Movie Reviews
But I have come to terms with the fact that Hollywood is almost entirely far left-wing, so to enjoy anymore movies (especially ones containing anything political in them), I have to look passed that hateful outlook on conservatives, and just enjoy it. So have I done with “Silver City”, and it’s proved effective. I laughed and I enjoyed to my heart’s content.
We open to the filming of a Pilager political commercial. He’s near a lake, saying his lines to the camera. He screws up, the crew staggers, gets ready to re-shoot, and gives Dickie a fishing pole for some variety. During his performance, he again stumbles. But this time he claims that he caught something. As they struggle to reel in, the fishing wire tightens and a hand emerges from the water. A dead body is in the lake.
Pilager and his consultants freak out as Dickie orders them to find out who is trying to screw them. Chuck Raven (Richard Dreyfuss), Dickie’s assistant puts Danny O’Brien (Danny Huston) on the case – set to rat out the culprit. He finds himself unwinding a situation much larger than himself.
What Sayles has here is a political tapestry woven together by an excellent cast and witty dialogue for those actors to say. I have a large amount of respect for Sayles as a filmmaker because he is one of the few mainstream directors who has the rare ability of making every single character in his film inherently interesting. How he does that is with that dialogue. When a new character is introduced, we have to hear a mere sentence or two, and we feel as though we know everything about them.
There are roughly fourteen main characters that we are responsible for remembering and, in some cases, caring about in one way or another. But it is Sayles’ job to keep them fascinating enough to make us want to do that. He is near-infallibly successful in doing that, that’s for sure.
“Silver City” is also very funny. Social satires are hard things to make; the best example would be “Dr. Strangelove”. To produce laughs through dryness, satires must in one way or another, make fun of opposing sides to one issue. If not that, then one side must be universally evil. “Silver City” forgets about that mostly, and while it does surface a jeer at the liberals, this is no doubt a poke-fun-fest on the opposite. In one of the most daring comedies in years, it’s almost so partisan that it becomes insulting, but I have a feeling that was the whole point. *** ˝