Main Cast: Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Mary Stuart Masterson, Chris Penn, Millie Perkins
Release Year: 1986
Country: US
Run Time: 115 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Amazingly, At Close Range was based on a true story. Bored teenager Sean Penn meets his prodigal father (Christopher Walken) for the first time in years. Though Penn is vaguely aware that his father is a criminal, he is nonetheless impressed by his dad's high life style and creature comforts. But Walken's veneer of charm is fragile indeed, and it becomes clear that he is willing to kill anyone--even his family--if they get in his way. When Walken rapes Penn's girl friend (Mary Stuart Masterson) to keep the boy from cooperating with the DA, it is only a warm-up for the horrors to come. The screenplay for At Close Range was written by Nicholas Kazan, the son of prominent film director Elia Kazan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
A superbly written and acted film based loosely on real-life events, this intense crime drama is a major artistic success for all concerned, especially stars Christopher Walken and Sean Penn in two of their best roles, as well as screenwriter Nicholas Kazan and director James Foley. The latter's style might strike some viewers as too cool, remote, or austere, but this nearly documentary-like approach allows the cast room to stretch and improvise while slyly emphasizing the picture's similarity to the classic In Cold Blood (1967). However, the film is definitely not a docudrama, the director reminding viewers of the emotionally potent subtext with subtle, symbolic transitions in which such incongruous, attention-getting images as bound chicken talons or singing lips suddenly appear. His is the art of transcending the establishing shot by going for something a little more penetrating. Walken and Penn are marvels of nuance employed in the arts of linguistic inflection and the physicality of inhabiting a character with one's entire body, from the way they laugh to how they walk. (Just watch Penn as he shifts from a cocky swagger that emanates down from his shoulders, moving like nothing so much as a suit buoyed by a massive hanger, to a defeated, slump-shouldered shuffle by the finale). Kazan goes light on dialogue but what's there is charged with unspoken meaning, while visual cues and arresting images tell the story. All of this shows the mark of a great screenwriter enjoying a meeting of the minds with a director who gets it. At Close Range (1986) is one of the best examples of its genre from the 1980s. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Candy Clark - Mary Sue; Eileen Ryan - Grandmother; Alan Autry - Ernie; R.D. Call - Dickie Whitewood; Tracey Walter - Patch; J.C. Quinn - Boyd; David Strathairn - Tony Pine; Jake Dengel - Lester; Crispin Glover - Lucas; Kiefer Sutherland - Tim; Noelle Parker - Jill; Stephen Geoffreys - Aggie; Paul Herman - Salesman; Anna Levine - Barroom Dancer; Myke R. Mueller - 2nd Car Salesman; James Foley - Assistant District Attorney; Doug Anderson - Marshall; Terry Baker - Customer; Terri Coulter - Barroom Dancer; E.R. Davies - Detective Mosker; Janie Draper - Stripper; Marshall Fallwell, Jr. - Bartender; Gary Gober - District Attorney; bonita Hall - Buxom Woman; Charles Tatoo Jensen - Older Guy; Bob McDivitt - Farmer with Shotgun; Nancy Sherburne - Waitress; Michael Edwards - 1st Car Slaesman
Credit
Billy Hopkins - Casting, Risa Bramon - Casting, Hilary M. Rosenfeld - Costume Designer, James Foley - Director, Howard E. Smith - Editor, John Daly - Executive Producer, Derek Gibson - Executive Producer, Patrick Leonard - Composer (Music Score), Patrick Leonard - Songwriter, Richard Arrington - Makeup, Peter Jamison - Production Designer, Juan Ruiz-Anchia - Cinematographer, Don Guest - Producer, Elliott Lewitt - Producer, Mark Ragland - Set Designer, R. Chris Westlund - Set Designer, Adams Calvert - Special Effects, Burt Dalton - Special Effects, Chuck Waters - Stunts, Nicholas Kazan - Screenwriter
Very nearby, as in At close range, the rock band was unbearably loud. Derived from shooting--range denotes the distance that missile or projectile can be made to travel--this expression soon came to mean anything in close proximity.
Brad Whitewood, Sr. (Christopher Walken) is the leader of an organized crime family consisting of his brothers and close friends. One night, his estranged oldest son, Brad, Jr. (Sean Penn), contacts him after a fight he had with his mother's boyfriend. Eventually, he becomes involved with his father's criminal endeavors, resulting in starting his own gang with his brother, Tommy (Chris Penn), and friends. The boys get excited at the idea of easy money and decide one night to attempt a daring heist, which results in their arrest by the police. Their father believes that his sons and their friends will inform the police about his criminal activities, so he rapes Brad's girlfriend, Terry (Mary Stuart Masterson), as a warning to his eldest son. The attack results in the opposite effect as Brad, Jr. begins informing the authorities about his father's activities, including a murder of a snitch he witnessed. When the father's name is given to the grand jury by his own son, Brad, Sr. feels his only recourse is to eliminate every witness that can connect himself and his crew with his sons and their crew, and he has them killed one by one (strangely, Tim, one of Brad Jr.s crew is not killed and is seen at the courthouse at the end). Brad Sr. murders Tommy himself, but orders a hit against Brad, Jr. and Terry. Terry dies, but Brad, Jr. survives and is able to testify against his father.
Director James Foley portrayed the assistant D.A. at the end of the film.
Music
There was no official soundtrack to the movie but the main song, "Live To Tell", can be found on Madonna's album True Blue which was released two months after the film. The song was originally written for use in the movie Fire with Fire but after the film studio rejected the song, Madonna decided to use the song in her then-husband's movie At Close Range. Shots of the movie also appeared in the music video for the song. Christopher Walken would later act in Madonna's video for 1993's "Bad Girl" and director James Foley would go on to direct Who's That Girl in 1987 with Madonna in the lead role.
