In the mid-80s, Hal Ashby paid for his dissent and for having avoided submitting to the industry by chaining failure after failure. The filmmaker brimming with vitality from classics like 'Harold and Maude' or 'Welcome Mr. Chance' tried to come back in style with a desperate attempt to return to the big game of Hollywood. But 'Eight Million Ways to Die' became almost the grave of him. A failure that cost 18 million dollars and failed to raise one and a half in his entire commercial career.
The '70s were a creative feast for Hal Ashby. 'Last Duty', 'Harold and Maude', 'Shampoo' and 'Welcome Mr. Chance' placed the filmmaker at the top. In addition, Ashby already had the prestige of having won an Oscar: he won it for the production of the classic 'In the Heat of the Night', Norman Jewison's masterpiece. Unfortunately, the decade after that would not be so kind to the filmmaker.
'Eight million ways to Die' was, in 1986, Ashby's last attempt to return to playing among the greatest. The script, written by Oliver Stone and David Lee Henry based on Lawrence Block's novels, and a high-profile cast led by Jeff Bridges who was beginning to be the big star of the moment, pointed to a sure hit. Nothing could be further from the truth. The project had already suffered a lot of problems from the very day that Walter Hill and Nick Nolte were about to do it.
To be honest, the film may be one of Ashby's less fortunate works, but not solely because of the quality of the end result. Legal issues, a director being upset during production, and finally withdrawing from the project entirely after several disputes and away from the final cut are too many obstacles for a production that reflects that chaotic process at all times.
It is impossible to know what Ashby and co-writer Oliver Stone intended to do with the film, but it is easy to understand that this idea was never transferred to the screen. The editing is confusing, the characters never get anywhere, and they appear in the location that the scene requires as if by magic. In addition, the dialogues could have been replaced by improvisation, a detail that has always been highly rumored, never confirmed or denied. It doesn't take much to convince yourself that this is how it was when you saw the sequences between Arquette and Bridges or the relationship between the hero and the victim.
One of the key elements of these types of stories is the puzzle pieces. Details that we know will be vital to the resolution of the main issue, but in 'Eight Million Ways to Die' the hardest thing to locate is the puzzle itself. The hero's mission is unclear, as well as the role of the hero himself. His presentation, concise and somewhat clumsy, will end with a succession of light effects and voice-overs. We never know how much time passes, nor what happens to his relationships with those around him.
Rosanna Arquette and Andy Garcia do what they can with their two human topics. Garcia, as a villain with a ponytail, is more laughable than scary, and Arquette never seems to be enjoying his succession of appearances: there's no tone, no intention. The sudden mood swings of her character are not the fault of the actress. But of all the interpretations, the one that attracts the most attention is that of Bridges, especially when he uses his character to begin to outline the iconic Note from 'The Big Lebowski.
'Eight Million Ways to Die' is a really difficult movie. Next to it, 'Pure Vice' is an episode of 'Miami Vice'. Precisely the series created by Michael Mann seems the mirror in which the producers asked to reflect the film of an Ashby who never seems to have connected with what we are seeing.
Daughter of her time and closer to what Quentin Tarantino would be moving then ('Love at point blank range') than to what William Friedkin had embroidered on more than one occasion, 'Eight million ways to die' is a green dog. A deranged product that perhaps should not have seen the light of day, but which leaves isolated moments of great American cinema thanks to the level of staging and the charisma of a cast more lost than anyone.
Worst Hal Ashby movie? Well, it could be, but only because of the size of such an ambitious film noir Odyssey. Nor will it be remembered as a key title within its time as were 'To live and die in Los Angeles' or the highly vindicable 'Breathless' or 'There is no way out'. Actually, the film is one more example of the pompous thriller that Hollywood insisted on making at the time. 'Deadly Shot', by the great John Frankenheimer, or 'With His Own Law', by John Irvin, are two works that have a lot in common with Ashby's film. The difference is that the one that concerns us here was the product of an insurmountable chaos and the other two perhaps not so much.
No, 'Eight Million Ways to Die' is neither the best film by its director nor a sample of the best US noir of the 80s, but it is certainly not the worst film in the history of cinema, something that anyone could deduce if you look for the title on the famous tomato page. In the end, the stockings are loaded by the devil and they don't help anyone. If you want to see what the last attempt by a filmmaker who had made history to return to being what he was while an industry that had changed forever devoured him was like, this is your film. Hal Ashby would die two years later without reaching the age of 60.
