Sometimes a movie does what it says on the tin, such as these movies named after job titles…
Choosing the title of your movie can be one of the hardest tasks. Get it wrong, and you might find your film is wholly mis-sold or misinterpreted by audiences. That was one of the reasons William Friedkin’s Sorcerer had a tough time at the box office, because the title suggested a movie that might feature sorcery. Of course, the other reason it tanked at the box office was due to a little film you might have heard of called Star Wars.
You could have a film title named after a profession, and audiences will go in with the distinct feeling they’re gonna see a film about a window cleaner, a chef, a babysitter, or whatever profession might adorn the movie title. It’s time to take a look at some essential movies named after job titles…
The Transporter
There’s rarely any messing around with a Jason Statham film title. One or two-word titles, ruthlessly simplistic, and for numerous movies, named after job titles. He’s been a Beekeeper, a Spy, just a generic Working Man, and I suppose an Expendable kind of counts too. He’s also been a Mechanic, but not the kind who fixes cars, more the kind who orchestrates hits to look like accidents.
In The Transporter, the Stath plays a transporter who specialises in making no questions asked deliveries, whether it’s mysterious contents inside a car, or transporting fleeing bank robbers to safety (just as long as they meet a previously agreed weight limit). The first film in the franchise (which also spawned a TV show and a limp reboot) is the best, and it really kick-started Statham’s career as an action man. It’s filled with Corey Yeun’s creative action, and Statham is a perfect conduit.
The Piano Teacher
The title might suggest something fairly serene about a piano teacher’s trials and tribulations. However, this is a Michael Haneke film. It’s also strange to say it’s one of his more accessible, given it’s still a pretty extreme psychosexual drama. Isabelle Huppert is the titular teacher who has a very complicated relationship with her mother, disturbing kinks, and revels in the power she can wield over her students, but when she meets Walter (Benoit Magimel), she experiences a gradual shift.
Initially, she’s manipulating him for her own gratification, but the power dynamic takes a wild twist. Huppert, as always, is phenomenal in a film that’s difficult to forget.
Blade Runner
Sometimes the profession can be a fictional one existing within the world of the film. Harrison Ford is Deckard, a Blade Runner, which is what they call a professional bounty hunter who targets and kills replicants. He’s Harrison Ford, so that also means he’s the best in the business.
Ridley Scott’s visionary and visually staggering blockbuster took a while to really find widespread acclaim, but right from the off, it created a new visual archetype that countless Sci-fi movies would adhere to in its wake. Backed by Vangelis’ exquisite score and the superb cast, it’s a cornerstone of sci-fi cinema, and Rutger Hauer runs away with the movie.
The Wedding Singer
Adam Sandler was riding high on the success of Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, and then he got himself a job as a Wedding Singer (and shortly after that, a Waterboy). The Wedding Singer hits with a perfect blend of comedy, heart, and nostalgia, with Sandler playing a jobbing wedding singer in the 80s who gets his heart trampled on by his girlfriend. He’s then helped out of his depressed funk by a woman whose wedding he’s hired to play at, and of course, they slowly fall in love.
With great gags and perfect chemistry between Sandler and Drew Barrymore, as well as a sensational soundtrack, The Wedding Singer has so much repeat value. It’s a perfect comfort movie, and the litany of walk-on roles from the likes of Jon Lovitz and Steve Buscemi also hit the bullseye.
Stalker
How the hell is this for a leap? From an Adam Sandler rom-com to Andrei Tarkovsky’s existential and philosophical sci-fi masterpiece Stalker. This one has nothing to do with rummaging in people’s bins, stealing their mail, or following them around everywhere. The title refers to the profession of the titular ‘Stalker,’ who acts as a guide, taking people into a cordoned-off area known as the zone. A dangerous place left by aliens, entities, or a former nuclear dumping ground, it’s never clear, but within it lies a room that may well grant the wishes of those who dare enter.
Tarkovsky’s elusive and wilfully slow style might alienate some as much as it wholly enraptures most cinephiles. For many, you take out what you take into the film with you, but its lasting power, if you get hooked into the zone, is undeniable. Visually, it is stupendous.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Comedy musical trio, The Lonely Island, delivered a pitch-perfect mockumentary evisceration of modern pop filled with satire, farce, and memorable bangers. Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone fill the movie with an onslaught of humour and characters blissfully unaware of their daftness. Samberg is the perfect oblivious lead, and Schaffer and Taccone nail the music docu formula to perfection.
Whilst it’s all about comedy and ridiculous music numbers (that are way better than most legit modern pop music), it also manages to carry heaps of sincerity.
The Handmaiden
We’ve had one slice of psychosexual; we might as well have another. Park Chan-wook has an innate ability to shock audiences, whilst simultaneously creating works so dazzlingly assured and technically exceptional that they transcend being the work of a mere shock-jock. The Handmaiden is stunning to look at, and its three-act, Rashomon-esque story is intricately woven. Everything about the movie’s mise-en-scene is sumptuous.
It’s also pretty steamy with some notorious scenes between Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee. Yet, the biggest thing to hold interest is their performances, with the structure and characters holding back a lot. It’s a great example of show and not tell.
Taxi Driver
Paul Schrader’s script, Martin Scorsese’s direction, and Robert De Niro’s immense performance made Taxi Driver one of the greatest new Hollywood films and a masterpiece. It’s a chilling journey, via Travis Bickle’s taxi, into the dark underbelly of nighttime New York. Scorsese paints a grim, nightmarish, but oddly beautiful depiction that could occasionally be out of a gothic depiction of hell. Vents spew steam, water mains burst, crimson neon colours Bickle in a hellish red during one particularly memorable confessional.
It’s all backed by the idiosyncratic score from Bernard Hermann that drifts from chilled jazz to crescendos of discordant chords that suddenly remind us this isn’t a pleasant time, place, or protagonist. To pull this off took three masters on their A-game (and additionally an incredible early Jodie Foster performance). You need only look at the film that mined so much from this, Joker, to see the film-bro-proach in contrast.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Why have just one measly profession in your title when you can have four? Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy focuses predominantly on the latter profession in this adaptation of the classic John Le Carre novel. Some found the film a bit slow and dry, but this was never meant to be the flash bang wallop, razzmataz of Bond or Bourne. Though it misses some aspects of the source material (that you’d find more readily in the mini-series), the stellar cast and watertight direction from Tomas Alfredson make this gripping in a genre that was somewhat out of fashion back in 2011. It’s also beautifully shot by Alfredson’s Let The Right One In cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema.
Heading the who’s who of British cinema is Gary Oldman, who plays one of his most understated but quietly compelling roles. Meanwhile, Tom Hardy continued a run around that period of stealing all his scenes.
Adventures of a Plumber’s Mate
In the 1970s, there was a slew of pretty terrible bawdy British sex comedies with job titles aplenty. Confessions of a Window Cleaner, Adventures of a Private Eye, Confessions of a Driving Instructor, and Confessions of a Pop Performer. If they didn’t star Robin Askwith (the Confessions series) they might have starred Christopher Neil, a one-time songwriter, performer, and nearly man popstar who was briefly put in a string of these British comedies as a cheeky chappy caught up in all manner of shenanigans with mature housewives.
They’re almost funny because of how unfunny they are, but what makes Adventures of a Plumber’s Mate particularly interesting is how Neil would end up leaving acting behind to focus on music, only to become one of the biggest producers around, working with the likes of Celine Dion, Mike and the Mechanics, and Sheena Easton (including working on her Bond theme, For Your Eyes Only). Quite a transition from the ‘not half,’ ‘oo-err missus’ Tom-foolery of his character, Sid South. As a time capsule into what British males found entertaining back then, it’s fascinating because these films did huge business in what was a more titillating evolution of the Carry On formula.
The Lawnmower Man
A film that really popularised that brief abundance of VR-themed movies. This one was largely helped to step beyond what were usually straight-to-video numbers, because it was based on a Stephen King story. It’s also helped by the solid direction of Brett Leonard (who revisited VR with Virtuosity). Here, Jeff Fahey is a simple-minded gardener, who’s at least fairly adept with a lawnmower, who becomes an unwitting human test subject for Pierce Brosnan’s dashingly handsome (but slightly mad) scientist’s virtual reality experiments.
As this is a King story, things inevitably go wrong. It’s all incredibly hokey, and Brosnan pouts with complete seriousness when spouting lines like, “That was the best chimp I ever had.” It’s great fun, but the less said about its sequel (minus Brosnan and Fahey), the better.
Clerks
Kevin Smith’s breakout indie film was produced by maxing out credit cards and flogging comic books, blending the early stumblings of mumblecore with confidently irreverent comedy. On a shoestring budget, in an indie boom era when films like this could find distribution and an audience, he created characters enduring enough to spawn sequels and spinoffs (in the case of Jay and Silent Bob).
The black and white photography manages to make the film feel more visually engaging than it might have been in colour. It’s a source of continuing inspiration for broke-ass filmmakers armed with a camera and a dream.
Honorable Mentions:
Timecop, Robocop, Personal Shopper, The Cable Guy, (the imaginatively titled) Cop, The Stripper, Showgirls, The Stuntman, The Driver, The Boxer, and The Exorcist (though that might count as voluntary work?).
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Tom Jolliffe
