The Mean Season
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Mean Season | |
|---|---|
 The Mean Season |
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| Directed by | Phillip Borsos |
| Produced by | David Foster Lawrence Turman |
| Written by | John Katzenbach (novel) Leon Piedmont (screenplay) |
| Starring | Kurt Russell Mariel Hemingway Richard Jordan Richard Masur Joe Pantoliano Andy Garcia |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1985 |
| Running time | 103 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Mean Season is a 1985 thriller directed by Phillip Borsos. The film starred Kurt Russell, Mariel Hemingway, Richard Jordan, Richard Masur, Joe Pantoliano, and Andy Garcia. The screenplay was written by Leon Piedmont, based on the novel In the Heat of the Summer by John Katzenbach.
[edit] Synopsis
Malcolm Anderson (Kurt Russell) is a reporter for a Miami newspaper, who is burned out from years of covering the worst crimes in the city. He promises his girlfriend Christine (Mariel Hemingway) that they will move away from the city, but he ends up covering a series of grisly murders by a serial killer who calls him telling the reporter that he will kill again. The lines between covering the story and becoming part of it are blurred.
[edit] Trivia
- The actual City of Miami Police Department's SWAT Team appeared in the movie as the City of Miami Police Department's SWAT Team in a scene where Kurt Russell's character enters the house of a victim. Many interiors were also filmed inside the City of Miami Police Department Headquarters.
- The term "Mean Season" refers to a pattern of weather that occurs in Florida during the late summer months. Hot mornings with sticky weather lead into violent thunderstorms that blow in from the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico in the afternoon. However, the rain doesn't alleviate the heat and only makes things hotter that evening. This cycle repeats every day for a month.
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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.The twist at the end of this film (the serial killer shoots somebody with a resemblance to himself in the face with a shotgun, thus leaving him unidentifiable, only to turn up at the end to wreak revenge upon the central character) bears a close resemblance to the end of Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon, which was filmed by Michael Mann as Manhunter in 1986. Whether or not this is the reason that the climax of Red Dragon was altered for its film version has never been stated, although the original ending was retained for Brett Ratner's 2002 version.
