Handgun
Deep in the Heart

The second film, written and directed by British producer and actor Tony Garnett, is technically from 1983, as it's a British movie and it came out in England in '83, but it opened in America under the title of Deep In The Heart in 1984, so I snuck it into my 1984 anniversary series. Handgun stars Karen Young in her debut film, playing a young school teacher from Boston who, shortly after moving to Dallas, is forced into sexual intercourse at gunpoint while on a date she didn't really want to go on in the first place. Her anger at her assailant (an outstanding Clayton Day) and at herself, the justice system, and the spiritual advisors of her faith drives her to join a gun club, buy a handgun, and set herself on a distinctly personal path of vengeance.

While this picture might sound like an exploitation indie, it was made by EMI Films with a decent $3M budget. But this was not the typical Rape/Revenge thriller most audiences and the distributor were expecting. In fact, Warner Bros bought the distribution rights essentially to bury the movie so it would not interfere with the latest Dirty Harry sequel, Sudden Impact, which had many similar narrative threads. Handgun faired well in the UK but died a quick death at the US box office after a lackluster release under its alternate Texas-play-on-words title that, it was assumed, might make clear the movie was geared more toward women than men. The film was largely forgotten until it received a 40th-anniversary limited edition BluRay release from the fine folks at the specialty label Fun City Editions.

Tony Garnett is best known for his long association with the legendary social issue, kitchen-sink-drama director Ken Loach. Garnett moved to the United States from the UK specifically because he wanted to make a film about gun violence in America. His goal was not to enter the writing process with any preconceived ideas about this subject but to research his story with an open mind. He got a development deal from The Ladd Company, then went to Dallas to soak up details about the culture of small-town America and write the film. Many of the people in the film are not actors but the actual folks Garnett met during his research. Specifically, the gun store proprietor, gun enthusiasts, and the man from the gun club who trains Young's character. These people all give the films a certain level of verisimilitude that successfully prevents the movie from falling into either the pious scolding or gung-ho celebration of gun violence that is nearly unavoidable to one degree or another in all Hollywood movies about firearms.

Still, the movie's greatest assets are the lead performances from Young and Day. They create such truthful characters that it can be difficult to watch, especially in scenes that depict how Young's Kathleen Sullivan must navigate her interactions with Day's Larry Keeler, keeping the hyper-coxy, well-educated, toxic male lawyer at arms' length without upsetting or offending him. I don't think I've seen a film that depicts date rape in such an accurate way before, and this was made in 1983 when the term barely existed, let alone the collective understanding that such an occurrence was even technically possible. The grade-school setting of much of the story also enables Garnett to brilliantly illustrate how much of a vital role guns and misogyny played in the settling of the American frontier and how much facts and myths about that are baked into contemporary attitudes and behavior. The one aspect of Handgun that feels contrived is the ending, though it is hardly the conclusion we're expecting. Perhaps wrapping up the film in a way that reminds us we are watching a movie rather than a true story isn't such a bad thing for a picture that is, deep in its heart, a distinctly female vigilante thriller.