnight. Many fans of ’80s films will already be sold by the combination of Bronson and the low-budget hacks of the Cannon Group. It’s also a good sign that the film is directed by J. Lee Thompson, whose career peaked with 1961’s
The Guns of Navarone. The director helmed Bronson through a lot of ’70s and ’80s schlock, from the good (
The Evil That Men Do) to the dull (
The White Buffalo) to the weird—which would be
10 to Midnight.
The film opens with veteran cop Leo Kessler (that’s Bronson) ignoring a loon who’s trying to make a false confession. Then he ignores a reporter who wants some information. “I’m a mean, selfish son of a bitch,” Kessler explains. “I know you want a story, but I want a killer—and what I want comes first.”
Then we get the credits accompanied by a percolating ’80s synth score. The manly kind. We don’t know it yet, but Kessler is after creepily handsome Warren Stacy (Gene Davis, who just made more bad-film immortality by appearing in last year’s
Shark Swarm.) We first see Warren donning his Members Only jacket while thinking about the young blonde co-worker who rejected his subtle come-on of unzipping her dress in the office. We know she’s gone to the lake with her boyfriend, so it’s confusing when Warren heads off to a screening of
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He clumsily hits on a pretty girl in the theater, the movie starts, and then he goes to the men’s room to put on some rubber gloves. What the hell kind of movie is this, anyway?
As it turns out, this is a time capsule of that time when you could mix a crime thriller with a slasher film. Or, in the case of J. Lee Thompson, at least give it a try. (He’d already bungled a straight slasher film with 1981’s
Happy Birthday to Me.) Warren is actually sneaking through the bathroom window to go murder that blonde at the lake. This is obviously the Los Angeles of
24, since all locales are only 15 minutes apart from each other. Warren strips off his clothes, and then murders the blonde’s nude boyfriend in a van that was rocking, and therefore shouldn’t have been bothered with any knocking.
The nude Warren then chases the nude blonde all across Camp Crystal Lake—or something like it—until he hacks her up. Then he makes it back to the theater before the end of the movie, and hits up on the young woman again. This could possibly be an alibi in the making.
It’ll turn out that the dead blonde grew up next to Kessler. Now he has to tell his old neighbors that their daughter is dead. That kind of screws up his lecture to new partner Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens) about how a cop can’t get emotional. Kessler’s estranged daughter then shows up at the funeral, as does Warren. Hey, he worked at the office with the victim. After the funeral, he overhears that the blonde kept a very detailed diary.
That inspires Warren to kill the blonde’s roommate, but Kessler already has the diary. He drops in on Warren, and scrounges through his bathroom to find a sexy toy. Kessler’s fine instincts tell him to bring the creep in, where there’s an interrogation room scene where Kessler accuses Warren of having a sex toy. Things go wrong when the girl from that
Butch Cassidy screening shows up to vouch for the killer.
The D.A. is unhappy. In what can only be a reference to that sex toy, he angrily declares, “I have to remind you about evidence obtained under duress? It’s inadmissible, Leo!”
“The way the law protects those maggots out there,” Kessler growls, “you’d think they’re an endangered species.”
From there, Warren will start stalking Kessler’s daughter—who lives in a hospital dorm full of nurses in various states of undress. Kessler will start trying to bond with his daughter, including a lunch where he accidentally picks up some quiche at the buffet. “I hate quiche,” Kessler declares. “I thought it was pie.” Kessler will plant evidence to arrest Warren, and cunning defense attorney Dave Dante (Geoffrey Lewis) will coach Warren on planning an insanity defense. “You walk out of a crazy house alive,” Dante explains. “They carry you out of a gas chamber dead.”
Kessler will protect McAnn by going ahead and admitting that he’s a cop on the edge who crossed the line. Warren walks, but he’s still all homicidal—especially when it comes to nurses. And the madness climaxes with Kessler facing down Warren with a closing line that’s remarkable in its banality. It’s certainly no
Cop. That’s kind of the point, though.
10 to Midnight is a vigilante film that’s simply not impressed with being a vigilante film. The fun is in the utter predictability of it all.
Make it your own: 10 to Midnight is In demand enough to be available
on DVD. It’s still not the Special Edition that the film deserves. We mainly want a DVD extra that explains the title. Nothing ever happens at ten minutes before midnight, or specifically from 10 pm to midnight. We’re baffled.
