Way back in the mid-1980’s and while looking through a newspaper I found a very positive review for Edge of Darkness, a mini-series that was scheduled to air on PBS. The premise was intriguing: A British police officer’s daughter is murdered and, in his subsequent investigation of the matter, discovers a toxic cesspool of government corruption linked to nuclear research. I watched the series when it aired back then and though my memories of it are vague after the passage of time, I distinctly recall liking it quite a bit. I also really, really liked Joe Don Baker’s performance within the series as Darius Jedburgh, a shady CIA operative/fixer who, over the course of the series, became a delightfully unpredictable wild-card.
Years passed and, in 2010, I heard that the mini-series’ original director, Martin Campbell, was working on a movie remake of the mini-series with Mel Gibson in the title role. I was intrigued. I’ve been a fan of Mr. Gibson’s work since first seeing him in the incredible Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior when it first hit theaters way back in 1981. Of late, I’ve been equally shocked by some of the lurid details regarding his personal life. Still, I was interested in seeing the film but, of course, didn’t find the time to do so when it was initially released to theaters. Yesterday, I finally had a chance to see it and did just that.
The 2010 film version of Edge of Darkness retains the same general plot involving police officer Thomas Craven’s (Mel Gibson) search for his daughter’s murderers and the way it eventually ties in to a shady nuclear research facility and equally shady politicians. The movie’s setting has been changed, transplanting the story for no discernible reason from England to Boston.
While watching the film’s first half, I thought things were unfolding quite well. The central mystery was set up and Mr. Gibson does well providing a Boston accent and acting both filled with equal parts grief and rage as he investigates his daughter’s murder. Unfortunately, in the film’s second half the story suffers from compressing too much material to fit the parameters of a theatrical release. The original Edge of Darkness mini-series had the luxury of five and a half hours to tell its story. The movie, which clocks in at just under two hours, simply doesn’t have enough time to flesh out characters and situations and provide a good wrap up in that short a period of time.
The character who suffers the greatest from this compressed storytelling is, unfortunately, the character that to me was the most intriguing in the mini-series: Darius Jedburgh. In the movie, the role is played with considerable menace by Ray Winstone. Unfortunately in the movie he isn’t given anywhere near enough time to develop. In the mini-series, Craven and Jedburgh meet many times and become something of an odd-couple while pursuing the mystery of Craven’s daughter’s death. In the movie, they meet up a total of two times. There is more story presented with Jedburgh, but it involves his own reactions to his “bosses” and isn’t nearly as compelling as it could have been. Anyone who hasn’t seen the original mini-series and therefore isn’t aware of how important the character of Jedburgh was in it can be forgiven for wondering just why he was present in this film at all. He simply isn’t as necessary to this version of the story and, sadly, could well have been cut out entirely in favor of more time with Mel Gibson’s Craven.
In conclusion, what you have with the 2010 version of Edge of Darkness is a movie that starts well but simply can’t present as much plot as the original mini-series, devolving into a rather standard “good guy takes on the bad guys” story before reaching its admittedly very emotional conclusion. Two stars out of four.
And here’s Jedburgh and Craven’s first meeting from the original mini-series:
If you need any further proof of the directorial genius of Steven Spielberg, just look at some of the incredible set pieces/adventure sequences to be found in his first computer graphic movie The Adventures of Tintin.
That’s not, however, to say to that the film as a whole is a complete success. But let me backtrack just a little.
When I was very young, I was absolutely charmed by the works of Georges Remi, aka Herge, in the twenty three Tintin graphic novels he produced over his lifetime. I know there were previous animated and live action features based on the graphic novels, but Steven Spielberg’s film is the first time I would see Tintin and his world in something other than the original graphic novels.
When the film was originally released, I was curious how audiences in the United States would react. While Tintin is a beloved fictional character in Europe, Canada, and other parts of the world, Herge’s work never seemed to rise above cult status in the United States. Would audiences here give this film a look despite the lack of familiarity with the character and books?
As it turned out, the movie proved a mild success in the United States and a big hit oversees. The film was generally viewed positively by audiences here (Rottentomatoes.com has the film scoring a very good 74% among critics and 78% among audiences). I was eager to see the film in theaters, but the crunch of time proved too much and I simply couldn’t. Instead, I waited for the eventual video release and quickly got the movie into my BluRay player.
As I mentioned at the start, there are some scenes in The Adventures of Tintin that are simply astonishing. These scenes follow one after the other at roughly the middle of the movie to close to the end. First up is the escape from a freighter and subsequent airplane flight to the desert. These scenes are both hilarious and suspenseful. Soon after that, there is an incredible flashback sequence involving the Unicorn, a ship from the 1700’s whose fate is central to the story we’re presented. This flashback features some of the very best pirate action you’re likely to ever see in any film, live action or animated. Then there’s the sequence -all presented in one “take”- featuring a mad dash between the protagonists and the villains to gain control of three pieces of paper.
Each of these sequences are great and guaranteed to make your eyes pop.
…But…
Sometimes, too much of a good thing can be…too much. To me, some of the greatest works of fiction know how to balance out “quiet” scenes with “action” scenes. A few years back, while watching (of all things) Hellboy II: The Golden Army, I came to realize that when every sequence in the movie is presented as if it is a big set piece (action or otherwise) with all the bells and whistles (swelling music, frantic editing, solemn dialogue, etc. etc.), then after a while the “importance” of the sequence you’re watching becomes…less so. I had been so assaulted by one supposed big earth-shaking scene after the other that by the time Hellboy II reached its actual climax, it felt like just another sequence instead of what should have been a rousing conclusion.
So too, unfortunately, it is with that second half of The Adventures of Tintin. While the first half of the film -dare I say it- allows the story time to “breath”, when we’re finished with those wonderful sequences I noted above, we are unfortunately not quite at the film’s climax. We’re close, mind you, but because those sequences I pointed out are so damn good, when we actually do reach the movie’s climax and the villain and hero face off that one last time, it proved to be rather…dull. By that point I was mentally exhausted with the all that good stuff that came one after the other just before. Granted, Mr. Spielberg and company tried to fashion something great with that last confrontation between villain and hero, but it just didn’t live up to what came right before. Even worse, the sequence involving the chase for the three pieces of paper could easily have served as the movie’s climax…and it would have worked very well there. Had Mr. Spielberg done so, the film’s dénouement could have just as easily followed.
Regardless, I still admire what Mr. Spielberg and company did with The Adventures of Tintin. While I can’t say that the film was a complete success, particularly during that exhausting later half, I nonetheless was very impressed with what they did get right, from the incredible computer animation (some of the best I’ve ever seen) to those very successful action and humor sequences. Overall, I’d give this film a very solid three stars out of four. Recommended.
When I first heard about the 2011 film The Thing, the studios were out front and open about the fact that the film would be a prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter directed The Thing. That movie, by the way, was a remake of the 1951 film The Thing From Another World and all three films were based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. short story Who Goes There?
Hearing that the 2011 film would be a “prequel” to the John Carpenter film, I (along with pretty much everyone else familiar with the film) instantly knew what it was about: A look at what happened to the Norwegian station. In the opening scenes of the John Carpenter film, a helicopter carrying a pair of Norwegian men chases and shoots at a fleeing dog. The dog reaches the American’s Antarctic base and the Norwegian hunters, whom the Americans cannot understand and fear are dangerous, are killed while the dog is “rescued”. Afterwards, crew members of the American station go to the Norwegian station and find it in shambles. They come to realize that something very wrong happened here.
Familiarity with those brief scenes in the John Carpenter film effectively cut any surprise one might experience while watching The Thing prequel. After all, from the Carpenter film we know what’s going to happen to the Norwegian station: Everyone within it dies, it burns almost to the ground, and some strange dead creatures are found lying about.
What else is there to know?
That, in the end, proves to be the undoing of this prequel film. While it has been many years since the original John Carpenter release and perhaps the film’s makers felt this material would mostly be “new” to most young theater goers, for someone who was exposed to (and is a fan of) the John Carpenter film, watching this prequel felt like an exercise in filling in information that didn’t need to be filled in.
Having said that, the film isn’t terrible.
It was reasonably well made and the effects were, for the most part, pretty good, when they weren’t too obviously CGI. The acting was generally good even thought the writers failed to give many of the ancillary characters much of a character beyond victim-hood. The movie’s protagonist was played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead and, given the macho-centric John Carpenter original film, her choice as the lead was decidedly different.
There were a few other interesting things to be found, such as the way this group came up with their test for who might be a creature without resorting to what was used in the Carpenter film and the way they replicated the time (the film is set in 1982) and equipment we would see in the Carpenter film.
Overall, the film left me feeling that it was nothing more than a decent time killer. Not terribly bad, but neither was it something that was worth revisiting.
And about that whole prequel thing…I couldn’t help but think it would it have been much more clever on the part of the studios to feed the public misinformation about the film rather than admitting from the beginning this was a prequel.
Think about it: The studios could have insinuated this film was a “remake” or “re-imagining” of the Carpenter classic. Fans would have howled…how dare they remake a classic! How could they?
When the movie is released, it could have hidden, to some degree, the fact that the action took place on a Norwegian station and instead had a couple of Norwegian characters involved in the story. Then, when we reach the end and come full circle with the beginning of the Carpenter film, instead of giving audiences familiar with that movie something they knew would come, they are instead pleasantly surprised to realize they were watching a prequel rather than a remake. At least that might have offered something new and original to this ultimately all too familiar mix.
I’m not a big fan of romantic comedies, mainly because they tend to operate under a story “formula” that, to my eyes, has become all too predictable.
To begin, we have our main two characters (male and female). They meet, they fall in love with each other, sometimes right away, sometimes over a few minutes of screen time. Sometimes, they hate each other on the outset, but that’s only delaying the inevitable. They will fall in love with each other.
But there are complications. One of them, for example, may be engaged. Perhaps to the other’s best friend. Or maybe their meeting and love is some kind of con. Perhaps one of them was looking for a rich score, or trying to prove they could seduce anyone. In the end, they (say it all together now) truly fall in love. In the movie’s later acts, the truth of this deception comes out and it looks like the young lovers are destined to go their separate ways. Then, in the film’s final act, one or the other or both realize their love is true and they make up and live happily ever after.
The End.
Which, in a roundabout way, brings us to the 1997 film Grosse Point Blank. As I mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of romantic comedies. But like many things in life, there are exceptions. If there’s one romantic comedy that I can sit through multiple times, it is this film.
I’ve seen it several times, most recently over the weekend, and still get a chuckle out of it. Yes, the film follows the typical romantic comedy plot, but it is the unusual elements brought into the more standard ones that makes this film work so well.
To begin with, we’re not dealing with your typical protagonists. John Cusack is Martin Blank, hired killer, who is currently on a losing skid. We first meet him on one job where he’s hired to protect someone from a killer. He succeeds in his assignment…temporarily. His next job, a killing in Miami meant to look like a heart attack, is instead botched. He is forced to kill his target by far bloodier means. We further find that Blank is burned out with the job. He sees a (justifiably terrified) psychologist (Alan Arkin in what amounts to a cameo role, yet he is quite hilarious in his sparse scenes) and is being pressured by a psychotic fellow killer (Dan Aykroyd, also very funny in a someone bigger cameo role) to join his union…all while watching out that he doesn’t shoot him in the back.
Added to this mess is the fact that because of his botched jobs, Blank is being pressured to take on a “make up” job in Detroit, where he happens to have his 10th year High School Reunion coming up. Did I mention that Blank is obsessed with Debi Newberry (Minnie Driver, quite excellent as the grounded Yin to Blank’s highly eccentric Yang), a woman he abandoned on the night of their prom ten years before?
So the elements are all there for a truly oddball (and bloody!) romantic comedy. Old flames return to each other while Blank has to hide (in plain sight!) his job while avoiding assassins and CIA agents tasked to take him out, all while trying to set things right with the one time love of his life.
Grosse Point Blank isn’t Casablanca or Citizen Kane, but then again, very few films are. What this movie is is a funny and ultimately very satisfying variation on the romantic comedy formula. Sure, the elements outlined above are still there. But it is the outrageous outliers (the hired killers) that make this film strand out from so many in the pack. Recommended.
The ingredients that make a successful film versus an unsuccessful film are diverse. The most successful films, in my opinion, grab you from the very beginning, building from scene to scene and delivering a dynamic and unforgettable conclusion.
Unsuccessful films, too, are composed of varied ingredients…often resulting in something less than memorable. An unsuccessful film, for example, can have good acting voided by a weak script, or a good script hurt by bad acting. The direction could be pedestrian…the effects unimpressive or, worse, laughable. Then there are those films that are firmly average. They may be good enough to entertain you while you’re watching them, but the moment they’re done, so too is your interest in them.
Then there are those in between films. Movies that are “near misses”, containing so very many great features yet…yet don’t quite successfully cross the finish line.
The Dead (2010), as it turns out, is to me a pretty good example of just such a near miss. A very near miss.
The Dead is, yes, another exercise in the seemingly endless zombie genre (they’re everywhere, from TV to movies to apps to video games). The most unique element of this particular movie, however, is the setting: Africa.
In brief: The last flight of white foreigners leaving Africa after the zombie plague began crash lands. One of the very few survivors of the flight, Lt. Murphy (Rob Freeman), a mechanic/mercenary, tries to reach civilization alone. He eventually runs across another survivor, Sgt. Dembele (Prince David Oseia), an African military officer who abandoned his post and is searching for his son. Together, the two try to find some hope in this hopeless new world.
Again, there is plenty to like here, even if the plot is far from earth-shatteringly original. The zombie plague is presented in a harrowing way…the dead are quite literally everywhere, and one must not only fight them, but also the harsh African elements if there is any hope to survive. The cinematography and setting is at times breathtaking. This is territory we’ve rarely seen in film. Further, the effects and acting are also quite good. For those into gory effects, there’s plenty of it to see here, along with some great scares.
However, despite all the good, to me the film simply runs out of gas as it nears its end. I don’t want to give away any too many details, but in general I’ve found that zombie plague stories tend to end in one of two ways: 1) depressingly, as demonstrated in the original zombie plague film, Night of the Living Dead, wherein the entire cast is wiped out and we’re left with the feeling that civilization is very much doomed or 2) depressingly but with at least one ray of hope, as presented in the sequel to that film and perhaps greatest zombie plague film of them all, the original Dawn of the Dead. In that movie’s case, while most of the cast does wind up dead, the movie concludes with a feeling that the very few that have survived can and will fight on.
The Dead follows this formula. However, in this instance it felt like the ending was too “artsy” and symbolic. It was, unfortunately, my impression that the filmmakers, talented though they were, had a great idea for a story and had all these intriguing sequences they wanted to put into it, but were simply unclear on how they would wrap it all up. So they went for the formula ending but in this case, it just didn’t work.
However, having said all that, if you’re a fan of the zombie plague genre and are looking to kill a few hours watching just that, you’d do a lot worse than give The Dead a try. For all others, you may be better off going to the original two George A. Romero directed classics.
The first and last time, until now, I saw The Town That Dreaded Sundown was probably shortly after its original release back in 1976. This means I was way, waaaay too young to see what amounts to a prototype of the “slasher” film, one that shares some interesting parallels with what is considered by many (incorrectly!) the first of this genre, 1978’s Halloween.
Based on the true story of the Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946, the movie is an interesting attempt to present the “facts” of the case, even though there are considerable digressions and some very clumsy attempts to bring in humor. And, yes, even a car chase/crash. Even that.
The film’s story revolves around the unsolved serial killings and assaults our antagonist was (perhaps) responsible for. In the end, the man responsible for this rampage was blamed for assaulting eight people in total and of those, killing five of them.
The impressions I most recall of the only time I saw this film was the killer himself, presented as a tall, strong, and merciless force. He wore a cloth bag over his face with eye-holes cut into it and his eyes were a very deep, deep blue. When he breathed, the bag covering his face would ebb and flow, violently. This effect was creepy and remains so. Given the fact that the actor’s face is almost completely covered, its amazing how those intense blue eyes and the very heavy breathing successfully conveyed the savagery of his character. The second most lasting impression to my mind was his final attack, wherein he assaults a housewife and her husband in a pretty gory fashion. The husband is killed, the wife almost falls victim to him.
The wife, as it turned out, was played by -of all people!- Dawn Wells, who is best known as Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island. Given the fact that this film was made less than ten years after that show ended, she looks remarkably unchanged, and that adds a whole other layer of creepiness to see her become a bloody victim to this seemingly unstoppable killer. However, her role is ultimately quite minimal, occupying maybe five or so minutes of film time.
The movie itself shows signs of its age. While today’s horror films are not adverse to showing considerable amounts of gore, what gore is presented here amounts to nothing more than 1970’s era bright red blood. Nonetheless, despite this lack of gore, the film is quite harrowing at times. The attacks are often uncomfortably long and presented at times in a near documentary style. This adds to the horror. The victims are not presented as movie-style caricatures (ie, the horny teen, the stoner teen, etc.), but rather “real” people. Again, very uncomfortable to watch.
Where the film fails is in that the filmmakers didn’t appear to have a very good grasp of the story they were trying to tell. Between the killings, obviously, they had to present some kind of story. They chose logically, focusing on the police’s attempts to apprehend the killer. However, even this might not have been enough and padding is evident, particularly when we’re shown some very awkward -and downright stupid- “humor” sequences involving an incompetent deputy driver. This attempt at humor culminates in an out of left field car chase that results in a police car flying into a shallow lake. Needless to say, this sequence looked like it belonged in another movie.
Nonetheless, I found it interesting to revisit this very early example of a “slasher” film. While I’m not a particularly big fan of this horror sub-genre, it is nonetheless a popular genre to many. To those, you may be curious to give the film a look.
When I first heard about the movie Dreamcatcher, it was about to be released into theaters back in 2003.
First, though, an admission: I have never been a big fan of Stephen King’s novels. I’ve read a few, though they were “OK” at best, but found more enjoyment out of some of his short stories. As far as Dreamcatcher was concerned, I had no awareness at all about the book until the film was released.
Nonetheless, the commercials had me intrigued. For, while I freely admit to not being a terribly big fan of Mr. King’s novels, I cannot dispute the fact that there had been some very good movies based on his works, including, but not limited to, The Shining (my favorite), Carrie, The Dead Zone, and Salem’s Lot. Sure, there have also been many pretty bad adaptations (including the awful Stephen King himself directed Maximum Overdrive), but I was curious to give the movie a try.
Unfortunately, I missed the film’s original theatrical run yet remained interested in seeing it despite some withering reviews. Last night, I had the chance to do so, nearly a full decade after the original release.
Before I get to my reaction to Dreamcatcher, let me point out the film was written by Lawrence Kasdan and William Goldman. It was directed by Mr. Kasdan. William Goldman, for those who are unaware, is a living legend in the movie business. His screenplays include the wonderful Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Harper, All The President’s Men, The Stepford Wives, Marathon Man, etc. etc. Mr. Kasdan, however, is hardly a slouch when it comes to movie history. He wrote the screenplays to The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Body Heat, etc. etc. and directed such notable films such as the aforementioned Body Heat, The Big Chill, Silverado, and The Accidental Tourist.
So the idea that these three individuals, Mr. King, Mr. Goldman, and Mr. Kasdan were behind Dreamcatcher was, to say the least, a potentially fascinating mix. In front of the camera were some at the time strong up-and-coming actors such as Thomas Jane, Timothy Olyphant, Jason Lee, and, as the movie’s chief (human) antagonist, another screen legend, Morgan Freeman. With that much talent both in front of and behind the cameras, what could possibly go wrong?
Quite a bit.
Now, the movie’s direction is pretty good. The scenery/location is nice. The effects are quite good, even if some of the computer graphics show their age (this is hardly a knock as computer graphic technology has progressed considerably in the years since its introduction). The acting by all the principals is also for the most part good.
Which leaves the story.
…man oh man that story…
For the third time: I’m no huge fan of Stephen King’s novels. I never read the book this movie was based on and therefore don’t know how faithful/unfaithful it is to Mr. King’s novel. But even assuming the movie was a very radical departure from the book, the bottom line is that the plot of Dreamcatcher, the movie, is a mish-mash of story ideas and concepts seen far too many times before in the works of Stephen King himself and other, far better sci-fi and horror films.
What you have with Dreamcatcher is a movie that features elements of Stand By Me in a shotgun marriage with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Alien/Aliens. It is a mess of a film that moves from the present to the past and never really builds up enough steam to get us involved in almost everything that’s happening. We get the typical King flawed childhood characters grown up: In their youth, they were a “gang” of misfits who swear a lifelong pledge to be friends. They get into some scary mischief (in this case, they stop a trio of bullies from beating up a mentally disabled boy) and, as a result, find there’s more to their new-found friend than meets the eye. Despite his mental challenges, the beat up boy has a psychic gift, of sorts, which he shares with the other four boys who save him from the bullies (why he does this, given the movie’s final revelations, is a mystery that is never really resolved. Suffice to say, there is no real reason for this boy to be…a boy).
Fast forward twenty some years later and the four boys, now equally damaged grownups (one is suicidal, one is a drunk, one appears to have no real job, and the other is *gasp* a student counselor), head out to a hunting lodge for their annual “mischievous boys turned into damaged men annual hangout”. They miss their childhood and they miss their childhood friend (is he dead? We’re not certain…at least yet). They hang out and eat cooked ground beef and hunt (although they never are shown firing so much as a shot at any animal). Things are going hunky dory until the alien invaders show up.
Yup, alien invaders.
These invaders are both spores ingested through breathing or worm-like creatures with very, very sharp teeth. Soon, the military cordons off the forest and the entire surrounding area, and the man in charge, Colonel Kurtz (Morgan Freeman) reveals he’s been fighting alien invaders for over twenty years now and intends to wipe out every contaminated human and animal in the “zone”. Given the character’s name, an obvious shout out to Heart Of Darkness, it should come as no surprise that the man is more than a little unhinged.
Now comes the really sick/stupid part: The people infected by the alien spores at the onset of their condition start to get really gassy. Really gassy.
They burp and fart and their stomachs swell up grotesquely. When the alien spore within them finally emerges as a sharp-toothed worm, it does this by explosively emerging…from the victim’s ass.
You read that right: The worm explodes out of the victim’s ass.
There are times I fantasize walking into an agent or movie studio executive’s office and pitching a story concept and hoping against hope that the pitch will result in a green light. I’m a nobody to the movie industry…I have a few books out there which I think are pretty good and one of my stories, The Dark Fringe, has spent the past few years being shopped around the studios by the people behind Cowboys & Aliens and might, if I’m fortunate enough, get made into a film one day. At this point in time, however, I’m a nobody to the studios and for all intents and purposes my fantasy of movie glory remains just that.
So I’m thinking: If Stephen King had never written a novel called Dreamcatcher and I was the one who came up with the concept of the story and pitched it to an agent or movie studio executive, what would the results have been? I strongly suspect that by the time I got to the point of saying “…and the alien worms come out the victim’s asses…” they would call security and have me thrown out of their offices. Hell, if I were them, I’d certainly do so!
Further, I wonder what would happen if I had stepped into a time machine and approached Mr. Goldman circa 1968, when he’s hard at work on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and tell him that one day in the future he’ll be credited with writing a screenplay about alien creatures who explode out of people’s asses…and the film is meant to be a horror movie and not a comedy, I suspect he might well have called the cops on me too.
But because we’re talking about a movie based on a book by Stephen King and written by Lawrence Kasdan and William Goldman and directed by Mr. Kasdan, reputations, I strongly suspect, precede the work itself. Getting a movie like Dreamcatcher financed and off the ground probably involved studio executives looking at the names associated with the project rather than the project itself.
I just can’t believe anyone in their right mind would read the screenplay or hear a pitch to this movie and decide to go for it. Even as a lark.
And when one of the film’s biggest “suspense” sequences involves one of the characters sitting on a toilet and thus holding the lid down to keep one of those killer worms from escaping (Can you imagine Alfred Hitchcock working on something like this?!), and the character, knowing full well his life is in mortal danger, is nonetheless tempted to leave that lid for just one second because he has to get a toothpick from the ground to chew on. Because, you know, it’s perfectly logical that when your life is in mortal danger you just have to do something that stupid…
At least in the Friday the 13th films, the cannon fodder teenagers risked their lives for something much more worthwhile…getting laid!
The only people I could recommend this film to is the MST3K crowd. You may be able to get more enjoyment out of laughing at -but not with– the film, if nothing else.
Last year, the movie Drive appeared to do well in building up pre-release buzz. Actor Ryan Gosling, the film’s star, likewise was looking to have a serious breakout year, what with not one, not two, but three big film releases, each in a different genre (the other two being the political drama The Ides of March and the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love).
Shortly before the release of Drive, the studios fed the first five or so minutes of this to the internet. The sequence presented, although incomplete, was nonetheless fascinating and had my full attention.
When the film was finally released, the critics were, for the most part, positive in their reactions (Rottentomatoes.com has the movie earning an extremely positive 93% among film critics and a somewhat less, yet still good, 79% among audiences). In those early days, there was talk of Oscar nominations, in particular for Albert Brooks’ turn as Bernie Rose, the movie’s villain.
Despite all these positives, the film didn’t perform all that well in theaters, although given the movie’s small budget I’m sure it turned a profit. Mr. Brooks wasn’t nominated for his role (his twitter response regarding the non-nomination was quite humorous). Worse, the film suffered the indignity of being sued by a movie goer who claimed false advertisement, thinking from the film’s trailers that this would be an action adventure thriller along the lines of Fast Five versus the slow burn noir thriller she got.
And for those interested in the film, Drive is just that, a slow burn thriller that, while successful in creating tension, nonetheless left me wanting more.
To begin with the good: the opening sequence, which I mentioned above, is indeed fantastic when seen all the way through. It is a triumph of low key tension build up, an almost wordless sequence that had me gnashing my teeth despite the fact that we have no standard “Hollywood” type car chase presented.
Alas, then came the rest of the movie.
I don’t want to sound too harsh, but once again a potentially terrific piece of work is sabotaged by, you guessed it, an inadequate screenplay. The acting, for the most part, is very good. The direction is very strong. The scenery and cinematography is great. The use of locales is wonderful. The level of tension is strong. But we get to the story and, despite all these great elements, we find there isn’t much there there.
Briefly, Driver (Ryan Gosling) is a no name anti-hero in the mold of Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name”. There is no back story, there are no flashbacks. We learn he drives stunts for the movies while working in a garage and, on the side, working as a getaway driver. He befriends and falls in love with his next door neighbor, a woman who has a very young child and a husband in jail. When the husband is released, Driver finds the man owes a debt to some shady characters who have no problem menacing both the husband and the child. Driver agrees to help out the husband and be the wheel man for a pawn shop robbery. But, when it goes bad, Driver quickly realizes there was more to the job than meets the eye.
The above description, alas, is more intriguing than what the film eventually presented. Side stories involving Driver’s boss (Bryan Cranston) were very predictable. Worse, the way that his boss, his boss’ investor, and his boss’ investor’s right hand man intermingle with the job Driver eventually takes were more complicated than they needed to be.
As with both Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Hanna, I get the feeling that the script was being altered as the movie was being filmed. How else to explain that at one point Driver puts on an elaborate disguise before taking out one of the bad guys, yet ultimately there was absolutely no reason for him to do so? To me it looked like maybe the script’s original story was that Driver was keeping his identity from everyone. But as shown in the film, the bad guys knew who he was almost from the very beginning, thus there was no reason for him to disguise himself.
Having said all that, the film wasn’t terrible. It was certainly far better than many works I’ve seen recently. It’s just that when it was all over my immediate reaction was: I will never see this film again, and that’s hardly a ringing endorsement. Two stars out of four.
Count me among those who has a pleasant memory of the original 1985 version of Fright Night. That vampire movie may not rank up there with the original Dracula or Nosferatu, and my memories of it may be hazy with time (I haven’t seen the film in its entirety probably since around that time!), but I recall having a few chills and plenty of laughs (intentional!) regarding that horror/comedy hybrid.
When I heard that a remake of the film was being made, I wasn’t terribly perturbed. The original was hardly one of those movie “classics” one is incredulous the studios movie studios would dare consider remaking. When I heard Jerry the vampire would be played by Colin Farrell and would feature David Tennant in the showy role of Peter Vincent (originally played by the late -and great!- Roddy McDowall), my interest in the film spiked. I like both actors quite a bit and thought each could take their roles and push them toward interesting directions.
The 2011 Fright Night came and disappeared from the theaters rather quickly. The reviews were generally pretty positive (on Rottentomatoes.com, the film has a 74% approval from critics and 64% approval from audiences. Not bad, although the original film scored a higher 93% and 71%, respectively). I remained curious to see the film.
Yesterday, I finally got to do just that.
The remake of the film follows almost the exact same storyline. The first half of the film, in particular, is quite effective, leading to the film’s best sequence wherein Jerry first attacks, then chases down our protagonist, his mother, and his girlfriend. That extended chase sequence, which concluded with a hilarious -then grisly- cameo appearance from one of the main actors in the original film, was the movie’s highlight and was suspenseful as hell.
At that point, I thought the film was a complete winner and couldn’t understand why audiences weren’t drawn in much more.
Alas, immediately after that sequence it became clear why. Quite simply, the movie ran out of gas. Colin Farrell’s Jerry became a one dimensional threat, stalking the protagonists but not really doing this stalking all that effectively. Given his fearsome abilities, was it really that urgent for him to hunt them down like he did? The fact is, he had all the time in the world to wait them out, and realistically they couldn’t go to the authorities to report a vampire without getting locked up…or worse.
After that brilliant chase sequence, we’re also introduced to David Tennant’s Peter Vincent. In this incarnation, he’s a flashy Las Vegas magician with a past history, we find, with our vampire. The introduction to Vincent is quite vulgar and funny, but, like Colin Farrell’s Jerry, his character rapidly becomes one note and predictable. The movie flat lines, leading to a climax that wasn’t anywhere near as suspenseful as the chase presented earlier.
In the end, the first half of the film easily earns 3 stars. The second half, unfortunately, was a very mediocre 2 stars. Because of that flat second half, I can’t recommend the film. A pity.
One of the more fascinating things, after all this time writing this blog, is seeing what posts wind up being searched out by people and which aren’t. Some post I was certain would get multiple views long after being posted…and didn’t. Some I knew from the outset would be interesting for people for a limited time and were. And some I wrote thinking they’d have a very short shelf life and was surprised to find they had staying power and people kept searching them out long after they were posted.
I’d like to think this happens because whatever I wrote was so fascinating, so blindingly unique, so intellectually challenging that of course people would come back to revel in my oh-so-brilliant analysis.
The cold hard reality, alas, is that I was simply very, very lucky stumbling onto a topic that people out there found interesting. This then is one of those blogs that when I originally wrote it figured it would elicit some mild interest before fading away. Today, nearly two years later, it still draws some interest. From March of 2010, here’s my (mildly belated) review of a perplexing film called Anamorph.
So I’m feeling pretty damn sick over the weekend and, as the illness drains from my body and I’m feeling up for some light TV fare, I turn the television on and, on the IFC channel (or was it Sundance?!) a movie titled Anamorph begins. Instantly I’m thrown…the title of this 2007 film sounds like it belongs to a kiddie TV show you’d find lodged between G. I. Joe and The Transformers on some lazy Saturday morning. I watch on, realizing rather quickly that this movie is about as far from kiddie fare as you could imagine.
In fact, Anamorph turns out to be an ambitious, indeed overly ambitious film that can be accurately billed as something “inspired by” (or, if you’re less charitable ripping off) Se7en and Fight Club. However, lest I sound too critical right off the bat, the movie does feature plenty of food for thought on its very own, even if the influences mentioned are there.
Anamorph features Willem Defoe as Stan Aubray, a NY detective who is at the start of the film presented as an introverted oddball. He lectures at a school while (barely) still working at the Police Department. Five years ago he was involved in the notorious “Uncle Eddie” serial killer case, and it now appears “Uncle Eddie” might be back.
But things aren’t always what they seem…
The short review: The film is decent, well-acted, and keeps your interest through its run time. However, there are so many elements to the story that ultimately are never appropriately resolved and, thus, confuse the viewer that I can’t unequivocably recommend it. I suppose if what you’ve read so far has you intrigued, then give the film a whirl…just be prepared to not get tidy answers to all the questions posed.
Now, I’m going to get into the movie’s details, something I can’t do with giving a very clear…
SPOILER WARNING!!!
Still there?
Ok, here we go: I enjoy almost every type and genre of film. Science fiction, fantasy, suspense, thriller, horror, comedy, drama…you name it and there’s a good chance I can offer an example of a film in said genre I’ve enjoyed. Often, films in the various genres that make me think, or rather those that don’t spell everything out, are particularly intriguing. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a classic example of just that. There is little dialogue and much is left for the viewers to figure out. The same goes for Mulholland Dr., perhaps my favorite David Lynch film. I was absolutely confused by what was going on until we arrived at the audition scene. Suddenly, I understood what Mr. Lynch was doing, and the film became, at least to me, absolutely fascinating.
With Anamorph we start with what appears to be your typical serial killer movie scenario. Like Se7en, the serial killer is as brilliant as he is disturbed. Our serial killer poses his victim’s bodies in increasingly bizarre “scenes” that he creates. By making these elaborate scenes with the often grotesquely butchered bodies, our killer appears to be “talking” to his pursuers, bringing them into his insane world.
As mentioned before, “Uncle Eddie” first showed himself five years before. Through the course of the movie, we find that a group of cops, including Defoe’s Stan, investigated the case until they thought they knew who the killer was. They broke into this man’s house to arrest him and one of the cops, thinking the suspected “Uncle Eddie” was holding a gun (he wasn’t) shot him dead. Despite this, the police are convinced they had the right man. As if to prove the fact, the “Uncle Eddie” crimes suddenly ceased.
But, five years later, new victims appear and things become very muddy. In public and before the media, the police department is certain these new killings are the work of a “copycat”. In private, they appear less sure…Was Stan, the lead investigator in the original case, wrong in fingering who “Uncle Eddie” was? Did the five year old raid kill an innocent man? And if so, were these new killings the work of “Uncle Eddie”? But can we completely discount the possibility that we are dealing with a copycat? As the film moves along, there appears yet another question: What exactly happened to the last female victim of “Uncle Eddie” some five years before? Whatever it was, the young woman’s death and fleeting flashbacks the film shows suggest Stan and this woman had a very strong relationship.
What follows, in the present, are more victims, including one of the original officers on Stan’s group, and hidden messages in the scene of each crime. The term “anamorph”, as we find, relates to clues left behind by the killer. In this case, the killer is referring to old paintings that, when viewed head on, reveal an image. When looked at from another, sometimes severe angle, a hidden image within the painting becomes apparent. Our killer, as it turns out, is hiding clues in his artfully designed slaughters.
Given the hidden message concept, the viewer is thus clued in that we are dealing with hidden meanings in this movie, as well.
As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that Stan may have dirtier hands in this whole affair than is first apparent. To begin, and as mentioned before, he has flashbacks to the events of five years before, from the raid to the last murder attributed to “Uncle Eddie”, the young woman Stan had some kind of relationship to. In the flashback to that last murder, Stan arrives at the scene of the crime after the fact. The last victim lies on a dock beside the water. However, later in the film, Stan recounts to the woman’s friend that HE pulled her out of the water, that HE held her until she let out her last breath. Yet clearly in his earlier flashbacks Stan arrives AFTER she is removed from the water and well AFTER she’s dead. Adding further confusion to the whole thing is that later still in the film, Stan appears to have flashbacks of the woman being stabbed before falling into the water. The flashbacks, up to that moment, were personal to Stan. Were these flashbacks also Stan’s? Did HE kill the woman?
That implication seems to be the case. But where the film ultimately -and sadly- fails is that too much is left for the viewers to sort out, and details are left so vague that arguments can be made for too many alternatives. For example, one could assume that Stan had an affair with this woman, and it went sour while he was investigating the original “Uncle Eddie” crimes. Now (and I’m guessing here) it is possible, perhaps even probable, that Stan killed the woman and made it look like it was the work of “Uncle Eddie”. After all, his police task force already had an idea who “Uncle Eddie” was and were closing in on the killer. Stan, in this scenario, commits the “final” “Uncle Eddie” crime knowing the police (and he) will soon arrest the killer. After Stan commits this crime and his group raids the suspected “Uncle Eddie” house, the man is killed, thus “resolving” the crimes without anyone suspecting that Stan performed that last murder.
Sounds good…except that if this was indeed the case, then Stan, to cover his tracks, has to be the one to kill the suspected “Uncle Eddie” in the raid. After all, it is not in Stan’s interests that the man be taken alive. If he were, there would be the very real possibility that this man might admit to all his crimes yet (of course) deny having anything to do with that last killing. Once he does, and given Stan’s relationship with the last victim, wouldn’t the police begin to eye him as a suspect in that crime? Thus and as mentioned, Stan has to be the one to kill the suspected “Uncle Eddie” in the raid. He can’t just hope someone else does the deed. But the fact is that Stan DOES NOT kill the suspected “Uncle Eddie”. In fact, I didn’t even get the impression he was gunning for him during the raid at all. If anything, he seemed to be hanging back.
So the mind wanders again…Perhaps Stan IS “Uncle Eddie”, and the man who committed these new crimes IS a copycat “Uncle Eddie”, albeit one that knows Stan was the original. But that also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The crimes are so damn elaborate that it seems impossible someone could simply “copy” something so extravagant. And, further, if Stan was the real “Uncle Eddie”, then wouldn’t he have figured out the copycat and his methodology a whole lot quicker? Add to the mix at least one character, an art dealer, who may or may not be a figment of Stan’s imagination and you’ve got even more confusion.
Still, despite all these criticisms, I admit the film kept me watching until its (very vague) ending. So, to reiterate, I cannot recommend this film to those seeking a movie that offers at least some sort of clear resolution to the plot presented. If you’re still curious to see the movie, do so. But this is one case where I can’t help but wish the filmmakers offered more solid clues as to what path they wanted the viewers to follow.
