“Extreme Limit”, Robert Forster of glory – Liberation

2023-04-16 12:16:00

Genius erased from the B series, the American actor shines by playing a real-fake taxi driver who works for a bookmaker.

There are dozens like that. Actors on whom we hardly turn around, whom we see passing four, five, six times in films themselves quite discreet, wondering what they are doing there. Before realizing that they have all the qualities of giants. Of these, the best, the greatest of all is undoubtedly Robert Forster. Series B convict (The Incredible Alligator, Vigilante, Delta Force) whose weary phlegm, ordinary coolness earned him the admiration of the fiercest strippers – including David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino who both offered him tailor-made roles in Mulholland Drive et Jacky Brown, respectively. But to see Robert Forster in all his splendid restraint, in all his confused charm, it will be necessary to turn to extreme limit (Walking the Edge in VO).

Pure exploitation product which starts as it should with a thundering generic disco-funk, Los Angeles bathed in a mauve-passion twilight and an innocent family threatened by a gang of scoundrels (among whom we will immediately recognize the dreadful Joe Spinell) , before the painting turns to carnage. Forster plays real-fake taxi driver Jason “Jazz” Walk, who mostly spends his time collecting gambling debts for a bookmaker. And that day, nothing goes: Jazz is humiliated by his boss, finds his girlfriend in bed with another, and his last client, survivor of the aforementioned massacre, treats him as less than nothing after she has knocked out three guys behind his back.

In short, Jazz is exhausted but we are in Los Angeles, not in New York and Forster is not De Niro. No question of shaving his head and shooting everything that moves: Jazz crosses the film shrugging his shoulders, his face frozen in a chapped, incredulous smile, observing everything and everyone with the same look, all gently and wearily mixed. At the start ofExtreme Limit, the bookmaker he works for says to him: “You’re a good guy but nobody cares about good guys.” This sentence alone sums up the erased genius of Robert Forster. The greatest American actor you’ve ever taken the time to look back on.

Extreme Limit Norbert Meisel on DVD and Blu-ray, collection Midnight Movies (Carlotta).