Be it for misplaced self-importance, misguided metaphysical probing or just jadedness, I've made an effort to consume the art that was released in my birthyear, 1988. Sometimes that can lead to tears but fortunately there were a lot of great movies released that year, such as Akira, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Naked Gun, Rain Man, Dead Ringers and one of my all-time favorite movies, the blogworthy Paperhouse. '88 also featured a number of great flicks that have fallen by the wayside or were undervalued upon their release and by dang that's what home video was invented to fix, so every now and then I'll review a Crazy 88 that needs another peep, and there's a timeliness in reviewing the first one of these, Betrayed. Actually, it's not a fortunate timeliness, as not only do I have to talk about racism but I have to talk about Trump.
Of the many, many gaffs Donald Trump has made so far in his presidential race, taking time to carefully avoid discrediting a former KKK Grand Wizard on the air while whipping out blanket condemnations of Mexicans is pretty memorable, doubly memorable as it forces us to remember that the KKK and other White Supremacy groups are still alive and kickin'. Hollywood has long hated groups like this, with the KKK appearing in plenty of movies like The Blues Brothers and Mississippi Burning, but less colorful terrorist groups like the Aryan Brotherhood have appeared a bit less frequently though are equally hated. I think that infrequency is due to the AB appearing less like a cult or old-fashioned men's club than the KKK, more human, easier to see someone joining. Groups like that don't immediately declare their political leanings but rather insinuate new members in by initially appearing as a group of friends with similar backgrounds, and the fact that they're close enough to "normal" people to pass makes them slightly more problematic targets as a whole for writers. It's this fine line that Betrayed walks with total assurance, making it one of the most emotionally brutal political dramas of it's time.
In response to the assassination of Midwestern shock jock Sam Kraus (Richard Libertini), the FBI sends agent Cathy Weaver (Debra Winger) undercover as a combine driver to investigate a prime suspect, farmer Gary Simmons (Tom Berenger), Vietnam vet and single father. Cathy's search for evidence is initially unfruitful, not helped by her decision to feign romantic interest in Gary, but Gary decides to take her "hunting" one night and she sees the truth - Gary and his friends are militant White Supremacists and their "hunting" trips are training sessions where they set a captured black man loose in order to shoot him down. Cathy, distraught over how her duty to her cover kept her from saving the man, wants to bail on the mission but her bosses, among them her former lover Michael Carnes (John Heard) press her to go further in order to connect Gary to the assassination. Things only get deeper, and more difficult to control or rectify, from there.
This formula is tried-'n'-true Hollywood logline, certainly understandable as the script was written by Joe "Showgirls" Eszterhas, a fact that surprised me after I found out, but the subject matter and execution are deeply disturbing, just as it should be. I don't care how jaded you are, seeing little kids being taught to shoot rifles at racist cutouts in the middle of a White Supremacist training camp is upsetting on a trillion levels, not to mention when Gary's Kindergarten-aged daughter says "We're the good guys. One day we're gonna kill all the dirty niggers and the Jews and everything's gonna be neat." The mark of good acting in these kinds of films is if the actors can say horrifying lines like not only without flinching but with such banality as if they say it each Sunday to their town's pastor. Winger and Berenger both pull off their not-so-dual roles expertly, Berenger's performance being especially important as he comes across both as a determined killer and a decently charming guy and good father, a concept that is impossible to fathom for most people, the film's FBI included. Winger exudes a lot of internal strength and integrity throughout, something that makes her gradual emotional destruction hurt even more, and the excellent supporting cast, including Ted Levine, John Mahoney and David Clennon, play their tunes with timing and style. Unlike much of Joe Eszterhas's work Betrayed has an overabundance of subtle characterization, quiet moments and raw truth, aspects that have aged considerably well in the nearly 30 years since the film's release. The director, Costa-Gavras, might be familiar to those with an eye on international cinema as he directed the smash-hit political thriller Z as well as the smack-in-the-face gripping The Confession, and this film shows him staying true to his roots inside a Hollywood framework. His eye is expansive and swift, the camera neither lagging behind the action or distracting with flash, and features some exceptional magic-hour photography in the Great Plains. His patience and knack for building momentum on simple moments result in some lovely small moments, such as a scene early in the film where Cathy watches Gary chew out some other farmers. It's the first time Gary shows his true, clear-eyed hostility and the shot is Cathy's perspective, focusing on the back of Gary's head - a no-no in traditional filmmaking but a fine detail here. The only thing that doesn't hold up anymore is the music, synth-'n'-country-heavy and too often weakening the impact (a problem not shared by the near-contemporaneous synth score to Mississippi Burning), as well as some usual plot dubiousness that comes with any undercover operative story, but the class production more than makes up for it. Why did the slow dissolve cut go out of style again? For that matter, why doesn't anybody remember that the '80's had just as many great dramas as comedies and horror films?
Betrayed didn't get the best reviews when it came out, nor the most viewers, and Costa-Gavras's Hollywood career would flame out a few years later with the colossal flop that was Mad City. It didn't really turn around on video, either, and the slew of underwhelming promotional art show that its distributor, MGM, has never had a clue as to how to market it. I can understand why some people wouldn't like it simply for the idea that the protagonist finds herself unable to completely side against such repugnant antagonists, but that impossible situation is part of what makes great drama and it's a heart-wrenching way to confront how even the most philosophically repulsive people are still people. We need more films that show sympathetic people who've painted themselves into philosophically and emotionally impossible corners, not only in spite of the fact that these movies aren't exactly crowd-pleasers but precisely because of their difficult provocation of thought. Berenger went on the record years later and admitted that it's his favorite movie, a move that might come across as hideously self-important as he starred in the thing but rung true to me, especially as he defended the film by saying "It was exactly what it was meant to be." Like it or not, you can't deny that Betrayed thrusts the viewer into the heart of the ugliest side of American identity as intelligently and empathetically as anyone could expect, and I for one appreciate the effort.
~PNK
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