An alien from outer space (Joe Morton) crash lands in NY. He looks like a black man, is totally mute and can fix machines and heal wounds with his bare hands. He's taken in by the citizens of Harlem who grow to like him...but he's being followed by two men in black (John Sayles and David Stratham) who want to bring him back to outer space.
An interesting change of pace for director/writer and editor John Sayles...but it doesn't really work. I caught this in 1984 at an art cinema and was pretty unimpressed. My thoughts haven't really changed much. There's no real plot...just Morton wandering around and meeting all these odd but always friendly people. The dialogue is great and Morton is excellent (that's why I'm giving it a 6) but the rest of the acting is pretty bad (except for Sayles and Stratham) and nothing really happens. It just sort of lays there. It also leads to a real ambiguous ending which could be interpreted a number of different ways. Still, this was the kind of independent film that came out in the 1980s and 90s before Hollywood took them over. For that alone this is interesting to watch. It has been beautifully restored by the Anarchists Covention (???) and UCLA. It looks better now than it did in 1984!
An interesting change of pace for director/writer and editor John Sayles...but it doesn't really work. I caught this in 1984 at an art cinema and was pretty unimpressed. My thoughts haven't really changed much. There's no real plot...just Morton wandering around and meeting all these odd but always friendly people. The dialogue is great and Morton is excellent (that's why I'm giving it a 6) but the rest of the acting is pretty bad (except for Sayles and Stratham) and nothing really happens. It just sort of lays there. It also leads to a real ambiguous ending which could be interpreted a number of different ways. Still, this was the kind of independent film that came out in the 1980s and 90s before Hollywood took them over. For that alone this is interesting to watch. It has been beautifully restored by the Anarchists Covention (???) and UCLA. It looks better now than it did in 1984!