Under The Volcano - 1984 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset
Director: John Huston

A portrayal of an alcoholic diplomat set to live out his days permanently drunk in a jerkwater Mexican town in the late 1930s, Under The Volcano feels like a Graham Greene novel improperly adapted to film. There's lots of attempts at providing subtext as well as hint at larger forces at play - there's references to the coming war between Germany and Britain - but these were either ineffective or were simply beyond me on the first viewing. They feel like literary elements that don't quite translate to the screen. Even so, the main story of the film works for me.

One great thing about movies where characters spend most of their time wasted is that they get to talk in the backwards, wandering, half-logical way that drunks often will - it really gives a screenwriter a chance to jam a lot of gold in the character's mouth.