Fair Game (1995): When Ambition, Action, and Controversy Collided in the 90s
Each decade generates lists of What-If scenarios, and the mid-1990s is no different. It had its share of glossy Hollywood action thrillers, filled with chase sequences, entertaining explosions, and the sultry chemistry of the stars. It is during this period that Fair Game (1995) came into being, and with it, the Hollywood concoction of class, peril, and high octane thrill. It had the world’s most famous supermodel, Cindy Crawford, and the up and coming Baldwin, William, in the leads. It was a high speed thriller featuring beauty, bullets, and betrayal and on paper, it seemed a definite success. However, Fair Game’s, both on screen and off it, spiraled into unforeseen, complex situations.
When the Law meets Chaos
This film, loosely based on a novel that also served the Stallone film cobra in 1986, is directed by Andrew Sipes. The novel is by Paula Gosling and it is a Running Duck. This film has its story based on a character for Miami. Crawford plays the lead, McQuean, a Miami attorney who unwittingly becomes the target for a circle of corrupt ex-KGB. Her only ally turns out to be Max Kirkpatrick, Baldwin, who is a tough, cynical, and cynical cop who is dragged into McQueen’s chaotic and perilous fight for survival.
What starts off as a regular “woman in peril” narrative turns into a high-octane chase across the state of Florida complete with car explosions, gunfights, helicopter attacks, and the fast-paced, heart-pounding, 90s action sequence that the audience had come to expect. The narrative tends to ignore the romance that the story tries to build between Kate and Max, and turns their escape from the antagonist into a romantic encounter.
Crawford’s Kate is sharp, ambitious, and fearless — in the sense that she does not shy away from confronting the men who underestimate her. In a typical 90s action movie, a hero is a rugged and testosterone-fueled half the movie in a male-female duo and broken the rest of the time. The movie was marketed with the idea of romance as the emotional core of the narrative, and the rest of the narrative, the action, was to build the romance. A movie like Fair Game is a case study of how to go wrong with a angles, where with to build action sequences, mixing romance with action and losing the build of the action sequence.
The Weight of Stardom: Cindy Crawford’s Hollywood Gamble
By the mid-nineties, Cindy Crawford’s prominence wasn’t simply that of a supermodel but of the supermodel, the face of fashion, and a decade-defining icon for advertisements. Crawford’s Hollywood acting debut, as announced by Warner Bros, was bound to create a Hollywood hype, and for good reason. Would Crawford, as had other supermodels, like Grace Jones and Lauren Hutton, successfully make the crossover from the fashion runway to the big screen? Crawford’s Hollywood acting debut was bound to create a Hollywood hype, and for good reason.
In Hollywood, action scenes are often the most valued. Crawford’s training regime was intense as she transformed and prepared for the action scenes. Crawford took the role with the intent to create something that would remain long after she was gone, but she later admitted excitement also came with terror. Crawford had the intent to create something long lasting and remained active to avoid the labels the society had for her.
The acting debut of Crawford was not for her to create as an artist but to perform as a spectacle. The Fair Game was geared towards the major and sensational side of the story, hyping the soft porn, and later transformed Crawford for the screen as the audience and consumers obsessed. The high expectations for her debut were set by the media court and tabloid pressure to deliver a soft porn fairy tale.
Critics were harsh after the movie came out, even the reviews of the movie Crawford starred in! Crawford’s acting received the comments of “stiff,” and “model-like.” What those reviews didn’t take into account was the fact that Crawford was in an impossible situation of carrying an entire action flick with not even the briefest time to adjust to the responsibilities! Barely those years later, Crawford reflected so “It was a learning experience, I don’t regret it, but it taught me that I’m better at being myself than pretending to be someone else.” How true!
William Baldwin’s Fair Game and His Career’s Balancing Act
For William Baldwin, his career’s turning point was meant to be Fair Game. After the successes of Backdraft (1991) and Sliver (1993), he was the new leading man to be in Hollywood thrillers. Baldwin was to mix grit and humor as he portrayed the new action star. His role in the advancing action flick was so physically intense that he was not even required to double for him! He confidently choreographed his sequences with the stunt team!
Baldwin and Crawford were described as at odds with one another at the start of production. Despite the chemistry seen on camera, the pair had fundamentally different approaches to their work. Baldwin embraced the rudimentary instinct and method acting as an actor’s actor, while Crawford, as the less experienced of the two, sought more structure and guidance. In the aftermath, Baldwin was quoted as sounding almost apologetic on Crawford’s behalf, stating, “Cindy had the toughest job of all — stepping into a new world with the entire media watching her every move. She worked incredibly hard.” Crawford’s media portrayal as an acclaimed supermodel overshadowed Baldwin’s more sophisticated, acclaimed, and well-balanced performance in the film.
Each Deficient Layer in the Production of Fair Game
Fair Game’s production was highly challenging and incomplete. Shot in southern Florida and mainly Miami, the production was stalled on account of Florida’s shiftable and unpredictable weather, excess heat, equipment breakdowns, and logistical issues. The complex and hazardous action sequences comprising of car chases and explosions required high levels of synchronization, which was difficult to attain.
During long shooting days, Crawford, unfamiliar with the demands of these kinds of stunts, returned home exhausted and physically bruised. She later stated that for some of the more strenuous scenes, such as the one where she runs through a burning warehouse, she wanted the audience to experience raw, unfiltered realism. As a result, there were few stunt doubles for her to use.
The initial patchwork of these ‘creative’ pursuits has seen a more finessed resolution. As Andrew Sipes endured the tension of directorial debut, there were concerns ‘from the studio’ that delayed production so frequently ‘from the studio’ that it undermined the cohesion of the narrative. Conflicts shifting between action thriller and romantic drama discarded so much potential that it seemed the ‘From the studio’ declaration lamenting ‘the glue’ suggested J. Silver, with a history of rehabbing action scripts with emotional blackmail in his work, had lamented his emotional glue was ‘remade’ with focus. Based on its appearance, one would expect a story overflowing with missed emotional connection.
The Hype, the Heat, and the Aftermath
The marketing for Fair Game focused on the visuals, and the film’s posters featured Baldwin and Crawford locked in a passionate embrace, and the trailers promised high-speed car chases along with fervid seduction. The hype machine worked overtime — but the film couldn’t live up to it.
The film’s release and immediate reception coincided with the nadir of Crawford’s and Baldwin’s respective careers. Critics pinned it nearly unanimously, it received the label of ‘style without substance’, made a half-hearted box-office return, and quickly vanished from the public consciousness and from theaters. In the years after its release, debris and echoes from the film floated on in strange afterlives and ultimately helped build retro-cinema reference from the 90s, theatrical excess of that decade soaring along with the rip cord of a cult ‘guilty pleasure’.
Having fulfilled her quota of film roles, Crawford incorporated a definitive return to modeling and television, and Baldwin centered on more character-driven roles. For director Andrew Sipes, the film debut and swan song, was a defining paradox of the best and worst in the industry, as he never directed another feature.
The Legacy Beneath the Smoke
Despite its commercial failure, Fair Game remains interesting because it captures a moment in the evolution of Hollywood — when studios were fixated on transforming celebrity personas into major stars, and when the superficial glitter of beauty often eclipsed the more critical components of a successful and substantive performance. But it also reflects the more human side of the filmmaking process — the passion, the blunders, and the relentless drive to produce something important amidst intense critical pressure.
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