Night of the Juggler

The late 70s/early 80s saw a long slate of tawdry urban action dramas.  The genre was quite diverse.  During that period several films depicted concrete jungle wastelands as the stage upon which desperate urbanites fought back against the oppressions of poverty, corruption, racism, random violence.  Movies like FORT APACHE, THE BRONX tried to put us in the muck with weary cops and make us understand just how third world our own backyard had become.  Others with gang members as protagonists like THE WARRIORS were more stylized and cartoonish.  Perhaps taking a cue from 1974's DEATH WISH, and no doubt real life, FIGHTING BACK and the telefilm WE'RE FIGHTING BACK considered the Everyman whose own neighborhood had become a battleground, a place where you were afraid to travel, where even going out for a slice at the corner pizzeria became a hazard. 

1980's NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER considers a divorced ex-cop, now eking out a living as a truck driver, named Boyd (James Brolin) who lives in a rough neighborhood with his teenage daughter.  After parting with her as she walks to school, a creep (Cliff Gorman) snatches her, thinking she's actually the daughter of a wealthy local politico.  The event happens at just the right moment for Boyd to witness it and thus begins a relentless daylong pursuit that will take him through some of the roughest and sleaziest portions of Manhattan.  This would of course include a Times Square peep show.  Any gritty movie set in NYC in the '70s has to involve those sidewalk barkers and scantily (some non) clad dancers.

But the real shithole? The South Bronx, in all its rubble and defeat. The very definition of late twentieth century neglect.  Where our weirdo scumbag racist villain still lives in his childhood apartment despite the alarming decline around him: "It used to be a nice place, then all the niggers and Spics came in" he laments several times.   NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER was filmed entirely on location.  You can fake the physical devastation on a soundstage, but it's much harder to fake the vibe. And that special rotten feel, the palpable fear you got in the City in those days is perfectly captured in this movie.  For that reason alone it is worth something.  When Boyd finally tracks down his daughter and her captor, it's in an area of jaw dropping devastation.  A glaring failure of city government.

As a result perhaps, Boyd's mere presence inspires a gang of Puerto Ricans to taunt him. During a frantic getaway, a black female cab driver offers this summary: a white man showing his face in the South Bronx alerts the locals that he is either a debt collector or a cop.  But as Boyd has demonstrated throughout the movie, he is no one to be messed with.  He beats the hell out of the entire gang not once but twice.  Prior to that, he bests one of his former police force colleagues, the crazed Sergeant Barnes (a bug eyed, wild haired Dan Hedaya) who blames him for his shattered domestic life after Boyd wouldn't join him in a ring of corruption.  That Barnes is pretty crazy,  firing a shotgun at Boyd through the streets of Manhattan, even with hordes of bystanders at every corner.  That scene, by the way, is one of the dumbest and most improbable I can recall seeing in any movie.

There are too many improbabilities to list, honestly.  Like why the daughter just sits quietly in the kidnapper's car instead of struggling to get out after she's abducted.  Or the scene at the peep show.  Or Boyd's seemingly superhuman strength (and lack of any discernable fear). Or Mandy Patinkin as an Hispanic cabbie who joins in a wild car chase (where are the cops?) And speaking of... Richard Castellano, good ol' Clemenza from THE GODFATHER, is on hand as the busy Lieutenant who finds himself trading New York causticisms over the phone with the kidnapper.

Director Robert Butler had overseen many Disney comedies before this real 180 of a direction change, and his work is fair, nothing remarkable.  But the climax is very poorly lit and abrupt.