cult film freak: GENE HACKMAN MINING THROUGH NICOLAS ROAG'S 'EUREKA'

Gene Hackman in EUREKA Year: 1983 Rating: **1/2

Following the game-changing THE FRENCH CONNECTION turning 2nd-lead and/or villain-role character-actor Gene Hackman into a leading man/movie star, he did two independent art-films, Jerry Schatzberg's SCARECROW and Francis Ford Coppola's THE CONVERSATION that, because of their underpar box office (albeit both being critically praised), he swore to only mainstream movies thereafter...

But after THE FRENCH CONNECTION sequel, a few action thrillers and two SUPERMAN blockbusters, he went back to low-budget basics with the most offbeat auteur of them all, Nicolas Roeg, for a deliberately dismal melodrama EUREKA where the best scenes exist in the relatively short-lived first act: when Gene Hackman as solitary yet formidable minor Jack McCann (when not frequenting a brothel with FIVE EASY PIECES rambling-actress Helena Kallianiotes) has put everything into one lucrative gold strike...

Gene Hackman in EUREKA

These scenes are shot with a similar kind of slow-burn and melancholy, uncompromisingly rugged atmosphere that Roeg began with for WALKABOUT... here in an Alaskan underworld that could have merited its own feature-length saga...

But once the wealth is made, we cut too far into the future to know how Hackman's character changed from that desperate minor to a completely selfish billionaire, holed up on a tropical island with a bored wife, and a progressive daughter engaged to a young man he despises...

Gene Hackman in EUREKA

And for a reason, since while Roeg's real-life wife Theresa Russell is a fair enough challenge for Hackman's stubborn old-fashion ways, otherwise great actor Rutger Haur makes for an unlikable, black-magic-practicing idealist that winds up carrying a final act: in what goes from an involving rags-to-riches odyssey into a bland courtroom drama, where the outcome hardly matters...

And even with talent like RAGING BULL semi-newcomer Joe Pesci as a mobster counting on accountant Mickey Rourke and Hackman's put-upon partner Ed Lauter for a possible casino deal, Nicolas Roeg's attempt to combine the greedy-cautionary-tale of TREASURE WITH THE SIERRA MADRE with the doomed-rich-man-classic CITIZEN KANE (including a snow-globe, lucrative wealth from a mine and a similar estate front-gate) falls under the weight of its ultimate lack of character... literally after the only character worth watching (Hackman) exits far too soon.