End of Days (1999)

By the late 1990s, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s box-office reign was drawing to a close.

The comedies Junior (1994) and Jingle All the Way (1996) grated on audiences rather than tickled them. The action films Eraser (1996) and The 6th Day (2000) faltered. The less said about Batman & Robin (1997), the better (though Arnie’s pun-laden Mr Freeze is probably the best thing about it).

At the end of the decade, Arnie starred in director Peter Hyams’s End of Days, playing an alcoholic New York bodyguard named Jericho Cane in a role that perhaps reflected the trajectory of Schwarzenegger’s stardom.

Unshaven, gruff, his family wiped out, Jericho is on the verge of taking his own life when he’s called to protect Christine York (Robin Tunney), a wealthy woman who Rod Steiger’s shouty priest believes is the target of Lucifer (a suave Gabriel Byrne).

Yes, it’s Arnie – and his partner, Chicago (Kevin Pollack) – versus the Devil, and it’s every bit as ridiculous and histrionic as it might sound.

It’s also, perhaps, Arnie’s last truly entertaining action film, where he’s forced to dial down the comedy as Hyams paints a gloomy Manhattan filled with pre-millennial angst.

What’s more, the cast assembled around him is tremendous; he gets beaten up more than you might expect (by Miriam Margolyes at one stage!), and he gets to channel the growly machismo that always sat adjacent to his goofy comedy.

It’s a definite turning point for Schwarzenegger, and an underrated supernatural thriller.

Being a theological struggle Schwarzenegger style, the battle to save Christine involves a scene where a man dangles from a helicopter while chasing another man across a rooftop, and a scene in which a character clings by his fingertips to a high window ledge, and a scene in which a runaway subway train explodes, and a scene in which fireballs consume square blocks of Manhattan, and a scene in which someone is stabbed with a crucifix, and . . .

Such films are, of course, extremely vulnerable to logic. When Jericho is told that the Prince of Darkness must do his dirty deed precisely between 11.00 pm and midnight, he asks, “Eastern Standard Time?”

Jericho is told that the precise timing was meticulously worked out centuries ago by Gregorian monks, whose work on the project included (as a bonus by-product) the invention of the Gregorian calendar.

Hmm . . . Let’s see. Rome is six hours ahead of New York, so those clever monks must’ve said “The baby will be conceived between 5.00 am and 6.00 am on January 1st, Rome time, so that will be between 11.00 pm and midnight in a city that does not yet exist, on a continent we have no knowledge of, assuming the world is round and there are different times in difference places as the Earth revolves around the Sun, which of course it would be a heresy to suggest.”

Arnie complained that the lighting on the shoots was too dark and did not get along with director Peter Hyams. Neither did Rod Steiger, who told Hyams, “I have to tell you, my friend, I could break your fucking head. I don’t like you. I know you don’t like me. We will never like each other. Let’s get this goddamn thing over with. I want to go home”.

Jericho
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Man
Gabriel Byrne
Christine
Robin Tunney
Chicago
Kevin Pollak
Detective Marge Francis
CCH Pounder
Thomas Aquinas
Derrick O’Connor
OB-GYN
David Weisenberg
Christine’s Mother
Rainer Judd
Mabel
Miriam Margolyes
Head Priest
Udo Kier
Pope’s Advisor
Luciano Miele
Cardinal
Michael O’Hagan
Pope
Mark Margolis
Kellogg
Jack Shearer
Father Kovak
Rod Steiger
Old Woman
Eve Sigall
Albino
Victor Varnado
Carson
Robert Lesser
Thomas’ Doctor
Elliot Goldwag
Anchor
Elaine Corral Kendall
Emily
Denice D. Lewis
Amy
Renee Olstead

Director
Peter Hyams