Eureka (1983) YIFY - Download Movie TORRENT

Of the Nicolas Roeg films I've seen thus far "Eureka" is in many ways the most conventional. Probably this is due to its being based on real-life events, to wit, the horrific murder in his palatial house of a powerful and super-wealthy man just as the Second World War is nearing its close.Before we get to that, there's an eerie, atmospheric prologue set in the Yukon twenty years earlier where Gene Hackman's Jack McCann character achieved his one goal in life, to strike gold and become rich beyond his wildest dreams. Fast forward those twenty years and he's married to his now dissolute wife, Jane Lapotaire with an impulsive adult daughter, played by Theresa Russell, waited on hand and foot, living the life of luxury on his own private island in the Bahamas named Eureka after the word he uttered when making his lucky strike.But of course, great wealth doesn't guarantee great happiness and so Jack's peace of mind is beset on two fronts. Firstly his impressionable daughter has fallen in with a handsome, libertine go-getter, Rutger Hauer's titled Frenchman Claude van Horn. Jack thinks Claude is literally a gold-digger and is provoked to extreme rage and violence against him when he learns the couple have secretly married. His other concern is that he's being pressurised by his up till now trusted business partner who's now in tow to a shady mobster who wants to open up Eureka to gambling, like a second Cuba.How this self-made man confronts head-on both of these problems and the disastrous consequencies which follow, determines the outcome of the movie, culminating in his horrific killing and the subsequent trial of van Horn, the verdict coincidentally falling due on the day the war actually ends.Like I said, this Roeg film is perhaps easier to follow than others in his catalogue, but naturally he throws in a few curve-balls along the way and elsewhere demonstrates his undoubted directorial bravura. The depictions of sex and violence are graphic, especially the drunken orgy scene masterminded by van Horn and the nightmarish slaying of McCann in his own bed but these are contrasted with the opulent depiction of the trappings of wealth and the matter-of-fact gravity of the extended courtroom trial.I personally felt that rather like McCann himself, the film peaks at the moment he hits the motherlode, in a remarkably staged scene with McCann literally awash in his new wealth. There are strong performances by Hackman, and Hauer, in particular with Joe Pesci warming up on the sidelines for his future gangster roles under the direction of Scorcese.Yes, the film is uneven with occasionally overripe dialogue and some confusing plot-shifts but it certainly works as a study of greed, power and the corruption of wealth.Perhaps the moral here is that it's better just to let the rainbow fade rather than chase the pot of gold you imagine is at the end of it.

Despite intermittent evidence of Roeg's usual quality, this film can be seen as the beginning of his decline: it's interesting, certainly ambitious but, ultimately, unsatisfying. Surprisingly enough, it's not as cryptic as the director's earlier work though still not for all tastes (particularly given an irrelevant voodoo dance sequence involving a snake-infested orgy). The script is by ex-film critic Paul Mayersberg who had already written THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976) for Roeg. The film, which could comfortably be divided into three parts, is aided by a plethora of talent both in front - Gene Hackman, Theresa Russell, Rutger Hauer, Jane Lapotaire, Ed Lauter, Mickey Rourke, Joe Pesci and Joe Spinell (a bit part as a thug) - and behind the camera (cinematographer Alex Thompson and composer Stanley Myers).The first part, in which Hackman strikes it rich, is the best with two scenes that are particularly memorable: a despairing prospector blowing his head off in front of Hackman and, then, when the latter discovers the gold mine - an almost mystical sequence; however, one still has to contend with Helena Kallianotes' eccentric performance as a fortune teller/whore who befriends Hackman. The second part, in which we see Hackman twenty years on as a tycoon with a family - all-powerful but emotionally void: this section creates some added tension with Hackman's clashes with playboy Hauer (who marries his daughter, Russell, without her father's consent) and unscrupulous business partners Pesci and Rourke, and culminates with his violent death (quite a graphic sequence, occurring about 80 minutes into the 130-minute picture!) at the hands of the latters' thugs. The third and final part, then, involving Hauer's trial for Hackman's murder is the least compelling - given the latter's obvious absence, but also the silly contrivances which dominate this section (and particularly the preposterous scene of Russell's hysterics on the witness stand, with Hauer acting as his own defense attorney!).EUREKA was shot in 1981 but the company that financed it couldn't make head or tail of it and decided to shelve the film; eventually, it was released in the U.K. in 1983 (I own a copy of the "Movies & Video" magazine from that time, which carries a reasonably favorable review of the film) and, according to "Leonard Maltin's Film Guide", didn't open in the U.S. until 1985!

Eureka

1983

Action / Drama / Thriller

Eureka

1983

Action / Drama / Thriller

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EUREKA (Nicolas Roeg, 1983) **1/2

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