The Big Picture

Walken’s role in
At Close Range
showcases a terrifying side of the actor, as his character is based on a real-life criminal.
The dynamic between Walken and Sean Penn in the film is tense and compelling, with darkness hidden below the surface.
The real-life criminal history behind the film was not accurately portrayed, causing controversy among those involved in the case.

Christopher Walken has become something of a one-man-show in any project he’s in. Be it his penchant for dancing in everything, his need for more cowbell on Saturday Night Live, or his…unusual line delivery style, anything Walken says or does feels like an event. Even seeing him as the Emperor in a story as out there as Dune: Part Two was too much for some people, because they could only see Christopher Walken and not the character.

There was a time when he wasn’t so cutely eccentric, but was actually one of the most menacing men in mainstream Hollywood films. It wasn’t a muscle he flexed that often, but for about a decade, he went on a run of amazing villainy that would make Gary Oldman jealous, in films like True Romance or Nick of Time. The scariest instance of his villainy, though, was in At Close Range as a small-scale crime lord, which was made all the more terrifying because his character was based on real life.

At Close Range (1986) A troubled youth reconnects with his estranged father, only to be lured into his father’s life of crime. As he becomes more entrenched in the criminal activities, he struggles with the harsh realities and moral dilemmas that come with it.Release Date April 18, 1986 Director Nicholas Kazan Runtime 111 Minutes Main Genre Crime Expand

What Is ‘At Close Range’ About?
Brad Whitewood, Jr. (Sean Penn) doesn’t really know what he wants to do with his life. He knows he wants to get out of his small town, he knows he wants to date Terry (Mary Stuart Masterson), and he knows that he wishes his father were around more. Stuck living with his mom, half-brother Tommy (Chris Penn), and his physically abusive stepfather, he yearns for the love and approval of his biological father, Brad, Sr. (Walken). Brad Sr. only shows up every once in a while, giving him a few hundred dollars and the bare minimum of interactions, but that all might change when Jr. proposes joining him in his line of work. Jr. knows that Sr. makes money by being the leader of a gang of people who mostly commit robberies, and he’s accrued enough success that he carries a measure of weight in their small neck of Pennsylvania. Jr. wants in on that action, but little does he realize how harsh of a wake-up call he’s going to get as to who his father truly is.

Walken has certainly been scary before, meant to give you the shivers and keep you on your toes, but he tends to be used in a way that’s either more playfully sinister or introspectively messy. His roles as Zorin in A View To a Kill or King Louie in The Jungle Book made people giggle at his theatricality and larger-than-life grandiosity, while roles like Frank White in King of New York or Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can had him play nefarious men who had to grapple with the consequences of their actions and learn how to either make things right or deal with the guilt of what he’s done. Brad, Sr. isn’t capable of having any of those qualities, as he made peace with who he is a long time ago, and only cares for himself and his business. If he does care for anybody, be it his sons or his crew, it’s only insofar as that person can do something for Brad or stroke his ego. He’s spent a long time building up his criminal empire and letting people know the kind of man he is, and he isn’t going to let that slide without enjoying the fact that people know about it — most of all his son.

Christopher Walken and Sean Penn Are a Riveting Father-Son Duo
Image via Orion Pictures

What the film needs in order to succeed is a believable father and son dynamic between Christopher Walken and Sean Penn, which the actors pull off effortlessly. Walken is all menace and mystery, holding his actual feelings under an ambiguous exterior, forcing the audience into a queasy state of unease over what he’ll do next. Penn, meanwhile, is all angst and rage, riding the razor’s edge between innocent youthfulness and dangerous explosiveness, endearing himself to an audience only to then blow them back with the fire inside of him. This shared quality of a hidden darkness underneath an appealing surface is what makes them so convincing as family members, where you can see how Sr. has rubbed off on Jr. in ways that Jr. is not particularly proud of. That tension between who Jr. wants to be and who he’s afraid he actually is dominates the emotional tension between the two, making every standoff between them crackle with a mixture of hatred and love.

But how much love is there actually between them? Jr. is ashamedly needy in his love for Sr., with Penn’s puppy dog eyes begging for scraps, but Sr. can only conceptualize love for things that are an extension of his ego. Sr. can tolerate loving Jr. so long as he does what he wants by joining the gang and not snitching on them, and actively disregards Tommy since he isn’t Sr.’s biological son, going so far as to “jokingly” call Tommy a bastard to his face in front of Jr. to assert dominance. That overly cocky mindset, both when it comes to him being a father and his reputation as a criminal, is perhaps the most honest emotional display that Sr. can muster, with Walken indulging in irreverent glee that’s frankly spine-chilling, exposing where his priorities truly lie.

Related Sorry ‘Pulp Fiction,’ but This Is Christopher Walken’s Most Bonkers Monologue As if he wasn’t iconic already, this performance seals the deal.

For Sr., everything in life comes back to the power he holds over others, with a warped view of being the only dependable individual around. When Jr. tells him he actually doesn’t want to work for him anymore, being put off by the sadistic violence the gang uses, Sr. shouts him down by insisting that Jr. is too dumb to do anything by himself, exposing how he sees his children as no-good leeches unless they step in line with him. Sr. is every kind of apex predator rolled into one pathetic package, and Walken sells him with a dynamic relish, with the empty eyes of a shark and the imposing growl of a lion.

Roger Ebert Perfectly Sums Up Christopher Walken’s Performance
Image via Orion Pictures

This all comes to a head in a brilliant climactic encounter, with Jr. having to confront his father once and for all, holding him at bay with a gun, having witnessed enough of the horrors that Sr.’s gang has committed. Penn is on the brink of destruction, moist with sweat, face contorted into a gagging grimace. Walken is seemingly calm, yet clearly unnerved, the wheels turning as to how to fix this situation. You realize this is the first time that Sr. has been truly afraid at all, and has no idea what to do. It leads to the only time he expresses any direct love for Jr., saying, “I got feeling for you, I care, I love you. Is that what you want to hear?” It’s such a bald-faced attempt at manipulation, him sprouting crocodile tears and only deigning to acknowledge an honest connection when his life is on the line, and Walken’s combination of bravado and spinelessness makes you understand why Roger Ebert praised Walken’s performance by describing it as “one of the great hateful performances of recent years.” You want to see him get brought to justice so badly, much like how the real life counterpart of his character was brought to justice.

‘At Close Range’ Was Inspired by a Real-Life Crime Gang

The film was inspired by the real-life capture of a criminal group known as “the Johnston Gang,” led by Bruce Johnston Sr., who was the basis for Walken’s character. A gang based entirely around thievery, their escapades eventually escalated into the likes of “grand theft auto, breaking into homes, stealing farm equipment and selling it for profit, and murder.” If anybody tried to snitch on them, be it witnesses or gang members, “They kept witnesses quiet with threats and intimidation. When threats weren’t enough, they turned to murder.” Things turned against the gang when Bruce’s son found out that, “his father and another gang member had [attacked] his 15-year-old girlfriend,” so the son cooperated with the law after surviving a retaliatory attack from Bruce Sr. Ultimately, his turning state’s evidence helped imprison his father and two of his uncles, all receiving life sentences and officially disbanding the gang.

When the film was in production, the filmmakers met with people involved in the real criminal history, like Bill Lamb, the prosecuting attorney in the Johnston Gang trial, who largely disowned the film. He disapproved of the film’s lack of interest in being factually accurate, and he accused the film of “glorifying murder” and making the police and prosecution “look like the Keystone Cops.” Furthermore, various detectives who were involved in the investigations saw the film and felt that the film portrayed the father and son relationship as more loving than it ever was in real life.

Plus, the film made it seem like it was all the Sean Penn character’s actions that brought the gang down, rather than “how law enforcement collaborated across traditional rivalries in order to gather tons of information and just squeeze the life out of this gang,” claimed former US district attorney Doug Richardson. While people involved with the production acknowledge that the film never aimed to be factually accurate. Despite the research, it wasn’t enough for the people actually involved in the painful history to look past it, which is par for the course when it comes to true crime stories. Nevertheless, that shouldn’t stop people from enjoying the film on its own merits, most notably Christopher Walken’s chilling work in one of his best performances.

At Close Range is available to watch on Prime Video in the U.S.

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