by Kevin Murphy, Staff Writer

“It’s a game where every player is a pawn. Every move is a wrong one. And the winner loses everything.”

Gene Hackman’s recent death had me thinking about some of his noteworthy roles, which I’m sure many people did, and my mind kept circling back to one of his lesser-known films from the hot streak he was running in the 70’s. It really kicked off with his supporting role in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and soon saw him starring in powerhouse classics like The French Connection (1971) and The Conversation (1974)–as well as a comedic turn in Young Frankenstein that same year, and even the supervillain Lex Luthor in Superman (1978). But in the middle of all these, Hackman reunited with Bonnie and Clyde director Arthur Penn for a neo-noir that is often overlooked: 1975’s Night Moves.

In the film, Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a private investigator whose glory days were left on the football field long ago and who does the job to solve the problems he can instead of fixing his own. Discovering that his wife is having an affair, he jumps on the case of Delly (Melanie Griffith in one of her earliest roles), the missing teenage daughter of a retired actress. The plot is less of a tangle than your typical Chandler-esque pretzel, though still too involved to detail here, and more importantly the focus is deliberately pushed away from the conspiracy lingering around the edges of the story until that mystery forces itself to be known.

Underneath all of this is a cynical commentary on the state of America and the disillusionment that was taking hold during the era of New Hollywood movement, which kicked off in the late 60’s and cemented itself more firmly through the 70’s. There is a bleakness present in works from this era, and a deep current of anti-authority and disillusionment that is understandable after witnessing the fizzling out of 1969’s Summer of Love, the later years of the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal in 1972. It’s an era of uncertainty and its cynicism is visible in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) and Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973). Unlike Chinatown’s Jake Gittes, Harry is not so short-sighted that he cannot see things coming, and he’s much less of an unkempt loser than Altman’s reimagining of Philip Marlowe. Discussing the film in 2021 with Eddie Muller for a series on Neo-Noir, TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz notes that Harry’s failings are not typical of the genre: “He’s not an alcoholic, he’s not violent, he’s not a drug user. He just doesn’t talk about his feelings.” Indeed, his shortcomings stem from a kind of perpetual worrying about making the wrong move, causing him to react too slowly to what’s in front of him, and this stems from being unwilling to acknowledge his emotions and to move on from a past that’s long gone.

That said, he’s a better man than most in the film, rebuffing almost every attempt at seduction and having a paternal regard for Delly’s well-being, and his downfall is a result of his need to know the whys in a case he only followed so doggedly because he was unable to process his emotional pain. It’s a flaw that stems from toxic masculinity–that traditional male stoicism where the only emotions one can show are anger or happiness–and is inwardly destructive first, unlike the outwardly destructive nature of the more common character flaws in this vein that Mankiewicz pointed out.

The clearest look at the character’s inner workings rise to the surface in the latter parts of the film. One of Arthur Penn’s additions to the story was the chess game that Harry seems obsessed with, working both as character metaphor and clever wordplay: Night Moves becoming, in fact, Knight Moves. Harry can’t see the real mystery at play until he’s surrounded by it, those clever two-up-one-across motions penning him into the spot he’s placed himself. He points out that the player missed the potential checkmate: “He played something else and he lost. He must have regretted it every day of his life.” It’s such a sharp insight into his psyche, and his reluctance to make a move out of fear that he’s missed something. In one scene late in the film, opening up to his wife about this for the first time, he talks about how he tracked down his estranged father but did not end up staying with the man like he claimed, instead just watching as he sat on a park bench, and then walking away. Even here, he jokes about it, rather than acknowledging how he actually feels: his inaction leads him to regrets, and yet he worries too much to seize opportunities, leaving his only chance of winning anything a matter of luck more than anything else. And perhaps it’s a bit of bad luck that leaves him circling at the end, the audience left to wonder if he will take an action that’s a strain, or refuse to act and let fate take its course. He’s afraid to choose, and now forced to make the choice.

That the movie came out in the wake of superior films in the same vein works to diminish its reach, and this means that Hackman’s performance here doesn’t get the attention that it deserves. That’s not to say that he’s better in this than he is in other works during this run so much as that the film’s subtler personality compared to its contemporaries stifles its ability to grab widespread attention. It’s less about the mystery (which turns out to be a smuggling scheme so dry that it’s hardly worth risking oneself for) than it is about the character, and he’s a less immediately interesting figure than the explosive Popeye Doyle or paranoid Harry Caul because his flaws are closer to home and more human. Night Moves wears the trappings of a noir thriller while focusing more closely on the stunted emotional state of its has-been P.I. trying to fix anything but his own life.

When revisiting the filmography of Gene Hackman, Night Moves offers a dramatic lead role for him in a character study, disguised as a detective story with a killer ending. Since his retirement two decades ago, we’ve missed the talent of a giant, and works like this that have been overlooked should not be forgotten. Everyone knows Unforgiven (1992) and Superman (1978), and odds are you’ve already watched The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Birdcage (1997), all of which feature brilliant work from him; cutting just a tiny bit deeper, it is so worth the while to seek out this more hidden gem that taps so acutely into the era’s attitudes and further showcases just how versatile the man was in his screen presence.

Support MovieJawn Staff

〰️

Support MovieJawn Staff 〰️

Support Kevin Murphy

With the death of so much print media and meaningful journalism, it is important now more than ever to support the writers and outlets you love.
If you enjoyed this article, show your support by donating to our writer. All proceeds go directly to the writer. Recommended donation is $5.