Gene Hackman fails to get the credit for The Firm

For those who’ve never quite gotten over Gene Hackman’s voluntary retirement from acting, there’s an airing this week of one of his better roles.

Tom Cruise in a scene from The Firm.

For those who’ve never quite gotten over Gene Hackman’s voluntary retirement from acting, there’s an airing this week of one of his better roles: the evil mentor to Tom Cruise’s idealistic young barrister in director Sydney Pollack’s 1993 legal thriller The Firm (Monday, 9.30pm, One).

Note that Hackman’s name doesn’t appear in the credits, as the actor was miffed when Cruise’s deal prevented him from being on the poster. It’s elegant, streamlined entertainment, featuring that distinctive, memorable solo piano score by Dave Grusin that heightens the tension.

In his 1980s heyday, filmmaker John Landis (National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers) liked to cast fellow directors in his films. This hobby reached its apogee in the outrageously plotted 1985 comedy thriller Into the Night (Wednesday, 10.20pm, SBS Two), which stars Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, though the motivation may have been drumming up support for Landis’s legal troubles involving his previous film, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and the horrible helicopter accident during its production that killed actor Vic Morrow and two children. Among the no fewer than 20 filmmakers who can be glimpsed in small parts or walk-ons are Don Siegel, Jonathan Demme, Lawrence Kasdan and Australia’s Richard Franklin (in the cafeteria scene). The score features blues tunes by recently deceased legend BB King.

While on the theme of nocturnal shenanigans, one of the week’s must-see movies is another comedy-thriller, Sydney-born Rocky Horror Picture Show director Jim Sharman’s distinctive 1978 feature The Night, the Prowler (Monday, 2.25am, ABC). Sharman grew up in the eastern suburbs, and this savage satire from the pen of Patrick White nails the insecure pretensions of the time and place — as does Ruth Cracknell as the protagonist’s overbearing mother.

Speaking of troubled, that’s the word for the difficult creative process that led to writer-director Kenneth Lonergan’s magnificently nuanced 2011 drama Margaret (Sunday, 11pm, Ten). This immaculately acted piece, starring Anna Paquin as a Manhattan student, portrays the ripple effects of the woman's chance encounter with a bus driver. Novelistic and intelligent, it was shot in 2005 and was laboured over for years in post-production (even Martin Scorsese took a crack at it at). Of note is the three-hour timeslot Ten has allotted for it, which means in all probability the network is showing the director’s cut Lonergan prepared for the 2012 DVD release. It’s worth every minute.

In contemporary Germany, a high school teacher begins an experiment in autocracy that makes Lord of the Flies look tame in director Dennis Ganzel’s harrowing yet thoughtful 2008 drama The Wave (Monday, 12.15am, SBS One). This one’s worth it for the provocative sociopolitical overtones alone.

The Night, the Prowler (M) 4 stars

Monday, 2.25am, ABC

Margaret (MA15+) 4 stars

Sunday, 11pm, Ten

The Firm (M) 3½ stars

Monday, 9.30pm, One