Top 5... Film-makers I'd like to come out of retirement

This weekend is my parents' joint retirement party (it's a barbecue, so please could everybody hope for at least dry weather), so this week I'm taking a look at those makers of films that have decided not to make them any more, and which ones should come back and improve modern films.

5. Peter O'Toole

Even though O'Toole only announced his retirement three days ago, and he turns 80 in a month's time, I'm still including him on this list purely because I couldn't think of a fifth film-maker I'd like to come out of retirement. Yes, there are many who I would have liked to have come out of retirement some time ago, but to demand they do so now would be cruel in some states (85-year old Sidney Poitier) and downright impossible in others (Peter Falk). So I'm sorry Pete, but if you fancy having another pop at this acting lark, you're more than welcome. O'Toole is of course most famous for playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia and Prometheus, but I know him better as the soon departed king in Stardust, King Priam in Troy and as the creaking critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille. He does have the perfect voice for playing Disney bad guys or strict authoritarian elders, and vocal work can't be that taxing, so I feel the door should be left open, just in case he fancies another Pixar cameo.

Unforgiven

The first part of my double bill of Clint-Eastwood-directing-himself-and-Morgan-Freeman-in-a-supporting-role sees the American icon define the genre that not only made him the prolific star he is, but that he has almost singlehandedly kept alive since it's surge in popularity in the 60s and 70s; the western.

Unforgiven sees Eastwood as William Munny, a former hardened killer reformed by the love of a good women and the birth of his two children. With his wife dead and their herd of pigs stricken with fever, Munny accepts the offer from young upstart The Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) to kill two ruffians who cut up a whore after she laughed at one of them having a small penis. They team up with Munny's former partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and head out to the town of Big Whiskey, lorded over by Gene Hackman's occasionally violent 'Little' Bill Daggett, where other hired killers, including Richard Harris' English Bob, are also heading to claim the bounty.

The French Connection

The French Connection started an obsession of Hollywood’s with gritty cop thrillers continued with Serpico and Dirty Harry (both arguably owing their places upon the list to the French Connection). Deciding to portray more than just car chases and shoot-outs, instead including the mind-numbing mundanity of spending hours listening at a wire tap, staking out a suspect’s house and dismantling an entire car to its base components, as well as the gritty violence almost required to make an arrest distances this far from more modern-day blockbuster police movies such as Bad Boys or SWAT. It’s a wonder we’re not shown policemen filling out a mountain of paperwork. Not to say that the shoot-outs and car chases in the French Connection aren’t incredible, with the chase against a criminal-carrying overground train being both the highlight of the film and possibly the greatest car chase in movie history.

The greasy, bloodstained heart of the film is the star-making turn from Gene Hackman as obsessed detective ‘Popeye’ Doyle, unable to go out for a drink without seeing a table full of potential crims and kick-starting the plot of a film. Hackman is one of the greatest actors of his generation, and his leading roles began here, ably communicating the frustration and dogged determination of the case, the insanity brought about by cabin fever wire-tapping, the frustration at being outwitted by the men he’s chasing. The film also shows the parallels of the criminals living the high life, dining at 5-star restaurants, against the police tracking them dining on hotdogs and paper cups of coffee. This divide was more recently, and much less effectively, portrayed in Ridley Scott’s American Gangster.

If I had to pick a flaw with the film, it’s that police detective work seems to be based rather substantially on luck. Although it is through many, many hours of hard and committed work that most of the progress with the case occurs, a couple of major breakthroughs, including the inception of the case itself, transpire from fluke occurrences, be it the aforementioned sighting in a bar, or Doyle strolling along and coincidentally seeing a man he’s after. Also, the rather abrupt ending could have been softened a little, but its bleak starkness complies with the rest of the film.

Choose film 8/10