Predator (1987)

Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Dutch, the head of an elite mercenary extraction squad who are sent deep into the Latin American jungle to “rescue” some high-level US diplomats.  And they are quite the crew also including CIA operative Dillon played by Carl Weathers, Mac played by Bill Duke, Billy played by Sonny Landham, and Blaine played by Jesse “The Mind” Ventura – they have all of the fire-power they could possibly need plus a cast including TWO future governors, so what could go wrong?  

Well there happens to be a special visitor from WAY out of town who’s on the hunt….for human skulls. :o And this visitor has his own firepower, including laser guns which can dismember his victims along with cloaking technology allowing him to sneak up on them among the trees.  What results is ONE hell of a battle between Man AND Alien directed by genre master John McTiernan who would go on to direct Die Hard the following year! 

Host: Geoff Gershon

Editors: Geoff and Ella Gershon

Producer: Marlene Gershon

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Transcript

PREDATOR - 1987

Directed by John McTiernan 

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Elpidia Carrillo, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Kevin Peter Hall, and Shane Black

Genre: Sci-Fi Horror Action Adventure (Audio clip)

This was a fun rewatch - having now seen this so many times, I was determined to try to observe the story more from the Predator's perspective and it's interesting to say the least. He's basically a mid-tier hunter who apparently wants to sleep at night for the most part and as the story progresses, his skills not only wear down a bit from kicking back too much between hunts polishing his skulls and imbibing some brew (or whatever passes for beer on his home planet)....but he apparently starts to loses his nerve a bit as he sees more of this hulking human with the strange accent in action. Pred (as I'll nickname him) clearly has the drop on this giant sweaty human SEVERAL times in the final third of this movie but it's clear that he's just uncomfortable taking that kill-shot - he just can't bring himself to lazer off the dude's arm or blaze a hole through his chest cavity like he did for the others. MAYBE he even thinks he's found a friend? 🤔 

Pred has SEEN this human in action - just observing from up in the trees - as he leads a small band of fellow humans to take down a larger group of humans. And this human is not only freakishly strong but he's clever too - he's different from the other big humans: he's not just staring into the trees all stoic-like clutching the rock hanging from his neck OR strutting around chewing some disgusting black goo while he just aims a giant gun even bigger than him. Nope THIS particular human - let's call him "Choppa" as that's the word we hear him saying the most - he puts in the work, lifting up cars to use them as a delivery devices for explosives and he doesn't just kill folks throwing a blade in their hearts but he then says quippy things immediately after like "Stick around!" (Audio clip) 

It feels like by the end of this story that Pred is positively SMITTEN with Choppa - he's just kicking back at night enjoying his skulls and dammit if Choppa doesn't wake him up screaming and he's created a HUGE fire no less! Maybe this is Choppa's way of initiating a friendship so he indulges him to check it out...but when he gets there, Choppa just starts throwing spears at him. :o Pred still lets his guard down - he takes off his weaponry and shows him his face no less - he only really wants to spar, rough-house...maybe he's even trying to find the right way to ask Choppa if they can go hunting together sometime. But alas by this point, Pred has just killed too many of Choppa's friends...it's too late for friendship and he even lets Choppa get the drop on him....literally as he drops a tree RIGHT on top off of him! Pred is demoralized at this point and he's dying as well so he responds by doing the ONE thing he can still do in that state: blow them both up. (Audio clip) 

And since that human was played by PEAK Arnold Schwarzenegger in probably his first major role where he's allowed to be intelligent, can you blame him?? :) Ah-nold gives a genuinely good, convincing action performance here (despite a couple of forced quips) and it helps that he has two extremely charismatic actors playing point for him...Bill Duke and Carl Weathers. I kinda wish all three of them could have made it to the end of this story but I get why director John McTiernan (along with screenwriter brothers Jim and John Thomas) went The Dirty Dozen route with this story....it HAS to end up mano-a-mano and we have to see those ground-breaking creature effects from Stan Winston fully fleshed out. The Predator remains an impressively freakish creation which sadly has never been utilized in a film THIS good since then. And we also can't forget Alan Silvestri's muscular yet strangely hummable score. (Audio clip) Just all of the elements were just in place to take such a simple concept and turn it into a very satisfying "Rumble in the Jungle" between man and alien....even though I suspect that alien might have just been looking for friendship. 😥

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film): 

Now about that hummable score from Silvestri, it’s damn good but it’s still not the overall music highlight of the film.  No that would actually be a fun, introductory sequence early on when we get to just briefly meet each of Arnold’s entire extraction crew on their helicopter ride to the fictional Latin American country of Valverdes – it’s late at night and inside the copter, every one is covered with a red light as they just kind of each chill out with each other before they’re dropped in the jungle.  Arnold’s character is named Dutch and he’s And suddenly told by Dillon played by Carl Weathers that they are the ONLY group being sent out there…which just provokes a knowing laugh from Dutch.  We see Jesse Ventura’s Blain proudly chomping on his chewing tobacco, aghast that no one else wants to share….also bragging that it will make him a “sexual tyrannosaurus.”  Hawkins played by Shane Black is simply reading a comic book….just a few snippets of character-building giving us JUST enough context for the kind of crew we will be following into the jungle soon enough.  

And the song playing over all of this, meant to convey a deceptively relaxed mood? Well it’s the 1956 smash pop hit, “Long Tall Sally” performed by the late, great rock music & R&B legend, Richard Wayne Penniman…..otherwise known to most as Little Richard.  The song itself is a high-energy up-tempo ditty driven by Richard’s thunderous piano playing with brass in the background – just a fun , boisterous song and a perfect mood setter for the insanity which will soon follow for our main characters. (Audio clip)

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film):

With this category, I’m going to take a route similar to my recent review for 1979’s Alien by giving a shout-out to a talented performer who might not have received the deserved credit for his contribution to this monster mash…..and that would be Kevin Peter Hall who actually plays the titular Predator.  Standing at 6 foot 9 right and being a pretty celebrated basketball player through college, he eventually decided to move to Los Angeles not long after graduation instead deciding to become an actor.  After some early sitcom work, he was hired in ’86 to play the Predator…..after an up-and-coming martial arts star named Jean Claude Van Damme was fired from the role.  

As opposed to his predecessor who wanted to show off his moves while in costume, Hall took a more naturalistic approach to the character…..playing him as a rugged biped out for the hunt who was nimble but mostly focused on being stealth with his movements.  He really does a fantastic job of portraying a stranger in a strange world who still carries a certain amount of confidence to be hunting on his own.  Wearing the EXTREMELY elaborate costume designed by Stan Winston in the middle of sweltering heat in the Mexican jungle during summer could not have been easy but by all accounts, Hall was a consummate professional on the set of a movie which would often get quite raucous thanks to some of the LARGE-sized personalities and bodies who would inhabit it.  Hall would also go on to play a different Predator in the sequel taking place in Los Angeles – seeing this figure now maneuver through an urban environment was definitely one of the highlights of that film.

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

In a movie loaded with just SO many sequences featuring high testosterone, the moment which always stood out to me the most features my man Bill Duke playing Mac about halfway through.  He has just witnessed the eponymous Predator gut his best friend in the jungle with a laser rifle from high up in the trees….the Predator briefly reveals flashes his eyes at Mac after he gets a visual read on where it’s located, then runs away.  Mac is incensed and starts firing indiscriminately in the Predator’s direction….first with his machine gun and THEN with the giant mini-gun that his now-dead comrade was carrying.  And while he’s firing, he’s screaming…..and then the rest of the crew join in alongside him to just shoot THEIR guns in the same general direction alongside him.  (Audio clip) What results is several minutes of handsomely shot and LOUD gunfire resulting in the deaths of dozens of trees…..and some gaping injuries to the Predator.  And this kind of sequence WAS a thing at this time in the ‘80’s – two years prior in Rambo: First Blood, we watched John Rambo just DESTROY the military base’s control room with his machine gun at the end….and the year before, we watched Ripley unleash hell with her grenade launcher on that hive of alien eggs. I don’t quite know why but this scene just GRABS me just like those two prior ones did - it just feels visceral and strangely satisfying to see our protagonist just unleashing his weapon in anger, even if the effort proves somewhat futile.  

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film): 

This is genuinely a close call as you could make a strong case that THIS was probably one of Arnold’s breakout movies – he’s not only great in the movie but he often grounds it when necessary.  However you could also easily see this as a true ensemble BEYOND Arnold’s character Dutch – this film doesn’t work nearly as well without Arnie but it works MUCH better thanks to the contributions of other actors including Duke, Weathers, Ventura, and Landham. (Audio clip) 

For me, the man who made this REALLY work was John McTiernan – for roughly a decade, McTiernan was one of THE premiere genre directors.  Predator was only the second film he directed just a year after his debut with Nomads, a supernatural thriller starring Pierce Brosnan which I honestly never finished.  But THIS film was just pure lightning in a bottle as it was a pretty troubled production with a slew of big personalities involved BESIDES the cast including one of my personal favorites, UBER-Producer Joel Silver who just earlier this same year had produced previous episode Lethal Weapon.  At the beginning of production, they didn’t really have a read on how the eponymous monster would be visualized NOR how the film would conclude – they ended up actually reshooting the last third of this film to make it into a more clearcut Man Vs. Beast battle.  Predator is a pretty large-scale action thriller with MINIMAL exposition – very little of what occurs on-screen is ever explained to the audience….it’s a true blue VISUAL experience and McTiernan’s approach was a big part of that in that he storyboards EVERYTHING in advance.  So at the end of the day, you had a relatively untested director taking on a big project with some big egos – with a story that was continuously evolving and being shot in some harsh conditions no less – and with all of that, he still ROSE to occasion thanks to his exhaustive focus on mapping out everything on-screen before well before it was to be shot.  

In retrospect, McTiernan disappointingly didn’t have quite the long-lasting directing career that many (myself included) expected him to have…..the last feature film directed by him was 2003’s kinda underrated Basic and since then, he has been mired within some significant legal trouble.  But you look this mini-run which kicked off his career - this, then previous episode Die Hard the next year, then The Hunt For Red October in 199o – I would put those three against any trio of films directed in succession by ANY genre filmmaker.  Just within a few years, McTiernan made his mark on films in general and for doing so starting with this gem, HE is the MVP.

Final Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Predator holds up as a strong action/horror film that even visually could easily look like it was coming out in 2022 – very little of it feels dated.  And let’s be real, you don’t need ME to tell you to watch it or watch it again……but just one piece of advice: if you’re putting it on for someone who is watching it for the first time, TRY to let them enjoy and maybe hold off on your own Arnie impression for most if not all of the runtime if you can…..and of course, GET TO THE CHOPPA!!! (Audio clip)

And that ends another HEAT-SEEKING review