A Movie Character I Remember

My friend spoiled me on the plot points of the movie, Shutter Island (hey, I'm a spoiler slut), and the story immediately reminded me of another movie I enjoyed from years back.

For those of you who'd watched Shutter Island, try to Netflix or rent the movie called The Ninth Configuration. It's starts out as a weird movie, set in post-Vietnam US about certain inmates in a weird place (a castle here, as opposed to an island), and the appearance of the new military psychiatrist to figure them out. Only, things are never what they seemed. And, there is one heck of a violent payoff scene near the ending that had the audience gasping and cheering.

I was telling my friend that this was pre-Shyamalan, so the concept of a shocking ending was relatively new. Like Shutter Island, The Ninth Configuration was a book first and as far as I know, the movie stayed true to the novel.

Anyway, it starts out talky, with very odd characters, and then wham! Also, Stacy Keach had never looked better--tall, lovely cheekbones, and broad shouldered. That movie made me a lifetime fan of his.

Oh, lovely wonderful 21st century--I just found out that you can catch all nine parts on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=86C7E6F8FB9598F4

Warning--near the end, that final violent scene can be a bit much for some of you (YMMV).

Through the years, I've shown this movie to several military friends, some of whom are Vietnam Viets, and they were rolling their eyes at the beginning, thinking this was some typical talky movie analyzing them, and then WHAM! by that ending scene, they were all screaming at the screen too ;-). So I hope that kind of gut reaction is still there for today's more CGI-stunted movie-antics worldly audience.

(Mo, you'll have a great time dissecting this tortured soul. I know you will ;-P)

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