Tag: crime

Code Name: Griffin, by Morgan Hannah MacDonald

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Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

A painfully clunky mix of spy and crime thrillers, this really needs to decide which it wants to be. Alexandria Kingston – code name Griffin, in case you hadn’t guessed – was an abused child, with the good fortune to be rescued and brought up by Margaret Murphy, the head of Irish organized crime in Boston. Though to avoid Alex being targeted for leverage, she was never acknowledged to be part of the family. As an adult, Alex joined the CIA and became a top field agent, jet-setting over the globe on demand. But when her foster mother suffers a stroke, she returns to Boston to find herself in the middle of a war for control of the turf. The rival Killeen clan, sensing an opportunity, pounce. It’s up to Alex and her brothers to defend the family – and then take the battle to the Killeens.

It’s all utterly implausible. Apparently, the CIA don’t bother doing any kind of background check on their employees, and have no problem recruiting and giving security clearance to people with close ties to organized crime. Alex, meanwhile, wobbles uncertainly between remarkable proficiency and incompetence, as necessary to the plot. She can reel in a member of the Killeen family by simply ordering a whisky, yet this top-notch spy inexplicably can’t form sentences when faced with her former childhood sweetheart. I admit her latter burbling is actually kinda endearing, but c’mon: have some consistency in your lead character. And, of course, the Murphys are an almost saintly crime family. By which I mean, they still do prostitution and human trafficking, they just do them the right way. Yeah. About that…

This still might have made for an interesting detour in an established series, if we were already fully convinced of her talents as a CIA operative, with an unrevealed past. Instead, we get barely a handful of pages at the beginning to establish her credentials, with no real context: she exists in a vacuum. There’s also a fondness for the kind of florid consumerist prose I thought had gone out of style with Bret Easton Ellis culminating in this remarkably superfluous description of Alex’s perfume: “The sensuous bottom notes of Sri Lankan sandalwood and Indonesian patchouli were mixed with high notes of Bulgarian rose and citrus to add a feminine touch that was irresistible to the opposite sex.” I swear, I literally rolled my eyes at “high notes of Bulgarian rose”.

I can’t knock the action too much. There is a steady stream of set-pieces throughout the book, and MacDonald does describe these with a clear eye, and no shortage of savagery. [You wonder what, exactly, Boston law enforcement are doing while all this is going on, since Alex does not mess around, and the pile of bodies left in her wake is considerable. It just needs to be in the service of a much better constructed plot.

Author: Morgan Hannah MacDonald
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 2 in the Griffin series.

Sólo quiero caminar

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★★
“Oceano’s quatro”

We watched this Spanish film, by coincidence, on the same night as Ocean’s 8, and the Hispanic entry came off as a poor imitation, even though it was made a decade earlier. A four-woman gang’s attempt to steal from Russian mobsters in Spain falls short, though only a single member of the crew is arrested. One of those who escape, Ana, marries Mexican drug-lord Felix (Yazpik), only to discover over the ensuing months, he’s an utterly abusive bastard. After she is pushed out of a car at high-speed, ending up in hospital, the other three, including her sister Aurora (Gil), the one who was caught, decided to take revenge on Felix. The plan is to start by stealing first his data then move on to his money, the loss of which will cause his new Korean partners to kill him. However, his right-hand man, Gabriel (Luna), begins to suspect the women – yet his qualms about Felix’s increasingly brutal ways help lead to increasingly split loyalties.

This isn’t as good as the above synopsis – or the German DVD sleeve on the right! – might make it sound. Instead, it’s a two hour-plus mess, with far too many scenes serving purposes that are either poorly explained or entirely non-existent. Aurora’s time in prison, for example, is virtually irrelevant, except for another scene showing what bastards men are [she is eventually released thanks to the provision of sexual favours to a corrupt judge; one of the themes here seems to be that men are degenerate sleazeballs]. And when the heist goes into motion, there’s absolutely no sense of structure, which would allow the audience to follow along. Why is that tunnel being dug? Does anyone know what’s going on? And then there are the “Koreans”, who are very clearly speaking Chinese. Not sure if this was casual racism, or just extremely sloppy film-making.

Despite the above critical evisceration, it’s not entirely without merit. There’s something of a Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese feel to this, not least in the conspicuous use of music to punctuate proceedings. That includes both usual Hispanic entries like Los Lobos, to entirely unexpected content, such as Patti Smith’s cover of the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter. Those inspirations are also reflected in Yanes’s unstinting eye for violence. The scene where Felix takes a hammer to the hands of a victim is nasty – yet necessary, bringing home beyond any shadow of doubt how evil he is. When things are in motion, Yanes seems to have a decent handle on how to shoot and edit things, and I liked most of the performances here as well, from a fairly well-known cast. It’s just a shame the script seems to consist of pages torn from a better movie, thrown up into the air and placed in random order. The struggle simply to follow what was happening, entirely sucked the life out of my initial enthusiasm for this.

Dir: Agustín Díaz Yanes
Star: Victoria Abril, Ariadna Gil, José María Yazpik, Diego Luna
a.k.a. Just Walking or Walking Vengeance

La querida del Centauro

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★★★
“This land is Yolanda…”

A sold enough entry, this benefits from a well-written script, but gets marks taken off for having a heroine who is rather too passive. Yolanda Acosta (Paleta) is sent to a higher security facility when she is recaptured, following an escape from her previous prison. It’s a mixed-gender facility (common in Mexico), and she comes to the attention of Benedictino Suárez (Zurita), a.k.a. “Centaur”, a  local crime boss who is also incarcerated. He falls hard for Yolanda – the title translates as “Centaur’s Woman” – and when his escape plan comes to fruition, offers to bring her along with him, to the ranch on which he’s hiding out. And that’s where the problems really start for Yolanda.

Firstly, her teenage daughter, Cristina, is on the outside, being taken care of by Yolanda’s sleazy step-mom., who is trying to sell off Cristina’s virginity. Second, is the ensuing power struggle between Centaur and a rival; using Cristina as leverage, Yolanda is coerced into going undercover at a local gym where they operate. Third? Local cop Gerardo Duarte (Brown) who wants to use Yolanda to arrest Centaur. Initially, he offers immunity to her, but eventually their relationship becomes more… personal. Finally, and by no means least: did I forget to mention Centaur is married? And his wife, Julia (de la Mora) does not take kindly to rivals; on her orders, one of Yolanda’s cellmates has an eye gouged out.

You have to feel for the heroine, whose chief concern is simply wanting the best for her daughter. But every time Yolanda tries to do the right thing, circumstances conspire to foil her, and she inevitably ends up mired in deeper trouble. It reaches almost Shakespearean level of tragedy, with death following in her wake, from prison to the ranch. Even Duarte ends up believed by most to be dead, though this is mostly for the benefit of his health. since there’s a mole inside the police department who is funneling information to the cartel. He’s left to carry on his investigation as a “ghost”, with the help of allies on the force, which complicates his efforts to help Yolanda and Cristina extricate themselves.

The performances are solid enough, and the characters here almost all occupy a morally grey middle-area. You may not endorse their actions, yet you can see why they decided there was a need for them. I was particularly impressed by de la Mora, whose portrayal of Julia puts her over as both smart and brutal. She knows her position as Centaur’s “legitimate” woman leads to both power and risk, and wields the former to mitigate the latter. She also keeps incriminating evidence about Centaur elsewhere, with a “dead woman’s switch” of regular text messages, and instructions to release it in the event the messages stop. That’s genius.

I’d like to have seen Yolanda be rather more active. Admittedly, her options are limited, especially once her daughter comes under the control of Centaur as well. However, she is set up in the prison as a character with no qualms about getting tough when necessary. Once she’s back on the outside, that physicality seems almost to evaporate for 30-odd episodes. When she goes undercover in the gym, she ends up having to face Lola, a relation of Centaur’s rival who has taken a dislike to Yolanda, in an unsanctioned match. Otherwise, she seems curiously reluctant to get her hands dirty, even in defense of Cristina, and with no shortage of firearms around, of which she could take advantage.

The rest of the show, however, is quite savage for a TV series; one death in particular is by head-shot of impressive nature, more befitting The Walking Dead. It ticks along quite nicely, though it’s never less than obvious whereabout we’re going to end up, more or less from the point Yolanda arrives on the ranch. We eventually get there, and the table is set for a second season. Not sure the sequel will exactly become a priority, yet I’ll leave this show on my Netflix watch-list for potential viewing.

Created by : Lina Uribe and Darío Vanegas
Star: Ludwika Paleta, Humberto Zurita, Michel Brown, Alexandra de la Mora

Women of Mafia

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★★★½
“Poles apart.”

This is new territory for me, being the first Polish film to qualify here. Turns out, director Vega has, largely single-handedly, driven a bit of a new wave of cinema from that country. Rather than the lugubrious dramas of Krzysztof Kieślowski, Vega is more like Guy Ritchie, making violent gangster flicks. In this case, the script came with direct input from the gangsters themselves, one of whom contacted Vega after being annoyed by their portrayal in a previous movie. Probably wisely, he opted to take their criticisms on board here…

It’s very much an ensemble piece, covering the stories of five different women. Though perhaps the film’s biggest issue is they’re not quite different enough, and for some time, I was sure that two were the same person! It starts with police officer Bela (Bołądź), being recruited to go undercover and infiltrate the Mokotowska organized crime gang, whose boss Padrino (Bogusław Linda) rules Warsaw with an iron fist. She becomes the lover of one of his top henchmen, known as Cieniu (Fabijański). When he eventually is arrested, his wife Anya (Warnke) and their nanny, Daria (Dygant), take on the mantle, and start working for Padrino instead.

It was Bela and Daria I conflated, initially thinking that Cieniu [which is Polish for “shadow” – never say we’re not educational here!] had got Bela a job in his house, after falling for her. I was eventually disavowed of that, not least because Daria has a real talent for the criminal world, in particular the brutality necessary to survive. This becomes particular apparent after the film’s most harrowing scene, where she takes her revenge on another gang who tried to muscle in on her drug-running business. By the time she’s done, all that’s left of them is their teeth. To be honest, Vega might have been better concentrating on her character, as Daria’s transition from mild-mannered nanny to bad-ass is awesome.

The rest of the stories and character arcs are more of a mixed bag. Bela largely vanishes from the film in the middle, which concentrated on Ania and Daria – the former is a real trophy wife, dumb as they come, and interested only in being able to spend money. There’s also Padrino’s daughter, known as “Futro” (Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz), who is the apple of her daddy’s eye – made apparent in a great scene where he praises her singing talent… and we then hear what she sounds like. That affection can be used against him, and when Futro’s drug use becomes a problem, Bela poses as a therapist to get into her father’s house that way. The fifth woman… I literally have no recollection of: Siekiera, played by Aleksandra Poplawska. Sorry. 

Even at 138 minutes long, the film is perhaps spread too thin: a mini series might have given the material more room to breathe. However, this is still an impressive, entertaining watch, and the time flies by. It’s slickly produced, and populated by figures who bear the shape of real-life – albeit perhaps in an exaggerated form. Vega has stated his intention is to make a trilogy, and the end certainly points that way. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Dir:Patryk Vega
Star: Olga Bołądź, Sebastian Fabijański, Katarzyna Warnke, Agnieszka Dygant
a.k.a. Kobiety Mafii

Miss Bala (2011)

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★★★
“Beauty (queen) and the beasts.”

Pageants and drug cartels may not seem like topics that combine, but in South and Central America, they’re perhaps closer than you’d think. El Chapo’s third wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, was a Mexican beauty queen. In 2013, the previous year’s winner of the “Sinaloa Woman” pageant, Maria Susana Flores, was killed in a clash with police. According to USA Today, she “died like a mobster’s moll, carrying an AK-47 assault rifle into a spray of gunfire from Mexican soldiers. Hit below the neck, she dropped into a dirt field and bled to death, her carotid artery severed.” And then there’s the (loose) inspiration for this story: Miss Mexico International 2009, Laura Zuniga, was stripped of the title after being detained on suspicion of drug and weapons violations, in circumstances best described as murky.

The heroine here, Laura Guerrero (Sigman), is portrayed as mostly innocent, or at least a victim of unfortunate circumstance rather than deliberate intent. An aspiring candidate for Miss Baja California (the film’s title puns off this, translating as “Miss Bullet”), her nightclub trip with a friend turns into a more of a nightmare, as it’s the scene of an assault by La Estrella cartel on the DEA officers there. Trying to find out if her friend survived gets her kidnapped by La Estrella’s leader, Lino (Hernández), who decides that Laura can be useful. With her father (Zaragoza) and kid brother held hostage, Laura has little option except to agree. Her tasks will include couriering money across the border, helping uncover a DEA infiltrator within the gang, and acting as a honey trap to ensnare General Duarte, a leading light in the government’s forces.

It certainly shines a harsh light on the whole “narco culture” south of the border, coming over as an uncomfortable mix of telenovela and action film. Which may be the point. The director brings a very static, almost disinterested style to proceedings. The camera sometimes sits fixed, either in front of or behind the characters as events unfold – it feels almost like a video-game occasionally. At other momets, its eye pans slowly across unfolding events, for example gliding down a hallway during a home invasion, or across a beach as an informant is executed. This offers a clinical contrast to the passionate family loyalty driving Laura: her father and brother come first, last and always. Unfortunately, Lino knows that, and it provides an easy key with which she can be manipulated.

Despite the unflattering portrayal, this managed to become Mexico’s official Academy Award candidate, though didn’t make the list of nominees. I’d prefer the heroine to have been more pro-active, rather than the reactive character she is for much of this, though again, I sense this is an entirely deliberate choice, reflecting the lack of control most of the Mexican people have over their fate in this lethal war. Perhaps this is something which will be addressed in the pending Hollywood remake, directed by Catherine Hardwicke – best known for the first Twilight film, though let’s try and not hold that against her – with Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez in the lead. But the previous track record of such remakes, suggests disappointment is probably more likely.

Dir: Gerardo Naranjo
Star: Stephanie Sigman, Noé Hernández, José Yenque, Javier Zaragoza

Queen of the South, season three

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★★★
“Turnabout is fair play”

We arrived here with Teresa Mendoza (Braga) having gunned down Don Epifanio, and made an implacable enemy of his estranged wife, Camila Vargas (Falcon). Epifanio had become the Governor of Sinaloa, a position Camila took over, using it to buttress her position at the top. She formed alliances on both sides to assist her further: notably General Cortez (Arias), who provided military muscle, and with DEA agent Alonzo Loya, to whom she fed intelligence about her rivals. However, Camila’s increasingly strained relationship with her teenage daughter ends up being used against her.

Meanwhile, Teresa is on the run after killing Epifanio, and is holed up in Malta for the first few episodes, before returning to try and set up shop in Arizona. This is a process fraught with difficulty, as she has not only to deal with La Comisión, the narco-committee who currently run things, but also corrupt local sheriff Jed Mayo (an amusingly thinly-disguised version of notorious actual Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio). Further problems ensure when her supplier, El Santo (Steven Bauer) summons her to Colombia in order to find and address a traitor, an encounter which leaves Teresa in need of a new supplier. Then, with the tables turned and the roles reversed, Camila being on the run, she contacts Teresa to make an offer of a replacement product source – in exchange for taking out Camila’s foe.

The first few episodes, when Teresa is faffing around in the Mediterranean are very disappointing. It feels more as if the cast and crew wanted a holiday somewhere pleasant, rather than it fitting into the gritty scenarios which were a strong point over the first two seasons. My other major complaint about this season is the feeble attempt to represent Phoenix and Arizona. As someone who lives there, I can assure you that Phoenix is nowhere near as… arboreal as is depicted here. Trees. Trees everywhere. It looks like the season was mostly filmed in Dallas, as for the first two series, which explains a lot and is rather irritating. Rather than fake it badly, come to sunny Arizona and film here, dammit!

Grumbling aside, it did improve in the second half, after the roles were reversed and it was Camila who was scrambling to find shelter from her enemies. It was a nice switch, and a harsh reminder for those living in the narco-universe, that you can’t trust anyone, no matter how close they may be to you. I was pleased to see a definitive resolution to the love-triangle between Teresa, James (Gadiot) and the boyfriend from her previous life, Guero. We also enjoyed the ongoing quirkiness of King George (Ryan O’Nan), though the final episode showed a VERY dark and vengeful side to his character. On the other hand, the guest appearances by rapper Snow Tha Product and her microbladed eyebrows… Well, we ended up derisively referring to her as “Miss Tha Product”.

It all finishes in a relatively tidy fashion, rather than the semi-cliffhanger which marked the end of series two, and it would be an adequate way to draw the line if that turns out to be the end of the show. The status of a fourth series is uncertain, a notable change from last time, where its renewal was announced before the season finale was broadcast. However, the rating for this series were only fractionally lower than the second set, and in the key 18-49 demographic it was USA Network’s most-watched renewal [as opposed to new programs]. I’d not be at all surprised to see Teresa return once more, and at least the strong nature of the second half bodes better for a fourth season than if it had gone in the other direction.

Star: Alice Braga, Veronica Falcon, Peter Gadiot, Yancey Arias

Deadly Silver Angels

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★★
“Hong Kong. A paradise of adventures. And a centre of scum…”

That’s the voice-over with which this starts, segueing into a bit of nude interpretive dance – well, semi-nude, the guy keeps his Y-fronts on, for which I am grateful – that has absolutely no relation to the rest of the film. At its core, this is a battle of triad versus triad: one overseen by Lau, the other by Fung. The former is assassinated, and his daughter, Angel (Yeung) takes over – she’s also keen to track down the perpetrators, with the most obvious beneficiary being Fung. But not so sure is Fung’s right-hand man, Jimmy Lee (Lee), who was there for the killing, and helps Angel’s investigation.

She also has her own team of henchwomen. Their numbers are doubled after a training session on the beach – complete with swimming caps, which makes the whole thing impossible to take seriously – intercut with random dirt-bike footage. Their practice (though quite what this is practice for, remains unclear) is interrupted by the five lady venoms, a girl gang who all have tattoos of birds on their backs. This has a bit of a mixed impact: an eagle is one thing, but an owl suggests more you’re a hardcore Harry Potter fan than a lethal lady. Anyway, after Angel takes on their leader in a beach brawl, the gang agree to join forces – though I would presume, the lady venoms draw the line at having to wear those swimming caps.

It’s all extremely fragmented, makes little sense and generates little interest. There are some cheap laughs to be had, such as the trip by Angel and her team to rescue a couple of women from a brothel. I mean, it’s called the Virgins’ Hell whorehouse, what exactly did you think was going on there? Or there’s the (entirely unauthorized, I strongly suspect) cover of Earth, Wind and Fire’s Boogie Wonderland which shows up for no apparent reason, with other music also stolen from better movies. But generally, this is the kind of film where most of the amusement value to be found has to be provided by the viewer, and it’s quite a lot of work.

There’s some slight interest in Angel being a gangster of honour e.g. a main bone of contention with the Fungs is their willingness to go into the burgeoning drug trade. But nicking plot elements from The Godfather does not make you a good film. Indeed, in this case, it’s likely more of an unwanted diversion from what you want to see, which is Angel and her crew kicking ass. The same goes for the “long-lost siblings” subplot, which comes out of nowhere near the end. Yeung carved herself a niche in the fairly esoteric “female group kung-fu” sub-genre of production during the first half of the eighties (this one dates from 1984), most notably Golden Queen’s Commando and Pink Force Commando. Those were, at least, mad enough to be entertaining. This? Not so much.

Dir: Cheung Chi Chiu
Star: Elsa Yeung, Eagle Lee, Ma Sha, Kong Do
a.k.a. 5 Lady Venoms a.k.a. Virago

Queen Pin

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★★½
“Thug life.”

Rhanni (Brown) falls for the notorious Florida drug-dealer Seven (Bird) hard – to the extent she’s prepared to overlook the fact he’s married. Instead, she becomes his best friend, and works alongside him in the pharmaceutical business. When he is gunned down by his rivals, Rhanni decides to take what she has learned and put it into practice. She assembles her team of loyal but brutal associates, and sets out to take over the town. This brings her unwanted attention from two groups. Firstly, the authorities, who are always seeking to snare one of her underlings, and get him to snitch on his boss. More lethally, there’s the mysterious “Genie”, the current top dog, whose face no-one has seen. Genie sends Lil’ Miller (Michele) to take out Rhanni, only for the hitwoman to throw her lot in with the intended target.

This is one of those where I am very clearly not the target audience, and I had to keep the closed captions on to figure out every second word – basically, the ones which weren’t “nigga”, sprinkled around here as frequently as a Valley Girl uses “like”. The only reason I mind, is because it gets pretty repetitive. Authentic? Possibly: I’m not exactly in a position to comment. The aim seems to be something like a distaff version of Scarface (or La Reina Del Sur, though this 2010 film pre-dates the TV series by a year), but the film just doesn’t have the budget to be able to deliver anything like its ambitions. As a result, those who are supposedly on the top of the heap, seems to spend a startling amount of time in cheap apartments and casual restaurants – the kind of place where, I kid you not, the shrimp alfredo arrives 30 seconds after the characters order it.

Credit this for being a little more thoughtful than I expected, with Rhanni eventually deciding to escape the thug life and start a record-label (no prizes for guessing how that goes), and a final moral that’s more effective than I expected. This might perhaps be because the director is a woman – something I wasn’t aware of, given a non-gender specific name, until the end credits where she is listed as playing a waitress. There’s definitely too much bad rap, playing almost permanently in the background, which does nothing to enhance the atmosphere, and at times the result feels more like a poverty-row music video than a genuine feature film. Despite this, I’m not averse to watching the sequel, which sees the return of Lil’ Miller – likely the most energetic and interesting character here.

But not Rhanni. For, in a creepy bit of art imitating life, Jokisha Brown was gunned down in an Atlanta parking lot in July 2016, a few months after her brother was shot dead at a Jacksonville strip-club. [Her ex-boyfriend was arrested the following April and is a “person of interest”, according to the most recent reports] That’s a level of method acting to which even Al Pacino wouldn’t go.

Dir: Gin X
Star: Jokisha “Dynasty” Brown, Krystal Michele, Jacoby “Beam” Freeman, Tearon “Nephew” Bird

Ocean’s 8

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★★★
“Diamonds are eight girls’ best friend.”

I have not seen any of the entries on the male side of the Ocean’s franchise, so can’t say how this compares. Maybe it would have helped – I sense there were efforts to tie them together, with a pic of George Clooney (whom I assume played the late brother of Bullock’s character). Maybe it would have hindered – even with my ignorance of the series, the heist movie we get here seems more than slightly familiar. The obvious touchstone here is the gender reversal of Ghostbusters, though while that was a reboot of the franchise, this is just another entry. Female-led, to be sure, but part of the universe, rather than writing over it. Perhaps that explains why this didn’t receive a fraction of the backlash; the lack of any significant, pre-existing rabid Ocean’s fanbase is perhaps also a factor.

And, having watched this, I’m not exactly inspired to fill in the blanks in my prior knowledge. This is unquestionably competent, even reaching the level of well-made on occasion – yet is entirely bland and completely forgettable. Maybe that explains the lack of backlash; no-one could be bothered. After all, there has never been a revolt triggered by vanilla pudding. Debbie Ocean (Bullock) gets out of jail, and along with former criminal associate Lou (Blanchett), puts together a team to steal the legendary Toussaint necklace. Since this is locked in the impenetrable Cartier vaults, the plan involves first getting it brought out for a gala at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, using a bankrupt fashion designer (Bonham-Carter) and a patsy to wear it (Hathaway). Then, it’s “just” a case of replacing it with a fake and getting away with the real thing.

I guess this is a “crime procedural,” with the focus on the procedures used by the criminals to commit their misdeeds. As such, you kinda wonder why they bother throwing  so many participants into the plot, since there’s not enough time, or apparently, interest, in making them three-dimensional characters. [One is played by “Awkwafina”: I’m not sure which is more cringey, taking inspiration for your name from a crappy brand of bottled water, or spelling it that way] These are more like well-dressed chess pieces – there are points where the heavy branding echoed Sex and the City – being moved around New York to achieve the end-game for Debbie and, to some extent, Lou.

However, it’s during the actual robbery when the film is at its most entertaining, as we get to watch the scheme unfold, reminding me of the old military adage, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Fortunately, it’s an extended sequence, which helps repay the viewer for sitting through the far less interesting stuff both before and after. Again, I don’t know how closely that aspect apes the structure of its predecessors; whether or not it does, what seems a fairly lazy approach to its script is a bit disappointing. I was adequately amused. Definitely no less, but no more either.

Dir: Gary Ross
Star: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter

Cattle Annie and Little Britches: Fact vs. fiction

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“This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
  — The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The fact

There’s something satisfyingly circular about the story of Cattle Annie and Little Britches. Two teenage girls, inspired by the questionably accurate literary exploits of Western outlaw derring-do, leave their homes and families to join those outlaws. They end up becoming the stuff of these same legends themselves, with their story being turned into a Hollywood movie (see below). Art imitating life imitating art.  Given this, discovering the truth behind the myth is almost impossible, with sources telling different versions, and often contradicting each other. As such, take what follows as a best guess…

Annie was originally Anna Emmaline McDoulet, born in November 1882: some say she was the daughter to a Kansas justice of the peace, J. C. McDoulet – clearly giving her something to rebel against! – while other versions have her father a poor preacher-lawyer. After a spell working various menial jobs, she turned to crime. Initially selling liquor to Indians (something outlawed at the time), she graduated to rustling livestock, likely leading to her nickname. Meanwhile, Jennie Stevenson (a.k.a. Jennie Midkiff and Jennie Stevens), was three years Annie’s senior, and had been married and separated twice while still a teenager.

In the early eighteen-nineties, Oklahoma was still a territory, not a state – it wouldn’t become one until 1906 – and was still very much the Wild West. Bill Doolin was initially a member of the Dalton Gang but after a failed attempt to rob two banks simultaneously left four of the group dead, Doolin put his own team together, known as the “Wild Bunch”. They began a string of bank and train robberies, and in September 1893, were involved in a shootout called the “Battle of Ingalls,” which left three marshals dead. At one point were the most feared gang in the West, in part due to the efforts of dime-novelist Ned Buntline, who brought a (doubtless romanticized) version of their exploits to a popular audience.

As mentioned above, some credit Buntline’s work with inspiring our heroines to a life of crime, though as Oklahoma residents, they would likely have been well aware of the Doolin gang anyway. Another account indicates the young women met members of the Doolin gang at local dances, “and became wildly excited at the stories of the wealth and fame that would be theirs if they should turn to banditry.” [The same source notes sniffily, “Not only did they dare to wear men’s pants…but rode horses as men rode them, astride”!] Regardless of the cause, Annie and Jennie became members of the gang, with the latter being named Little Britches by Doolin.

It’s unclear what the role of the girls was, but it makes sense they would have been suited to reconnaissance work, and supplying intelligence about law-enforcement activities to Doolin. For who would suspect two teenage girls of being outlaws? However, legend says, there was more to it. and the only known surviving photo of the two (above right) does suggest active participation: “Cattle Annie led her own gang of men and Little Britches was her lieutenant. Cattle Annie wore a cowboy hat and dressed and carried a rifle. Little Britches wore a cowboy hat and men’s trousers, vest and jacket, and a cartridge belt and a double holster with two six guns. Both of these ladies were tough, they carried guns like other women carried parasols, and strong men quailed when they walked into a saloon.”

In August 1895, the law finally caught up with the pair. Little Britches was arrested first, but initially escaped custody during a meal break: “She darted through the back door of the restaurant and quickly tearing off her dress, seized a horse and, mounting it, rode off.” Freedom was short-lived. For the following night, just outside Pawnee, Oklahoma. United States Marshal Bill Tilghman and Deputy Marshal Steve Burke raided the ranch where she was hiding out with Cattle Annie. With some difficulty and after an exchange of gunfire, the lawmen managed to arrest them both. Both were convicted as horse thieves and sentenced to serve their time back East, at the Farmington Reform School, in Massachusetts.

Little Britches was released early, for good behaviour, in October 1896, with Cattle Annie following 18 months later, in April 1898. Both women eventually returned to Oklahoma, married and gave up the outlaw life – though Little Britches largely dropped out of the public eye, and her eventual fate is unknown. Annie was wedded twice, having two sons with her second husband, and living in Oklahoma City from 1912 until her death in 1978 at the age of ninety-five. Her obituary in The Oklahoman made no reference to her outlaw escapades, instead saying simply, “She was a retired bookkeeper and member of American Legion Auxiliary and Olivet Baptist Church.”

The legend

★★★
“All legends end in bullshit.”

One of the subjects here almost lived long enough to see her story on the big screen: the woman who was Cattle Annie passed away only three years before the movie version was released in April 1981. Playing her was the daughter of Christopher Plummer, Amanda, in her screen debut (she already had stage experience off-Broadway), while the role of Little Britches went to another near-newcomer who would also go on to fame in her own right, Diane Lane. It was based on Robert Ward’s book – he co-wrote the screen-play – and seems to take a fairly fast and loose approach to the facts of the pair’s lives. Though given the huge uncertainty involved in those, it’s hard to complain too much.

For example, rather than being born and brought up in Oklahoma, the duo are portrayed as making their way out to California to seek their fortune, when they’re forcibly detoured to Guthrie, OK, There, they encounter Bill Doolin (Lancaster) when he and his gang visit the town. Annie falls for gang member Bittercreek Newcomb (John Savage) and they end up being taken by him to the gang’s hideout. Their knowledge of the Doolin Gang is entirely based on the embellished stories they’ve heard about them, and they’re disappointing to find reality comes up short.

The man they encounter, and whose gang they join, is considerably older than the real person. Lancaster was 67 at the time, while Doolin was in his late thirties. The girls are also played significantly older: 23 during filming, Plummer was a full decade older than the real Cattle Annie. The cinematic Doolin seems increasingly weary of the whole outlaw thing, of being pursued by the relentless Bill Tilghman (Steiger), and has little or no interest in living up to his own mythology when he meets the pair. But Cattle Annie’s belief in the legend, at least somewhat reignites the fire. Though after his capture, Doolin returns to fatalism, and it’s up to the girls to stage a rescue mission, when the rest of the gang would just let their leader hang.

You get something of the hardscrabble life about the pair, and how the outlaw life is one of the few routes by which they could escape their grinding poverty. As Annie says after their failed initial attempt to follow Doolin, “I’ll not be a white nigger slave woman! I’d rather burn like a fire!” But there isn’t an enormous amount going on, and the film seems to contain a fair bit of filler, such as an impromptu game of baseball, using equipment looted during a train robbery [As a baseball fan, seems doubtful the entire group of adult men would be so oblivious of the sport as they appear. This was the mid 1890’s: the National League had been running for close to 20 years, with a team in St. Louis, one state over] Though as a meditation on the dying embers of the “Wild West,” and the gap between heroic fiction and slogging through endless rain and mud, it’s effective enough, and you can see why both young leads would go on to greater fame.

Dir: Lamont Johnson
Star: Amanda Plummer, Diane Lane, Burt Lancaster, Rod Steiger