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Art LaFleur's Jack Neely is just dumped from the movie

posted 11 years ago by Joker-26
2 replies | jump to latest

Watching the film again recently, LaFleur's character is prominent until suddenly there's a scene of a covered body on a stretcher being taken away and we're told that he was shot down by the Pathet Lao whilst delivering cargo. Seems strange that he was killed off like this so suddenly. It's sorta like when an actor dies mid-production and they have to figure out a way to accomodate it in the script. But LaFleur is still alive of course. Was he kicked off (or had to leave) the production for some reason I wonder?

[–] hackerman6731 11 years ago

No, he had a great time filming this from what I've seen in the interview on the DVD/Blu Ray. It's just part of the story, you get to know him and then they kill him off for drama. Art is always good in stuff, a fantastic character actor.

[–] spookyrat1 9 years ago

You're right of course, he wasn't dumped. But the sudden departure of his character from the narrative is indicative, IMO, of the problems of the film as a whole. Nothing seems quite polished to a high level, except the production values and the onscreen chemistry between Gibson and Downey. The real class anti- war comedies like MASH and Catch - 22 are full of interesting supporting characters. Here the best one disappears off-screen in the middle of the night, leaving us scratching our heads.🐭