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The Mighty Quinn
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The Mighty Quinn is a 1989 thriller film starring Denzel Washington, Robert Townsend, Mimi Rogers, M. Emmet Walsh, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and James Fox. The screenplay by Hampton Famcher is based on the novel "Finding Maubee" by A.H.Z. Carr. Washington plays a Jamaican police officer, who tries to help his childhood friend (Townsend) after he becomes a murder suspect.
The film takes its name from the Bob Dylan song of the same name, a Reggae cover version of which appears on the soundtrack.
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Encyclopedia
The Mighty Quinn is a 1989 thriller film starring Denzel Washington, Robert Townsend, Mimi Rogers, M. Emmet Walsh, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and James Fox. The screenplay by Hampton Famcher is based on the novel "Finding Maubee" by A.H.Z. Carr. Washington plays a Jamaican police officer, who tries to help his childhood friend (Townsend) after he becomes a murder suspect.
The film takes its name from the Bob Dylan song of the same name, a Reggae cover version of which appears on the soundtrack. Film critic Roger Ebert was notable for giving the film an overwhelmingly positive review, calling it one of the best films of 1989.
Plot Summary
Xavier Quinn (Washington) is the chief of police on a small, unnamed Caribbean island (the film was shot on location in Jamaica). Having served in the U.S. Marines, and been trained at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia, he is, if anything, overqualified for his present job, but the island is his home.
When Donald Pater, the millionaire owner of a luxury resort hotel is found murdered, everyone assumes that the culprit is Maubee (Townsend), a ganja dealer, womanizer, and petty crook who is a sort of local hero, and also happens to be Xavier's best friend. Xavier doesn't believe it, and so clashes with the local bureaucracy: Thomas Elgin (Fox), an arrogant political fixer, and the island's corrupt and underqualified governor (Norman Beaton). Xavier himself passed Maubee speeding away from the hotel on his motorcycle.
Xavier's worries over the murder exacerbate his troubles at home; he is estranged from his wife, Lola (Ralph), who says he has "changed," in an effort to fit in among the island's upper crust, even though he doesn't like them.
Maubee eludes the police at every turn, even appearing personally to Xavier now and again, before running off. On one of these occasions, Xavier questions witness afterwards, who says that Maubee was carrying a "$10,000 bill," despite there being no such thing.
Trying to track him down, Xavier questions Ubu Pearl (Esther Rolle), the local witch, and mother of Maubee's current girlfriend, Isola; and Hadley Elgin (Rogers), Thomas's wife, who feels a powerful attraction to Quinn. The governor also introduces Xavier to Mr. Miller (Walsh), an affable American said to represent the murdered man's company.
The cause of Pater's death seems obvious: he was found floating in a Jacuzzi tub, decapitated. Against the governor's instructions, Quinn has the body autopsied by the elderly Dr. Raj (Keye Luke), who reports that Pater died of a venomous snake-bite, and was already dead when his head was cut off.
Xavier notices a Latin man following him, and stops to apprehend him. The man, Jose Patina, claims to be on vacation, but Xavier finds he has also been questioning people around the island trying to find Maubee.
After questioning Hadley about her encounter with Patina, she tries to seduce him. He resists (with difficulty), and wanders to a bar where he entertains the crowd with a piano performance. Afterward, half drunk, he is picked up by Maubee in a stolen car (the governor's), and they spend a night on the beach, sharing a bottle and old reminiscences. In the morning, Xavier wakes up to find Maubee gone, despite the handcuffs that Xavier put on him.
When Patina is bailed out of jail, he confers with Miller in a seedy hotel. Miller tells him the "operation" is over, then kills Patina with a silenced pistol. Miller then goes to Ubu Pearl and demands that she tell him where Maubee is. When she refuses, he burns down her house, with her inside.
Quinn eventually works out that Pater, a close associate of the U.S. President, brought stacks of $10,000 bills to the island to be picked up by Patina. The President wants to fund an anti-Communist revolution in Latin America, but Congress doesn't agree, so the President is using discontinued currency that is still good, but will not be missed from its storage in the U.S. Treasury. However, the murder messed up the plan, and so the C.I.A. has sent an agent – Miller – to retrieve the money and "plug up the holes."
Xavier tracks Maubee down at their childhood playground, in an ancient ruin, where Maubee explains the rest of the mystery: Pater impregnated Isola when she was a maid at the hotel. Ubu Pearl demanded that Pater support the child, but Pater laughed this off, and Isola was fired. Ubu Pearl instructed Isola to go to the hotel and leave a snake in Pater's room. Maubee sneaked into the house to see Isola, and, when he found out where she had gone, sped to the hotel, but was too late. He arrived just as Pater was dying from the snakebite he received, and saw the money in the suitcase. Maubee cut Pater's head off and put his body into the tub to try and conceal the real cause of death, and grabbed the money.
Miller arrives, having also found the hiding place, and holds the pair at gunpoint. Maubee hands over the money, and Miller departs in a helicopter. Insanely, Maubee runs out and grabs onto the helicopter as it lifts off and flies over the ocean. Seeing him, Miller sticks his gun out the window and fires, and Xavier watches, helpless, as his friend's body falls into the ocean. However, a snake hidden in the money sack slithers out and fatally bites the helicopter pilot. Miller struggles to regain control, but the chopper crashes into the old ruins and explodes.
Grieved at the loss of his friend, Xavier returns home and reconciles with his wife. As Xavier walks on the beach with his son, the camera pans down to show a line of bare footprints emerging from the water, leading to a rock with a $10,000 bill sitting on it.
Reception
Roger Ebert gave the film four stars. The high point, he said, was Washington's performance:
The film stars Denzel Washington in one of those roles that creates a movie star overnight. You might have imagined that would have happened to Washington after he starred in "Cry Freedom" as the South African hero Steven Biko. He got an Oscar nomination for that performance, but it didn't even begin to hint at his reserves of charm, sexiness and offbeat humor. In an effortless way that reminds me of Robert Mitchum, Michael Caine or Sean Connery in the best of the Bond pictures, he is able to be tough and gentle at the same time, able to play a hero and yet not take himself too seriously.
Trivia
- There are strong similarities between M. Emmet Walsh's character and the venal private detective he played in the film Blood Simple, an outwardly affable man who in reality is a cold-blooded killer.
Allusions to real-life history, persons, or events
- There are obvious parallels between the espionage plot and the Iran-Contra affair, during which officials in the Reagan administration, possibly with the knowledge of Reagan himself secretly sold weapons to Iran and diverted a portion of the funds to the anti-Sandinista guerilla group, the Contras.
- The U.S. did indeed issue a $10,000 bill in the early 20th century. However, it is incorrectly described by one of the characters in the movie as having a picture of "The President." The real $10,000 bill featured Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury during the American Civil War.
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