![]() 5 out of 5.I spent my teenage years watching Babylon 5, so Susan Ivanova and the actress that played her, Claudia Christian, was a big influence on me growing up. The main attraction amongast the extras on the dvd is an informative commentary by the director Jack Sholder. How about Ed O'Ross, Clu Gulager and William Boyett for starters.Īn excellent film, at last getting the recognition it deserves. There's quite a supporting cast to be found here too, ably supporting Nouri and MacLachlan. The film transcends its B-Movie roots with lovely little touches such as quite an emotional closing sequence and the witty, literate script. The actual true alien form is only briefly seen, but is very effective. It likes loud rock music, fast cars and hot women and sulks when it doesn't get it's own way. The concept of the alien is so funny, because it's so human. ![]() Nouri and MacLachlan certainly work very well together as the odd couple cops, with Beck's no nonsense approach rubbing up against Gallagher's analytical methodology. The film's success is partly due to the great sense of fun it engenders, partly due to the great cast assembled and partly because it just tells a cracking good story. This a great hidden treasure from that great cinematic decade, the 1980's. Nothing on earth in fact, as an alien is using human bodies as temporary hosts, for a spot of unique social climbing. When DeVries dies in the hospital, Gallagher's interest shifts to a terminal patient Jonathan Miller, who has seemingly just sat up and walked out of his deathbed.īeck has no idea what on earth is going on. Even close to death, DeVries seems of special interest to F.B.I Agent Lloyd Gallagher(Kyle MacLachlan), who joins the cop Harry Beck(Michael Nouri) who is covering the case. ![]() When Jack DeVries, a previously model citizen suddenly embarks on a spree of bank robberies and murders, the police hunt him down and after a long car chase he is badly burned when his car blows up. Well worth catching up with - but just pretend the astonishingly bad 1993 sequel, made with a completely different cast and crew, never happened. His audio commentary on the DVD is interesting too, dealing with his ongoing problems with Nouri throughout the shoot and original writer Jim Kouf's reasons for taking his name off the picture. Jack Sholder's direction is extremely good, not just in the excellent action scenes but in small character touches that add a lot and elevate it above the straight-to-video fodder of the day - it's a real movie movie, so much so that it's surprising he never broke into the mainstream. Nouri manages to make his in the dark cop convincingly human while the film plays well to MacLachlan's slightly alien 80s screen presence as he goes through the film like a man wearing a mask - which, in a way, he is - without ever being a complete blank. It's an engagingly silly idea that allows for plentiful action scenes and swipes at 80s excess, but it's also played with a commendably straight face and with better lead performances than usual for the genre. Not surprising considering it's all the same killer, a hedonistic alien who takes what it wants and kills anyone in its way, using human bodies like cars and just getting a new one when they get too damaged to move around in any more. A cops and robbers spin on the body snatchers genre, Michael Nouri's cop finds himself saddled with Kyle MacLachlan's strange FBI man in pursuit of seemingly ordinary law-abiding citizens who suddenly go off on killing rampages in stolen Ferraris and don't go down no matter how many bullets you pump into them. The Hidden was one of those terrific little movies that seem to come out of nowhere and seemed destined for cult status it's never quite attained when it came out in 1988. And right now, he's hiding out in your city." If something gets in his way, he kills it. "He sees something he wants, he steals it.
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