NOTE: No actual juggling takes place in this movie
Halle Berry is back on the big screen starring in and producing the long-delayed thriller Kidnap. The film sees Berry playing a mother whose son is snatched right before her very eyes while playing at a local park, leading to a pulsating action thrill ride.
The film is a visceral nightmare and will almost certainly ring true to any parent who watches it, all of whom would do anything and everything in their power to save their own child. Kidnap’s plot is sadly timeless and calls to mind another such thriller, Night of the Juggler which, like Berry’s film, is a stirring demonstration of the courage and determination that can be summoned from the power of a parent’s love for their child.
In 1980’s Night of the Juggler, ex-New York City cop Sean Boyd (James Brolin) is walking his daughter Kathy (Abby Bluestone) to summer school through Central Park. Because it’s her birthday, Sean agrees to only walk her halfway. As soon as she’s away from her father Kathy is snatched up by the unhinged Gus Stolic (Cliff Gorman), who mistakes the girl for the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Witnessing the event take place in front of his eyes, Sean immediately chases after Gus who manages to escape with Kathy, leading the ex-cop turned desperate father through a manic chase all over 1980s New York in an effort to get his daughter back.
The thing which stands out the most about Night of the Juggler is the state of the New York in the late-70s/early-80s. Filmed at the start of the Ed Koch era, the New York in Night of the Juggler is one full of thugs, pimps and prostitutes galore. It’s the era where peep shows populated Broadway (in fact one of the movie’s key sequences takes place in such an establishment) and the most horrendous of crimes could happen in the most populated areas. The way the film presents the city as a true jungle where street gangs nearly overpower policemen shows a land where the concept of survival of the fittest never rang more true. However Night of the Juggler doesn’t just exist as a showcase of what the idealized city had turned into; it also attempts to inject some social commentary in the process through the motivations of its villain. As Gus explains to a frightened Kathy, his Bronx-born father was a prosperous businessman who lost everything as a result of what had happened to the community. As his son, Gus inherited his father’s financial problems, including an apartment building sitting in the middle of the disaster-ridden Bronx of the day, which had become worth nothing, prompting him to hatch a kidnapping plot involving the daughter of the man he believed responsible for the state of his life. In telling Gus’s story, Night of the Juggler doesn’t attempt to show him sympathy, but it does try to understand him and his place in life; a place which also belonged to many others who once called The Bronx home.
In the midst of all the outright sleaze and exploitiveness that couldn’t help but show itself throughout Night of the Juggler as a result of the environment it took place in, there’s an emotionally gripping tale of a father’s love for his child. It’s incredibly powerful and hypnotic to watch one man almost single-handedly take on one obstacle after another in an effort to save the one thing the city can’t tarnish. One of the biggest obstacles is Sean’s own past which shows up after he is arrested after an attempt to save Kathy. He is promptly hauled into police headquarters and confronted by the volatile Sgt. Barnes (Dan Hedaya); Sean’s ex-partner who he turned in on charges of corruption, leading to the ending of the latter’s career in law enforcement. The reunion begins with Barnes taking his ex-partner into a room where he and his fists exact revenge and ending with Sean escaping as Barnes chases him through the streets of New York with a shotgun. In many ways, Sean isn’t just taking on his daughter’s kidnapper, but rather the city itself along with all of its unending apathy and despair. However Sean’s strength and relentless ability to charge on echoes the strength of the people of the city, who for so long called New York their home and who continued to do so, in spite of what the big apple had become.
Although Brolin himself stated he wasn’t as pleased with the finished version of Night of the Juggler as he wanted to be, the actor is on fire throughout the film. The way he brings forward both Sean’s desperation and determination and displays them side by side, shows how undervalued of an actor he always was. Gorman makes for a solid heavy, bringing forth the source of Gus’s frustrations as the kind of individual the city has all but tried to pretend never existed. Castellano has some humorous moments as the film’s comic relief which gives Night of the Juggler some surprising, yet welcome moments of levity, while also filling the no-nonsense police detective role just right. In their film debuts, Bluestone and Julie Carmen (as a helpful and sympathetic office worker) add beauty and strength to the male-dominated film, while brief turns by Hedaya and Mandy Patinkin (as a wildly adventurous cab driver) provide Night of the Juggler a real white-knuckle energy.
Production problems were present throughout the making of Night of the Juggler, beginning with a foot injury Brolin sustained as the result of a stunt gone bad, during which time the film switched directors and was hit with a lawsuit. Today Night of the Juggler’s existence as a cult cult classic (the film is mroe or less only available on YouTube) and a piece of sleazy entertainment is sadly here to stay. The first time I ever saw the film was at a special screening at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin where the theater showed a print on loan from Quentin Tarantino’s personal collection. Although I quickly recognized and delighted in the film’s sleaze factor and B-movie thrills, it wasn’t what I ended up taking away from the experience in the end. Instead, it was Night of the Juggler’s searing testament to the love of a parent for their child and the limitless lengths which will be taken in order to protect them.
