4/2/15: Uncle Scam

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9/11/01, Alexis Rodney, Anna Paquin, anti-authority, army base, bad soldiers, based on a book, betrayal, Brian Delate, British films, Buffalo Soldiers, Catch-22, cinema, Cold War, conscription, dark comedies, David Holmes, Dean Stockwell, drug dealers, Ed Harris, Elizabeth McGovern, film reviews, films, Gabriel Mann, gallows' humor, Glenn Fitzgerald, Gregor Jordan, Idris Elba, Joaquin Phoenix, Leon Robinson, M.A.S.H., Michael Pena, Movies, multiple writers, Ned Kelly, Oliver Stapleton, rivalry, Robert O'Connor, Scott Glenn, September 11 2001, set in 1980s, set in West Germany, Sheik Mahmud-Bey, The Longest Yard, war profiteers, writer-director

Sometimes, movies (like people) can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Take Australian writer-director Gregor Jordan’s Buffalo Soldiers (2001), for example. This smart, pointed and pitch-black comedy about U.S. soldiers behaving badly in Cold War-era West Germany opened at the Toronto Film Festival on September 9, 2001. Two days later, of course, the United States would be faced with September 11th, an event which would make anything even vaguely “anti-American” absolutely verboten for some time afterward. A film about greedy, avaricious, drug-dealing GIs running rough-shod (literally) over a foreign country? Buffalo Soldiers had about as much chance of receiving U.S. distribution as it did sprouting wings and flying to Saturn.

Which, as it turns out, is a real shame: not only is Buffalo Soldiers the furthest thing from an anti-American screed but it’s also one of the funniest, most cutting war satires since the glory days of M.A.S.H. (1970) and Catch-22 (1970). The soldiers depicted here might be reprehensible, violent and debauched con-men but they’re also fascinating characters, brought to vivid life by an outstanding cast. The script is smart, the film is full of surprising left twists and there’s a gleeful sense of abandon to the proceedings that make it easy to get lost in the bad behavior. Had the film come out a month (or even a few weeks) earlier, it would probably be heralded as a minor classic, along the lines of Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog (1997). As it stands, however, Buffalo Soldiers is a largely unknown gem, waiting for modern audiences to give it the fair shot it never got the first time around.

The film takes place in the waning hours of the Cold War, in 1989, at Theodore Roosevelt Army Base in Stuttgart, West Germany. Our “hero” (such as he is), Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix), is a conscripted ne’er-do-well who chose a stint in the armed forces over a stiff prison sentence and has regretted it ever since. Ray may be many things (a black marketeer, a philanderer, a hopeless screw-up and a perpetual con-man) but he’s definitely not a soldier, regardless of what his uniform, rifle and salute might indicate. Lucky for him, Teddy R Army Base is a veritable Garden of Eden for screw-ups and wasteoids, with a cast of quirky characters who would all fit right in with the idiots of Police Academy (1984): Ray may not be “the best that he can be” but at least he’s got plenty of good (bad?) company.

Commanding officer Colonel Berman (Ed Harris) is a soft-headed simpleton who’s as clueless about Elwood’s criminal activities as he is about his wife, Liz’s ( Elizabeth McGovern), on-going affair with the procurement specialist. Sergeant Saad (Sheik Mahmud-Bey), the brutal leader of the base’s MPs, deals heroin on the side and eagerly patrols the grounds with his men, enthusiastically beating any white soldiers who are unlucky enough to cross the base’s invisible color-line. Meanwhile, Ellwood’s fellow soldiers, Hicks (Glenn Fitzgerald), Garcia (Michael Pena) and Stoney (Leon Robinson), are all permafried and given to reprehensible behavior like getting completely fucked up and driving their tank through the middle of a quaint German town: it’s all fun and games until they accidentally barbecue two of their own, bringing a terrible sense of literalness to the term “friendly fire.”

As with all good criminals, Elwood is really just looking for that one, big haul that will let him retire into the lap of luxury and ease. Thanks to Hicks, Garcia and Stoney’s misadventures in the tank, opportunity drops into Elwood’s greedy hands when he steals the dead soldiers’ supply trucks, which just happen to be laden with millions of dollars worth of weaponry. Elwood turns around and sells the weapons to a dubious outside source and receives a king’s ransom in uncut smack for his troubles. Working around the clock, Elwood and his crew need to turn the pure heroin into pure profit, engaging in the kind of massive drug cook that would make Walt and Jesse misty.

Things get complicated, however, when the base receives its new “top,” Sergeant Robert E. Lee (Scott Glenn). Lee is a complete hard-ass who has no time for foolishness and instantly marks Elwood as a problem to be eradicated, similar to a roach infestation. As the two men feint around each other, probing for weakness, each thinks he’s found the other’s Achilles heel: Elwood is determined to “stick it” to Sergeant Lee by (literally) sticking it to his rebellious daughter, Robyn (Anna Paquin), while Lee is determined to make Elwood’s life a living hell via a million tiny indignities, along with the occasional ass-whipping. As the mortal enemies gradually ramp up their campaigns, Lee becomes increasingly violent while Elwood, ironically, finds himself falling for Robyn, despite his most cavalier intentions.

As the conflict gets more intense, everything is brought to a head when Colonel Berman challenges a rival colonel to an exceedingly unfriendly round of “friendly” war games. With Saad, Lee and his various illicit contacts bearing down, Elwood must figure out how to keep his ill-gotten gains, his girl and his head, all while running the scam of his life. Welcome to Theodore Roosevelt Army Base, where the Commies are the least of your worries.

Based on Robert O’Connor’s well-received 1993 debut novel of the same name, Buffalo Soldiers is a quality production from top to bottom. Almost ridiculously stylish and vibrant (the early shot of the soldiers marching across the flag-painted asphalt is a real eye-popper), there’s more than a hint of magical-realism to the proceedings, which helps to play up the many inherently fantastic elements, such as the riotous tank scene. Although the screenplay is credited to three writers (director Jordan, along with Eric Weiss and Nora Maccoby), the film never feels overly cluttered or disjointed: there’s a remarkable sense of cohesion, here, that belies Buffalo Soldiers’ split-authorship and speaks volumes towards the production’s structural integrity.

When you have a cast this good, there’s always a danger of “unnecessary cameo disorder (patent pending)” but this has more the feel of a gifted ensemble than anything more calculating. Phoenix is dependably good as the roguish Ellwood, although it’s nothing we haven’t seen from him in the past. Much better (and more surprising) are Harris and Glenn as, respectively, the Colonel and the Sergeant. Usually known as the craggiest thing in whatever production he happens to be in, Harris does a complete 360, here, and gives us the closest thing to a complete bumpkin that I think he’s ever done. Berman is a complete idiot, no two ways about it, but Harris brings just enough low-level cunning and pathos to the character to prevent him from being a completely silly, stock stereotype.

Glenn, for his part, is a complete force of nature as the cheerfully dastardly Sergeant Lee: one minute, he’s all stiff, starched and by-the-book. The next, he’s gleefully extolling the bad behavior that he, himself, got up to in Vietnam, insinuating that it would make Ellwood’s “adventures” seem like schoolboy pranks. It’s a great role and a great performance: there’s never a point where Glenn ever feels any less than 1000% invested in the role and his enthusiasm is absolutely infectious.

The supporting cast aren’t slouches, either: Mahmud-Bey is convincingly terrifying as the casually sadistic MP, while Pena, Robinson and Fitzgerald get great mileage out of their bumbling soldiers. While the female characters don’t get quite as much to do, they’re never just background detail, either. McGovern makes the most of her screen-time by positing Liz as an avaricious, status-climber who possesses the brains (and balls) that her simpering husband doesn’t, while Paquin serves as a good foil for Phoenix: no one will mistake their courtship as “star-crossed love” but it works within the context of the story and continually pushes the plot into thorny new territories. Throw in some smaller (but no less impressive) appearances by Dean Stockwell, Idris Elba and Gabriel Mann and you’ve got a film with more than ample star-power in the tank.

Despite being unaware of the film on its first go-around, I was completely taken with it on this viewing: there’s enough energy and invention here for five films, to be honest. When Buffalo Soldiers is locked-in and firing on all cylinders, it’s practically unbeatable: the combination of coal-black humor, social commentary and detailed characterization make the film the furthest thing from “disposable” that you can get. As funny as it is, however (and it’s often incredibly funny), Buffalo Soldiers also never shies away from violence, death and grit, which really puts it into the same vaunted company as Altman’s M.A.S.H: they’re both films about the immense absurdity of the human condition and violent death is as much a part of that as breathing is.

When the film is at its horrifying best (the uproarious tank rampage that gets ugly quick…the bracing scene where a pair of higher-than-kite soldiers repeatedly stab each other, while grinning from ear to ear), it’s impossible to look away. While Jordan would go on to more successful projects like the Heath Ledger-starring Ned Kelly (2003) and Unthinkable (2010), I don’t think he’s ever quite scaled the same heights that he does here. Nearly 15 years after its initial (limited) release, I think it’s way past time for Buffalo Soldiers to get some of the attention it so richly deserves.

1/3/15 (Part Four): His Name is Mud

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Aaron Embry, As I Lay Dying, backwoods folk, based on a book, Child of God, Christina Voros, cinema, co-writers, Cormac McCarthy, dark comedies, degradation, dehumanization, film reviews, films, gallows' humor, homeless, horror, insanity, isolation, James Franco, Jim Parrack, Lester Ballard, literary adaptation, Movies, necrophilia, Scott Haze, serial killer, Tim Blake Nelson, Vince Jolivette, voice-over narration, writer-director

For a time, it’s incredibly easy to sympathize with Lester Ballard (Scott Haze): his parents are dead, he’s just been kicked off his family homestead, watched it auctioned away to his neighbors and been soundly whupped after trying to intervene. In one fell swoop, everything he has is taken away and he’s forced to live on the margins of society, homeless, jobless, no real identity and some pretty obvious mental problems. The only thing he has left in the entire world is his rifle, a nasty mattress that he drags around everywhere and some stuffed animals he won at a carnival sharpshooting game. Faced with odds like this, any reasonable person might just give up but Lester keeps chugging along, careening from one misunderstanding to another. You feel awful for the guy, this “child of God” that no one wants and no one cares about: this, you think, could happen to any of us. And then the murder and necrophilia starts and it gets just a little harder to sympathize with ol’ Lester.

That’s part of the beauty of James Franco’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God (2014): we spend so much time with the amazing wreck that is Lester Ballard that we get to witness his dehumanization first hand, step by step. Whenever people watch newscasts and wonder what drives people to do the terrible things they do…well, ladies and gentlemen: here you go. Working from his own screenplay (co-wrote with Vince Jolivette), Franco digs deep into McCarthy’s disturbing character study and gets himself incredibly dirty in the process: full of all the shit, blood, mud and misery that powered the novel, Child of God also manages to be bitterly humorous, another integral facet of McCarthy’s oeuvre. There’s genuine power to the film, along with a streak of self-assurance that proves Franco deserves to be taken seriously. Powering the whole film, however, like the sun at the center of a solar system, is the astounding, feral and unforgettable Lester Ballard and the actor behind him, Scott Haze.

Structure-wise, Child of God is separated into chapters and unified by a voice-over narration that constantly fills us in on Lester’s backstory via recollections of his various neighbors, townsfolk, etc. After Lester is kicked off his land, we basically follow him around as he experiences one degrading situation after another, culminating in the disturbing moment where he comes upon a dead couple in a car and makes off with the woman’s body. From this point on, Lester attempts to fit into society, albeit on his own terms, and the results are just about as successful as you’d expect. After accidentally burning down the barn he was squatting in, Lester is forced to move into a cave, like an animal. As he becomes more and more marginalized and insane, Lester’s actions swerve from crazy but harmless into criminally deranged territory. It all builds to a violent confrontation with the sheriff (Tim Blake Nelson) and the townsfolk, as Lester is made to answer for his crimes.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect from Franco’s adaptation of Child of God, especially after being a bit lukewarm on his previous version of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (2013). While I thought the film looked great and had a handful of memorable scenes and setpieces, it was also rather jumbled and the climax sent the whole thing off the rails. Turns out I didn’t need to worry, however: Franco’s version of McCarthy’s novel gets pretty much everything right, from the streamlined narrative to the excellent use of voice-over narration and the amazing portrayal of central figure Lester Ballard. The film looks just as lush and gorgeous as As I Lay Dying, thanks to the return of cinematographer Christina Voros and the blue-grassy score is quite effective in setting the mood.

Without a doubt, though, Scott Haze’s central performance is what makes the film. There’s something so unhinged and feral about his portrayal of Lester that it transcends acting and becomes something closer to performance art. Thick ropes of snot hanging from his face, (literally) shitting in the woods, ranting, raving, barely intelligible as he keeps up a near constant flood of stream-of-conscious rambling…Haze is absolutely magnificent and never anything less than freakishly authentic. No lie: it’s one of the most amazing performances of the year and one that should have been an absolute shoe-in for multiple nominations (and wins) at any number of awards opportunities. Haze has a way of always allowing us to see at least a little humanity in Lester, right up to the point where that humanity is completely extinguished. It’s a stunning performance and one that I’m shocked hasn’t been part of the conversation regarding film in 2014.

I would, of course, be remiss is I didn’t point out that Child of God is a pretty rough ride, at least as far as content goes. The aforementioned moment where Haze actually squats and craps, in full view of the camera, is something I never hope to see again and the numerous necrophilia scenes are fairly graphic and intensely disturbing. There’s also something about the bracing way that Franco uses humor, such as the genuinely funny bit where Lester tries to wrestle the limp corpse back to his barn abode, that will probably turn quite a few folks off like a faucet. I happen to love dark humor in films, so really appreciated the effect, but can definitely concede that most of this won’t be the average person’s cup of tea.

From where I sit, however, Franco’s adaptation of Child of God is a miniature marvel. The film is consistently well-made and is never anything less than enthralling, even when it becomes increasingly unpleasant. Most importantly, however, Haze’s performance is so perfect that it would be practically criminal for anyone who considers themselves a fan of good acting to pass it up. People have been talking about adapting McCarthy’s Blood Meridian for decades, yet no one filmmaker has ever seemed up to that task. After watching what Franco is capable of here, however, it seems like a no-brainer: this is the director that can actually make it happen. Although I never thought I would say it, James Franco may have, quietly, developed into one of our most promising new directors. Who knew?

12/14/14 (Part Two): The Little Garda Who Could

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auteur theory, bad cops, Bad Lieutenant, Brendan Gleeson, buddy cop films, Calexico, cinema, corrupt law enforcement, David Wilmot, Declan Mannlen, Don Cheadle, drug dealers, dying mother, eponymous characters, FBI agents, feature-film debut, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Fionnula Flanagan, fish-out-of-water, gallows' humor, Garda, Gary Lydon, Guy Ritchie, Irish films, John Michael McDonagh, Larry Smith, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, mother-son relationships, Movies, racism, Rory Keenan, Sergeant Gerry Boyle, set in Ireland, small town life, stolen guns, The Guard, UK films, Wendell Everett, writer-director

Towards the end of writer-director John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard (2011), there’s a scene where Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) solemnly changes into his traditional “Garda” uniform before heading out to face-off with the vicious drug dealers who have cold-bloodedly killed his partner. As he drives down the country-road, eyes locked straight ahead, he’s saluted by a young boy: a hero being recognized by the very people that he’s sworn to protect, an image as timeless as the very concept of law enforcement. It’s a huge, soaring moment for one important reason: for the first time in years, Sergeant Boyle has decided to actually do his job and we know, without a doubt, that the end result will be simply glorious.

Sergeant Boyle is the titular “guard” of the title but he’s also The Guard in a larger sense: every frame of the film, every plot twist, blackly comic moment and dastardly deed in McDonagh’s stunning feature-debut is completely and totally dominated by the towering presence that is Gleeson’s Boyle, a character who manages to be gleefully corrupt, yet still stands as a beacon of truth amidst those who are, you know, a whole lot worse. In a career that’s stretched to nearly three decades, Gleeson has never been better or more explosive: take a seat, Harvey…this here is the REAL bad lieutenant and you won’t be able to take your eyes off him.

We first get introduced to Gerry as he steals drugs from the bodies of a bunch of teens who just flipped their speeding car. The police officer nonchalantly drops acid, says “What a lovely fucking day” and we get the title, so big that it fills the entire screen, squeezing Boyle into the margins. The intent, as mentioned above, is pretty obvious: Boyle will dominate the proceedings, no two ways about it. Boyle might not be an honest cop, but he’s sure a helluva lot smarter than the rest of his peers: his partner, McBride (Rory Keenan) is one small step away from being a complete idiot and their superior officer, Inspector Stanton (Gary Lydon), thinks that “liquidated” people are actually turned into liquid. In this environment, can anyone really blame Boyle for looking out for number one? It’s not so much that Boyle is a bad cop, or even a lazy one, per se: he’s just so burned out on all the bureaucratic bullshit that he’s completely tuned-out…no sense getting fired-up about fighting crime if everyone around you keeps dropping the ball, is there? Better to spend one’s time cavorting with prostitutes, playing video games in a pub during the middle of your shift and getting shit-faced whenever possible.

Boyle gets shaken from his comfortable stupor, however, when his small, Irish hamlet ends up with a certifiable murder-mystery: a body has been found, shot in the head and posed in a way that seems to indicate some sort of cult activity. Despite caring so little about the case that he practically yawns his way through the initial investigation, Boyle goes through the motions, since that’s what he’s expected to do. Things really get interesting, however, when FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) shows up in town, investigating some sort of major drug case that involves four seriously bad dudes: Francis (Liam Cunningham), McCormick (Declan Mannlen), O’Leary (David Wilmot) and Clive (Low Winter Sun’s Mark Strong).

During Everett’s debriefing, Boyle makes a complete ass of himself after stating that he thought “only black lads were drug dealers:” Everett calls him a “racist,’ to which Boyle snaps back that “racism is part of Ireland’s tradition.” Casually racist though he might be, Boyle also recognizes McCormick as their anonymous murder victim, which gives Everett his first actual break in the case. Faster than you can say “odd couple,” Boyle and Everett are soon working together, albeit as reluctantly as possible. “I can’t tell if you’re real motherfucking dumb or really motherfucking smart,” Everett notes, at one point, and it’s a pretty valid question: Boyle is constantly working so many angles that he’s either the dumbest guy in town or the smartest, depending on whose bad side he happens to be on. When Everett and Boyle end up in the crosshairs of Francis and his gang, however, Boyle’s going to need all of his wits to survive. When the drug dealers kill one of his own, however, regardless of what an idiot he was, Boyle has no choice: it’s time for this Garda to quit messing around and get to the business of putting away the bad guys.

The Guard is an exceptional film, no two ways about it: quite possibly one of the very best films of the last five years. So much of the film works to an almost supernatural degree that it readily brought to mind “instant classics” like Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). The cinematography, by frequent Nicholas Winding Refn collaborator Larry Smith, is beautiful, making expert use of bright, primary colors and that lush, gorgeous Irish countryside. The score, by the Southwestern-based Calexico, is ridiculously rousing, all spaghetti-Western horns, steel guitar and action beats like one of Ennio Morricone’s classic scores. McDonagh’s script is airtight, full of deliciously snarky dialogue and some of the driest humor ever put to film. There’s something rather amazing about watching Everett and Boyle feint, parry and thrust around each other, testing for weak points and trying to push as many buttons as possible.

Let’s not forget about the cast, however. While Cheadle and Gleeson are the main focal points, The Guard is filled with interesting, three-dimensional characters, not least of which are the three drug dealing villains. Veteran character-actor Liam Cunningham is great as the exasperated leader of the group, while David Wilmot shares a thoroughly badass scene with Gleeson that features one of the film’s most joyous surprises. Nearly stealing away their shared moments, however, is Mark Strong’s Clive Cornell: morose, philosophical, depressed and given to metaphysical ponderings, Clive is an awesome creation, at once lethal and silly. In fact, it’s to McDonagh’s great credit that one of the film’s sneakiest ideas (that no one, including the drug dealers, are actually doing the jobs they want to do) comes across entirely through subtle character development and dialogue: no unnecessary hand-holding to be found here!

It pretty much goes without saying that Cheadle is excellent as the put-upon fish-out-of-water FBI agent but let’s go ahead and say it again, anyway: Cheadle is absolutely excellent as Everett. Long one of Hollywood’s most dependable actors, Cheadle is the kind of performer, like Ron Perlman, who can elevate any film, regardless of the amount of screen time he gets. Here, we get lots of Cheadle and I don’t that anyone would mind. His scenes with Gleeson are marvelous little jewels but the really revelatory moments come when Everett is forced to pound the small-town pavement solo: his interactions with the overly hostile, racist locals are some of the best scenes in the film, hands-down.

The unquestionable star of the show, however, the “reason for the season,” as it were, is the amazing, unstoppable Brendan Gleeson. Towering over everything like a ragged, Gaelic god, Gleeson doesn’t appear to be acting: he honestly seems to be channeling the very spirit of Gerry Boyle. Gleeson doesn’t make a single misstep in the film: whether sneaking his dying mother (an outstanding Fionnula Flanagen) into the pub for one last pint, blowing Everett’s mind by rising from the freezing ocean in a skin-tight wetsuit or telling each and every authority figure in the world to sit and spin, Boyle is never less than completely charismatic and magnetic. I dare you to tear your eyes from the epic climax where Boyle strides relentlessly through the middle of a firefight, a rosy-faced Angel of Death who knows that he’s screwed and yet refuses to admit the fact to anyone, much less himself. There are countless good reasons to watch The Guard but there’s one necessary reason: no one who considers themselves an aficionado of fine acting can afford to miss Gleeson’s performance…it really is that good.

As it stands, The Guard is another film that I feel pretty confident recommending to anyone under the sun: if you’re a fan of darkly humorous UK crime films, “cops gone bad” movies or “buddy action” flicks, this one’s definitely for you. Truth be told, I really can’t see anyone walking out of The Guard disappointed or underwhelmed: if you should find such a person, stay far away, my friends…it’s obvious that they can’t be trusted.

10/23/14 (Part Two): Eat To Live, Don’t Live To Eat

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31 Days of Halloween, Anthony B. Richmond, Antonia Bird, Bill Brochtrup, black comedies, cannibalism, cannibals, cinema, cowardice, Damon Albarn, David Arquette, favorite films, film reviews, films, forts, gallows' humor, gory films, Grand Guignol, Guy Pearce, horror, horror films, isolation, Jeffrey Jones, Jeremy Davies, John Spencer, Joseph Running Fox, Manifest Destiny, Mexican-American War, Michael Nyman, Movies, Neal McDonough, Ravenous, Robert Carlyle, set in the 1840s, Sheila Tousey, Sierra Nevadas, Stephen Spinella, Ted Griffin, U.S. army, wendigo, Westward expansion

For my money, Antonia Bird’s Ravenous (1999) has to be one of the most under-rated films out there: it’s certainly one of the most under-rated horror films, which is a real head-scratcher considering just how good the movie is. Perhaps audiences were thrown off by the subject matter (cannibalism has the virtue of still being one of the few remaining Western taboos) or found the tone confusing (an argument that’s certainly valid, if needlessly reductive). Maybe genre audiences were resistant to a horror film helmed by a female director (Bird replaced the original director a few weeks into filming), a terribly stupid prejudice that’s haunted the genre practically from its inception. Regardless of the reason for its “shunning,” however, the facts remain the same: Ravenous is one hell of a great film and deserves to be mentioned in any list of the best films of the ’90s.

Set in the American West, circa 1847, we’re introduced to the character of Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce) as he receives a medal for his bravery during the Mexican-American War. The irony, as we see via choice flashbacks and the withering comments of Boyd’s superior officer, General Slauson (John Spencer), is that Boyd is actually a coward: as his men were getting slaughtered left and right, Boyd hid himself under a mountain of bodies and pretended to be dead. Once all of his men were dead and the Mexican soldiers’ attention was elsewhere, Boyd slipped out and, single-handedly, captured the Mexican encampment. A one-man army? Definitely award-worthy! A coward who watches his own troops get butchered? Better get a broom: this is getting swept under the rug, folks.

As “reward,” Boyd is sent to remote Fort Spencer, an isolated and rarely used way-station for travelers in the Sierra Nevadas: the U.S. army loves him so much, they don’t want him anywhere around. At the fort, Boyd meets his new comrades, an exceptionally strange bunch of folks if there ever were any: Col. Hart (Jeffrey Jones), the commanding officer, is a philosophical man who reads books in their original language because the fort “thrives on tedium”; Major Knox (Stephen Spinella), the next in command, is a falling-down drunk who also serves as the fort’s resident doctor (“Don’t get sick,” is Hart’s sage advice to Boyd); Pvt. Toffler (Jeremy Davies), the group’s missionary, is a real nutcase who’s given to talking to himself in hushed tones and writing fervent religious poetry at the drop of a hat; the “over-medicated” Pvt. Cleaves (David Arquette), the perma-stoned cook who spends the majority of his time getting high and giggling; Pvt. Reich (Neal McDonough), the creepily cheerful, gung-ho soldier who’s given to standing in freezing ponds and primal screaming; and the fort’s resident Native Americans, Martha (Sheila Tousey) and her brother George (Joseph Running Fox), who also happens to be Cleaves’ smoking buddy. In other words, you have just about the most interesting group of characters (and actors) that you could possibly get…and it only gets better from there.

One night, the general boredom of the fort’s routine is upset when the group spy a mysterious, haggard mountain-man outside, in the freezing snow. Rushing him inside, the group finds him weak and nearly dead, but still kicking. After administering to him, they learn that the man is F.W. Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle), a Scottish immigrant who was travelling with a wagon train that found disaster in the unforgiving Sierra Nevadas. The train’s leader, Col. Ives, was an incompetent man who led them astray and got them all stranded in an underground cave. As the harsh winter set in around them, the group quickly blew through their food rations before turning to their pack animals and things like their leather belts and shoes. When those ran out, the group began to cannibalize the dead, some with more gusto than others, according to Colqhoun. Ives, in particular, became a monster who gleefully chowed his way through all of the survivors until it was just him, Colqhoun and another woman. Fleeing into the night, Colqhoun left Ives and the woman behind in the cave, a cowardly act that serves as a fitting parallel to Boyd’s own act of self-preservation.

Upon hearing that Ives and the woman may still be alive in the cave, Hart wastes no time in organizing a rescue mission, taking Boyd, George, Toffler, Reich and Colqhoun with him, as Knox stays behind to mind the fort. On the way, Toffler ends up getting injured, which leads to the unsettling incident where Colqhoun is discovered licking the missionary’s wound as they all sleep in their tents. Colqhoun, it would appear, has a bit of an impulse control problem. He’s also quite the liar, as the group discovers when they reach the cave and find a much different, more horrible scenario than the one Colqhoun so helpfully described. With the tables turned, Boyd is soon engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Colqhoun, a struggle that ends with Boyd grievously injured and trapped in a hole in the woods.

After freeing himself, Boyd returns to the fort only to discover that General Slauson and his men are already there: Hart’s party is still missing and Slauson has come down to lead the search. He’s also brought a new commanding officer with him, someone to run Fort Spencer in Hart’s absence…a cheerful, friendly fellow by the name of Col. Ives. From this point on, the film becomes a brilliant cat-and-mouse game as Boyd tries desperately to convince those around him that Ives is not only an imposter but a supernaturally strong, blood-thirsty cannibal, as well. Ives has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, however, and he’s a patient man: he’s more than happy to wait as Boyd becomes more and more entangled in his web. The whole thing builds to a Grand Guignol climax that features one of the most intense, amazing mano-a-mano battles that I’ve ever seen (think Family Guy’s “Chicken vs Peter” fights but with live-action actors and gallons of blood), all before finishing up with one of the most subtle, succinct commentaries on the human condition ever put to screen.

I remember going to see Ravenous in the theaters when it first came out and being so absolutely blown away by it that I promptly went to see it again. As soon as I was able, I bought the DVD and have happily revisited the film at least once a year for over a decade. Obviously, I’m quite fond of the movie: it’s actually one of my favorite films, let alone one of my favorite horror films. What, exactly, appeals to me so much about this marvelous little gem? In a nutshell, Ravenous is one smart film, from beginning to end and if there’s anything I appreciate, laud and worship, it’s a smart film.

One of the biggest complaints levied against Ravenous is that the film is tonally inconsistent, so schizophrenic as to almost be two films jammed into one: a slapstick comedy, complete with “zany” sound effects, and a serious, gore-drenched horror movie about cannibals and Wendigos. This tendency is evident from the very first frame, where Nietzche’s famous quote about fighting monsters is followed by the immediate rejoinder, “Eat Me!,” credited to “Anonymous.” The second comment pops up with one of those aforementioned “zany” sound effects, which creates a completely jarring tone when juxtaposed with composer Michael Nyman and Blur frontman Damon Albarn’s austere bluegrass-y score. All of this is balanced against Anthony B. Richmond’s absolutely stunning cinematography: the snowy mountain setting is truly beautiful.

Rather than being a handicap, I’ve always felt that Ravenous’ split-tone was one of its greatest assets. Despite the occasionally slapstick action, the film is never silly or stupid: instead, it uses the frequent gallows’ humor and moments such as Colqhoun/Ives’ sarcastic asides to keep the audience in a constant state of uneasiness. From one moment to the next, it’s all but impossible to predict the film’s next move: a gleefully insane gore setpiece might sit uncomfortably next to a masterfully executed comedic scene. One of the film’s best moments is the one where Hart asks Boyd about his hobbies, only to be told he enjoys swimming: after a long pause, Hart casts an eye outside, at the frozen landscape, before giving the priceless rejoinder, “Hope you don’t mind hard water.” Classic! Likewise, the excellent, atmospheric score (truly some of Albarn’s best work) helps pull the mood in a million directions at once: the film’s main theme is very catchy and evocative and serves to accentuate several key moments, helping to do a little of the heavy lifting, thematically speaking.

And that cast…oh, boy…that cast…Any film that features Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, David Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, Neal McDonough, Stephen Spinella and John Spencer should be guaranteed more than its fair share of eyeballs glued to the screen but, alas, even this star power wasn’t enough to pull in the ticket-buyers. It’s a real shame, too, because Carlyle’s performance as Colqhoun/Ives is not only one of his very best performances (pretty much second only to the marvelous piece of shit that is Begbie) but it’s reason enough to see the film, hands down. Quite simply, Carlyle turns in one of the all-time best villainous performances I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. He’s so good, in fact, that I’ll stack his performance next to any cinematic villain from the dawn of the Nickelodeons right up to yesterday: Colqhoun/Ives is an unforgettable creation and Carlyle should have been praised from here to the moon for the performance, hands down.

For me, one of the saddest aspects to Ravenous’ box-office failure was the way that it effectively cut Antonia Bird’s cinematic career short. Predominantly a television director until her big-screen debut with Priest (1994), Ravenous would only be her fourth (and last) non-TV effort. After the film went the way of the dodo, Bird went back to television where she would remain until her untimely death last year at the age of 62. More than anything, I lament the amazing, lost films that might have followed Ravenous had the movie only been successful…or had Bird just been given another chance. The irony of the fact is that Ravenous is an exceptionally well-made film: it looks gorgeous and has more atmosphere than a bakers’ dozen of lesser movies. In a perfect world, these traits would be rewarded. In the bizarro-world of Hollywood, however, receipts are king and Ravenous never really had a chance.

And there you have it, folks: the best film that hardly anyone’s seen. Why should anyone care about a 15-year-old horror-comedy about cannibals? Well, if you’re a horror fan, the film features amazingly real and gruesome practical effects, along with one of the all-time great cinematic “monsters” and some genuinely shocking scenes. If you’re just a general fan of the cinema, Ravenous is expertly crafted, featuring beautiful cinematography, a truly unique and wonderfully fitting musical score and a superb ensemble cast. For those who like a little something to think about, Ted Griffin’s script finds some truly brilliant ways to equate Manifest Destiny and Westward expansion with the consumption of human flesh: as the settlers chewed up and spit out the remains of those who came before them, so, too, does Colqhoun plan to chew up and spit out the settlers. It’s the circle of life: it might not be pretty, but it sure does look familiar.

As a writer, I feel that one of the greatest, most important things I can possibly do is to make sure that quality films like Ravenous don’t completely fade out into obscurity. Just as I’ve fallen in love with this ramshackle little mutt of a film, so do I feel that anyone else can, with the right push. As someone who’s spent the better part of his life separating the wheat from the chaff, as far as horror films go, let me now throw the fullest recommendation possible behind Ravenous. Give it a chance and I’m pretty sure you’ll agree: there’s absolutely nothing else out there like Ravenous…and we’re all a whole lot poorer for it.

 

10/21/14 (Part Two): Diggin’ in the Muck

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31 Days of Halloween, Alex Chandon, backwoods folk, black comedies, British films, Chris Waller, cinema, city vs country, co-writers, Damien Lloyd-Davies, Deliverance, Derek Melling, Dominic Brunt, dysfunctional family, film reviews, films, gallows' humor, George Newton, horror, horror films, horror-comedies, Inbred, isolated communities, James Burrows, James Doherty, Jo Hartley, Movies, Nadine Mulkerrin, Neil Leiper, Paul Shrimpton, Peter Jackson, politically-incorrect humor, pubs, Seamus O'Neill, set in England, Terry Haywood, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, UK films, writer-director, youth group, youth in trouble

As a lifelong movie lover, I’ve seen plenty of films over the years that would seem to have universal appeal to just about anyone: I can’t, for example, understand how anyone wouldn’t love The Godfather (1972), 2001 (1968) or The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)…the thought pretty much boggles my mind. As a horror fanatic, I’ve also seen plenty of films that would seem to be perfect for horror fans, even if more “discerning” film-goers might turn their noses (or stomachs) up at the fare: Dawn of the Dead (1978), The Descent (2005), Halloween (1978) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) should be part of any horror fan’s DNA, as far as I’m concerned, along with a host of others.

Sometimes, as I said, a film just seems to have universal appeal. On the other hand, there are those films that will really only ever appeal to a select group of folks: films that are too “out there,” violent, offensive or transgressive for the masses to ever fully digest. In some cases, these films can appeal to particularly narrow, niche markets: extreme torture films, mumble-core, splatter-core, art films, etc… Sometimes, however, a film just seems to want to push as many buttons as possible, using a scattergun approach to raising eyebrows: Peter Jackson’s ludicrously offensive Meet the Feebles (1989) is one such epic, as is Lucky McKee’s towering ode to the evils of misogyny, The Woman (2011). To this select group of offensive films, feel free to add Alex Chandon’s ugly-as-sin Inbred (2011), a film that promises to do for the backwoods of Great Britain the same thing that Deliverance (1972) did for the Ozarks. In case the name didn’t tip you off, Inbred knows no sacred cows: suffice to say, this is one film that absolutely will not appeal to everyone.

At the start, Inbred is framed as one of those films where well-meaning youth counselors take a group of troubled teens into the woods and try to get them to see the error of their ways. In this case, are troubled youth are motor-mouthed, shithead Dwight (Chris Waller), shy firebug Tim (James Burrows), jovial prankster Zeb (Terry Haywood) and token girl Sam (Nadine Mulkerrin). The well-meaning counselors take the form of stick-in-the-mud Jeff (James Doherty) and laid-back Kate (Jo Hartley), who sees compassion and friendship as the key to reaching the wayward kids.

The group ends up staying at some sort of (seemingly) abandoned structure and set about fixing the place up for their stay. As a reward for their hard work, Kate convinces Jeff to take them all into the nearby town so that they can visit the pub. As soon as the city-folk step into the dark environs of the pub, however, they realize just how out-of-place they are: not only do every one of the (decidedly) scuzzy patrons give them the stink eye, upon their entrance, but many of the drinkers appear to share pretty similar facial features…there are isolated, backwoods towns…and then, there’s this place. The barkeep, Jeff (Seamus O’Neill), seems normal and is very friendly, yet he acts strange when he finds out the group is staying at the dilapidated Ravenwood estate. As Jeff points out, the people in the town are all very friendly and nice…provided that you leave them alone and don’t bother them in the slightest, that is.

The trouble is, of course, that the group are true fish-out-of-water and have no idea about the locals very strange customs: as luck would have it, they end up disturbing a strange ritual that seems to involve burning animals and appear to incur the wrath of the locals. At this point, Jim’s formerly genial personality changes into something approaching terrifying insanity and the film becomes a siege picture, as the kids and their adult guardians do everything they can to stay alive. As the group will find out, however, there are much worse things than a quick death, especially when there’s a town full of inbred yokels to entertain. While the others make a desperate stand, Jim and his vicious son, Gris (Neil Leiper), prepare for one helluva performance, a show that will feature their new “guests” as star attractions.

We’ll just get this out of the way right off the bat: Inbred is an extremely unpleasant, graphic and all-around nasty piece of work. The townspeople, to a tee, are a filthy, strange and nearly animalistic lot and Jim is a truly terrifying figure of awe-inspiring bat-shittery: he spends most of the film parading around in blackface (the entire town is casually racist, as if it were the most natural thing in the world) and looks truly demonic by the finale, as his makeup runs in black streaks down his face. The “performances” are truly disturbing displays of inventive torture and, in at least one instance, are almost impossible to look at: I very rarely look away during horror films (this ain’t snuff, after all) but I was genuinely revolted by one particular scene and had very little interest in seeing it play to its logical conclusion. The violence and gore is sudden, extreme and very well-done: there are no punches pulled, especially during the climax, and there’s a visceral intensity to everything that makes it all seem that much more vivid.

But here’s the thing: Inbred works. It actually works spectacularly well, to be honest, finding a perfect synthesis between the humor and horror elements. The atmosphere in the film is thick and claustrophobic, making good use of some truly gorgeous cinematography, particularly during the film’s many wide shots of the beautiful countryside. The script is a good one, if very strange, with no concessions towards mass consumption whatsoever. Once the film switches from “creepy, sinister locals” to “full-on insane, blood-thirsty mob of locals,” the film ratchets the intensity up and never lets go.

Even better, however, is the fact that the filmmakers never take the obvious approach to anything: time and time again, hoary old genre clichés will pop up only to be bent, folded and manipulated into entirely new forms. One of my favorite moments in the movie comes when one character’s moment of triumph (so cliché but so prevalent in similar films) is completely deflated, turning him from kickass distributor of death to sitting duck in no time flat. Another brilliant, if thoroughly unpleasant, scene comes when Jim and some of the locals wager on one of the outsiders making it safely through a booby-trapped field: when the victim winds up caught in a trap, Jim has one of his guys go free her, so that they can continue their bet. It’s a nasty bit of work but it’s also a genius bit of characterization and makes Jim all that more memorable.

And memorable he is: Jim and his perverted ringmaster outfit has to be one of the most indelible images I’ve seen in some time. O’Neill is masterful as the friendly sociopath: he gets plenty of great speeches and is always a complex character, despite his obvious insanity. The kids are pretty generic, to be honest, but that’s also pretty expected in films like this. I did think there was some really nice work being done by Doherty and Hartley as the supposed authority figures: Hartley turns into a fairly effective hero, while Doherty gets some nicely emotional beats and has the benefit of perishing in one of the most genuinely surprising jump scares I’ve ever seen.

Ultimately, however, individual mileage with Inbred will vary: if you tend to be a sensitive viewer, this is absolutely not the film for you. Whether it’s a rampaging yokel with a hairlip and a chainsaw, torture involving vegetables jammed up noses or a literal shit explosion, Inbred has a real way of upping the ante and keeping it there. I feel fairly safe in stating that there should be something here to offend just about everyone. In a way, however, this becomes one of the film’s greatest strengths: it’s exceptionally well-made and acted but it’s also completely fearless, which is an intoxicating trait for a horror film to possess. In an era where many horror films have begun to seem too similar and too safe, Inbred is that rare beast: a truly transgressive, nasty, mean-spirited film with a coal-black heart and no desire to coddle viewers. I’m not ashamed to say that I had a blast with Inbred, even if I’m not eager to revisit it any time soon. Here’s to hoping that Chandon and company have another nasty little treat like this up their sleeves: sometimes, you just gotta walk on the wild side.

 

10/21/14 (Part One): Take This Job and Shove It

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31 Days of Halloween, barbarians, black comedies, Botched, Bronagh Gallagher, cinema, co-writers, Derek Boyle, directorial debut, Eamon Friel, Edward Baker-Duly, favorite films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, gallows' humor, Geoff Bell, high-rise building, horror, horror-comedies, hostage situation, Hugh O-Conor, Ivan the Terrible, Jamie Foreman, jewel heist, Kit Ryan, Movies, Raymond Friel, Russell Smith, Russian mobsters, Sean Pertwee, set in Russia, Stephen Dorff

Although filmmakers have been crafting big-screen, live-action adaptations of cartoons for some time, to greater or lesser (mostly lesser) effect, very few have been able to actually approximate the sheer insanity of said cartoons. In most cases, it’s enough to simply cast real actors that kind of look like their cartoon counterparts and put them into settings that kind of approximate their respective animated backgrounds. For the most part, however, the number of live-action films that have the chaotic energy and feel of classic Merrie Melodies or Looney Tunes cartoons are pretty few and far between.

The reason for this, of course, should be pretty simple: by their very nature, animated works can get away with about 1000% more things than live-action productions can. As an example, think back to that hoariest of all animated clichés, the mid-air “run and fall.” It’s a pretty simple task to make a cartoon Bugs Bunny run on thin air, stop, ponder, pull a sign from some hidden orifice and then plummet to relative safety at the bottom of a canyon: to paraphrase some old baseball movie, “If you draw it, it will happen.” Try this same gag in a live-action format, however, and it’s automatically a whole different ballgame: as a rule, flesh-and-blood actors and animatronics are much more beholden to the law of gravity than their animated counterparts. Toss a real actor over a cliff and see how long they tread open air before crashing to terra firma: I’m guessing it won’t be a pretty sight.

All this is by way of saying that live-action features that actually have the zany, unpredictable feel of cartoons are exceptionally rare beasts, scattered unicorns in a field full of shaggy ponies. Of these rare beasts, one of the very best, brightest and most outrageous would have to be Kit Ryan’s no-holds-barred Botched (2007). Nominally about a botched heist, Ryan’s amazing little film manages to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the mix, coming up with a film that’s howlingly funny, unbelievably violent, ludicrously hyper-kinetic and endlessly surprising. It’s a movie that plays on audience expectations before systematically shattering them, all the way to a great twist ending that feels less tacked on than absolutely necessary. I fell in love with Botched the very first time that I saw it: if you’re an adventurous movie fan, I’m willing to wager that you probably will, too.

The movie kicks off with a thrilling diamond heist, led by the perpetually unlucky Ritchie (Stephen Dorff). As the title tips us off, Ritchie ends up botching the heist something fierce, losing his accomplices and the stolen ice in the process. Returning to his no-nonsense boss, the stony-faced Mr. Groznyi (Sean Pertwee), Ritchie gets a chance to make everything right, via yet another heist. This time, Ritchie must travel to Russia, where he teams up with the bumbling brother duo of Peter (Jamie Foreman) and Yuri (Russell Smith): the three men are charged with infiltrating a high-rise office building and stealing a special jeweled crucifix from the penthouse suite. As luck would have it, Peter is a complete and total psychopath and ends up blowing someone away, leading the trio to be locked-down on the top floor, along with a handful of hostages.

The hostages are a decidedly odd bunch, including a group of conservatively dressed, ultra-religious women, led by Sonya (Bronagh Gallagher), a dim-witted Russian soldier by the name of Boris Bogdanovich (Geoff Bell) and the uber-nerdy Dmitry (Hugh O’Conor). During a bit of organized chaos, Sonya pulls a gun and flips the script, taking Ritchie, Peter, Yuri, Boris and the others hostage, all in preparation for a big sacrifice to “the Almighty.” Did I mention there’s a mysterious, blood-thirsty barbarian (Edward Baker-Duly) roaming the halls of the office building wielding an enormous ax and an equally massive, bug-eyed, grin? Yeah, well, he’s there’s and he’s a real hoot, let me tell ya.

With all of these decidedly strange forces massed against him, Ritchie must stay the course and complete his assignment, lest he wind up in Groznyi’s crossfires when/if he should survive his trials. There’s more to the mysterious office building than meets the eye, however, and Mr. Groznyi might be more intertwined with Sonya and the barbarian than it first seems. If he’s not careful, Ritchie may just end up on the business-end of a huge ax, just one more victim of the working-class malaise.

At first blush, there probably doesn’t seem like a lot of parallel between Botched and something like a Wylie Coyote short. Digging a bit deeper, however, they don’t look so radically different: both are kinetic, hyper-self aware and ultra-violent little jewels that barrel ahead on their own feverish logic and display a blatant disregard for such things as basic anatomy and physics. There’s one point in the film where Baker-Duly’s gleeful berserker gets blown up and stands there, smoking and covered in soot, that should be readily familiar to anyone who grew up on old Daffy Duck cartoons: all he’s missing is an orange bill spinning around his dazed face.

So much of the film is pitched at a cartoonish pace that Botched often has the feel of a rollercoaster ride where we’ve begun just as the car is accelerating down its first huge drop. With little exposition, the film throws viewers into the deep end and then keeps shifting gears into each fresh absurdity: the heist aspect of the film turns into a hostage comedy which suddenly ratchets up into a strange occult shocker before leveling off into something that could best be described as a “light-hearted serial killer bloodbath.”

Throughout everything, however, the film manages to never lose either its inherent good nature or its sense of humor. Since the entire film plays out like a live-action cartoon, the over-the-top bloodshed takes on an altogether different…daresay I say “wholesome” feel: bodies are cleaved in two, heads roll, more fake blood is shed than a Gwar concert and yet the film never manages to seem mean-spirited or oppressive.

Part of the credit for this goes to the genuinely funny tone that’s maintained throughout Botched’s quick running time. Chalk this up to a superbly sharp script, credited to Raymond Friel, Eamon Friel and Derek Boyle: three writers would normally spell the kiss of death for a script but they obviously functioned like a well-oiled machine. The humor in the film is a great blend of witty dialogue and absurd, outrageous situations/sight gags that make for a heady mixture: the comedy is often pretty rapid-fire and there’s almost always something to laugh at, whether it’s Boris explaining how a filing cabinet can be deadlier than a tank “in the right hands,” Dimitry cautiously determining just what “saved” means before he volunteers (it’s not what he hoped) or the unforgettable scene where Sonya realizes that her brother is getting up to some unsavory business with the bodies. Unlike many horror-comedies, both sides of the coin are duly served: Botched is laugh-out-loud funny and just as horrifying as any “serious” fright film out there.

This would all be for nought without a killer cast, however, and there are some absolutely priceless performances here courtesy of Stephen Dorff, Jamie Foreman, Bronagh Gallagher and Geoff Bell. Dorff is perfect as the exasperated thief who just wants something, anything, to go right in this shitty nightmare that he calls a life, while Foreman and Bell bring just the right amount of sweetness with their psychopathy: neither guy are the kind of person you’d want in your home but either one would (probably) be a real blast in a dive bar. Top marks must go to Gallagher and Baker-Duly as the gonzo, batshit crazy dastardly duo: they’re both amazing comic actors with impeccable timing and every minute they’re on-screen is a real delight. Truth be told, the villains in Botched are so fascinating that you really end up wanting to spend more time with them then you do: Dorff is no slouch, mind you, but Sonya and the barbarian are something else entirely!

There’s so much to love about Botched that I’m tempted to call the film one of my all-time favorites, despite the fact that it’s not even ten years old. Lightning-paced, stocked with fascinating characters, hilarious situations, witty dialogue, lavishly-executed setpieces and enough gore to please the most jaded of hounds, Botched is an absolute treat from start to finish. I’ve always wondered what happened to director Kit Ryan but I now see that his sophomore feature, Dementamania (2013), just opened in the UK this month. If his new one is anything like his first one, it looks like I’ve got another potential “favorite film” to add to my list.

 

9/22/14: Plowed Under

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alcoholism, black comedies, Canadian films, cinema, drama, Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, gallows' humor, independent film, indie dramas, Isabelle Nelisse, Marc Labreche, Movies, odd couple, snow plow, stranded, Thomas Haden Church, Vincent Hoss-Desmarais, voice-over narration, Whitewash, writer-director

If there’s a big takeaway from writer/director Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais’ exceptional debut feature, Whitewash (2013), it’s a pretty cynical one: people suck. Oh, sure: individuals may do good, selfless things but the rest of humanity will, invariably, find some way to screw it up. To wrap it up with a nice, clichéd bow: no good deed goes unpunished. The journey to this revelation is a twisted one, however, and there’s a genuine mystery at the heart of this blackly comic little wonder, albeit a small one: why, exactly, did Bruce (Thomas Haden Church) run over Paul (Marc Labreche) with a snowplow?

The event in question happens at the very onset of the film and the answer will be gradually revealed over the next 80-some minutes via a series of flashbacks. What we get at the beginning, however, has all of the linear insanity of a nightmare: we see Bruce run Paul over (via a gorgeous long shot) and then join him as he rides his snowplow off into the darkest recesses of the nearby forest, where the vehicle inevitably stalls out. From this point on, the film splits its difference between being an outdoor survival flick, ala Wrecked (2010), and being a prickly dark comedy about the subtle ways in which humans drive each other crazy.

There’s more to the film than meets the eye, however: much more. For one thing, unlike most survival dramas, Bruce doesn’t appear to be trapped. There’s no giant boulder pinning his arm, no crushed car to keep him in place. Rather, what’s trapping Bruce out in the cold hell of a brutal Quebecan winter is his own internal turmoil. As we begin to piece more of the story together, via the numerous flashbacks, we also start to put together a better picture of Bruce: a hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth type, Bruce is an easy-going fella who’s fond of eating his dessert before his entrée and thinks nothing of helping complete strangers, regardless of the inconvenience to himself. He’s a sad man, in many ways: his wife has died and the house is filled with belongings and memorabilia that makes her an omnipresent figure. There are a lot of facets to Bruce but one questions hangs heavy over everything: why would a guy like this run over someone else with a snow plow?

We do eventually get the answer but, as often happens in these situations, the journey is more important than the destination. As we learn more about Bruce and his “victim,” the mysterious and unbelievably obnoxious Paul, we begin to understand, piece by piece, what might drive a seemingly ordinary guy to snap. By the time we get to the brilliantly concise finale, we have many but not all of our answers. To paraphrase the Big, Bad Wolf: all the better to use our own minds, then.

For a modest, unassuming film, I was most impressed with Hoss-Desmarais’ debut. For one thing, the cinematography (courtesy of Andre Turpin) is absolutely astounding: with no hyperbole, the film looked like a million bucks and featured some stunningly beautiful shots. There’s one shot, where Bruce’s snowplow recedes into the background, taking all of the light with it and rendering the screen pitch-black, that’s practically a masterclass on evoking mood (besides being gorgeously framed). The film’s colors are bright and vibrant, with deep blacks, crisp whites and a truly ingenious use of shadows and negative space.

The other high point in the film, of course, is Thomas Haden Church’s commanding performance as Bruce. For the most part, the film is a one-man show and Church is more than up for the task. Even his voice, deep and reverberating, brings new layers and context to a voice-over convention that is too often misused: the voice-overs in Whitewash don’t repeat unnecessary visual information…they deliver the main character’s inner thoughts and observations in a way that enriches the overall story. If for nothing else, I must praise Hoss-Desmarais’ writing skills and entreat other screenwriters/directors to follow his lead: make the voiceover mean something or get it the hell out-of-the-way.

Awesome voice aside, Church is stone-cold perfect in the role: his dryly humorous quips and facial expressions deliver miles of character in shorthand and the actor is so charismatic that spending an entire film stuck with Bruce is something significantly less than torturous. Truth be told, I had kind of forgot about Church before this film, despite being a big fan of the TV show Wings back in the day. I’m not sure if Whitewash counts as a comeback (did he ever go anywhere or was I just not paying attention) but Church deserves more (and bigger) films in the future. Here’s to hoping this helps kick the door in.

Also impressive, for different reasons, is Marc Labreche as the odious Paul. Paul is kind of a difficult character to parse, since we start to learn about his true character over time. Nonetheless, Labreche is pretty great at hitting all of the necessary beats: his long-winded story about Mexico starts to pull back the curtain hiding the wizard (in a truly organic way), while his ridiculous bar-room dance must be seen to be believed. Most importantly, Church and Labreche make a great odd couple: the film wouldn’t be nearly as effective if their relationship didn’t seem so real.

Lest my praise seem too effusive, Whitewash is definitely not a perfect film. Despite the great script, there are a few odd plot-holes that never get resolved and the back half of the film ends up being more confusing than seems necessary. In the long run, however, none of the film’s problems ever approach the level of “deal-breaker.” The acting is extraordinary (no lie, Church deserved some kind of award for this), the script is tight and the cinematography is flat-out beautiful. Hoss-Desmarais makes particularly good use of the Canadian countryside, which almost becomes a third character in the film. The cherry on the sundae? A pitch-perfect, sardonic, dry-as-dust final shot that feels like the filmmakers decided to take a victory lap.

Nowadays, it seems that cheaply made, disposable independent films are a dime-a-dozen (hell, maybe that’s what Netflix is payin’ em these days). The good ones? Far less frequent. The great ones? Even rarer still. Whitewash, in case anyone is keeping score, is one of the great ones. Here’s to hoping this is the beginning of a long and fruitful writing/directing career for Hoss-Desmarais, who first cut his teeth as an actor in films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004). While moving behind the camera isn’t always the best move for an actor, Hoss-Desmarais proves that the best things don’t always fall neatly within the lines.

9/14/14: This Little Piggy

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bad cops, bad decisions, Bad Lieutenant, based on a book, black comedies, Brian McCardie, British films, cinema, Clint Mansell, corrupt law enforcement, Eddie Marsan, electronic score, Emun Elliott, film reviews, films, Filth, gallows' humor, Gary Lewis, homophobia, Imogen Poots, infidelity, insanity, Irvine Welsh, James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent, John Sessions, Jon S. Baird, Matthew Jensen, mental illness, Movies, pigs, racism, sexism, Shauna Macdonald, Shirley Henderson, Trainspotting, voice-over narration, writer-director

When it comes to filmed adaptations of Scottish scalawag Irvine Welsh’s novels, Danny Boyle’s extraordinary version of Trainspotting (1996) will probably always be the gold standard. In a way, Boyle’s film was a perfect storm and, perhaps, the only one of the adaptations to truly capture Welsh’s unique voice and style. Boyle managed to find the essential humanity at the core of some pretty reprehensible characters and wrapped the proceedings in an alternately candy-colored and bleakly hallucinatory environment: the film was the perfect combination of the romantic and the scatological, the joy and shuddering horror of the trod-upon Scotch lower-class writ large for the whole world to see. In Boyle’s hands, there was equal parts poetry and filth, the proverbial rose pushing up through a mountain of shit. Trainspotting works so well because Boyle walks the tightrope so perfectly: too much glitz and we lose the allure of Welsh’s gutter-punk angels…too much vulgarity and we tune out the misery, if only to avoid staring too deeply into the abyss.

Although it’s not (necessarily) meant as a pejorative, writer/director Jon S. Baird’s adaptation of Welsh’s Filth (2013) is no Trainspotting. In certain ways, the film plays more like an over-the-top (waaaaay over the top) take on Abel Ferrara’s classic of feel-bad-cinema, Bad Lieutenant (1999), just as content to shove our noses in bad behavior as it is to comment on it. Where Ferrara’s film wore its intentions on its sleeve, (any film that centers around a nun forgiving her rapist is obviously interested in more than just a visceral reaction), Filth is a little cagier about its ultimate goal. When Baird’s film works, it’s ferocious, funny, eye-popping and endlessly offensive, featuring a truly great ending and a career-best performance by James McAvoy. When the film doesn’t work, however, it’s actually rather dreadful: pretentious, empty-headed and more stylish than substantial, Filth manages to make all of the mistakes that Trainspotting didn’t. While I (ultimately) ended up liking the film quite a bit (no doubt due, in no small part, to that phenomenal ending), there was plenty that I found to be equally eye-rolling, obnoxious and tedious. Filth may not ascend to the heady heights that Trainspotting did but there’s plenty to enjoy here: fans of Welsh’s purple prose may, indeed, celebrate the fact that Baird has captured the author’s often difficult voice so well.

Our “hero” and guide through this little section of Hell is none other than Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy), a cop so completely and thoroughly corrupt/reprehensible that he makes Harvey Keitel’s titular “bad lieutenant” look like a real sweetheart. Bruce is virulently sexist, racist and homophobic, hoovers up cocaine by the metric ton and eagerly blackmails the underage daughter of a prominent lawyer into performing oral sex on him. He steals money from his “best friend” while anonymously serving as obscene phone-caller to the poor guy’s wife, while also sleeping with the wife of one of his co-workers. Bruce is angling for a department promotion which, in his fetid little world, involves doing everything he can to sabotage his fellow officers’ chances of vaulting over him to the finish line.

We first meet Bruce’s co-workers via a series of fantasy vignettes in which our resident Mr. Wonderful gives his (slanted) take on his peers: Dougie (Brian McCardie) is the “Nazi” who’s being cuckolded by Bruce; Peter (Emun Elliott) is the “metrosexual” and “closeted gay”; Ray (Jamie Bell) is the “coke-head rookie”; Gus (Gary Lewis) is the “old as dirt, single-IQ” department veteran and Amanda (Imogen Poots) is the “token female” who “must be sucking off the whole squad,” at least according to Bruce’s jaundiced worldview.

While Bruce’s work-life appears to be one never-ending scheme after another, his home-life appears to be just as complicated and unpleasant. We meet his lovely blonde wife, Carole (Shauna Macdonald), through a series of largely unsuccessful vignettes/voice-overs and get some hint of a past trauma after Bruce attempts (and fails) to give CPR to someone who has collapsed on the street. The dead man’s widow, Mary (Joanne Froggatt), periodically appears to serve as Bruce’s conscience, in a way, while also giving hints at the kind of love story that belongs in a much nicer film.

To muddy the waters even further, Bruce’s squad is currently embroiled in the controversial case of a Japanese exchange student who has been brutally beat to death by a gang of Scottish punks. As the team investigates the case, the stakes are raised when it’s revealed that closing the case will virtually guarantee one of them a plum new promotion: Bruce wants that promotion and sets out to stop his fellow officers in any way he can. Bruce has such single-minded devotion to his plan, in fact, that the actual murder case fades into the background, even when it appears that Carole may be the only witness to the incident.

As Bruce dives deeper and deeper into the sewage around him, his tenuous grasp on reality begins to flicker in and out: he starts to imagine people (including himself) with animal heads, loses control of his hair-trigger temper at a moment’s notice and descends even further into an unrelenting drug hell. Will Bruce be able to keep it all together long enough to solve the murder or, at the very least, completely wreck his co-workers’ lives? What mysterious incident happened to Bruce that causes him to constantly reminisce about a dead boy? And what, exactly, is going on with Bruce’s absent wife, Carole? The ultimate revelation is quite a surprise and leads to a truly bravura climax that almost (but not quite) rivals the “Choose life” finale from Trainspotting, albeit from a much grimmer angle.

As mentioned above, Filth is a pretty hit-and-miss affair but the hits are heady enough to gloss over the misses. Chief among the “pros” here is McAvoy’s astounding performance as Bruce: as painful as a raw nerve, as dastardly as any villain and just charming enough to prevent you from wanting to squash him like a bug, Bruce is a massively interesting construct and is brought to glorious life by McAvoy. Without a strong center, the film would, literally, collapse into wet newspaper: who the hell wants to get stuck with an unlovable, lecherous sociopath for 90 minutes? To McAvoy’s immense credit, he manages to humanize Bruce just enough (the guy is still an inhuman creep, mind you) to allow the finale to have genuine impact. There’s a truly odd but relentlessly effective scene where Bruce obscene calls his friend’s wife while watching old home movies: as tears stream down his cheeks and his eyes betray pure misery, Bruce mouths some of the most vile “sex talk” in some time and masturbates in almost robotic fashion. The split screen shows us that Bunty (Shirley Henderson) is also furiously pleasuring herself, which makes a ludicrous parallel to Bruce’s miserable actions. It’s a small but effective moment, a bit that fuses the film’s twin obsessions of gutter-trawling and emotional overload into one dynamic whole.

Although McAvoy is, head and shoulders, the focal point of the film, it’s definitely not a one-man show. The ensemble is a particularly strong one, with all of Bruce’s co-workers receiving their own moment in the sun, along with some despicable behaviors of their own. Particularly impressive, however, is veteran British character-actor Eddie Marsan as Bruce’s put-upon “best friend” and Masonic Lodge brother Clifford. With his doughy features and perpetually hang-dog demeanor, Clifford is a fabulous foil for Bruce: the scene where Bruce takes Clifford out for a night on the town flops wildly between a “night out for the lads” and “complete psychological torture.” Clifford is an intriguing character and Marsan goes for the gusto in the role, expanding what could have been a caricature into a fully fleshed, if largely worthless, individual.

From a craft standpoint, Filth looks great, although it’s occasionally a little blown-out for my tastes. The film also has the benefit of a pretty excellent soundtrack courtesy of former Pop Will Eat Itself frontman Clint Mansell: while the score doesn’t rival the iconic soundtrack from Trainspotting, it’s still an effective combination of Mansell’s traditional electro scorework and some pretty apt pop tunes (Mansell’s evocative cover of Radiohead’s Creep scores the final scene and is absolutely perfect for the mood Baird has established.

While the film has plenty to recommend it, however, there’s also plenty that nearly derails it completely. The interludes with Carole never work and always seem ancillary to the main narrative. They’re also quite irritating, to be honest, and tonally out-of-sorts with the rest of the film. Along those lines, several scenes, such as the impromptu musical number, seem out-of-place and manage to fall completely flat, affording nothing more than a shrug. For a film that’s about lurid and anti-social behavior, Filth also has a strange tendency to seem…well, just a little bit tame, if that makes sense. Whereas Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant was a feral, unhinged fever dream, Filth plays out more as a snide, tongue-in-cheek expose on “bad behavior”: it’s a little like crossing the street to avoid an exceptionally creepy looking stranger only to discover that the stranger is actually Robert Pattinson with drawn-on tattoos. In many ways, I fear that this comes down to the film’s “style over substance” issues: like many other “everything and the kitchen sink films,” Filth throws so much stuff at the audience that, inevitably, fatigue sinks in. Compare this to the groodiest moments in Boyle’s masterpiece and it’s easy to see how less can, indeed, often be more.

Ultimately, I found myself quite taken with Filth, even though it’s several solid steps below Trainspotting. McAvoy is pitch-perfect throughout and is just good enough to warrant watching the film: regardless of your tolerance for the debauchery on display, McAvoy is outstanding and turns in a real “actor’s performance.” If you can forgive the film its excesses and step over the plot holes that begin to spread like wildfire in the second half (my least favorite being the revelation that Bunty doesn’t realize it’s Bruce that’s been prank-calling her: Really? I mean…really?), I think that you’ll find Filth to be a massively entertaining examination of one of the slimiest cinematic slugs to slither its way across the silver screen in some time. You might not be able to stand in Bruce’s corner (I’d be kind of scared if you could) but that shouldn’t stop you from seeing him get his just desserts. Filth might not be Trainspotting but, for patient and tolerant viewers, it just might be the next best thing.

5/31/14 (Part Two): The Children Suffer

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abused children, Aharon Keshales, Ami Weinberg, bad cops, Big Bad Wolves, black comedies, child killing, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, cops, cops behaving badly, Doval'e Glickman, Dror, fairy tales, film reviews, films, gallows' humor, Gidi, irony, Israeli films, Kalevet, Lior Ashkenazi, Menashe Noy, Micki, missing child, Movies, Nati Kluger, Navot Papushado, Prisoners, Rabies, revenge, Rotem Keinan, torture, Tzahi Grad, vengeance, writer-director

While we’d all like to think that we’re above primal emotions like hate and fear, the reality is actually a lot less black-and-white. The human animal may try to distance itself from its more feral, four-legged “cousins,” casting its eyes (and aspirations) to the cosmos, suppressing more earthy, “unpleasant” instincts. It may do this to its heart’s content but one overwhelming fact cannot be denied: the wild, untamed brutality of the animal kingdom always lurks just below the serene, civilized facade of humanity. At any given moment, we all walk the razor’s edge, careful not to give ourselves over too completely to the darkness.

This delicate balancing act becomes a lifelong task, then, just one other facet of life to navigate. We’re always perfectly balanced, the necessary combination of light and dark to survive in a dangerous world…until we aren’t. When we allow powerful, devastating primal urges like hate, fear and vengeance to take the controls, we tempt the fates, throw off the natural order of things. Too little of the “animal instinct” and we’re gingerbread figures, empty haircuts that mean as much to the natural order as plankton do to whales. Too much of the “old ways,” however, and we become something much different from human…much more dangerous. When the hearts of men and women become overstuffed with hate and vengeance, when we cast aside all other notions of humanity in service of stoking the indignant fire in our guts, we become wolves, ourselves. As we see in Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s extraordinary, incendiary new film, Big Bad Wolves (2013), even the desire for justice can become something ugly in the blast furnace of hate, leading us to do all of the right things for all of the most terribly wrong reasons.

Our protagonist, Micki (Lior Ashkenazi), is a charismatic Israeli police detective with a huge problem: there’s a psychopath kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing young girls. Micki’s a good guy, at heart, but he’s also one of those movie cops who operates best outside the polite constraints of the law. Along with his by-the-book partner, Rami (Menashe Noy), and a couple of eager young cops nicknamed “Beavis and Butthead,” Micki takes the chief suspect in the case, Dror (Rotem Keinan), to an abandoned factory for a little good old-fashioned “questioning questioning.” Dror, a religious studies teacher, is a particularly pathetic figure, resembling nothing so much as one of those shaggy dogs that gets wet and ends up looking like a drowned rat. During the course of the “interrogation,” Micki and the perpetually giggling moron brothers put quite the smack-down on Dror (including actually smacking him repeatedly with a phone book), all in the hope of getting him to cop to the heinous crimes. When the factory ends up being less than abandoned, footage of the entire incident is uploaded to YouTube: Micki becomes an instant celebrity and is rewarded with being busted down to traffic cop, while Dror is summarily released into a community that has pretty much already convicted him. Not the best situation for a school teacher, it turns out, and Dror is quickly asked to take a little “vacation” by the principal (Ami Weinberg): he’s welcome to come back once everyone’s “got over it,” presumably sometime between “the distant future” and “never.”

Despite being summarily chewed out by his superior, Tsvika (Dvir Benedek), Micki is still positive that Dror is guilty and intends on continuing to push him until he cracks. With a knowing look, Tsvika tells him that he can do whatever he likes, since he’s no longer working the case…as long as he doesn’t get caught, of course. But Micki does end up getting caught, right at the key moment when he has spirited Dror away to an isolated forest locale and made the terrified man dig his own grave. Far from an agent of law enforcement, however, Dror’s “guardian angel” ends up being a devil in disguise: Gidi (Tzahi Grad), the vengeful father of one of the dead girls. Like Micki, he’s also convinced that Dror is guilty but his ultimate intention is a bit different from Micki’s: he intends to torture Dror until he reveals the location of his daughter’s missing head. By inflicting all of the torture onto Dror that he suspects the schoolteacher of inflicting on the girls, Gidi hopes to achieve a kind of perverted justice. If Dror talks, he gets a merciful bullet to the brain. If he doesn’t, he’ll get the hammers…and the pliers…and the blowtorch.

As the three men interact within the isolated, soundproofed house that Gidi has set-up expressly for this occasion, allegiances are formed and torn asunder. Micki alternates between being Gidi’s captive and his accomplish, depending on how far down the rabbit-hole he’s willing to go. Dror tries to appeal to Micki’s basic humanity, as well as their shared connection as fathers: both Dror and Micki have young daughters and difficult relationships with their respective wives. Complications arise when Gidi’s pushy father, Yoram (Doval’e Glickman), drops by to bring him some soup. Upon seeing the situation, Yoram gently chides Gidi but offers to help: he’s ex-military, after all, and knows a thing or two about getting men to talk. As the situation for Dror (and Micki) becomes more dire, new revelations threaten to spin the entire mess off the rails. When men become angry, desperate and frightened, they become dangerous: they become big, bad wolves.

One of the first things that becomes clear in Big, Bad Wolves is that there’s a strong, consistent dose of gallows’ humor that runs throughout the entire film. In fact, right up until the gut-punch final image (which manages to be as terrifyingly bleak as the final scene in Darabont’s The Mist (2007)), the film is actually quite funny. Bleak, violent, savage and hopeless? Absolutely. The dark subject matter is leavened considerably, however, by a script that manages to be not only subtly clever but also broadly comedic, when called for. One of the best scenes in the film is the one where Tsvika calls Micki into his office. It’s “Bring Your Son to Work Day” and Tsvika has brought his son with him: in a classic scene that works on a number of levels, Tsvika and his son engage in some tandem ball-busting that’s pretty damn funny. “This is the yellow card conversation,” Tsvika tells his son, at one point. “Like in soccer, dad?” “Just like in soccer, son,” Tsvika says proudly, mussing his son’s hair while staring Micki down with a glare that would melt Medusa.

Keshales and Papushado (whose debut film, Kalevet (2010), bears the distinction of being Israel’s first-ever horror film) use this scene of humor is some truly surprising, disarming ways, none more so than the scenes where Gidi tortures Dror. There’s never anything funny about torture but the filmmakers manage to wring a surprising amount of genuine laughs out of these scenes. As Gidi sets about on his path of vengeance, he’s constantly interrupted by reminders of the “polite” world. As Gidi is about to begin breaking Dror’s fingers, one by one, his cellphone rings: it’s Gidi’s mom and he’d better take the call, lest she go “crazy.” Gidi and Micki flip a coin to see who gets the first go at Dror, only to have the coin dramatically roll away. Micki tries to stall the inevitable mayhem by telling Gidi that they should drug Dror first, if they really wanted to do everything to him that he did to the kids: Gidi matter-of-factly tells him that Dror also violated the girls sexually but they’ve both decided to pass on that punishment…there are always compromises.

In many ways, Big, Bad Wolves plays as a sardonic counterpart to the much more po-faced Prisoners (2013). While the Jake Gyllenahaal-starring Oscar nominee had a portentous, serious tone that practically demanded it be taken seriously, its Israeli “cousin” is much more loose and easy-going. For one thing, Ashkenazi is a ridiculously charismatic lead, sort of a Middle Eastern take on George Clooney: he does more acting with his eyes and the corner of his mouth than most actors do with the entire script. In a particularly knockout moment, Micki stares incredulously as Dror stops to help an old woman cross a busy street. The look of surprise and disbelief is obvious, but there’s an undercurrent of amusement and, dare I say, approval, that comes through just as loud and clear. Micki is a complex, engaging character with a truly heartbreaking arc and one of the most interesting cinematic creations in some time.

The real revelation of the film, however, is the towering, absolutely astounding performance of Tzahi Grad as Gidi. By the time we’re introduced to him, Gidi is already “past” the actual murder of his daughter and is moving on to the closure that he wants: there’s very little outward “sadness” to the character and no moping or chest-beating whatsoever. Gidi is a practical, cold and successful man who has been dealt a terrible blow and now must make it all “right,” just as he’s always done. As additional details about Gidi’s character creep in, we begin to see a more fully formed vision of the man, making his actions that much more difficult to fully condone (or condemn, if we’re being honest). There is nothing stereotypical about Gidi or his actions. Frequently, I would find myself genuinely shocked by something he does (the film does not wallow in gore and violence but what there is tends to be extremely sudden, extremely brutal and rather unforgettable) but I never lost my connection to him as a character. While the writing in Big, Bad Wolves is pretty flawless, a lot of the credit for this must go to Grad: it’s not easy to make a potentially monstrous character “human,” but Gidi manages to be not only massively human but completely relateable and likable, as well. He feels like a real person, not a film construct.

Big, Bad Wolves ends up being filled with the kind of subtle details and moments that practically demand repeat viewings. A throwaway line of dialogue becomes an important bit of foreshadowing…a “random” encounter with a mysterious, nomadic horseman (Kais Nashif) becomes an opportunity for an incisive point about Arab/Israeli relations. The whole film is full of fairy-tale imagery, from the opening title sequence to the trail of “breadcrumbs” that lead to the dead girls to the title of the film, itself. Far from being an all-too obvious bit of symbolism, the fairy-tale aspect is completely organic, seamlessly interwoven into the film and providing a rich depth missing from the straight-laced, nuts-and-bolts construction that was Prisoners.

Despite being an exceptionally difficult film to watch, at times, Big, Bad Wolves is the furthest thing possible from “torture porn” like Hostel (2005) and Seven Days (2010). Unlike more shallow genre exercises, the torture and violence in Big, Bad Wolves is not intended to be fodder for gorehounds: there is real pain and suffering to be found here, not just from the battered, bloody man receiving the violence but from the emotionally scarred men distributing it. Similar to Winner’s original Death Wish (1974), Keshales and Papushado’s film goes to great lengths to explore the actual concept of vengeance: inflicting pain on someone will never bring back a loved one. In a way, it’s just another death: the death of the soul and the death of essential humanity.

Ultimately, Big, Bad Wolves is a fierce, ferocious and utterly alive film. It practically bursts from the screen, thanks to a combination of exceptionally skilled filmmaking (the script and cinematography, alone, are two of the very best of 2013) and raw, vital acting. If Keshales and Papushado marked themselves as filmmakers to watch with their debut, they’ve cemented their reputations with its follow-up. Undoubtedly, there will be some who can’t stomach the audacious mixture of soul-crushing violence and humor that the film offers and that’s quite alright: the real world, the terribly unfair, brutal and beautiful orb that we stand on, is the same mixture of violence and comedy and many can’t deal with that, either. As the most cutting, intuitive writers have always known, however, comedy and tragedy always go hand-in-hand…it’s quite impossible to live without experiencing more than your fair share of both. It may seem wrong to laugh as it all comes collapsing to the ground but it’s also necessary. After all, without a sense of humor, aren’t we really all just wolves?