Other Titles • At Close Range • Auf kurze Distanz (1986)
Synopses for At Close Range (1986)
1.
One of the overlooked films of the 1980s, perhaps because it is such a downbeat tale of an amoral family. Sean Penn plays a kid whose small-time criminal impulses are stoked to a new level when he falls in with his father (Christopher Walken), a vicious career criminal for whom no problem is so large that it can't be solved by a murder. At first exhilarated by the attention from his father (and the jobs he gives him to do), he gradually catches on to just what a bad guy Dad really is. But when he tries to extricate himself, he discovers that Dad now has him squarely in his sights. Penn is terrific in a role of emotional complexity, while Walken, king of the creeps, is positively frightening as this soft-spoken but highly lethal patriarch. --Marshall Fine
2.
Two brothers are stuck in an impoverished household in rural Pennsylvania with their mother and grandmother. Their father, a notorious ne'er do well and professional criminal, drifts in every now and then to leave them some money, but he never stays. The boys are intrigued by their father and his criminal lifestyle, his money, and his girlfriends, and want to get closer to him. Eventually, the father agrees to plan petty heists for the older brother's gang, which the group performs willingly, for they are all enthralled by the father. But when the crimes get larger and trouble with the police is imminent, the father's truly evil nature is revealed when he willingly sacrifices his sons to save his own life.
3.
"A Surprising, Powerful Movie!" -Newsweek
A teenage farm boy looking for excitement finds himself on a collision course with his smooth-talking gang leader father in this "powerfully disturbing" (Newsweek) tale based on the story of real-life killer Bruce Johnston. Oscar nominee Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking) and Oscar winner Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction) star in this "hot, horrifying saga of an American criminal family" (Los Angeles Times)!
Juvenile delinquent Brad Whitewood, Jr. (Penn) knows about petty theft, but he wants big money - enough to blow the lid off his boring life, enough to get out of town and to find his ol' man (Walken). He wants to be like his dad, a big-time thief, who knows "the business." Seductive and sinister, Brad's father is full of toxic wisdom that makes his illicit life appear eerily sexy. But when Brad witnesses his father deliberately killing someone, he realizes he may not only be in over his head, but he may also lose it for good.
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