Last time: Moran ran around; a wounded Wackjob waved wonderingly.
29. It’s called detective work; too bad the police in this movie don’t do any of it.
While all these other things are going on, Brenda is researching Connor/Nash, first by looking up his birth certificate. She interviews the doctor listed on it, who reveals that little Russell Nash died at birth and that someone is using his name.
It is at this point that I’m usually reminded that I need to track down the documentary I saw in my art history class in 1995, in which a fraud investigator starts forging a new identity for himself by visiting a cemetery and pulling this exact trick—looking for the name of someone the right age and getting the birth certificate. At the time, I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and I haven’t been able to find out anything about the documentary ever since.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is, good for Connor? His method is sound.
Brenda then calls on her friend Erik (It sounds like she says “Rick” to me, but I’ll defer to IMDb once more), who appears to be 1) an archivist and 2) played by an actor I remember as “the guy who didn’t do it in that Rumpole of the Bailey episode” (spoiler alert?). They putter around on a computer, comparing the signatures of all the guys who’ve owned Connor’s building for the last 200 years—all of which look the same, possibly because Connor traded away some of his immortal powers for really consistent penmanship. (It’s not really mightier than the sword in this case, but whatever.)
Erik then performs an early form of “Enhance!,” taking letters from all the signatures and matching them to the “Russell Nash” signature. By this time, I’ve seen this scene often enough to notice that one of the Ls doesn’t exactly match and then suddenly does, but to quote the Highlander himself, I guess it’s a kind of magic.
And then two incredible things happen: the first is that he whips off his glasses in time-honored movie-boffin style and reveals absolutely gorgeous eyes. Really. It’s like the male equivalent of the cliché where the buttoned-up librarian takes her hair down. Those of us inclined to do so get no time to enjoy them, however, as he says:
“So what you’ve got here is a guy who’s been running around since at least 1700, pretending to croak every once in a while, leaving all his goods to kids who’ve been corpses for years and assuming their identities.”
That’s a hard line to sell—and probably a hard one for an actor to deliver with a straight face, even in a movie like this one—but he does a great job. Remember my rant about exposition characters? This guy is worth ten of Ramirez. I especially love the implication that given the choice between “some immortal guy is hanging around New York and running a shop” and “my computer program screwed up,” he immediately believes the former. Highlander is very kind to nerds in some ways.
As Brenda stews in doubt, we cut to a newsstand vendor selling papers: Wackjob has apparently collaborated with a sketch artist to draw the Kurgan, and the result looks like someone saw the future emergence of Vin Diesel in a dream.
Next time: All the damn vampires. No, the other damn vampires.
Next time on TCBOM!: Connor and the Kurgan show us how to clear out a cathedral in about three minutes.
