A year after Chinatown, Night Moves delivered another L.A. noir, this time set in the present day. The two films share a seediness involving daughters and parents, one that overwhelms a supposedly seen-it-all private detective. Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a former football star hired by an aging movie actress (Janet Ward) to track down her promiscuous teen daughter (Melanie Griffith, on the edge of legality at the time the film was made). Hackman’s signature harrumph serves this character archetype well; like Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes, Moseby has a haughtiness that blinds him to what’s really going on. Don’t sleep, however, on the supporting performances from Susan Clark, as Moseby’s reluctantly wayward wife, and Jennifer Warren, as a down-but-not-defeated survivor of men. (Asked by Moseby about her past, Warren delivers this with a pitch-perfect mixture of sass and sadness: “I taught school. I kept house. I waited tables. I did a little stripping. I did a little hooking. And I trod a lot of water.”) The dialogue is stronger than the plotting in Alan Sharp’s script, which is guided by director Arthur Penn (The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde). The behind-the-camera MVP, however, is cinematographer Bruce Surtees, who manages subtly arresting lighting in every scene, whether it’s the fluorescent blue hovering over a kitchen sink or the neon red signs in a honky-tonk bar or the soft caress of the Florida sun, where Moseby’s investigation eventually leads. Night Moves may be a shaggy version of Chinatown in many ways, but there’s no denying it looks just as good.
(3/21/2025)
