We don’t see the murder. Director and writer James Bridges apparently filmed one, and it was part of the negative test screenings that forced him to re-edit and structurally rearrange Mike’s Murder (1984) before its release. The original intention with Mike’s Murder was a film that was subjective with dream sequences and flashbacks; what was edited and released was chronological and straight-forward. We see the aftermath of a murder, or rather the main character Betty Parish (played by Debra Winger) does. More than that, this is an unusual 1980s neo-noir in that there is no catharsis.
Betty is a bank teller who falls in love with a tennis instructor named Mike (Mark Keyloun) that she occasionally sees every few months; she has fallen for him, despite his inconsistencies, and his growing paranoia, strung out dealing drugs. Winger’s character is not a private detective. When she’s told about Mike’s murder, she asks questions because she wants to know more, but also to understand a person she is realising that she barely knew. Intriguingly, the film takes the perspective of somebody affected by a murder, not with the catharsis of solving or avenging it as is often the case with Hollywood movies. There is no catharsis here, and Mike’s Murder is a downer 1970s noir transplanted into the 1980s rather anything slick or neon.
Reminiscent of a Joan Didion novel, Mike’s Murder is a great Los Angeles movie. Characters drive around the city, often being picked up, or dropped off people. Time is taken with how people get around. The narrative track splits to follow both Betty digging around the details of Mike’s death and Mike’s associate, Pete (Darrell Larson), now on the run from a drug syndicate they ripped off. The film is beautifully shot and situates itself across apartment blocks, restaurants and diners, tennis courts and expansive driveways to mansions. Winger grounds the film in a sense of realism, alongside its take on a drug-related murder. From what you can read about online, Bridges based the story on an associate who fell into a similar spiral of drug use and small-time dealing, someone known to him and his friends including actor Paul Winfield whose great supporting role seems to reflect some of his own experiences with a lover killed. The connection to a real experience accounts for its perspective.
Even within the climax, which falls into a quasi-slasher thriller moment, there’s something dark and unresolved here. That people can drop into your life, make an impression and then can be taken out by unseen forces. “It could have been anyone.”
Recommended.
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