CADILLAC MAN

US, 1990, 97 minutes, Colour.
Robin Williams, Tim Robbins, Pamela Reed, Fran Drescher, Annabella Sciorra, Paul Guilfoyle, Zack Norman, Lori Petty.
Directed by Roger Donaldson.

Cadillac Man was co-written and directed by Australian Roger Donaldson. Donaldson made an impressions with his two New Zealand films Gone are Sleeping Dogs and Smash Palace. In the United States he made The Bounty, Marie, the excellent thriller No Way Out, Cocktail.

Donaldson said that he drew on his home and family experience of his Father as a car salesman. However, while the film focuses on the brash American salesman, it changes in the middle into the story of a siege and the salesman having to become more human in trying to stop the siege and communicate with the disturbed man holding customers and staff as hostage. It all seems loud and exaggerated, but in New York .... ?

Robin Williams gives yet another good performance (after his Dead Poet's Society and Good Morning, Vietnam). This is true, especially as he changes and copes during the siege. Tim Robbins has appeared in such films as Bull Durham, Miss Firecracker, and Erik the Viking.

1. The impact of this black comedy? on American audiences? Universal audiences?

2. The New York setting, Queens, the streets, homes, the salesroom? The musical score?

3. The credibility of the plot: the focus on the salesman and his brash behaviour? The customers and the sales personnel? Larry and his obsessions and taking hostages and the siege?

4. The title, salesmen and their reputation? Audience expectations?

5. Robin Williams' screen presence? and his comic stand-up style? Suitable for Joe O'Brien (with his Italian background)? The Italian mother and her spoiling her son, the food, swearing at him, interfering in his life? Intervening at the siege? His talking to the audience and explaining his motivation, loving sales? His relationship with Tina and the break-up of the marriage? relationship with Lisa and behind on the alimony, Lisa and her eccentricities? Relationships with women and love of women? Joy and her possessiveness? His need for borrowing money and repayment? the initial funeral, helping with the hearse, the deal with the hearse driver and trying to deal with him, the decision to sell a car to the widow - his estimation of himself, nothing to lose, her condemning him as scum?

6. Joy and Harry and their tense marriage, Joy and her hovering round Joey? her wanting him to buy her pottery, the expense? (And his doing a deal with salesman?) The plan of going away with Joy? Lisa and going to the disco, her designing her own clothes, wanting to he photographed, the irony of her not being allowed in?

7. Joey and his job, the possibility of his losing his job, the son and his father and their pressure on Joey to sell 12 cars? His powers of persuasion? The phone calls and pleading? The Mafia man and the lending of the money, looking after his son at the service station - and trying to get some of the Mafia to buy the cars? The visit to Tina and trying to get her brother interested? His relationship with people at the showroom? Friendship with Donna? The busy saleswoman and the rivalry? Friendship with Ben? The arrival of the customers, the pressure? Harry and Joy and his trying to attend to them? The Chinese couple? The Russian couple and their pressure and demands? Relaxing and having the meal at the Chinese shop - and the girl bossing them about? His dubious future - and the selling of the cars?

8. Larry and his first visit to Donna, on the bike? Audience wondering about him? His coming again, crashing through the door? The attack? Threatening with explosives on his bike? Starting the siege, firing the shots? His madness? Unemployed, macho presuppositions? Despising of Donna and his abusing her? His raving? Treatment of the hostages? Letting the women go? Attitudes towards the men? The police and the contact? His not having thought things out? The credibility of his behaviour?

9. His demands to know the relationship of Donna in the showroom? Joey and his deciding to take a stand. Carry's response? His suspicions of Joey? Watching peoples reactions?
Coping, noticing Joey and his powers of persuasion, salesmanship? Letting Larry think it was his plan, getting him a name for contact with the police? Letting the women go? Gradually letting the men go? Harry and his promising Larry money? Enid and her bursting in and exposing Joey? Tina and her phone call? His mother on the phone? Larry's reaction to Joey with all the women? Joey and his telling Larry the story, developing the plan, persuading him to give himself up, the gun, the bullets? Persuading Harry that he should plead craziness? The build-up to going out?

10. The police and their reaction? Mason and the special squad? Control - and all the comedy in the Chinese restaurant? Lisa and her getting in, having to he taken out? Tina and her advice?

11. Joey and his relationship with Tina, their clashes, the visit, jokes, the concern about Lisa? Lisa and her boyfriend and being out all night? Tina and her support of Joey? The ending and their coming together, Lisa turning up with the boyfriend? Joey asking for another chance?

12. The staff and their reaction, fear, the firing? Their wanting to escape? Ben and his anxiety, the old man his son? The son not owning up to the truth about Donna? Their all speaking to the media and praising Joey? Larry, his madness, the reasons, American loudness and style, crazy, being shot?

13. Donna, being shot, recovering, reaction to Larry, her affair?

14. The whole experience transforming Joey? giving him a chance to take stock of himself? His future?