More remarkable for what it isn't than for what it is, CHATTAHOOCHEE stars Gary Oldman as Emmett Foley, a Korean War veteran who, in the mid-1950s, pretends to have a breakdown and begins firing potshots at his neighbors from his yard. He really wants to be killed by the police, so that
his life insurance money can help his struggling family survive. When the police prove to be abysmally bad shots, Foley tries to commit suicide, intending to make it look as though the police had killed him. Unfortunately for him he survives, only to be declared insane wrongly and sent to the
title Florida state mental institution. There, instead of getting treatment, he is warehoused with other residents, sane and insane, under inhuman conditions and bullied by sadistic guards. It takes Foley five grueling years to draw attention to his plight and the scandalous conditions at
Chattahoochee. When he brings legal action over the state's failure to provide treatment, the facility's doctor (Ned Beatty) gives him shock treatment and tranquilizers to keep him quiet. Later Foley is put into solitary, where he is forced to sit straight and still in a growing pile of his own
waste. But all along, Foley meticulously records every specific instance of abuse and questionable death in the margins of a Bible, which he passes to his sister (Pamela Reed), who passes it on to the authorities. An end title tells us that Foley and his friend Walker Benson (Dennis Hopper) were
released from custody, and that Foley's efforts led to reforms in Florida's mental health system.
What's different about CHATTAHOOCHEE is the style British telefilm director Mick Jackson brings to its story--a story that recalls ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST; COOL HAND LUKE; FRANCES; THE SNAKE PIT; and numerous other prison/psychiatric nightmare tales. Jackson strives to resist the dramatic
cliches of those films by unfolding CHATTAHOOCHEE in a series of distanced, elliptical, almost random scenes, freely alternating among Foley's setbacks, tiny steps forward, brutal defeats, and small victories. Some of these scenes are paradoxical, if not inexplicable. When Walker and Foley
literally walk away from Chattahoochee, using a key Foley obtained by blackmailing one of the guards, Foley pleads exhaustion and meekly returns to the hospital (while Walker makes good his escape) to accept a grotesque punishment. Why Foley does so--in confrontations with guards he seems fit
enough--is never convincingly explained. In general we know only a little more about him by the end of the film than we did at the beginning. In a voice-over at the end, Foley admits he had no idea why he did what he did.
Therein lies CHATTAHOOCHEE's main problem. Jackson doesn't want audiences standing up and cheering at the end of the film, but instead means them to contemplate scene after scene emphasizing humankind's limitless capacity for cruelty towards the weak and our utter helplessness in the face of fate.
Foley's triumph is presented almost as an accident. The authorities at the institution could just as easily have deprived him of paper and prevented him from writing, and had Foley failed to pass the Bible to his sister, he could just as easily have died in Chattahoochee. Jackson and screenwriter
James Hicks ultimately fail to find the key to unlock their enigmatic main character, who alternates between Christ-like passivity (accompanied by obvious, ill-advised Christian imagery) and a fierce defense of his fellow inmates' dignity and of his own sanity. Although the story is based on the
real-life case of Korean War veteran Chris Calhoun, Jackson and Hicks are unable to make Foley's motivations manifest, and consequently never realize the character. Oldman makes Foley as compelling as possible under the circumstances, but is defeated by the character's contradictions. His
performance is at once technically flawless and curiously lifeless. However, Jackson, Hicks, and Oldman do succeed in their concerted effort to present Foley's experiences as realistically as possible on the surface level, powerfully conveying the tedium, anguish, and despair of Foley's plight.
But the film seems sheepish, if not embarrassed, about showing his ultimate triumph over overwhelming odds.
Despite its flaws, CHATTAHOOCHEE is worthwhile viewing because of its solid cast (which also includes Frances McDormand and M. Emmet Walsh) and for its attempt to tell a familiar story in an original way. On the strength of this film and his television work ("Threads," "The Race for the Double
Helix," "A Very British Coup"), Jackson is a director to watch. CHATTAHOOCHEE fails overall, but remains a promising big-screen debut. (Violence, adult situations, profanity.) leave a comment
