May 20, 1994
You know what – I had never seen MAVERICK until now. But look at these credits, man. Directed by Richard Donner (between LETHAL WEAPON 3 and ASSASSINS), written by William Goldman (BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, HEAT [1986]), shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (MCCABE & MRS. MILLER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, HEAVEN’S GATE, THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK), edited by Stuard Baird (DIE HARD 2, THE LAST BOYSCOUT) and Michael Kelly (CRIMEWAVE, BLACK EAGLE), production design by Thomas E. Sanders (BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA). Also I immediately wondered “why does this sound exactly like TOY STORY?” and realized that the score was by Randy Newman.
I would not say MAVERICK comes anywhere close to living up to the sum of its parts. But it’s fine. Pretty good for a while. The opening kinda reminded me of another ‘90s western-ish blockbuster sort of based on old TV shows, MASK OF ZORRO, and from me that’s a big compliment. Our hero Bret Maverick is introduced in the midst of a squabble, some guy named Angel (Alfred Molina, also in CABIN BOY, WHITE FANG 2: MYTH OF THE WHITE WOLF and REQUIEM APACHE that year) and his thugs leaving him on his horse in the middle of the desert, hands tied behind his back, noose around his neck, snake dumped in front of the horse to inspire movement.
I was not familiar with the TV show it’s based on, which aired from 1957 to 1962 in different incarnations, sometimes starring James Garner. I just I assumed since it’s a western that Maverick would be a gunfighter or sheriff, something like that. Yeah, at least in this version he excels at the gun business, but he identifies as a gambler. On a typical episode I guess he travels somewhere, makes some bets, I’m sure some sort of trouble happens in some of the episodes, maybe not all. Maybe sometimes he just has a good day and goes on with it, I wouldn’t know.
Here he’s played by Mel Gibson (between directorial projects THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE and BRAVEHEART), apparently left ambiguous so he can be interpreted either as the character James Garner played on the TV show or the son of the character James Garner played on the TV show. And he’s a member of the scoundrel community, hence his current predicament.
What we learn is that Maverick wants to enter the All River’s poker tournament, which takes place on a river boat in St. Louis in four days, but he’s three grand short of the $25,000 entrance fee, so he’s been going around trying to collect money people owe him or win it in poker games. We flash back to where he pisses off this Angel guy during a game at a saloon in Crystal River. He pretends to be a big goof, observes them long enough to point out all of their tells (movie gamblers are fucking supernatural at that shit), scares even legendary gunfighter Johnny Hardin (Max Perlich in his followup to CLIFFHANGER and the Alice in Chains “No Excuses” video) by how impossibly fast he pulls his gun out while explaining that he’s a gambler, not a gun fighter, so his chances would be “zero, absolutely non whatsoever” if they got into a duel. (It’s a funny performance.) He does seem to charm the flirtatious Annabelle Bransford (Jodie Foster between SOMMERSBY and NELL), but her thing is losing games and then hitting on the winner and stealing the money. He knows what she’s up to, of course, stops her and makes her do his laundry.
Gibson often plays smart asses, but it’s a slightly different, more comical twist on his action trickster persona. He runs with less confidence, wears a prissy “lucky shirt” he brags was made in France, and does an old fashioned “put up your dukes” type fighting stance that gets him laughed at. He gets called a “fancy man” by a guy who tries to whip him, but then he catches the end of the whip, punches the guy out and beats up his friends, as if acting like a dork is how he bluffs people. I think he really can fight, but later it turns out he hired those guys as part of his scam anyway.
He’s got some of the most lovable character actors as his old buddies who owe him money. Geoffrey Lewis (the year after ONLY THE STRONG) plays a banker named Eugene who can’t pay him yet. Graham Greene (THUNDERHEART) plays Joseph, a Native character who subverts western expectations. Maverick is traveling with Mrs. Bransford and Marshal Zane Cooper (James Garner around the time of The Rockford Files: I Still Love L.A. tv movie) by stagecoach, they get surrounded by Joseph’s unspecified tribe, and Maverick pretends to make a heroic sacrifice by surrendering to them to allow the other two passage.
Joseph just talks like Graham Greene, not the usual broken English stereotype. In fact, he complains about how they “get all dressed up in war paint and whoop around like idiots” for some Russian archduke (Paul L. Smith [POPEYE, CRIMEWAVE, THE PROTECTOR, RED SONJA, SONNY BOY, DESERT KICKBOXER] in his final theatrical feature) who pays them to see “the real west.” He says “He wants me to speak like they say in the books, y’know? ‘How, white man.’ You people are such assholes.” So they trick the archduke into paying to, he thinks, hunt an Indian (Maverick in warpaint) and then he has to bribe an agent from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Maverick without warpaint) to avoid getting busted for it.
At the beginning of the movie there’s what I believe is intended as a racist joke (?) where Maverick says in narration that when he met Angel he smelled trouble “…and refried beans.” I have to wonder if Gibson (or Donner?) suggested this line since he talks about fried rice to Jet Li in LETHAL WEAPON 4 – the ol’ “I will insult you by reducing you to one of the only two or three foods my ignorant ass knows about from your culture’s cuisine” move. But he’s better on indigenous issues, not just because one of his best friends is an Indian, but because he makes fun of Mrs. Bransford for her issues with them and makes a sarcastic comment about them “being on our land before we got here.” (Has Mel gone woke!?)
After various shenanigans, of course, Maverick makes it to the All River’s Poker Championship, hosted by Commodore Duvall (James Coburn following DEADFALL and SISTER ACT 2: BACK IN THE HABIT). For me this is where the movie sort of falls apart. Maybe I just didn’t know what I was in for. When it’s some charming dicks pulling scams on each other there is some entertainment there, but now we gotta somehow get invested in a montage of card playing. And as an extra hurdle it’s set to a modern-for-1994 country song (I guess it’s either Tracy Lawrence or Clint Black) that murders the timelessness they had going for almost 90 minutes. The movie culminates in a suspenseful final game that is somewhat effective, but of course it’s hard to forget this is just a made up game and that’s why against all odds every single player has an amazing hand and we’re supposed to pretend that this correlates to their skills, not luck, and that we don’t know for sure but hopefully Maverick is the best and therefore will have the best hand. At least there’s the subplot about his life-long attempts to manifest specific cards using his mind. That adds a little something to it, I admit. But I’d rather see him jump off things and punch guys in the climax, I guess.
One thing about this movie, somebody obviously tipped them off that the superior EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES would be released on the same day with a ton of weird cameos and bit parts in it. So they got desperate and crammed the fuckin thing full of country singers and famous actor walk-ons. The most obvious one is a scene with bank robbers played by Corey Feldman (who worked with Donner in THE GOONIES), Hal Ketchum (who I guess is a country singer) and Danny Glover. Elite deep cut movie buffs probly won’t even catch this but Glover was actually the actor who played Murtaugh in the movies LETHAL WEAPON 1, LETHAL WEAPON 2 and LETHAL WEAPON 3 by Richard Donner. So there’s a closeup of his eyes so you know he’s Danny Glover and then he pulls his handkerchief down to show his face like Lando in Jabba’s Palace and he and Mel Gibson look at each other for a long time and also he says “I’m too old for this shit.” Very hard to explain because it’s so obscure and so subtle almost no one will even notice it, but this is an in-joke.
Anyway, in the tournament you can see BLACULA himself, William Marshall, as well as William Smith, Doug McClure, Dan Hedaya and a bunch of other people that seemed familiar. And country singers including Waylon Jennings, Reba McEntire, Clint Black and Vince Gill are in the movie somewhere or other.
I did not love MAVERICK, but there’s plenty to like about it. The Crystal River set and various landscapes on cliffs and rivers are impressive. I assume most of them are real places they built, though I could be wrong, since I know digital mattes were starting to be used around that time. Anyway, it’s a lush production.
It’s got a little bit of action – always good to have some hanging-from-the-under-carriage-of-a-speeding-coach stunts. (The second unit director and stunt coordinator is Mic Rodgers, a Gibson stunt double who stuck with him for most of his career [and also directed UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE RETURN]). Gibson is pretty funny in it. It’s cool to see Garner in a big movie in that era, and he’s not exactly a co-lead or anything but it’s closer to that than a “this is the guy from the TV show” cameo.
It was a pretty big hit, the 15th biggest movie in the world in 1994, and still the 8th highest grossing western of all time according to the-numbers.com. (I guess it wasn’t as expensive as THE LONE RANGER or WILD WILD WEST, since both are above it and both considered massive flops. DJANGO UNCHAINED is #1.)
I’m pretty sure I’ll forget MAVERICK soon, but some people seem to remember it fondly, and I hold no ill will toward them.
May 22nd, 2024 at 8:59 am
I can imagine that this might grow on you on repeated viewing. It will probably never become a top favourite of yours, but it’s extremely entertaining and rewatchable, although yes, the tournament finale is sadly less entertaining than what came before.