hopper's late work deserves the accolades, but out of the blue, from his out of control middle period, is a pretty rough artifact. his directing style borrows loosely from roger corman, john cassavetes, bob rafelson, but out of the blue comes across as shouty and self absorbed, without the critical distance necessary for a full bodied outcome. it feels like hopper was trying way too hard to be on a radical edge, but ended up making something conservative in structure, pacing, characterisation because his judgement was clouded or lacked maturity. it's all pretty flat, except for the naturalism of hopper's performance which is outstanding, perhaps because the other actors are so wooden. there are strange b-grade editing choices - why use the slow motion crash footage in which dummies are really obvious, for example? maybe hopper didn't really have directorial ideas, and needed to get over himself a bit before he was able to concentrate on becoming the great character actor of his later years.
Review of Out of the Blue
