Turk 182! tries very hard to be an audience-pleasing romp, with a working-class David going up against the Goliath bureaucrats of New York City. If its story weren't so dumbed-down it might have been a big hit. In time-honored Capra tradition, it presents an injustice with an emotional basis and then sets up an entire city as unlikely antagonists. Nobody can argue with a fireman rescuing a child from a burning building, and the first thing we ask is why Terry Lynch's fire department isn't coming to his defense - they have unassailable lobbying powers. One mention to the press about the saved infant, and they'd be calling Terry a hero and giving him the key to the city.

The movie isn't about rights but about a personal feud between Robert Culp's mayor and Timothy Hutton's rather fancifully-conceived hero. He's the kind of anti-intellectual free-spirit who won't work and gets to tool around Manhattan on a cool motorcycle with sidecar. Said conveyance can be parked on sidewalks, by the gates of hospitals and City Hall without ever being bothered by the cops. The Mayor overreacts wildly by blowing up in public and calling Terry a drunk, a scene even the dependable Robert Culp can't pull off.

Jimmy's graffiti antics are said to be the work of a mad genius, yet all the outrageous examples we are given would be nigh-impossible to pull off in the middle of a big city - giant billboards repainted, etc. Cop Darren McGavin and Peter Boyle's security man would have Jimmy in the hoosegow in a day or two at the most. More likely than not, Mayor Tyler would co-opt him into his reelection campaign - redressing the wrongs of the bureaucracy, etc.

Turk 182! also has a modern version of the thirties' female sidekick. Kim Cattrall's social worker Danny has no real function in the story except to admire Jimmy. She seems to have no work to do and instead follows Jimmy around for the better part of a week. When Danny discovers Jimmy's secret identity, she's charmed right into his bed. Cattrall is always pleasant to watch, but her character is truly dumb.

Turk 182! is handsomely shot and professionally directed; Bob Clark makes the large crowd scenes work, especially at the baseball stadium. But when we can't believe the central situation, the story self-destructs. The only thing the film has going for it is its 'rebel stance,' which seems to hark from Porky's and points to the filmmakers' shortcomings as storytellers. Everybody loves a rebel but we like them to be rebellious about something a little more substantial. Both the idea and most of the characters in Turk 182! are just a little ... dumb, and we wonder why we're expected to take any of it seriously.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three had a working-class spirit that Turk 182! aspires to imitate, to the extent of casting its Dick O'Neill and Robert E. Weill in memorable bits. You'll also recognize Weill as the put-upon mail clerk in The Hudsucker Proxy. O'Neill's powerhouse chief puts the perfect anti-authoritarian rage into his defiance of Peter Boyle's stressed-out security man; he has the best and most natural line in the film - "Ha! The bastards never heard of auxilliary backup!"

Anchor Bay's DVD of Turk 182! looks great. The film was seen mostly on cable TV in the middle 1980s, and was hurt by the pan-scan transfers - this must be why so many filmmakers gave up on anamorphic widescreen, knowing that their films' more permanent home would be a little square box. The enhanced transfer seen here restores the picture to its full dimensions.

Bob Clark contributes a slow-moving and rather thin commentary. He doesn't give us very much information about the actors or other creatives who helped him make the movie, and mostly talks about himself - slowly. This is in high contrast to his lively talk on the earlier disc for Deathdream. Rather than concentrate on his career highs, he begins in a defensive mode by avoiding his own self-asked question, where has he been for the last twenty years? A look at the IMDB shows a lot of down-market credits, with a proposed remake of Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things proposed for 2006.

There is also a trailer which looks to have been reformatted for television - it's pan-scanned and slightly squeezed, giving us an idea of how the movie played on cable.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Turk 182! rates:
Movie: Good --
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: trailer, Commentary by director Bob Clark
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: May 14, 2005