Sometimes, a movie like Fallen comes along that has an impressive cast with an fascinating premise, you just wonder what the hell went wrong.
Well, if you look at the time frame in which the movie was release, that can answer a lot of the questions. It was released in the middle of January 1998 which is usually where a lot of movies go to die. It also had the misfortune of being released in the aftermath of the juggernaut that was Titanic. The three hour plus movie was crushing it at the box office becoming the first movie to gross $1 billion.
So, while people were flocking to the theaters to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have sex in the back of a car or some poor schmuck whack his head on a propeller as he fell to his death, Fallen had pretty much fallen too in the post Silence of the Lambs/Se7en horror thriller genre. It had an amazing cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini (before his breakthrough the following year on The Sopranos) and supporting roles by actors such as Elias Koteas, Embeth Davidtz and Aida Turturro.
The movie was also written by Nicholas Kazan (son of legendary filmmaker Elia and father of Zoe) who had written such great crime thrillers as At Close Range and Reversal of Fortune. It was also directed by Gregory Hoblit, the TV director of gritty crime dramas as Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, who had just had a hit with the legal thriller Primal Fear in which we were introduced to a young actor named Edward Norton.
This movie is like the Murderer’s Row of a crime thriller with a twist at the end that is on par with other 1990 movies such as The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense. So, what happened? Well, I have a theory that movies with questionable titles are never a good sign. Just as theater actors never mention the name of MacBeth while they are performing it on stage, movies with a title like Fallen seem to be a bad sign. Just look at all the problems that would happen to the werewolf horror-comedy Cursed.
(Rumor even has it in 1993 Columbia Pictures attempted to make a throwaway line “That’s not gonna happen” in Clint Eastwood’s In the Line of Fire into a catchphrase by making a special movie trailer in which Eastwood looks to the camera saying the line. However, studio executives worried about the negative early buzz on Last Action Hero nixed the idea because if they had two big duds the summer of 1993, “That’s not gonna happen” would be used by critics ad nauseam.)
It could also be that Fallen was originally developed by Turner Pictures before Ted Turner sold the media empire to Time Warner and all the properties were turned over to Warner Bros. As a package deal, they continued with the production but maybe weren’t too impressed with the final deal so they deposited it in theaters during the winter of 1998 where it could easily come and go and studio executives could avoid any litigation over a contractual obligation.
The studio itself didn’t have a good year in 1997 despite a few hit like L.A. Confidential and Conspiracy Theory, there was also Batman & Robin, Father’s Day, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and of course The Postman. So, a movie like Fallen, well, fell through the cracks and tossed aside.
Yet, despite all the bad movies of 1997, Fallen could’ve been another saving grace as it piggy-backed on the success of Scream. Yet, that didn’t happen. Mainly because Fallen is more of a supernatural horror movie with Biblical themes rather than a teen slasher. Even though the movie focuses on a convicted killer, Edgar Reese (Koteas), it’s more of a cat and mouse game.
Reese, on death row, meets with Philadelphia Det. John Hobbes (Washington) shortly before his lethal execution. Hobbes helped lead the capture of Reese. The killer offers a handshake to Hobbes before going off in a monologue of Syrian Aramaic language. He remains in high spirits as he’s led into the chamber singing “Time is on My Side” by the Rolling Stones.
But we see something from a POV pass around as Reese is executed. It appears that Reese was actually possessed by Azazel, who is featured in Christian and Islamic traditions as a fallen angel who is believed to have introduced humans to forbidden knowledge. Azazel is able to jump from person to person and even to animals just by a simple touch as brushing by someone as they’re walking on the street.
While possessing random Philadelphia people, Azazel commits murder that Hobbes and his partner “Jonesy” (Goodman) notice similar to Reese’s. However their lieutenant, Stanton (Sutherland), believes they are just the work of a copycat and they continue to investigate the murders with the help of fellow detectives Lou (Gandolfini) and Tiffany (Turturro).
Hobbes’ investigation leads him to Gretta Milano (Davidtz) who’s father was also a police officer who committed suicide at an isolated cabin after being accused of similar killings to that of Reese. Gretta tells him of Azazel and the damage that he can do as a fallen angel who can’t be stopped.
Again, timing is everything. This movie was also released three months after the more successful The Devil’s Advocate, which was also released by Warner Bros. Maybe if this movie had been released later in 1998, it would’ve been more successful. In 1999, Washington would appear in The Bone Collector, which was a huge success despite its generic slasher-style plot.
What makes Fallen different is that the title has double meaning as Hobbes knows it’s going to be hard to prove Azazel is possessing people especially when he is forced to shoot a possessed man aiming a gun at him. Hobbes is also the “fallen” as those on the force suspect the shooting was unprovoked since Azazel can hop between bodies to give false statements to police.
The concept behind Fallen isn’t a new one. A lot of horror movies have used the idea of a soul or possessed spirit passing through bodies. In the 1987 sci-fi thriller The Hidden, it was an alien. Then, Wes Craven had the soul a killer pass through bodies and even a massage chair in Shocker. Then, you have The First Power, which was a modest success in 1990 in which famed character actor Jeff Kober, known for playing baddies, was the killer. And try as we might, we can’t forget the awful Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday which seemed to use the whole premise behind The Hidden as well as the poor Erin Gray being used for the most evil birth since Rosemary’s Baby.
Love him or hate him, Washington is one of those actors who can take any role really and make you at least want to watch him if the plot is so-so. Two of his best roles are probably his least famous as well. In 1996 Courage Under Fire, he played an Army lieutenant colonel secretly suffering from post-traumatic stress over his concerns he may have killed a friend and fellow officer by accident in friendly fire. At the same time, he’s investigating the Rashomon-style recounts of a helicopter pilot played by Meg Ryan who is believed to have died to save the rest of her crew.
Then, there was his role in Flight as an Atlanta-based airline pilot addicted to cocaine and alcohol but his true addiction is self-destruction. He received an Oscar nomination for this role even though many say he was robbed of one in Courage Under Fire. Flight reunited him with Goodman who played his drug dealer. Goodman is also one of those great actors who can handle any role very well and Kazan admits he wrote Jonesy specifically with Goodman in mind. Both Washington and Goodman have a good rapport with each other. Hopefully, we’ll see them both in more movies.
The main problem with Fallen is that it’s basically a B-movie that they tried to make into an A-list movie. Maybe it was because Washington turned down Se7en that he agreed to do this and then The Bone Collector. But with a budget of about $46 million (which would be twice as much today), you have to wonder where did all the money go aside from the big paychecks the actors received. Koteas gives such a good performance in only a handful of scenes that Hoblit had the other actors watch footage of his role so they could mimic him.
I think maybe the reason the movie didn’t do so well in theaters yet found its audience later on cable TV and the home video market is they were expecting a more action-paced movie. This is more of a character study as a man tries to do everything he can to stop a killer that really can’t be stopped as well as protect the lives of his brother, Art (Gabriel Casseus), and nephew, Sam (Michael J. Pagan).
I’m almost certain had Warner Bros. held out this movie releasing it a little later into 1998, it might have made more at the box office than the mere $25.2 million it did. It’s not a perfect movie and is rough at some parts. Yet it doesn’t insult your intelligence with deus ex machina tropes. Like The Sixth Sense and Usual Suspects, you have to pay attention for the twist at the end.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 