"I'm all that's standing between you and darkest night, son. The other side of me, there's Chaos."
Winter Kills (1979) came too late for the '70s conspiracy craze, instead becoming an odd curio. Starting production in 1976, it ran into unique difficulties involving mob-backed financiers whose murder cut funding and delayed production for two years; smuggled into theaters, it flopped. Jeff Bridges heads a stellar cast in an odd thriller that can't decide whether it's a spoof or in deadly earnest.Nick Kegan (Jeff Bridges) is the wayward son of a tycoon (John Huston) and brother of slain President Timothy Kegan. Nick hears the confession of a dying man (Joe Spinell) who claims to have assassinated his brother, pointing towards a broader conspiracy. With his father's assistance, Nick plunges down a rabbit hole involving mobsters, militia leaders, business magnates and malicious femmes, all with a reason to have wanted President Kegan dead. Then he discovers that the plot's progenitor is the last person he expects.
Based on a Richard Condon novel, Winter Kills is an odd beast. Writer-director William Richert implicates seemingly everyone in America in a plot that took years to plan and even longer to cover up, all to cover a busted movie deal. Nick's friend (Richard Boone) insists that chasing the mystery will drive him nuts, as if winking to Kennedy and Watergate-addled viewers tired of conspiracies. Earlier thrillers like The Parallax View and Executive Action play similarly convoluted scenarios in earnest, but Richert doesn't seem sold on its plausibility. How seriously can you take a movie that features its hero in a car chase with tanks firing live ammo, or a bomb concealed within a dead cat?
Which would be fine, if Winter Kills kept a consistent tone. Yet long segments of the movie play like a straight drama, from Nick's entanglements with a shady journalist (Belinda Bauer) to the assorted hits against Nick. Pa Kegan is a walking parody of rich pirates, flaunting much-younger mistresses, gloating about his mob ties and plotting to steal the blood of college kids (!), giving Nick's deeply-felt familial issues a bizarre tinge. Richert generates enough suspense to keep the story moving, but can't pull off the tightrope act the story demands.
Jeff Bridges fares well as a footloose scamp transformed into determined detective and family avenger. John Huston relishes his rich devil role, a flamboyant monster who's joyously hateful even before the twist. There's an impressive supporting cast, mostly relegated to cameos: Anthony Perkins as a corporate creep, Richard Boone as Nick's snide informant ("I'm going to stay dead for awhile - I feel healthier that way!"), Sterling Hayden as a militia kook, Toshiro Mifune as Pa Kegan's major domo, Eli Wallach as a Jack Ruby stand-in and Tomas Milan as a Cuban fanatic. Elizabeth Taylor appears unbilled as an aged actress.
Winter Kills is worth checking out for its utter strangeness. There's something compelling to its postmodern, winking treatment of worn-out conspiracy tropes deserving of a better, more balanced movie.
