“Dark Harbor” is a 1998 thriller film written and directed by Adam Coleman Howard. It stars Alan Rickman (“An Awfully Big Adventure”, the Harry Potter films, “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”), Norman Reedus (“Floating”, “The Boondock Saints”, “Beat”, “Luster”) and Polly Walker (“Scenes of a Sexual Nature”, “Caprica”). The aimless story follows David Weinberg (Alan Rickman), a lawyer in his 50s, and his much younger wife Alexis (Polly Walker) when they cross paths with an injured young man (Norman Reedus) at the side of the road, whom they reluctantly drive to the nearest town.
To discuss this film I’ll need to somewhat SPOIL the ending, so be warned.
I’d seen this film once before when I purchased it for my collection, having heard that there was a gay storyline. I remembered being relatively distracted by it, though when I tried to remember anything in detail I could clearly remember the final 5 minutes of the film and little else. Having revisited it, I can see why that is. For most of the film’s runtime, it plays like a timid, well meaning, but rather disjointed television film which leads to a twist ending involving a murder, followed by an unexpected nude scene from Rickman (which works well thematically but feels oddly risqué after the bulk of this prudish tedium), followed by a big gay reveal at the end, which ineffectually attempts to recontextualize much of what we’ve seen up to this point. But even knowing the twist and watching to see how the film played out given these previously hidden details, it still felt scattered and emotionally incoherent – leaving this so-called thriller bereft of any thrills beyond the twist itself, which is too bad. I enjoy all of these performers much more in other pieces and the movie isn’t exactly horrible so much as deeply flawed. But unless you’re a completist I’d suggest skipping this one.
