Review: Night Moves (1975) and Night Moves (2013)

Night Moves (1975)
Directed by Arthur Penn

Night Moves (2013)
Directed by Kelly Reichardt

Funny thing happened a couple weeks ago. I was in San Francisco and for once it was really hard to find a movie I wanted to see. I searched the listings on showtimes.com and finally something popped up, a movie called “Night Moves” that was not the 1975 Gene Hackman neo-noir but an eco-thriller set in Oregon. I’d never heard of this 2013 movie, but I went to the rep theater where it was supposed to be playing, and sat through the coming attractions, which advertised three different Gene Hackman movies. This seemed understandable, I told myself, since Hackman had recently died.

Then the movie started and, of course, it was the 1975 Arthur Penn-directed neo-noir, set in Hollywood and in the Florida Keys. I’d seen most of it before, but I’d never seen the first hour, so I sat through almost all of the movie. Then I left before the depressing ending. Of course, it’s a classic, marred only by second-act longueurs. Hackman plays a brash but solid and incorruptible private detective, and a fine but (except for this movie) little-known actress named Jennifer Warren is an oddball romantic interest.

So what about the eco-thriller? Directed by indie favorite Kelly Reichardt, it stars Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard as activists who blow up a dam to “free” the river it contains. The mission succeeds — though don’t expect either a spectacular explosion or a flood scene — but accidentally kills a bystander. This unexpected death throws the conspirators into guilt-ridden paranoia, yet they fail to take the necessary steps to protect themselves from arrest. Tension builds until one of them breaks.

Clearly working within a tiny budget, Reichardt does all she can to build tension both before and after the explosion, which takes place at the movie’s midpoint. There’s no first act; the characters don’t have backstories at all, which handicaps the character development. The movie begins as the conspirators collect the necessary materials (a boat, several hundred pounds of explosive ammonium nitrate fertilizer) and execute the job. The last half shows how two of them, Josh (Eisenberg) and Dina (Fanning) crack under the pressure.

As an activist who deals constantly with security measures (though, I hasten to add, they are in service to work that is strictly non-violent and non-destructive), I found much to criticize. If “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” (2023) is mocked (and it is) for the security practices that its eco-terrorists try to follow, real activists can learn even less from “Night Moves.” (Why in the world would you hang onto and use the burner phones you got to communicate with each other when the operation is finished? You get rid of them, that’s the whole idea of a burner phone.) The movie doesn’t even attempt to make the characters seem heroic; the activists’ world seems grim and futile from the get-go. Not even Dakota Fanning’s character, an activist filmmaker, shows much passion for the work, and even less joy.

As for Eisenberg’s character, from whose perspective the second half plays out, he has one expression throughout the film, a glowering frown that makes it impossible to know or follow what his character is really thinking. Without these emotional cues, the film relies on ominous music to communicate the building tension, but it’s not enough.

Frankly, this script would have benefitted from being directed by a horror director who knows better how to introduce tension and paranoia into a movie. Reichardt’s movie is flat by comparison.

“Night Moves” (2013) is available on the Peacock streaming service.