SILVER CITY, the title of John Sayles latest film, sounds like a pale reflection of El Dorado, the mythical city of gold that European sought way back when. They were obsessed with dreams of wealth beyond imagination and the power it would buy for them. With eyes on that prize, they failed to see the short work that the hostile deserts of the Southwest and the Amazon Basin, not to mention the hostile Native Americans that had been stirred up by intimations of colonization, were making of them and of their equally short-sighted men.
Exploitation is definitely on Sayles mind here, but instead of colonial explorers and the native population, he turns a jaundiced eye to the states of American politics, its free enterprise system, and its free press. Their symbiotic relationship is responsible for the films anti-hero, Dim Dickie Pilager, a nice enough guy, but theres a reason his college pals gave him his nickname. Hes a gubernatorial candidate in Colorado, even though his Senator father (TANNER 88s Michael Murphy) thinks hes a disaster. Still, with enough money from an industrialist (Kris Kristofferson) looking to turn Colorado into a ecological wasteland in order to turn a buck, a public more interested in buzz words that actual issues, and a press cowed into blandness, he has an excellent chance of being elected. With campaign manager Chuck Raven (Richard Dreyfuss) at the helm (think Karl Rove in all his cold-eyed Machiavellian glory), its a slam dunk.
The film opens with a bang as Dim Dickie Pilager (Chris Cooper) is attempting to look gubernatorial while filming a television spot. In the midst of the usual production problems and Dickies uncanny ability to muff a line, he hooks a dead body while simulating fly fishing to emphasize his love of nature. Annoyed but not unnerved, Raven goes into repair mode, viciously sweet-talking the local police into keeping it quiet and hiring a private detective to intimidate, within the strict limits of the law, the people he suspects might want to embarrass his candidate. Its a good plan, one involving seemingly perfect P.I., Danny OBrien (Danny Huston), a disgraced investigative reporter who gave up caring when his career went south. Unfortunately for everyone involved, especially Danny, the more he discovers from the people hes paid to confront, and about the people paying his salary from a muckraking webmaster (Tim Roth), the less apathetic he becomes about what the Pilager campaign stands for.
Sayles is not going for subtlety here. The characters names reek of what they do, as in Pillager, or harbingers of ill winds to come as in Raven, the brains behind. Dreyfus evokes Carl Rove in moniker and demeanor, with his delivery and lopsided sneer, while Coopers smirking adle-tongued candidate in fruitless search of a clue is a precise indictment of the current resident of the White House. Cooper plays the part with a sure sense of the broad comic timing necessary, whether reciting Dickies memorized lines with enough conviction so that it seems as though he actually understands what hes saying, or wrestling his unfocused thoughts into coherence when startled by the press without a script or Raven to prop him up. Huston, full of a bonhomie born of indifference and sadness born of of his sense of hoplessness, is a guilty pleasure. As Danny, a P.I. who is fairly competent professionally, but cant pick up clues in his personal life even when they are, literally, spelled out for him as writing on the wall. Hes the perfect metaphor for a public at large when it comes to the leaders it chooses.
As in all of Sayles films, the focus is on the fallout for the little guy. Where some people offer themselves up to the power brokers, willingly and with glee, even, the lucky ones blinded by the illusion that they will be part of the power structure, when in fact, they are like nothing so much as lambs to the slaughter for just a little taste of the power they can never hope to enjoy fully. There are the migrant workers whose lives are not part of the profit equation, and Dickies sister, Maddie (Daryl Hannah in another extraordinary, complex performance), whose happiness and even well-being was sacrificed on the altar of political expedience.
The more Danny digs to find out who the dead man is and how he came to be floating in a lake, the more all things lead right back to the shadowy folks behind the Pilagers. Its Karma as payback on a cosmic political scale. The clues to the mystery are obvious, everyone Danny visits has a big piece of the puzzle, from the mining engineer (Ralph Waite) who knows hes beaten, to Dannys reporter ex-girlfriend, who has chosen the easy route professionally and personally. Sayles peppers his script with those metaphorical names, not to mention situations, producing a satire that is not only pointed, but very angry. Heroes and villains are sharply defined, and if the nuance of some of his earlier work is missed, the passion of his message is as true and on point as ever.
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