5/21/15: The Tale Lost in the Telling

Tags

Ben Shenkman, Brian Cox, Burgess Jenkins, Carol Kane, cinema, con artists, Coupling, crime thriller, Darren Genet, directorial debut, dramas, film noir, film reviews, films, flashbacks, gangsters, golfing, grifters, Hugo Weaving, husband-wife relationship, independent films, insurance fraud, insurance salesman, Jack Davenport, Josh Noyes, Josh Pais, Judy Greer, Movies, period-piece, Peter Himmelstein, Robert Miller, scam, set in 1970s, split-screen, stylish films, The Key Man, writer-director

For my money, nothing beats a simple tale told well. Sure, there’s plenty of joy and value to be found in complex structures, eye-popping visual feasts and all-or-nothing editing extravaganzas: spectacle and cinema will always go hand-in-hand. There are times when there’s nothing finer than getting lost in the sturm und drang of a good, ol’ special effects bonanza, while, sometimes, you just want to see a film so complex and involving that it makes your forehead throb. There’s nothing wrong with big films but they’re also only half of the coin.

The other half of the coin, of course, are the smaller, subtler films: the quietly provocative indie dramas…the sparse, spare experimental films…the incisive character portraits and razor-sharp crime thrillers that don’t require flashy editing, huge explosions or pounding metal scores to make their points. These are films stripped down to their bare components, left to sink or swim by those old-fashioned standbys: absorbing characters, dramatic tension, smart dialogue and genuine emotional resonance. I may enjoy huge, noisy and stuffed-to-bursting event pictures but my heart will always belong to the same part of town that you’re most likely to find me hanging out: the quiet side.

Writer-director Peter Himmelstein’s The Key Man (2011) is a small, quiet film trapped inside a much flashier, more vapid one, the cinematic equivalent of one of David Byrne’s comically over-sized suits. At its heart, all of the components are in place for an effective, if modest, noirish crime thriller, something akin to a more po-faced Fargo (1996). Thanks to the ridiculously heavy-handed editing and visual flourishes like endless split-screens and out-of-place time-lapse photography, however, Himmelstein’s directorial debut ends up collapsing under the weight, burying the effective core under tons of pretty but useless rubble.

The film’s set-up is almost “Indie Crime Film 101” in its simplicity and familiarity: a down-on-his-luck insurance salesman with a wife and kids to feed gets involved with a pair of grifters and their scam to buy the Red Sox. The insurance salesman, Bobby (Coupling’s Jack Davenport), isn’t a bad guy but he is a desperate one: he’s just lost his oldest client right at the time when his wife, Karen (Judy Greer), is pushing to finally settle down and buy a home. Into his despair strides Vincent (Hugo Weaving) and Irving (Brian Cox), a pair of fast-talking, golf-playing con-men who want to enlist Bobby’s aid in a bit of insurance fraud: namely, they want to take out a “key man policy” on Vincent’s old partner, Charles (Burgess Jenkins), in order to bump him off and use the insurance payout to purchase their sports team.

As often happens, however, nothing goes quite according to plan and Bobby soon finds himself in way over his head. More and more people end up involved in what was supposed to be a fairly low-key event and Vincent and Irving gradually reveal themselves to be both unstable and dangerous, by turn. Will Bobby be able to see everything through to his big pay-day or will his conscience kick in and spoil the party? Most importantly: are Vincent and Irving the kinds of business partners that take “no” for an answer?

Deep down, at its heart, The Key Man is a decent, often quite effective, little noir/heist film, albeit one prone to particularly on-the-nose, expository dialogue. The acting is effective across the board, although Weaving’s flamboyant, sleazy Vincent will, undoubtedly, be the performance that sticks in the mind the longest: Davenport is fine, if rather vanilla, as Bobby, while Cox gets a few over-the-top blow-outs that tend to lessen the final impression of his otherwise impressive Irving. Greer’s Karen is a bit less effective, although that’s never due to the performance: her motivations always seem a bit off, however, making the character play out more as a plot element than actual flesh-and-blood person.

While the particulars of the scam aspect were a bit foggy to this particular viewer (insurance fraud sounds sexier than it really is), everything fell into place with a nice sense of purpose and irony that often felt perilously close to approximating a Hitchcockian vibe. Several scenes, such as the one where Bobby races home only to find Vincent acting the perfect gentleman with his family or the one where Vincent does a bit of impromptu Shakespeare, have nicely realized senses of tension that yield fairly thrilling payoffs.

Indeed, all of the pieces are in place for The Key Man to be a real sleeper, the kind of low-budget micro-masterpiece that coulda/woulda/shoulda been a contender. Practically from the opening credits, however, the film is almost completely hamstrung by one crucial element: the overly busy, fussed-with editing and over-used tricks like split-screens tend to drown out every other aspect of the film.

The biggest offender here is the damnable split-screen, an effect that’s used so much as to approach the level of SNL-type parody. Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that uses as many split-screens as The Key Man does: hell, even the above poster art is set up as a kind of split screen…it’s practically wired into the film’s DNA. When used in moderation (or for an actual purpose), there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with a split-screen: it’s just another filmmaking tool like any other. When the split-screen begins to call attention to itself outside of the actual film framework, however, this feels a bit like the cart dragging the horse. There’s one instantly memorable moment where multiple split-screens fly around the central frame until to unite into one screen that becomes Vincent’s face: it’s silly, flashy and, ultimately, very pointless, the very definition of style for style’s sake.

While the split-screens are the biggest offenders, they’re not the only ones. There are also numerous instances of needless time-lapses, in-camera focus changes, out-of-focus images, you name it, that tend to pull attention off of what the film is trying to say and puts it squarely on how the film is saying it. There are certain films that can employ an “everything and the kitchen sink” approach – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Wrong (2012) come immediately to mind – and work spectacularly, allowing the medium and the message to come together in complete harmony. The Key Man is not one of those films. Here, the low-key, engaging crime thriller aspect is completely over-shadowed by the flashy editing and the split-screens.

Perhaps the split-screens are by way of helping to sell the era (the film takes place in 1975) but that also becomes a bit of an issue: rather than feeling organic, the time-period in The Key Man always feels forced, as if the filmmakers need to constantly remind us of where we are. Karen reads a copy of Jaws, they watch Johnny Carson on TV, outfits get almost as much screen-time as actors, the score is the kind of jazzy funk that underlined a million ’70s-era cop shows…over time, it feels less like we’re immersed in an actual era than an Ikea showroom dedicated to more “happenin'” times.

There’s no doubt that Himmelstein has some skill behind the camera, both directing and scriptwise. While the dialogue was often too obvious, the actual setup had enough twists and turns to justify the above Hitchcock reference, even if infrequently. There’s something about a good grift/heist film that’s almost irresistible and The Key Man often scratches that itch quite ably. In fact, I daresay that a no-frills, stripped-to-the-bone version of this same film would score quite a bit higher on my personal meter: there’s a lot to like here, despite how infuriating much of the over-stuffing becomes. Ultimately, it’s easy to look at this as a case of “first-time-around-the-block-blues”: as a debut, The Key Man has a lot to recommend it but it also fails in some pretty fundamental ways. Here’s to hoping that, the next time around, Himmelstein and company go a little easier on the frosting and give the actual cake a chance to shine.

5/26/14: If It Ain’t Yours, Don’t Touch It

Tags

Aussie films, Australia, Australian films, bad cops, briefcase full of money, cinema, corrupt law enforcement, Craig Lahiff, David Lyons, double-crosses, Emma Booth, film noir, film reviews, films, Greg Stone, infidelity, Jason Clarke, Movies, stolen money, Swerve, Vince Colosimo, writer-director

By this point in cinematic history, you’d think that nice guys would know better than to pick up suitcases/briefcases/duffle bags that don’t belong to them. You know the scoop: nice, upstanding, morally sound dude (usually a happy married father with a couple of adorable kids) comes upon a crashed car/plane/snow mobile/yak and notices said mysterious package. Said package will usually contain either money or drugs (sometimes both), which the nice, upstanding fella will then take with him. Since packages of drugs and/or money usually aren’t left around for the general populace to find, some bad dude will, inevitably, come looking for the package. The bad dude won’t find it, of course, since the nice guy will be traipsing around with it, trying not to let whatever is in there corrupt his wholesome nature. If these guys are lucky, they’ll end up in Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan (1998), where bad things happen to good people in some very ingenious ways. If our poor schmucks aren’t lucky, however, they’ll end up in Craig Lahiff’s Swerve (2011), an Aussie who-dunnit (kind of) that manages to mash Fargo (1996) and No Country For Old Men (2007) together into a pretty uninspired ball of Wonder Bread. As always, the nice guy really should kept his hands to himself.

Colin Holland (David Lyons) is one of those aforementioned nice guys, although he missed the memo about needing a cute, spunky family. Nonetheless, Colin is traveling through the backroads of Australia when he comes upon two crashed cars: one is upside down and features a dead man in a white suit (always a giveaway, if you think about it) and a suitcase full of money, while the other one features a comely young lady (Emma Booth), shaken but, otherwise, intact. Since Colin is both nice and kind of dumb, he takes the money and gives the young lady, Jina, a ride to her place. Fair enough. Colin then decides to head to the nearest town – to the nearest bar, to be accurate – and see about getting some law enforcement involvement for the dead guy. Colin has the great fortune to find Frank (Jason Clarke), a sheriff so corrupt that you can smell it through his handshake. Colin tells him about the dead guy, gives him the money and gets an invitation to come stay at Frank’s place. On the way, Colin gets to thinking it’s a little familiar…and it is, of course, because this is just where he dropped off Jina. If you guessed that Jina is actually some kind of an android that Frank keeps around to do chores, you’re in the wrong film. If you guessed that the sultry, ultra-flirtatious femme fatale is married to the corrupt sheriff, well…you may just be too quick for this one, folks. Simmer down, over there!

As Colin gets more and more involved with Frank and Jina, he starts to uncover all kinds of unsavory realities: Jina may not be faithful! Frank may not be a true-blue cop! That money may belong to bad people! Actually, we already know that last part, since we saw the elaborate cross/double-cross in the first few minutes of the film that led to the White Suit BBQ. Any time a suitcase of money involves a bomb, a drug deal and a car crash, we can pretty safely assume its “non-taxable” income. In short order, a mild-mannered blonde gentleman shows up and proceeds to Anton Chigurh the living shit out of everybody (particularly impressive is the scene where he drops a car on a mechanic’s head: suck it, cattle gun!), all on his way to retrieve the missing money. When psycho meets psycho, however, it’s gonna be a real bloodbath…and Frank is so south of sane that he’s on the opposite pole. As if all this isn’t enough, Colin discovers that Jina may have killed her former lover, one of Frank’s deputies. Or perhaps Frank did it. Or what about Jina’s skeezy boss, Sam (Vince Colosimo), who seems to have something out for Frank? What’s a nice guy to do when everybody seems to be giving you the business? If you’re Colin, it just might be time to get the hell out of the Outback.

In most cases, Swerve is completely middle-of-the-road, a thoroughly average “mystery” that’s more average than mysterious. Truth be told, the film suffers from the exact same problem that sinks most zombie films: unless you’re doing something radically different (or drastically better than everyone else), there’s just no way to differentiate one of these from the others. Zombie films attempt to vary this up by switching up the locations, making the zombies good guys, adding elements of comedy/romance/musical/etc…whatever it takes to make one stand out from the pack. The films that don’t do this, by default, end up seeming so generic as to be factory-made: perhaps anonymous zombie pictures would have been more of a novelty in the early-mid-’70s but by this point in the 2000s, it’s all pretty much been seen/done before.

This, then, is Swerve’s biggest problem: it takes several genre tropes (the mysterious suitcase of case, the femme fatale, the crooked sheriff, the small-town with a secret, the innocent but unlucky drifter) and serves them up as-is, as fresh as stale bread. There’s no sense of invention, nothing to set this above (or below, in many ways) a hundred other similar films. Unlike other Australian crime films, the actual setting doesn’t really affect the story: it could have been the American South, the British Isles or the African veldt and it would have made the same difference. I certainly don’t expect Australian films to be awash in kangaroos and didgeridoos but there seems to be precious little Australian identity here whatsoever: the setting ends up being as generic as the rest of the film.

As a mystery, Swerve is almost a complete mess, filled with so many crosses and double-crosses that the plot takes on too many holes and sinks like a stone. By the time we get to the rather ridiculous “twist” ending, which really does come out of left field and means absolutely nothing, we’ve already had to sit through so many film noir-lite moments that it all feels arbitrary. At first, I was disappointed that I’d missed the clue’s that pointed to the “real” mastermind. This was, of course, until I realized that there were no clues: how could there be…the character in question is only in the film for about three minutes altogether and never mentioned or alluded to by anyone. It’s a Perry Mason moment (how do you know who’s guilty? Ask ’em in court and they’ll be happy to spill the beans) in that it’s just dropped into our laps, a gift from the movie gods.

Craft-wise, the film is pretty content to stick to the middle-road established by the plot: this is basic, no-frills filmmaking (with a little more editing “flair” than I usually prefer in films) with competent acting and not much else. Jason Clarke is pretty slimy as Frank but David Lyons is pretty ridiculous as Colin. Lyons plays Colin like a cross between a white knight, Colin Ferrell and Forrest Gump, blending in so many disparate elements of sweet/naive/stupid/smoldering that he ends up completely without personality: all colors combine to create the blandest white possible. Poor Emma Booth has the misfortune of channeling Tara Reid throughout the film, which did nothing for her credibility whatsoever. Jina is one of those ridiculous “sexpot” characters that really only work in very old films or very self-aware ones: Swerve is neither and just comes across as frustratingly mercurial and fickle. The blonde hitman (sorry, buddy: you were never named in the film, which may have been some sort of genius plan, on your part) is patently ridiculous, coming across like some sort of twiggy Termnator even before we get the Terminator-esque scenes where Frank takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’…and keeps on…and keeps on…and on…

As I find myself saying quite a bit, Swerve isn’t the worst film you’ll see all year: it probably won’t even be in the bottom 30. That said, there’s absolutely nothing to distinguish this in any way or to make it worth seeking out. Unless you’re on some kind of an insane quest to see every film every made (which, of course, I am), there won’t be much of a reason to slow down and give this the once-over twice. Better to spend your 90 minutes elsewhere, perhaps looking for your own mysterious suitcase out in the desert.