The House on Carroll Street (1988)

IMDb plot summary: In 1950s America, an FBI agent and a blacklist victim uncover a plot to smuggle Nazi war criminals into the country.

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Kelly McGillis, Jeff Daniels, and Mandy Patinkin.

The House on Carroll Street is a story about a woman who thinks she has uncovered a plot to sneak Nazi war criminals into the US under assumed names so that they can work with the US government. She does some digging, accompanied by an FBI agent who thinks she's on the right track, and the mystery unfolds. This is the next film in my Peter Yates filmography, and after jumping around all kinds of genres early on, this point in his career is mostly unremarkable action thrillers. The story keeps setting up interesting characters and then dropping them, such as the old woman who lives in the titular house on Carroll Street, and who is a seminal character in the first half of the film and then just disappears from it almost entirely in the second half. The romance in this is also really sloppy, with the second half of the film building it up in this big dramatic way that really wasn't earned. Just from those two specific critiques, the pattern is clearly that this is a movie that switches gears dramatically in the second half and doesn't do a good job of following through on what it's set up or setting up what it finally lands on. I enjoy Mandy Patinkin as the villainous government agent, but when am I not going to enjoy Mandy Patinkin? There's not a lot else to recommend this one.

How it entered my Flickchart:

The House on Carroll Street < Hamlet (2009)

The House on Carroll Street < The Visitor

The House on Carroll Street > Mr. & Mrs. Smith

The House on Carroll Street > Bright Lights

The House on Carroll Street > The Phantom Tollbooth

The House on Carroll Street > Where to Invade Next

The House on Carroll Street < The Great Escape

The House on Carroll Street > La Dolce Vita

The House on Carroll Street > Faust: A German Folk Legend

The House on Carroll Street > Little Lord Fauntleroy

The House on Carroll Street < Frantic

The House on Carroll Street < The Killing

Final spot: #3058 out of 4030, or 24%.