User Reviews

The first half of this find-the-serial killer movie was excellent. The story was very interesting and got me hooked into it, big-time. That made the second half really disappointing as the story evolved into one cliché after another. Two big examples: the killer abducting the hero's girlfriend and then making a surprise showing at his house at the end when everyone presumes he's dead. Man, how many movies does that happen? Too many.

Kurt Russell plays his normal macho role and Mariel Hemingway joins him as the female lead. She looked nice. Overall, if you like crime movies it's worth seeing. But, rent it, don't buy it.

Kurt Russell has spent most of his career playing a big, dumb oaf (Overboard, Big Trouble In Little China, Tango & Cash, etc.), so it's refreshing to see him in a more serious role. The Mean Season is taken from a novel entitled In The Heat Of The Summer by John Katzenbach (whose other books include Just Cause, later filmed with Sean Connery). The film is a fairly engrossing, if familiar, serial killer story, set in Florida just as the summer ends and the stormy season begins.

Miami Journal reporter Malcolm Anderson (Russell) writes a piece about the murder of a woman. Malcolm is getting bored of his job at the Journal and plans to move to pastures new with his girlfriend, teacher Christine Connelly (Mariel Hemingway). However, he receives a mysterious phone call from the murderer, congratulating him on his report and informing him of several more murders that he intends to carry out. Seems the killer wants to use Malcolm as his "conduit to the public". More murders follow, as promised, and each time Malcolm is given exclusive information from the killer. Soon, Malcolm is the toast of the journalistic world - every reporter wants his story, every TV station wants to interview him, and there's even talk of him being nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. But the psycho at the centre of the whole business is enraged that his acts are being overlooked in favour of Malcolm's new-found celebrity status. And so he plans to teach Malcolm a lesson.....

There's a little suspense in the story, especially when the unseen killer is on the phone to Malcolm. Also the gradual disintegration of Malcolm and Christine's relationship (he's seduced by the media spotlight; she wants him to end his liaisons with the murderer) adds a further layer to the story. The main problem with The Mean Season is that its second-half drifts into the kind of silliness that the first half is so careful to avoid. After setting up an exciting and intriguing premise, this comes as a disappointment. The killer, who has been ruthlessly efficient to this point, suddenly becomes sloppy and tries to make his murders ludicrously elaborate (even though the story has already made it obvious that he's supposed to be unswervingly cold-blooded). Also, the film can't resist one of those clichéd endings - a final frisson, if you like, which has been an overused device since Carrie (1976) - in which the killer "returns from the dead" to terrorise his victims one final time. The Mean Season is an OK thriller, but frustratingly it never quite becomes the first-rate movie that it might have been.

Back in 84, when this was being filmed, I lived in Miami. A friend and I slipped onto the set at Joe's - he intimidated the PA into thinking his father was the owner of the restaurant. We lasted about fifteen minutes. The "school" location was a few blocks from my apartment, and it is always nice to see Tobacco Road (I don't know if that bar is still there).

The "jogger" in the opening scene was one of our college professors at the University of Miami. So, it's like "old home week" watching this film.

A good companion piece would be Russell's "Breakdown."

As with previous users, I agree that the movie falls apart in the final reel. A major annoyance is the rush by Kurt to protect his girlfriend at her school, being that the killer has informed Kurt that he is already there. Why doesn't anyone use the phone? Or radio police immediately? Granted the police arrive at the same time Kurt does, but why were they delayed? He had run half of the way BY FOOT!

Earlier in the film, it is likely police would have placed surveillance on Kurt's home immediately after the killer had contacted him at his newspaper office.

Supporting characters are well-acted, although the female reporter sidekick appears an afterthought - perhaps her role was originally larger.

"Miami Vice" was also filming at the time, so it was an exciting time to be a film school student in the same city.

No, not a "noir" by any definition.

Passable murder thriller that won't set the world alight, but it's the charismatic Kurt Russell who carries you throughout along with a well-oiled support cast (Richard Masur, Richard Jordan (a very uneasy performance as the killer), Andy Garcia, William Smith and Joe Pantoliano). Like everyone has already mentioned, Mariel Hemingway is one of the unconvincing factors and her performance did really grate away --- not helping was the character she was portraying too. What starts as off as provocatively stimulating (where the killer contacts Russell's newspaper reporter character to offer him the chance to become his link to the media -- informing him about the murders before anyone else knows about it) only goes on to be your normal, predictable run of the mill psycho thriller where revenge threats (for stealing the limelight away) and kidnapping becomes the focal point. Early on the phone calls between the reporter and the killer, drills out some suspense and it opens up the ambitious nature of the media and at what cost you would go to cement a story with the close ties that are formed. This is seen to be a big breakthrough for Russell's burnt-out character, until it starts to affect everything around him namely that with his fiancée (Hemingway) and instead of reporting it he eventually becomes the news. Set during the middle of Miami's storm-riddled summer, it's engulfed by a humid atmosphere and music scorer Lalo Schfrin cooks up one excellently saucy and characteristically unhinged score that blends right in. The standard material is given a lot more punch due to Schfrin's input.

I was hoping for faster pacing in this 80's thriller set in Miami where a killer threatens to strike again, contacting Miami Journal reporter Kurt Russell and saying there will be five more victims before he's done, ultimately going after Russell's girlfriend, Mariel Hemingway. Every time the killer calls, he tells Russell more details and eventually names his next intended victim.

Intriguing but disappointing, this isn't exactly the most thrilling of thrillers, and not one of the better psycho killer movies either. There's some intriguing performances by Andy Garcia as a young detective, Richard Masur as Russell's boss and Richard Jordan as the oddball whom Russell visits uncomfortably for information. Russell sliding down a rising bridge after jumping to it is a very silly visual. My nickname for this one is "Miami Slice".

This is another catch-the-pattern-murderer thriller, probably above average as these things go. I wouldn't mind reading the original novel. There's quite a bit of talent on screen here.

Kurt Russel is his usual virile self, and Mariel Hemingway (from some angles looking disturbingly like her grand dad) is a broad-shouldered long-limbed giantess with an appealingly girlish voice that has little range. But the supporting cast is neat. Joe Pantoliano is always an interesting actor and could have carried this movie as the lead, instead of a sidekick in a role that's not important to the plot. And Andy Garcia has sleek features and is a magnetic presence whenever he's in a scene. Richard Mazur, as an editor of the Miami Journal, is both practical-minded and surprisingly gentle in dealing with subordinates. Richard Jordan was past his pretty-boy phase here and that's nice because he's quite a character actor. In his first meeting with Russell he displays about the most ungainly flabby body seen on screen since Quasimodo. And his acting is flawless, an ominously deep baritone voice with the hint of a throb in it.

Some serial-killer movies have had worse plots than this. Russell, a good reporter, is having bouts of Angst. The "what's it all about" kind. He's tired of having his name appear next to snapshots of murder victims. (Mazur: "We don't manufacture the news, we're just retailers.") But he begins receiving phone calls from the murderer, who tips him, teases him, tells him where to find bodies, and gives him tantalizing hints. This is ordinary stuff by now. We had the same thing in "No Way to Treat a Lady," among others. Russell, however, is rather pleased in a very ambivalent way.

Mazur tells him: "Our editor thinks you may be headed into Pulitzer territory," and a self-satisfied smile spread slowly over Russel's face.

And that's part of the problem. There are some interesting possibilities here that the production takes no advantage of. Just what IS going on in Russels' mind? We know what's going on in the mind of his girl friend, Hemingway. After one of the calls, she screams at Russell and advises him to tell the murderer that he's an unspeakable piece of garbage. Not very helpful, and not too subtle either. But the inside of Russell's head is not where the movie wants to go. It settles for thrills.

There is a typical-standard chase through the swamps towards the end, where Jordan is keeping Hemingway captive. I positively hated the obligatory scenes using airboats. Big noisy wind machines that ride roughshod over any and every thing, living and dead, in the Everglades, vulgarizing a trip that in a row boat or canoe might have had spiritual qualities. Utilitarianism rampant. And they aren't necessary to the plot either. Nothing happens at the end of the rackety ride that couldn't have taken place at the end of a trip by car.

However, the point of their use is that they might be interesting to the viewer. They add loud sound and action to distract the viewer from anything he or she might be wondering about the characters or the plot. Movie getting dull? Throw in a fast-moving air boat. See how fast it moves? It's called an "airboat." Funny-looking thing, isn't it?

This tendency to clobber the viewer with clichés is annoying at times. And they were clichés long before they were used in "The Mean Season." Three times -- count 'em -- three times, a potential victim of violence sees something suspicious, or hears a door creak, and spooky music appears on the sound track, tremulous violins bespeaking threat. Then as the potential victim investigates, the violins shriek, the door or shower curtain is flung open -- and, lo, it's some harmless guy delivering pizza! This is pretty cheap stuff. Jack Arnold closed the book on it back in the 1950s sci fi movies like "Tarantula." Want more cheap tricks? The cops are chasing the murderer through a thicket of fig trees, they hear a gunshot and find a body with its face blasted unrecognizably off. "Well, he's dead now. It's all over." I ask you, the experienced viewer of slasher movies -- is it all over?

Lalo Schifrin, a real musician's musician, and an extremely talented one, offers us a nice crisp theme using a bluesy Clark-Terry-type trumpet. The rest of the time, alas, he seems to have been asleep at the piano. The three embedded but pointless shock scenes use a routine "sting" -- the viewer is zapped by the crashing dissonance just as the hand reaches out and touches the victim's shoulder. And at a point later in the movie Schifrin leans rather heavily on Bernard Herrmann's fandango from "North by Northwest" while during a scene involving a disabled Volkswagon we can hear precise echoes of "Cape Fear."

I commend the photographer and the make-up department though. After a brief fist fight, Russell and Jordan actually LOOK as if they'd been in a fight. And there are serendipitous shots of the weather. If you are phobic for thunderstorms, as I am, I recommend you watch this movie if only to see a handful of shots of some major "thunderstorm activity," as weathercasters like to call it. You'll get a real arousal jag out of the descending wall cloud. Tampa, Florida, is the thunderstorm capitol of the country, averaging 93 thunderstorm days a year.