Murphy's Law

The 1986 Charles Bronson vehicle "Murphy's Law" came much too late to originate any cop movie cliches, but it does indulge an entire checklist of the subgenre's most oft-used hallmarks. Bronson plays street cop Jack Murphy, a Loose Cannon (check) who's recently been Demoralized by Divorce (check) and now Lives in Filth (check) in between Drunkenly Clocking In for his beat. Early on, we see him working a hostage situation at an airport, and the bullets fly freely -- he's the type to Shoot First and Ask Questions Later (check, again.)

But that only makes it easier for his enemies to Set Him Up (check) and Leave Him for Dead (check). He's mysteriously framed for the murder of his ex-wife and her new partner, leaving Murphy to Go on the Run and Fend for Himself (check). There's always a catch within these formulas, and in this case it's attached to Murphy's wrist: He escapes from his own precinct's jail, but not before he's handcuffed to a juvenile delinquent named Arabella (Kathleen Wilhoite), a young woman he'd arrested himself that same night. This means he now has a Precocious Young Sidekick to deal with (check).

Lest we forget, Murphy has a catchphrase that he deploys while he's getting the bad guys (check). Whenever someone mentions the Murphy's Law you already know about ("whatever can go wrong, will go wrong"), Bronson offers his own version: "Don't fuck with Jack Murphy."

The women in these Cannon-distributed Bronson movies are typically measured on one of two scales: by their sex appeal, or by how well they can match the brutality of the boys who surround them. Director J. Lee Thompson and screenwriter Gail Morgan Hickman seem to prefer the latter. The two female leads in "Murphy's" are the only characters capable of out-maneuvering Bronson in combat. His antagonizer is ex-con Joan Freeman (Carrie Snodgress), a ruthless sociopath (she's introduced joyously executing a criminal partner) who craves vengeance on Murphy (he once helped to put her behind bars). She plans to achieve that by framing Murphy for her own murders, which include numerous people close to him. In other words, Joan shoots the way he does: Without questions or remorse.

This binary extends to Arabella, the young woman that Murphy is handcuffed to. She's also defined by how well she plays this man's own game: When Murphy brutalizes her, she fights back in kind (escaping his first attempt at arresting her via a swift knee to the testicles), and has an ear for insults that can best his own punchlines (though her insults have an oddly juvenile spin to them; one example would be "dildo nose"). As the cliche demands, the pair's mutual vulgarity fosters an Unlikely Bond (check again), which allows them to do battle against Joan and a coterie of other mortal enemies (including mobsters and predatory marijuana traffickers). And it's their partnership that gives Murphy the redemptive power to Vanquish His Enemies (one last check, and that completes the list!).

Twilight Time's Blu-ray release of the feature includes their usual lineup of special features. There's an isolated score track (the music is by Marc Donahue and Valentine McCallun), a booklet featuring an essay by Julie Kirgo (she considers the performances of the two aforementioned women, as well as the film's evocative use of the Bradbury Building in its final set piece), and a theatrical trailer from the original release (which emphasizes all those afore-mentioned cliches).

Rounding out the package is an audio commentary where Nick Redman is joined by Wilhoite, who offers her memories of the production and answers his questions about the nature of the Cannon/Thompson/Bronson method. Both she and Snodgress played characters measured against Bronson's hardbodied cop, but their spirited performances outpace his own, thus giving a more inscrutable skew to the film's otherwise straightforward masculine energy. They do their best to rip that checklist up.

"Murphy's Law"
Blu-ray
$29.95
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