It isn’t a question of whether Sergeant Tom Valens (David Janssen) killed Dr. James Ruston (Donald Curtis). It’s a question of whether he killed him in self-defense and whether Buzz Kulik’s Warning Shot is the type of film that can be trusted or the type to show a gun in Dr. Ruston’s hand, only to reveal later that it was all in Valens’ head. The shot was subjective, and Dr. Ruston was really unarmed.
Because, if the film is playing things straight, it’s very easy to find out for certain. Roll back the tape and Ruston is clearly holding a gun, but why Valens is so confident he was armed, when he can’t rewind, and no gun is found at the crime scene is a question Mann Rubin’s screenplay never presses.
It’s the truth, though. You’d think some shadow of a doubt would creep into Valen’s mind eventually, especially since everyone else seems pretty convinced that Valens must’ve read the scene wrong. Maybe he thought Ruston had a gun, but guns don’t just disappear… or do they?
In many ways, Warning Shot feels like a glorified episode of a ’60s police procedural (and, according to film historian/filmmaker, Steve Mitchell, and film historian, Howard S. Berger, in their commentary, Warning Shot was originally conceived as a TV movie before the violence led to it being treated as a feature).
After some court scenes, that see Valens get hit with manslaughter charges, Valens has no choice but to dig into Ruston’s character himself and try to figure out what happened to the missing firearm.
Those watching Warning Shot for any particular actor other than Janssen (who at the time was starring in the hit TV series, The Fugitive) are bound to be disappointed, as none of the others really get more than one or two scenes individually. Collectively, though, the film is a who’s who of famous faces, from Walter Pidgeon (sporting a cane with a dog’s head handle) to Joan Collins (pre-Dynasty). Lillian Gish gets one of the better supporting roles, as the last person to see Dr. Ruston alive, and Eleanor Parker makes a case for why she would’ve made a great Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate with her performance as Dr. Ruston’s widow.
Whether Valens’ story is the story that needed to be told is debatable. Even in the film the reason Valens was approaching Dr. Ruston is because he was meant to be catching a psycho killer, yet after Ruston’s death the psycho killer is forgotten, as all precedence is put on proving Valens’ innocence. There are also some moments that stretch believability, like a fight scene where Valens gets beatdown by four guys in tucked in shirts, yet the fight choreography is completely unconvincing or at least badly edited so that instead of hiding the fact that the guy is punching the wall and not Valens’ face it becomes glaringly obvious. There’s also this weird phenomenon where no one recognizes Valens. Here are people who knew Ruston and would likely be following the story on TV or in the paper yet, somehow, they’ve never seen a picture of Valens, or even (in some instances) heard his name before, so that he can question them freely. It’s a contrivance and the film isn’t without flaws, but that isn’t to say it’s wholly unentertaining.
Warning Shot is available on Blu-ray starting January 10th from Kino Lorber.
0 Commentaires