Okay, bear with me here - the synopsis sounds more complicated than it is, something that should be familiar to most fans of Joel and Ethan Coen: Victor Ajax (Reed Birney) is on death row for his involvement in a crime spree in a one-block area of Detroit, Michigan, along with some highway chicanery and murder. Except that Vic didn't do any of it: his bosses, Ernest Trend (Edward R. Pressman) and Donald Odegard (Hamid Dana) are feuding over the control of their security company, and when Odegard makes a deal to sell the property to Renaldo "The Heel" (Bruce Campbell), Trend decides its in his wife's best interest to kill Odegard. He hires Faron Crush (Paul Smith) and Arthur Coddish (Brion James), exterminators who work "in all sizes" to take out Odegard, but ends up their victim as well, and Helene Trend (Louise Lasser), who saw the whole thing from her apartment across the street, becomes their next target. Meanwhile, Vic is trying to win over Nancy (Sheree J. Wilson), the girl of his dreams, but she happens to be with Renaldo. Madness ensues.
What I told you amounts to maybe the first ten minutes of this 83 minute movie, which rushes to put every piece of the mousetrap in place, and then hits the switch to see what happens next. The madcap tone of the film, likely inspired by Raimi and the Coen's love of Preston Sturges films, really doesn't gel early on, even if everyone behaves as though it does. Paul Smith's voice is clearly dubbed, and whether Brion James dubbed his over later or not, they have an intentionally cartoony sound that is, at best, a little jarring for the first few scenes. The film is too cartoonish at times and morbidly comedic in others. Meanwhile, Reed Birney is playing Vic as the straight and narrow schlub while Sheree Wilson seems disinterested for the first half of the movie. Only Louise Lasser and Bruce Campbell really give it 110% for the entirety of the film, which is good for Helene Trend but bad for Renaldo, who is at best an extended cameo*. More of a problem is the uneven sense of setting in the film.
Crimewave seems to occupy a time stranded between the 1940s and the 1980s, so much so that until one gets one's bearings, the movie can be awfully confusing. At first, the dialogue, costumes, and tone seem to indicate a period film - to be specific, a screwball comedy of the mid-forties. Then we find out that Vic's job at Trend & Odegard security is to install security cameras, which he is happily putzing about doing in the apartment building where the Trends live (conveniently across the hall from Nancy. The cameras are late 70s, early 80s models (I have one that looks a lot like the kind Vic is installing), and when he wanders down into the street, he's nearly run over by a 40s-style pesticide truck, but across the street are a very modern (for 1985) tow truck and "the classic," Raimi's Oldsmobile Delta 88, seen in all of his films somewhere. It's hard to call it anachronistic, because the streets look like Detroit in the 1980s while the characters speak and dress like post-war artifacts but seem comfortable in the never-never-land of the film.
With that in mind, there are a number of small touches in the film that stick with you, in a good way. There's a wonderful chase down "The Parade of Protection: the Safest Hallway in the World" between Helene and Faron that's visually dynamic and isn't likely an image you'll forget soon. The exterminators, once you get past the artificiality of their voices, infuse the film with a number of silly moments: the setting for their rat electrocution device includes "Men" and "Heroes," there's a moment where Faron pulls up the carpet in the Trend apartment and literally drags it (and Helene) towards him, and the back-and-forth between the killers and the landlord Mr. Yarman (John Hardy) is a highlight. Brion James (Blade Runner) has some time to shine during a third act car chase, and again, I'm going to mention Campbell's Renaldo, who is so proud of being a heel that he wonders why people think it's a bad thing.
Watching Crimewave in conjunction with The Hudsucker Proxy - which the Coens and Raimi all wrote around the same time - explains both films' idiosyncrasies; both are products of young filmmakers, working through a laundry list of disparate influences**, synthesized into movies that did little for audiences and only really appeal to their most ardent supporters. Hudsucker is easily the more successful of the two, but Joel and Ethan Coen had an additional nine years (and four films) to hone their skills while Raimi was coming off of The Evil Dead four years prior. Raimi famously disowned Crimewave after producers Edward R. Pressman and Irvin Shapiro removed his editor Kaye Davis and composer Joe LoDuca, and the film has wallowed in a sort of limbo ever since. There are touches of Sam Raimi in the film, although one could argue there's almost as much in Crimewave that would remind you of Raising Arizona as there is the man who would eventually direct Spider-Man.
Ultimately, Crimewave is something of a curio, a film that never quite finds its footing, that never connects the way it wants to. Moments of ingenuity sneak through, and in small touches, there's probably enough there to recommend the film to the Raimi and Coen camps, but don't expect a hidden gem. At best, it's a nice piece of cubic zirconium, sitting at the bottom of a dusty drawer. Sometimes, there's a reason you haven't heard about it.
* Raimi originally wrote the film with Campbell as Vic Ajax, which honestly makes much more sense. Birney lacks charisma, reminding me as his best of a pale Joe Pantoliano replica, and has no chemistry whatsoever with Wilson.
** By the way, Vic is sentenced to be executed at Hudsucker State Penitentiary.
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