This new DVD edition of Brannigan was released by Kino Lorber on June 13.
One of the more interesting conversations surrounding The Mummy (certainly more interesting than the film itself) is about how the film fits into the career of Tom Cruise, one, if not the absolute last, of the last great American movie stars standing. If Cruise isn’t the best (that’s another argument altogether) he’s certainly the one with the strongest authorial stamp, and the one who went the longest as a self-sustaining brand. And yet, with The Mummy and Cruise’s involvement with the so-called “Dark Universe” of interrelated monster films that Universal is supposedly assembling, many see this is an indication that Cruise is throwing in the towel and capitulating to the new Hollywood order, where movie stars are more or less interchangeable and the emphasis is instead on shared universes and pre-existing IP.
Different actors take different approaches to culture’s tectonic shifts. Some, like Cruise and Will Smith, throw in their lot with the new kids on the block (as Smith did when he signed on for Suicide Squad and presumably a whole host of sequels and additional DC appearances) and ride it out. Others, like Robert Redford or Paul Newman, re-adjust and settle into a new phase as beloved character actors. And others, like Jack Nicholson or Sean Connery, see the writing on the wall and simply walk away from the industry altogether.
I thought about these various choices a lot while watching Brannigan, John Wayne’s second stab at a Dirty Harry-ian franchise after his first attempt, McQ, bombed. Brannigan, now available on home media thanks to Kino Lorber, was released in 1975, just four years before The Duke would pass away. And yet, so close to the very end of his career and life, Wayne was still swinging away and showcasing that unique charisma that turned him into one of America’s most well-known cinematic presences.
Wayne plays the titular Brannigan, a hard-headed Irish-American cop who is totally not Dirty Harry. That’s important to remember as you watch the film and notice that pretty much everything about him is basically the same as Dirty Harry. It’s totally different, you guys.
Anyway, Ha- sorry, Brannigan is called away from his duties cleaning up the streets of Chicago and sent to London to collect an American mobster (John “the mayor in Dirty Harry” Vernon) for extradition. But no sooner has Brannigan arrived in the city than the crook gets kidnapped by other, crookier crooks who hold the gangster for ransom. Brannigan is forced to work alongside the tightly wound London cops who abhor his cocksure nature and his insistence on carrying a firearm everywhere he goes.
For the most part, Brannigan is a fairly rote little potboiler of a procedural, never really establishing an identity of its own besides “it’s Dirty Harry shit, but with John Wayne this time.” Even the premise of the movie seems pulled from a Clint Eastwood joint, copying the fish-out-of-water set-up from Eastwood’s Coogan’s Bluff.
(Sidenote: Wayne co-opting Eastwood’s successful cop films in a [financially, anyways] unsuccessful bid to sustain his own star power is especially funny when you know that Eastwood actually contacted Wayne to express interest in collaborating on a Western together, a pitch which Wayne shot down on account of being offended by High Plains Drifter’s deconstruction of the genre. Lord knows what he would have made of Unforgiven.)
The ‘fish out of water’ trope is as old as cinema, but what’s odd is the film doesn’t do very much with it. Brannigan may be more rough and tumble than his British colleagues, but he largely gets along well with them and the case moves forward with aplomb. The cultural clashes are relatively minor, as if the film just doesn’t have the energy for anything beyond the bare bones procedural stuff.
There’s still plenty of things to recommend the film, especially if you are a fan of Wayne or this era of film. Vernon isn’t in the film nearly enough, but he’s clearly having fun as a truly loathsome individual. No one gave as good ‘scumbag’ as Vernon did, and he’s in fine form here.
The most successful performance and character in the film is Richard (don’t act like you didn’t just start humming the Jurassic Park theme) Attenborough as the lordly police chief working with Brannigan. Attenborough strikes nice chemistry with Wayne, and his endless reserve of stiff upper lip, even when the case starts to turn wacky, is the most consistent laugh-delivery in the film.
Director Douglas Hickox turns in mostly anonymous work, but the film does spark to life in a few places. Shot on location in London, Brannigan features a terrific car chase about midway through the film and, most famously, an epic pub fight towards the conclusion of the film.
(Sidenote: The pub fight earned this film a fan for life in Quentin Tarantino, who extolled the film’s virtues on the commentary track for Hot Fuzz.)
Hickox (who directed maybe my favorite Vincent Price film with the wickedly funny Theatre of Death) seems to spark to life whenever the film pushes towards the truly outlandish material. With some beautifully executed (natch) death trap sequences and some colorful criminals that enliven up the edges of the story, it begins to feel like Hickox is doodling in the margins of a story he’s not especially interested in telling.
That struggle for identity is perhaps the most interesting thing about Brannigan, just as Tom Cruise’s uncertain status is more interesting than the contents of some of his recent films. With Brannigan, you can feel a push-and-pull between Wayne’s swaggering stock hero and the more colorful, lively cinema that New Hollywood would very shortly usher in.
Brannigan ended up being Wayne’s last true traditional leading role. He would complete just two more films (The Shootist and Rooster Cogburn), and both films would function as goodbyes, the living embodiment of the American West closing the loop on his own legend and laying down his irons.
John Wayne stood for as long as he could against the changing tide of cinema (and the changing tide of not being a racist fuckstick, but that’s another conversation). Just as Brannigan was out of place within the film, Brannigan was out of step with the world, and survives now as merely a curiosity.
Previously available on Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray, Brannigan sets out to reach a wider audience with this new DVD edition from Kino Lorber.