Quite a cast isn't it? Gene Hackman, Rutger Hauer, Jane Lapotaire, Theresa Russell, Mickey Rorke, Ed Lauter and Joe Pecsi, all in one film. Directed by Nicholas Roeg, who masterminded the classic Walkabout and Don't Look Now. Based on a riveting true story about a mega-rich gold prospector, Harry Oakes, who was murdered in his plush Bahamian mansion. With credentials as mouth-watering as they are, Eureka is the closest thing you'd ever get to a surefire masterpiece. Yet somehow, the handling is so over stylized and so pre-occupied by meaningless artiness that the film emerges as a complete and utter failure. A mishap of a movie to rank alongside other "movies-that-couldn't-fail-but-did", like The Adventurers (1970) and Inchon (1981).
After years of gold hunting in the frozen Arctic wilderness, Jack McCann (Hackman) hits upon a massive gold claim in 1925. Immense wealth is thrust upon him. The story moves on twenty years, and McCann now owns a sun-drenched Bahamian island and has every luxury-in-life at his fingertips. However, wealth brings him little happiness. His wife Helen (Jane Lapotaire) has become an alcoholic; his daughter Tracy (Theresa Russell) has grown distant from him since marrying an ambitious playboy (Rutger Hauer); and he is being leaned on rather heavily by murderous Florida mobsters who want to build a casino on his island.
Featuring the most extreme and unwatchable murder scene from any film ever made, and a host of surreal sequences, Eureka is an ultimate example of The Emperor's New Clothes-Syndrome. You are asked to watch a long film about nothing, and tricked into believing that it is some kind of deep and meaningful masterpiece. Unfortunately, it is no such thing. Rather, it is a confused, cruel, over-sexed, violent and grossly self-indulgent bomb. The stunning cinematography merely adds to the sense of regret that such promising-sounding material has turned out so utterly, utterly awful.
After years of gold hunting in the frozen Arctic wilderness, Jack McCann (Hackman) hits upon a massive gold claim in 1925. Immense wealth is thrust upon him. The story moves on twenty years, and McCann now owns a sun-drenched Bahamian island and has every luxury-in-life at his fingertips. However, wealth brings him little happiness. His wife Helen (Jane Lapotaire) has become an alcoholic; his daughter Tracy (Theresa Russell) has grown distant from him since marrying an ambitious playboy (Rutger Hauer); and he is being leaned on rather heavily by murderous Florida mobsters who want to build a casino on his island.
Featuring the most extreme and unwatchable murder scene from any film ever made, and a host of surreal sequences, Eureka is an ultimate example of The Emperor's New Clothes-Syndrome. You are asked to watch a long film about nothing, and tricked into believing that it is some kind of deep and meaningful masterpiece. Unfortunately, it is no such thing. Rather, it is a confused, cruel, over-sexed, violent and grossly self-indulgent bomb. The stunning cinematography merely adds to the sense of regret that such promising-sounding material has turned out so utterly, utterly awful.