In a world of Government Conspiracy, and advanced weapons technology, friend of the blog, Arnold Schwarzenegger is: THE ERASER. Eraser (1996) is a slight sci-fi action thriller about a man, ERASER (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who is a U.S. Marshal that works for WITSEC (Witness Security Protection Program), and he does just what you’d expect: he “erases” government witnesses to give them a new life and a second chance. Eraser ends up working with a woman named Lee (Vanessa Williams) who has infiltrated and stolen info on a secret weapons program from Cyrez, the place she works. However, the plan goes awry when she gets caught, and her boss kills himself in front of her. 

She is able to escape, despite the FBI breaking their promise to fully protect her, she still turns over the disc. The people she turns the disc into replace it with a fake, as it turns out there is a mole in the operation. Lee initially refuses John Kruger’s (The Eraser) help with protection, and later that night, she is attacked by a mercenary team led by J. Scar (Mark Rolston), who was sent by Cyrez to kill her. This is where the suspension of disbelief comes into play, as the futuristic weapons that Cyrez is making are X-Ray enabled Rail Rifles, that fire aluminum rounds at “almost the speed of light”. The way Lee casually says this line in the movie is absolutely hilarious. This movie is a goldmine of entertainment, despite overall not being the greatest.

After setting out on a work trip to save one of DeGuerin’s (James Cann) witnesses in a remote cabin, we learn that DeGuerin is the mole, after rescuing her, he secretly kills his witness. On the plane ride back, Deguerin informs Kruger that there is a mole in WITSEC, and informs him that witnesses are being taken out left and right. 

This is where the movie, in my opinion, went from being an interesting “whodunit” spy movie, and became an iconic over the top 90s action flick. Prior to this, we did have the X-Ray Rail Guns, and the self-uprighting nail bomb, along with Arnold in the opening sequence breaking a guys neck with a refrigerator door, so it was already quickly approaching being this, but the airplane action scene sends it over the edge.

DeGuerin drugs Kruger, kills the new guy who was Kruger’s intern, and then attempts to lie to him about who the mole may be. Kruger doesn’t buy any of it, throws a knife (that was stored in his belt buckle) into DeGuerin’s arm, and a shootout takes place. Kruger opens the emergency exit, rips a chair off of the wall of the interior of the plane, and throws it into the jet engine. Then while trying to put on a parachute, he drops it and it begins falling towards the earth. Kruger has only two options: climb back into the plane and most likely be shot and killed, or dive after the parachute. Which do you think he chose?

Not only does he successfully dive after, and equip the parachute, but DeGuerin also forces the pilots to turn the plane around, and “TAKE HIM OUT” while the plane is flying on a single engine and simultaneously on fire.. Kruger pulls out his pistol, and shoots at the plane, breaking the glass windshield, and the plane just barely taps his parachute. He then is in a freefall tangled in the parachute, trying to activate the backup. 

This is probably the most ridiculous and unbelievable sequence in the entire movie. He (sort of) is successful in his attempts, but lands in a junkyard on top of a car, and just gets up and walks away from it. The thud that occurs here is the kind that would kill any normal human, but not our guy Arnold. 

The rest of the movie turns into a thriller-chase, Kruger is attempting to meet Lee at the New York Zoo (their safe public meeting space) and DeGuerin and his guys have caught wind of where they will be. DeGuerin gets there first, and of course, Kruger comes busting in the back door at the last second to save the day. At this point, they’re inside the water exhibit, and Kruger only has two rounds left. He shoots at the crocodile tank, breaking the glass (I thought that airplane glass, and zoo glass, that is holding literally hundreds if not a thousand or more gallons of water, and keeping fully grown crocodiles at bay, would be a little more bulletproof?) and the crocodiles come sliding out, and attack the bad guys, ripping them limb from limb.  This was by far my favorite scene in the entire movie. It’s so beyond absurd, the CGI is so 1990s coded and just looks laughably bad in today’s world, yet the thrill and the action of it all still holds up. 

The rest of the movie begins to peter out, there’s some more chase scenes, some action. DeGuerin and his goons go to Cyrez to steal the same info again, and for some reason at the same time, Kruger and Lee are there as well. DeGuerin kidnaps Lee and Kruger is forced to chase them down.

After another ridiculous action sequence on top of a shipping container being lifted by a crane, Kruger and Lee walk away from that and they think that DeGuerin has been caught finally. But later we see he is still walking free. The power this man yields and his ability to spin any story to his advantage are why he’s been able to get away with being the mole for so long.

As they leave a press conference they were all at, we see Kruger and Lee get into a van, then a car bomb goes off. DeGuerin believes that they are now finally dead and gone, but we see a sewer grate under the van, and Kruger’s hand closing it and getting away.

Overall, this movie was very enjoyable, felt a little too long at a few points, but I think it still holds up today. A classic 90s action flick with over the top CGI, and a setting that doesn’t quite make sense fully. But for what it is, it’s good enough. Hell, it was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, and Sounds Effect Editing. It won an MTV Movie award, a Golden Camera Germany award, and a Bambi award too. It’s definitely iconic for it’s time in many ways. I was surprised it has only a 6.2/10 on IMBD, a 42% on the Tomatometer, and only 40% Popcornmeter rating. I think that Arnold alone would bump these numbers up a bit, and the movie was thoroughly enjoyable and a fun watch. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a silly and light movie to enjoy at home. 

-3 mallards/5

-Seann

Three Days of the Condor (1975) is a movie that I had never seen before, but one that I was vaguely familiar with largely due to the recent passing of the late Robert Redford. After he passed I decided to revisit some of his films, chiefly Downhill Racer (1969) , which is a fine film indeed. Redford was something of a folk hero in Hollywood and beyond, especially due to his Sundance residence and film festival. There’s no denying that he was both a great actor and a handsome man, as well as an important figure in the lore of the medium of film (especially American film), and for that we should be grateful. 

Apparently this film was quite popular back in its day, and there’s no shortage of reasons for why that might be (I’ll get to them soon), which makes it even more odd that I had never seen this in its entirety before. Redford plays the eponymous Condor who, after narrowly avoiding being assassinated along with the six other workers at his CIA branch (where they ‘read newspapers and stories and novels for ideas’), is on the run from various people over the course of three days. Along the way he kidnaps and then becomes romantically involved (shockingly) with a character portrayed by the beautiful Faye Dunaway.

What stood out to me about this film immediately is the nostalgiac charm that it offers just by the lighting, sets, wardrobes, and dialogue. I wasn’t alive in 1975 but somehow I’m transported back to a time I never knew. I love how the characters dress – the non-Condors are all in vintage (now, but at the time they were modern) gray flannel and tweed suits, smoking cigarette after cigarette indoors, reading the newspaper, buying sandwiches and drinking coffee. Life used to be so much simpler than it is now. What a shame. 

The camera distance in this film is also very well-done and helps to really get into the action depicted on-screen. There are a lot of close-ups of faces, which contribute to an overall tense and emotionally turbulent experience. The actors speak more with their faces than they do with words through most of the film, and the camera tends to linger on a characters’ face even while a character they’re conversing with is speaking. This leads to many long shots, which feel quite immersive, though during the few action scenes we are, of course, treated to a series of quick cuts to make the action seem quicker and more adroit. Ultimately this is technically a thriller I guess, though it honestly seems more like a noir, in which Condor is playing the detective trying to figure out who is chasing him and why.

The script in this movie is so stereotypically 1970’s thriller/noir so as to be comical at times. Everyone is talking in codewords, and it reminded me of One Battle After Another (2025), specifically the scene where Leo is trying to report what’s going on to the agency, but he can’t remember the correct series of codewords. A very similar situation happens early in this film, leading to The Agency labeling Condor as ‘worked up’, and instructing him to hide out for two hours. At times this aspect of the movie makes it humorous, but more often it just makes things rather confusing.

This leads me to the plot of the movie, which is almost entirely unintelligible. There are so many moving parts that are introduced in rapid-fire succession, so many twists and turns, and such little explanation that it’s easier to just go along for the ride than to try and understand what’s actually happening. You’re not really going to understand who the players are (other than Reford) on the first watch, and even after watching this a second time, I struggled to figure out how everyone was interconnected. I still, after watching two times, have no idea what the final revelation at the end is about or how it ties into the overall plot. It ends on kind of a cliffhanger, but the stakes are unexplained, and there’s an implication that’s not expanded upon, and then the credits roll as we zoom in on Redford’s profile.

I would describe this movie as Pynchon-esque, not only because it’s incredibly difficult to figure out what’s going on, but because there’s conspiracies on top of conspiracies. There are secret organizations within other secret organizations that are covering up bad deeds of people from third secret organizations. People are switching sides at every turn, and ultimately it’s just an opaque web of double-agents and strange circumstances. This was all the rage back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and there are a lot of spy movies with large, sprawling conspiracies and twists. Politically, America was pretty tenuous at this moment in time, with a lot of unprecedented (to that point) world events occurring that destabilized many parts of the world (including the Middle East, which is the ultimate end point of this film somehow).

Ultimately, this film is an enjoyable watch for sure, as long as the viewers understand that there’s not much that’s going to make sense. Not only is Condor an amateur, but he knows how to hack phones and break into vaults and other things that a non-spy wouldn’t know. He also has an odd encounter with the Faye Dunaway character who he kidnaps and later becomes a love interest and then is never seen again. This movie has a lot of problems, but one thing I cannot say about it is that it’s boring. It’s a lot of fun, so long as you don’t take it too seriously, which you shouldn’t ever really do with a Redford movie. 

Three Days of the Condor (1975) has a score of 7.4 out of 10 on IMDB, a Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer score of 88%, and a Letterboxd rating of 3.7 out of 5. I think it’s reasonable to give this as high as a 4, but close to a 4.5 is too high. I think this movie has enough charm to keep it entertaining, even today, despite its obvious flaws. I might be inflating the rating slightly because of the recent passing of Robert Redford, but sometimes it be like that.

-4 mallards/5

-Maxwell