The Yakuza ★★★
ROBERT Mitchum was one of Hollywood’s original hard men. Two stints in prison adds to that kind of reputation.
Despite sometimes looking like he didn’t give a damn about his chosen profession, the laconic Mitchum was a star for 30-odd years.
His under-stated but enigmatic acting style helped create two of cinema’s iconic characters – the preacher in 1955’s The Night of the Hunter and Max Cady in the original 1962 version of Cape Fear.
Mitchum’s characters may not have said much, but they always looked and sounded like real people.
One of his last notable performances was in the crime drama The Yakuza, released in 1974 and directed by Sydney Pollack.
It’s an engrossing but ultimately flawed film, examining the clash of two cultures but unable to balance the human elements of the story with the crime drama narrative.
Mitchum plays a retired police detective, Harry Kilmer, who is asked by an old friend to negotiate his daughter’s release after she is kidnapped by gangsters in Tokyo.
Kilmer and George Tanner (Brian Keith) were stationed in Japan as US Marine MPs during the post-WW2 occupation period and have retained links with the country ever since.
But, while Tanner’s links are at a business level, Kilmer has a deep, personal connection to a Japanese family with members who can help discuss Tanner’s problems with the Yakuza.
With one of Tanner’s henchmen in tow, Kilmer returns to Tokyo hoping to rescue Tanner’s daughter without jeopardising his own relationships.
While all the elements of the story are interesting, the film never manages to achieve a balance and settle on a pace that fully satisfies. You are left with many good scenes, but they don’t add up to a cohesive whole.
It’s at its best when examining the two cultural approaches to loyalty and duty, exemplified by the character of Ken, played by veteran Japanese actor Ken Takakura, who is forced to weigh up the ramifications of his personal debt to Kilmer with his loyalties to family and Yakuza.
Two great writers, Paul Schrader and Robert Towne, we’re involved in the script but it’s obvious that even they couldn’t deliver something fully satisfying.
Still, it’s a good Mitchum performance and an interesting film.
Watched on Apple TV.