The Eclectic Choice: The Yakuza

The Yakuza (1975)
dir. Sidney Pollack


When Sidney Pollack recently passed away, there was a lot of talk about his acting and producing career. Everyone loved to point out how he directed the classic Three Days of The Condor, the comedy masterpiece Tootsie and the Oscar winning Out of Africa. For good measure, I’m tossing in They Shoot Horses…Don’t They, because if you haven’t seen it, you should. But the Pollack film I decided to go and revisit is one that gets very little attention, The Yakuza. After seeing it again, I have to say that it is a well constructed, acted and executed movie that needs more word of mouth.

Paul Schrader, his brother Leonard and Robert Towne wrote the screenplay. That is a powerhouse of writers no matter how you look at it. Add that to the acting talents of Robert Mitchum, Brian Keith, Richard Jordan and Ken Takakura, it seems that you’ve got dynamite on your hands. And that was where I used to be confused. I originally found the film slow, not the action packed intense dialog gangster movie that I’d hoped for. I wanted jalapeño dip and I was served a curry. Silly me.

Brooding, methodical and a primer on the yakuza genre itself, this is an impressive work with violence that you feel, because Pollack and company set it in reality and not some bloody ballet of kinetic energy film world. It’s because of the realism that you feel the pain, all of the pain. Not just the bullets and steel, but the characters who suffered due to traditional values and moral codes. It’s a story of brotherhood and betrayal, both known and unknown. Well worth a look and an impressive collection to any library.

I did find the score to be a little melodramatic and overstated, but a minor quibble in a well rounded beautifully executed film.