The January Man
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| The January Man | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Pat O'Connor |
| Produced by | Norman Jewison Ezra Swerdlow |
| Written by | John Patrick Shanley |
| Starring | Kevin Kline Susan Sarandon Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio Harvey Keitel Danny Aiello Rod Steiger Alan Rickman Faye Grant |
| Music by | Marvin Hamlisch |
| Cinematography | Jerry Zielinski |
| Editing by | Lou Lombardo |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | January 13, 1989 (USA) |
| Running time | 97 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | Unknown |
| Gross revenue | $4,611,062 (USA) |
| IMDb profile | |
The January Man is a 1989 film, directed by Pat O'Connor. Oscar-winner John Patrick Shanley penned this awkward mix of comedy and a murder mystery. The film was released in January.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
It's New Year's Eve, 1988. A wealthy socialite by the name of Alison Hawkins has returned from the New Year's Eve festivities, drunk. As she feeds her fish before she knocks off for the night, a blue ribbon is thrown around her throat and she is strangled to death. This is the latest in a series of murders by a killer only known as The January Man. He's been terrorizing New York for the past eleven months, and the mayor is fed up with the police's ineffectual efforts to track him down.
Mayor Flynn tells NYPD commissioner Frank Starkey to "get [his] brother, and get him now." Flynn and Frank know that Nick is the only man brilliant enough to catch this killer. This won't be an easy task for Frank: two years ago, Nick was disgraced in a graft scandal and booted off the force, and Frank was the one who fired him. Frank goes to the scene of a raging fire to find Nick, who had been transferred to the fire department. Nick makes a memorable entrance: bursting through a window with a child in tow, escaping the fire. Frank talks Nick into returning, but only on one condition: that he be able to cook dinner the next night for his wife and Nick's ex-girlfriend, Christine. After a press conference announcing Nick's reinstatement, we get to the dinner with Christine and Nick. Old wounds are opened up and evidence is hinted at that Frank was involved in the scandal that got Nick fired in the form of a cancelled check.
Capt. Alcoa is not so happy to hear of Nick's return, having despised his beatnik attitude but respected his abilities as a detective, but has to go along with the mayor's demand that he supply Nick with anything needed to solve the case. After reporting for work, Nick shows his eccentric side by taking a different office than the one he was assigned because the light was no good for his painter friend, Ed, to work with. After getting Alcoa to add the equally-eccentric Ed to the payroll as his assistant, Nick begins to work on the case. His first task? Track down the mayor's daughter, Bernadette, who was last seen with Alison, the last victim.
Nick charms the pants off of Bernadette and she winds up falling for him. After helping him investigate Alison's apartment, they return to see Ed struggling to get a hang of the new computer Nick had sent to help in the case.
Nick soon discovers a bizarre pattern in the dates of the murders: they are all prime numbers. From this, Nick is able to determine when the killer will strike next, and possibly for the last time. Nick has also allowed Bernadette to live with him for the time being, seeing as the killer is still on the loose and Bernadette is scared. Christine eventually discovers this and tells the mayor.
Nick is apparently proven wrong on when the killer will strike next when the January Man apparently strangles another victim one day ahead of Nick's prediction, then leaps out the window to his death. Nick rightly believes that this is a copycat killing, especially when he learns that the man broke a window as opposed to picking a lock to gain entrance like the other murders, but to the political and media-minded Frank and Flynn, it's a case closed. After Nick receives a chewing out from the mayor on the whole "doing his daughter" issue, Nick is told by Frank that it "looks like [they] didn't need Sherlock Holmes after all."
Nick manages to talk Alcoa into looking the other way for him to set a trap if Nick will send in a transfer for the fire department as soon as the day is up. Nick figures out (with the help of Ed and a planetarium) that the position of the buildings the victims were murdered in takes the form of the constellation Virgo, and that the murder rooms (all in rooms that have a window facing out the front of the building) all make up 11 notes of the song "Calendar Girl," and with the help of the computer's "Music Maker" program, figure out the floor that the killer will strike next. As luck would have it, Ed finds out that there are two women who live in apartments that have a window that faces the front, and one of them has gone to Disney World.
Nick sets a trap with Bernadette as bait (with a neck guard Ed created to prevent the January Man from killing her). The trio stake out the room in a supply closet and witness the January Man picking a lock to get into the apartment. Intercepting the apartment's resident and sending Bernadette in, it isn't long before Bernadette is attacked. Nick, after much effort, breaks down the door with a sledgehammer and confronts the January Man. When he tries to arrest him, the January Man puts up a fight and run off. Nick gives chase, leaving Bernadette to call for backup. Christine, after learning the address, heads there as well.
After a knock-down, drag-out fight down the stairs of the apartment complex, Nick emerges with the unconscious January Man wrapped in a rug from the stairs. When someone asks if anybody knows the identity of the January Man, Nick replies "Who he is ain't important. That's the problem with him. He's nobody." Having collapsed on the curb from exhaustion, Nick is surprised to see Christine walk up to him and attempt to get back together with him, having left Frank. When Nick refuses, saying that he fell in love with an idea that looked like her, she gives him the cancelled check, eliminating any doubt that Frank was behind the scandal, and says "Don't say I never gave you anything." Nick invites Bernadette to dinner, saying that he wants to make her haggis, and a new romance is born.
| Cast | |
| Actor/Actress | Role |
| Kevin Kline | Lt. Nick Starkey |
| Susan Sarandon | Christine Starkey |
| Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio | Bernadette Flynn |
| Harvey Keitel | Commissioner Frank Starkey |
| Danny Aiello | Capt. Vincent Alcoa |
| Rod Steiger | Mayor Eamon Flynn |
| Alan Rickman | Ed |
| Faye Grant | Alison Hawkins |
| Kenneth Welsh | Roger Culver |
| Jayne Haynes | Alma |
| Brian Tarantina | Cone |
| Bruce MacVittie | Rip |
| Bill Cobbs | Det. Reilly |
| Greg Walker | The January Man |
| Tandy Cronyn | Lana Apico |
| Gerard Parkes | Rev. Drew |
| Errol Slue | Fire Chief Sunday |
[edit] Trivia
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio met her future husband, the film's director Pat O'Connor while working on this project.
- The box-office gross (in the USA) was $4,611,062.
[edit] Critical Reception
All quotes are from Rotten Tomatoes.
- "A strange suspense thriller that is uninvolving." - Bob Bloom, REC.ARTS.MOVIES.REVIEWS
- "The January Man" is worth study as a film that fails to find its tone. It's all over the map. It wants to be zany but violent, satirical but slapstick, romantic but cynical. It wants some of its actors to rant and rave like amateur tragedians, and others to reach for subtle nuances. And it wants all of these things to happen at the same time." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
- "Eliot called April the cruellest month, but then he hadn't seen 'The January Man.' Billed as a mystery with romance and comedy, it is a damp sock of a movie that makes you wish for leap year." - Rita Kempley, Washington Post
