A young man named Roary enters a high rise building and takes the elevator to the top floor. Walking through the halls with the confidence of someone who belongs there, he seems to escape notice. In an empty conference room, he opens a window and, in a long, silent moment filled with dread and and almost grace, Roary leaps. His body smashes into a parked car and he’s rushed to the hospital. So begins Inside Moves, the 1980 film directed by Richard Donner (The Omen, Superman, Lethal Weapon) that is now finally finding a home on DVD.
John Savage stars as Roary, whom, we learn through the opening credit sequence, damaged one of his legs permanently in the fall. Upon his hospital release, Roary takes up residence in a cheap hotel. Depressed and bored, he goes out for a drink and wanders into Max’s, a dive bar that caters to society’s outcasts, including Stinky (Bert Remsen), who is blind, Blue Lew (Bill Henderson), who is confined to a wheelchair, and Wings (Academy Award winner Harold Russell), who wears prosthetic arms. These three men spend their days drinking the swill Max gives them, playing cards and sharing stories. There’s a lot of laughter and voices raised, but all in fun. The guys immediately take Roary in as the stray he is and become his family. When Roary reveals he’s crippled in one leg because of his failed suicide attempt,, Stinky rubs the back of his head to comfort him. It’s the first of many moments when the movie grabs your emotions and makes you look past the Hollywood conventions of Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin’s screenplay.
The most significant person Roary meets in the bar is Jerry, the young, lanky bartender who has dreams of becoming a pro basketball player. Only problem is, Jerry has a bum knee that needs an operation. Jerry is also in a dead-end relationship with a heroin addict who prostitutes herself for smack. Any money he tries to save to get that operation ends up going to support his girlfriend because he thinks he can save her. Jerry is wrong. A very young David Morse plays this role. You may recognize him from St. Elsewhere, The Green Mile, or the countless number of recent movies in which he’s cast as the heavy (like Donner’s recent 16 Blocks). Roary and Jerry become fast friends and after a chance pickup game against a pro player named Alvin Martin (Harold Sylvester), they are convinced that Jerry could go all the way someday. (more…)
