11/11/15 (Part One): Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

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Adam Sliwinski, Andy Thompson, Bernadette Saquibal, Canadian films, cinema, Claudia Morris, co-writers, crime and punishment, Cruel & Unusual, David Richmond-Peck, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Groundhog Day, husband-wife relationship, independent films, Kyle Cassie, low-budget films, Mark Korven, Mary Black, Merlin Dervisevic, Michael Eklund, Michael John Bateman, Michelle Harrison, Monsour Cataquiz, Movies, multiple writers, repentance, Richard Harmon, sci-fi, science-fiction, writer-director

When it comes to crime, what, exactly, is the most effective form of punishment? Incarceration is obviously a popular option, given the exponential increase of bodies in prisons (at least in the U.S. of A.) but how effective is it really? There’s also execution, of course, with all of the moral quandaries, philosophical issues and inability to correct mistakes that come with that particular path in the woods.

While incarceration and execution can have varying degrees of effectiveness as far as recidivism goes (execution, in particular, makes it difficult for criminals to re-offend unless, of course, they happen to be Horace Pinker), is there actually a form of punishment that could make a criminal truly regret their transgressions? Is there some way to make a murderer feel sorrow for their actions, a way to make a monster realize their own monstrosity?

Writer/director Merlin Dervicevic takes a look at one potential (albeit far-fetched) form of punishment/rehabilitation with the low-budget, Canadian export Cruel & Unusual (2014). In this modest little film (confined to a couple of interior locations and a few exterior locales, with a small cast), Dervicevic and co-writer Claudia Morris posit a scenario that’s part Cube (1997), part Groundhog Day (1993) and never less than engrossing. While Cruel & Unusual is far from a perfect film, it manages to be effortlessly thought-provoking, which is far more important.

When we first meet schlubby, unassuming Edgar (David Richmond-Peck), he seems like the kind of stock, cinematic character who’s only one small step away from a crippling midlife crisis: he frequently argues with his “out-of-his league wife,” Maylon (Bernadette Saquibal), and accuses her of sleeping with his boss; Maylon’s son, Gogan (Monsour Cataquiz), is a holy terror at school and a tremendous discipline problem; and Edgar’s blue-collar brother, Lance (Kyle Cassie), constantly drops by unexpected and seems to show an unhealthy interest in Maylon.

Just when it seems as if we’ve stepped into a particularly depressing domestic drama, however, Cruel & Unusual drops the other shoe: after walking into a room in his house, Edgar emerges in some sort of anonymous-looking facility. He has a strange tattoo on his arm and quickly finds himself in a room full of assorted strangers, sort of like an AA meeting but even grimmer. As Edgar soon discovers, this is some sort of alternate form of punishment: not only has he has been accused of killing Maylon, Edgar is also informed that he, himself, is now dead.

As per the rules of the facility (explicated by literal talking heads on high school AV-type rolling TV carts), Edgar and the other “prisoners” must constantly relive the days of their crimes, bearing witness to their actions over and over until they finally realize the gravity of their sins and are properly repentant. The crimes run the gamut from murder to suicide (those who kill themselves are derogatorily labeled “suies” and looked down upon by everyone else) but the process is the same: face your shame, over and over, until you’re finally “rehabilitated” and allowed to “move on.”

The only problem, of course, is that Edgar didn’t kill Maylon…at least, he doesn’t think he did. As our bespectacled protagonist tries to desperately prove his innocence and escape from the facility, he meets a trio of like-minded fellow prisoners: William (Richard Harmon), who cold-bloodily killed his parents; Julien (Michael Eklund), who drowned his own children during a custody dispute with his ex-wife; and Doris (Michelle Harrison), who hung herself from a tree and let her young children discover her swinging body.

Seeking answers, Edgar repeatedly delves back into that fateful day, replaying the scenario between him and Maylon over and over, trying to get some sense of the truth behind it all. As new layers are unwrapped and new information is learned, however, Edgar will come to understand the terrible truth about the day he and Maylon died, a truth that will either set him free…or damn him forever.

Despite an incredibly familiar set-up and execution, Cruel & Unusual still managed to pull the rug out from underneath me in the final third, making this one of the better, more capable sleepers I’ve seen in some time. Similar to Circle (2015) in that it takes a very basic sci-fi concept and then proceeds to fill in the outlines with some exceptionally thoughtful examinations on morality and humanity, Dervicevic’s film is never particularly flashy, yet still manages to pack a hefty punch.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the film’s final reel is not only “quite good” but “damn good,” sending the movie out in the best possible way, with a genuinely emotional, gut-punch of a final revelation/conclusion. Prior to the finale, Cruel & Unusual is undoubtedly well-made, if familiar: the acting is solid, the score is nicely evocative and the cinematography helps to establish the mood quickly and economically. Had the film maintained this level of quality throughout, I’d still have no problem recommending it, albeit more as a pleasant time-waster than anything else. The finale is so smart and impactful, however, that it manages to cast everything that came before it in a different, better light: Cruel & Unusual is proof positive that it (almost) always pays to see a movie through to the bitter end.

With its themes of self-sacrifice, acceptance, repentance and letting go, Dervicevic’s Cruel & Unusual ends up being my favorite kind of modern sci-fi film: smart, subtle, low-key, full of piss and vinegar and ready to take on our preconceived notions of how a polite society really acts. This doesn’t belong in the storied company of recent mindblowers like Automata (2015), Ex Machina (2015) or Circle (2015) but there’s nothing wrong with that, either: they can’t all be headliners, after all, and Cruel & Unusual proves that the openers can be just as interesting and revelatory, in their own ways.

11/3/15: He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

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Adam Chernick, adopted siblings, brothers, Charles Manson, cinema, comedies, dark comedies, Davie-Blue, dramas, estranged family, estranged siblings, feature-film debut, feuding brothers, film reviews, films, first-time director, independent films, indie comedies, J. Davis, Jay Duplass, Leonora Pitts, Linas Phillips, Manson Family Vacation, Movies, road trips, Sean McElwee, Tobin Bell, writer-director-producer

What does it actually mean to be someone’s “brother”? Is it a purely genealogical notion, a biological distinction marked by nothing more than one’s parentage: the male offspring of your mother and father is your brother, nothing more or less? Is it a societal notion connected to a sense of deep kindred and mutual reliance: the soldiers that you live, train and die with are your “brothers,” regardless of whether you’re blood-related or not? Does biology always guarantee kinship, at some level, or do you have to actively work to achieve that kind of relationship?

What about adopted siblings? Society tells you that your adopted brother is just as much kin as a blood relation, a bond which is doubtlessly reinforced by each and every family that welcomes adopted children into their homes. But is he? Can adopted siblings ever develop the deep-seated bonds of blood relations? Can someone ever truly and unconditionally embrace their adopted sibling, take them into their heart and call them “brother” with the complete and utter conviction of one that they actually share genetic material with? At the end of the day, what does it really mean to call someone “brother”?

First-time writer/director J. Davis’ Manson Family Vacation (2015) takes a stab at this question via two brothers: straight-laced family man/contract lawyer, Nick (Jay Duplass) and his restless, nomadic, uber-hippy, adopted brother, Conrad (Linas Phillips). After Conrad suddenly pops back up in Nick’s life, while en route to a new job in Death Valley, the two brothers get a chance to reconnect and work on their often contentious relationship. At his wife’s urging, Nick swallows his own misgivings and attempts to reconnect with his estranged sibling.

When Conrad’s obsession with Charles Manson and his cult leads to the brothers touring various “murder houses,” however, Nick finds it harder than ever to see eye-to-eye with his “weirdo” brother, especially since he’s now dealing with antisocial behavior from his own teen son, Max (Adam Chernick), and is worried that Conrad is going to provide the worst sort of role model possible. When he comes in to find Conrad gleefully showing Max his favorite grisly crime scene photos from Helter Skelter, it kinda seems like he may have a point.

As the brothers check off “must-sees” on Conrad’s list, though, they find themselves settling into an uneasy balancing act that might, given time, actually blossom into something approaching “love,” if not quite “respect.” Nothing is ever quite as it seems, however, and a secret regarding Conrad’s real parents threatens to tear apart the brothers’ tentative relationship before it’s had a chance to fully heal. Will Nick and Conrad be able to put aside their differences and embrace one another or is it finally time for them to cut ties and burn all their old bridges to the ground?

Despite a gloriously goofy presence and some delightfully comic setpieces (the scene where Nick and Conrad finagle their way into the old Labianca house, under very false pretenses, is a minor comic masterpiece, for one), there’s a big, dramatic heart that beats at the center of Manson Family Vacation and some genuine emotional resonance to the scenario. This is a film that could have easily devolved into pointless whimsy and sub-Andersonian dramatics but manages to effortlessly balance the lighter and darker aspects with a particularly deft hand.

While writer/director Davis deserves no end of credit here (the script, for one, is exceptional), especially considering his first time status, Manson Family Vacation is an acting showcase, first and foremost: the film wouldn’t have nearly the impact without the combined power of Duplass and Phillips’ extraordinary performances. Watching Nick and Conrad feint around each other, coming cautiously closer and sniffing around before bolting back to the safety of their respective hard-set world views, is a pure and unmitigated pleasure, perhaps the greatest since Matthau and Lemmon made such a memorable odd couple on the silver screen.

In other hands, either character could have become a one-dimensional cliche: hell, “uptight, married lawyer in need of cutting loose” and “hippy burnout with dreams of making an impact” are practically commedia dell’arte stand-bys in the modern cinematic world. Duplass and Phillips don’t stop with the short description, however, imbuing their performances with enough nuance and shading to make them seem like real people, not production notes in the margin of a film pitch.

There’s an authenticity to their interactions that’s not only refreshing but infinitely more interesting than the usual cookie-cutter treatment of the same: while the relationship (and film) hit plenty of the expected beats, it does so organically rather than as carefully delineated points on a plot breakdown. When Nick rips the phone from Conrad’s hand during his welcome party with “the Family” and ruins his “reunion” with his father, the combined sense of jealously, pain, anger and the terrible need to lash out against someone, anyone, bursts out of the screen like heat from a blast furnace. Ditto the incredible, subtle moment where Conrad finally gets to witness his tireless devotion to Charles Manson from the inside and doesn’t seem to like it one little bit. They’re the kinds of scenes that would be standouts in any film but, here, they have plenty of good company.

Ultimately, what J. Davis and his exceptional cast (including the single most restrained performance by Tobin Bell since his delightful surprise appearance in the U.S. version of Wilfred) have done is created a cinematic Trojan horse: Manson Family Vacation’s goofy, lighthearted and slightly silly exterior hides a surprisingly powerful, deep and thought-provoking interior. While the comedic material is constantly fun and frequently laugh-out-loud funny (Conrad’s description of his travel memoir as “On the Road: Part 2” is a real gem), the dramatic material has real bite to it.

As Nick and Conrad lay their relationship out bare, rehash childhood wrongs and debate what it actually means to be someone’s “brother,” as Conrad comes closer to the father that he never knew and as Nick finally realizes the responsibility that he bears regarding his relationship with his own son, Manson Family Vacation manages to do something quite difficult and equally wonderful: it makes you absentmindedly wipe away the tear that’s traveled down your cheek, even as you guffaw at the next ridiculous situation. J. Davis’ Manson Family Vacation has real heart and I’ll take that any old day of the week.

8/16/15 (Part One): A Little Stake, A Lotta Whine

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Alex Karpovsky, Anna Margaret Hollyman, awkward films, bad boyfriends, cinema, commitment issues, Dakota Goldhor, dark comedies, Dustin Guy Defa, film reviews, filmed in New York, films, hipsters, horror-comedies, independent films, indie films, indie horror film, Jason Banker, Jason Selvig, Jerry Raik, Juliette Fairley, Max Heller, Melodie Sisk, Movies, obnoxious people, Onur Tukel, rom-com, romances, set in New York City, sex comedies, Summer of Blood, unlikable protagonist, vampires, Vanna Pilgrim, Woody Allen, writer-director-actor-editor

On paper, multi-hypenate filmmaker (he writes, directs, produces, edits and stars) Onur Tukel’s Summer of Blood (2014) seems like a pretty winning idea: take the neurotic, relationship-based comedies of Woody Allen but insert a vampire protagonist. Et voila: instant horror-comedy goodness! There’s obviously a rich vein to be mined here: imagine one of Allen’s schlubby, lovable losers trying to navigate the choppy waters of not only a terrifying dating scene but also their newly acquired vampirism. If you think about it, the comedy almost writes itself.

In practice, however, Tukel’s Summer of Blood is actually quite a pain in the ass (or neck, if you prefer the punny version). This has less to do with the oftentimes awkward, amateurish performances from some of the cast than it does with the film’s one towering problem: not only is Tukel’s Erik a thoroughly obnoxious, odious jerk, he’s also a massively unlikable, irritating protagonist. As portrayed by S.O.B.’s resident auteur, Erik is a tone-deaf, ridiculously self-obsessed hipster nitwit, a constantly schticking human hemorrhoid who’s never funny, sympathetic or, for the most part, remotely interesting. While the film that surrounds him has its own issues, Tukel’s Erik is the super-massive black hole at the center that sucks the good stuff right into oblivion.

We first meet our hapless “hero” as he and long-suffering girlfriend, Jody (Anna Margaret Hollyman, much better than the film requires), are having one of their customarily awkward dinners at their favorite outdoor restaurant. Jody proposes to her schlubby, commitment-phobic beau only to be summarily rejected: not only is it “cliche” to propose at a restaurant, it’s too “post-feminist” for the woman to propose. Since this little routine has been going on for some time, Jody finally gets fed up and ends up leaving with an old friend, Jason (Jason Selvig). On their way out, Jason offers some pretty valuable advice: “Shave, button up your shirt and get a fucking job.” Well played, Jason…well played.

Turns out that Jason does have a job, although he applies himself as little as humanly possible. He works in an office of some kind where his one and only friend, Jamie (Alex Karpovsky, who’s always a breath of fresh air) tries to keep him on the right side of the boss, Carl (Max Heller). For the most part, Erik just uses his time in the office to hit on comely co-worker, Penelope (Dakota Goldhor, turning in a truly baffling performance). When she spurns his advances due to his age and “not being her type,” Erik swipes a photo from her desk and proceeds to jack off in the bathroom. If you thought romance was dead, you’d better think again, pardner.

After Jody breaks up with him, Erik goes on a trio of awkward, mostly unsuccessful blind dates (all at the same restaurant, natch), two of which end with him getting summarily rejected after saying some truly stupid things. He does manages to seal the deal with one young lady, however, although the thoroughly unspectacular sex (in the most bored way possible, she keeps imploring Erik to go “deeper,” “harder” and “faster,” none of which he’s capable of doing). She only does “great sex,” however, so our hero gets the heave-ho here, as well.

While wandering the streets of his hip, New York neighborhood (Bushwick, natch) one night, Erik happens to bump into the mysterious, debonair Gavin (Dustin Guy Defa). After another awkward, schtick-filled encounter, Gavin bites Erik on the neck, turning him into a child of the night. Rather than be overly concerned, however, Erik is actually kinda over-joyed: he feels great, he’s more confident, can hypnotize his stereotypical Jewish landlord into letting him stay for free and, most importantly, can now fuck like some kind of Roman god. Using his new “powers,” Erik returns to each of his previous “strike-outs” and proceeds to knock their socks off…and turn them into vampires, of course.

As Erik adjusts to his new lifestyle, a lifestyle that includes vampire threesomes, feasting on stoners in the park and being an even bigger jerk at work, he finds himself constantly nagged by one little issue: turns out he really, really misses Jody. In fact, he might actually be in love with her, after all. With only Jason standing between him and presumed happiness, Erik must use all of his vamp skills to try to win Jody back. Can a vampire ever find true love? Only in New York, baby…only in New York.

For the most part, Summer of Blood is a pretty typical, low-budget horror comedy: the film looks okay (the frequent blood-letting is well-done), the camera-work is decent (cinematographer Jason Banker is actually the writer/director behind Toad Road (2012), one of the very best, most ingenious films I’ve seen in the last several years, although his work on S.O.B. certainly isn’t revelatory) and the actual storyline is kind of intriguing. The acting ranges from pretty good (Hollyman and Karpovsky are definitely the best of this bunch) to much less impressive (Goldhor brings such a weird energy to Penelope that I could never figure out if she was disgusted by Erik’s frequent advances or actually flirting with him and the two hipsters that Erik runs into are the very definition of non-actors), with most performances falling in the “decent” spectrum.

As mentioned earlier, the single biggest, critical issue with Summer of Blood ends up being our protagonist, Erik: to put it bluntly, any scene he’s in is a chore to sit through, which becomes a bit of an issue when he’s in every single scene. Erik is never anything more than an intolerable shitheels, a whining, obnoxious jerk who’s endless self-awareness and constant schtick gets old by the three-minute mark and then just keeps going and going, like some kind of Hell-spawned Energizer Bunny.

In any given scene, at any given moment, Tukel’s verbal diarrhea is so overwhelming that it’s impossible to ever focus on the content of any particular scene or moment. He finds a guy dying in the street from a slashed throat, he does a stand-up routine. He runs into a couple of hipsters, he riffs on how he looks like Jerry Garcia. He has an orgy with his three vampire ladies, we get schtick about how he’s not a misogynist because he genuinely likes having sex with multiple women at the same time. To make it classier, however, he lets one of the vamps read from Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

The entire film becomes one massive, never-ending bit of (largely unfunny) schtick, some of it so moldy that it’s practically vaudevillian. It’s pretty obvious that Tukel modeled the film after Woody Allen’s oeuvre and, as stated earlier, there’s nothing wrong with that idea whatsoever. There’s no denying that Woody can be a bit of a “schtick-up” guy, himself: he’s also pretty well-known for portraying the kinds of neurotic asses that most people wouldn’t willingly associate with in the real world. For all that, however, Allen is still able to make his characters at least somewhat likable: he’s a schlub but he’s our schlub, dammit.

The problem with Tukel’s performance is that Erik begins the film as an off-putting creep and finishes that way: there’s no arc, no “dark night of the soul,” no sort of internal change, no notion that anything that transpires has any sort of effect on him whatsoever. Oh, sure, he talks about how he’s a “changed” man at the end but the revelation is immediately given the raspberry by the film’s ridiculously flippant final moment. I’m not sure if Tukel actually meant Erik to come across as a lovably shaggy rogue or if he actually meant to portray him as a hatefully obnoxious dickhead: whatever the intent, the end result is a character that wears out his welcome in three minutes and then sticks around for another 83. Talk about the guest from hell!

The real disappointment with Summer of Blood is that the film isn’t devoid of good ideas. In fact, the ultimate observation about vampirism and commitment issues (Erik doesn’t want to turn Jody into a vampire because then he’d be “stuck” with her for all of eternity, rather than just her lifetime) is a really sharp one and could have been spun into something much more thought-provoking, even within the context of a silly sex comedy. There are moments during the film, such as the great scene where a dejected Erik tries to “comfort” strangers on the subway, that are genuinely funny: the key here, for the most part, is that they’re the ones where Tukel gives his motormouth a rest and just lets his filmmaking do the talking.

I didn’t hate Summer of Blood, although I won’t lie and say that I particularly liked it, either: I’ve seen plenty of worst films, both micro and mega-budget. For the most part, the constant, unfunny schtick just wore me down, like being trapped with an incredibly tedious observational comic in a stuck elevator. I still think that the idea of mashing together Woody Allenesque comedy and vampires is a good one, even if Summer of Blood makes it seem as natural as mixing oil and water. No need to wear your garlic necklaces for this one, folks: Onur Tukel’s Summer of Blood is all schtick, no bite.

8/10/15: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

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Adam Butcher, Alexander Conti, alpha males, Andre Chemetoff, Arnold Pinnock, Balmorhea, Bryan Murphy, bullies, Canadian films, cinema, co-writers, correctional officers, Dewshane Williams, Dog Pound, drama, emotional abuse, English-language debut, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, first-time actors, guard-prisoner relationships, hunger strike, independent films, indie dramas, inmates, Jane Wheeler, Jeff McEnery, Jeremie Delon, juvenile detention facility, juvenile offenders, K'Naan, Kim Chapiron, Lawrence Bayne, Lynne Adams, male friendships, Mateo Morales, mental abuse, Michael Morang, mother-son relationships, Movies, multiple writers, Nikkfurie, non-professional actors, pecking order, physical abuse, power dynamics, power struggles, prison films, prison rape, prison riot, rape, remakes, Scum, Shane Kippel, Sheitan, Slim Twig, suicide, Taylor Poulin, Trent McMullen, William Ellis, writer-director, youth in trouble

Humans are amazingly resilient animals. We can endure any number of extreme climates, fight back against overwhelming odds and turn veritable wastelands into virtual paradises. We can ponder questions both basic and metaphysical, learn to do just about anything we set our minds to and wrestle the world at large into submission by sheer force of our nearly boundless will. Humans can do all of this (and more) with surprisingly little: all we really need is air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and a little something to keep the elements off of our heads.

While these biological necessities go without saying, humans also need something that’s a little harder to categorize, a little more difficult to study in a lab. We also need hope. Hope that bad situations can become better, hope that we can achieve our dreams by working hard, hope that we can not only survive, on a day-to-day basis, but find some measure of personal happiness and satisfaction. Humans need hope just as much as we need sustenance and oxygen: without either one, we’re just empty husks of decaying meat, carcasses too stubborn to know that we’re already dead.

There is no hope in French writer-director Kim Chapiron’s Dog Pound (2010), although that’s not really surprising: after all, there was precious little hope in his shocking debut, Sheitan (2006), either. As a filmmaker, Chapiron possesses an almost supernatural ability to submerge his characters (and his audience) into such unrelentingly dark, tragic and terrible situations that the very concept of hope is both elusive and rather laughable. We know that Chapiron’s characters are all doomed from the very first frame: that they often don’t recognize this futility makes their inevitable struggles even more sad. These characters aren’t waving their arms for rescue: they’re thrashing around, frantically, as their increasingly tired bodies drift further and further from the shore, closer to their ultimate ends than they are to any new beginnings.

Essentially a remake of the grim and unrelenting British prison film, Scum (1979), Chapiron’s English-language debut (the film is Canadian but set in Montana) concerns the Enola Vale Youth Correctional Facility and the various individuals who are imprisoned there, as well as the ones doing the imprisoning. We’re quickly introduced to three inmates who will become our entry-way into this particular world: 16-year-old Ecstasy dealer/born victim, Davis (Shane Kippel); 15-year-old repeat offender/car-jacker Angel (Mateo Morales) and 17-year-old hot-head/nominal protagonist, Butch (Adam Butcher).

After being thrown into the facility (Butch has been transferred to Enola Vale after laying a ferocious beat-down on an abusive guard at his previous facility), the trio are quickly brought up to speed by Superintendent Sands (Trent McMullen) and the boys’ immediate authority figure, CO Goodyear (Lawrence Bayne). The rules are easy: do everything you’re told, behave yourself and walk the straight and narrow. The boys who manage to do that become “trustees” and earn more responsibilities, perks and freedom, along with signifying black shirts. The ones who don’t follow the rules get orange jump suits and a one-way ticket to “Special Unit” or, in extreme cases, solitary confinement.

As with any prison film (or actual prison, for that matter), day-to-day life in Dog Pound revolves around a strictly observed pecking order: the alpha dog gets to call the shots and dispense the punishment in whatever way he sees fit. In this particular case, the alpha dog is one seriously scary bully by the name of Banks (first-time actor/former prisoner Taylor Poulin, in a genuinely frightening performance), a character who takes an immediate dislike to both Davis and Butch, albeit for different reasons.

In Davis, Banks and his cronies, Looney (comedian Jeff McEnery) and Eckersley (Bryan Murphy, another first-time actor), see the quintessential weak link, the eternal victim that’s as vital to any bully as oxygen is to those aforementioned humans. They steal his new boots, envy his short sentence, submit him to constant abuse and, in a particularly devastating moment, subject him to a particularly violent sexual assault. Davis is the naive lamb, the chosen sacrifice for those too hard and jaded to feel anything besides hatred and the need to dominant. He’s the face of every petty drug offender tossed into the correctional system, the minnows that feed the sharks.

With Butch, the bullies see something altogether different: a genuine threat to their established social order. In order to maintain his position at the top, Banks must bend Butch to his will, show the pugilistic teen that he may have been able to take out a CO but he’ll never stand against Banks and his minions. While destroying Davis is “pure entertainment” for Banks and his crew, taking Butch down is something much more important: it’s a matter of survival, plain and simple.

As Davis, Butch and, to a much lesser extent, Angel (Morales ends up with the least screen-time, overall, leaving his character rather under-developed) try to negotiate these increasingly choppy waters, CO Goodyear tries to reach the youths through a combination of “tough love” and an unyielding need to do the right thing, even when the right thing isn’t the most pleasant thing. He’s not a perfect man, by any stretch of the imagination: over-worked, under-paid, given to sporadic moments of anger and too thin-stretched to ever affect much change, Goodyear, at the very least, tries. That all of his goodwill becomes undone in one tragic, accidental moment is, unfortunately, to be expected: there is no hope for anyone at Enola Vale, whether they’re behind the bars or in front of them.

This, ultimately, is both the film’s source of strength and its ultimate weakness: since there is no hope for anyone, Dog Pound is an unflinching, full-throttle descent into a literal hell on earth. The camera doesn’t cut away, we get no reprieve from anything that has happened or is about to happen. Even when the characters find some tiny measures of individual happiness, such as when Davis regales the other boys with made-up stories about outrageous sexual dalliances and becomes, if only momentarily, the closest thing he’ll get to “respected,” there’s always the notion that more misery, tragedy and gloom lies just around the corner.

In one of the film’s most subtle, if icky, moments, Butch immobilizes a wandering cockroach by spitting on it until the crawling critter is stuck fast in a globular prison of phlegm and saliva. The insect twitches and moves, compulsively, doing its best to break free, to pull itself from its sticky bonds and scurry off into the safety of the nearest dark corner. By the morning, however, the cockroach is still in the exact same position, drowned in a tiny pool of Butch’s spit. Despite what it might have thought, the roach never had a chance: it was dead the minute Butch’s spit nailed it to the floor, whether it knew it or not. In Dog Pound, the differences between the youthful offenders and the dead roach are many but the similarities? Infinite.

Despite its constantly dreary subject matter, Dog Pound is beautifully made and exquisitely acted, no small feat considering the non-professional status of a good half-dozen of its cast members (many of whom, like Poulin, are actually youth offenders, themselves). Andre Chemetoff’s cinematography captures the inherent grit and claustrophobic quality of the facility perfectly, while the subtle, moody score (featuring the work of instrumental ensemble Balmorhea, among others) counters the often sudden, stunning violence to masterful effect. As with Sheitan, it’s obvious that Chapiron is a filmmaker in full command of every aspect of his craft.

For all of this, however, Dog Pound is still pretty difficult to recommend. The reason, of course, goes back to the point I’ve been hammering this whole time: there is absolutely no hope to be found here, in any way, shape or form. This isn’t to say that every – or even any – film needs to end happily: this is to say that Dog Pound makes a particular point of pounding each and every character so deep into the ground that there’s no possible outcome but the one we get. Each and every victory is false, any and all attempts at understanding or evolution are met with the harshest possible retributions. There is no need for comic relief here, no hope of any of the protagonists coming out on top of their individual struggles. If there is any kind of message to Dog Pound, it’s as basic, cynical and bleak as possible: if you end up in this situation, you are completely, totally and irreparably fucked.

As an example of “feel-bad cinema,” Dog Pound is nearly peerless: this is the kind of film destined to ruin any good mood, turn any optimist into a card-carrying misanthrope. While the world around us can be a harsh, grim place, the world inside Enola Vale is nothing but gray: a million little variations of the shade, infecting every single person that steps behind its walls.

It’s tempting to say that Dog Pound is the kind of film that could change anyone’s opinion about the correctional system (or, at the very least, the youth correctional system) but that just isn’t true: the guards don’t shoulder an inordinate amount of the blame here any more than the inmates do. This is not a tale of power-mad authority figures trying to beat their wards into submission, nor is it a story about hard-working correctional officers dealing with the soul-killing every-day business of keeping individuals locked away from society.

At its heart, Dog Pound is a story about average people making (and continuing to make) terrible decisions, the kind of decisions that can bring nothing but pain to all around them. This is a film about wasted youth, about squandered loyalty and altruistic intent blown to pieces about the terrible reality of the human condition. This is a tragedy, in every sense of the word. This is a hopeless film about hopeless people in a hopeless place, crafted by a singularly unique, uncompromising filmmaker. If you can stomach it, Dog Pound will rip your beating heart from your chest and smash it to smithereens on the floor. There is truth to be found here, some fractured beauty and hints at what could have been, under far different circumstances.

There’s a lot to find and appreciate in Kim Chapiron’s Dog Pound but hope? That, my friends, is one commodity that’s in perilously short supply.

8/8/15: Find Your Swan

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Alan Tudyk, awkward films, best films of the year, best friends, Best of 2015, borderline personality disorder, casinos, cinema, dark comedies, David Robbins, dramas, Eric Alan Edwards, favorite films, film reviews, films, independent films, indie comedies, indie dramas, indie films, instant millionaire, James Marsden, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joan Cusack, Kristen Wiig, Linda Cardellini, Loretta Devine, lottery winner, mental illness, Mitch Silpa, Movies, narcissism, obsession, Oprah Winfrey, patient-psychiatrist relationship, psychiatric care, Shira Piven, talk shows, therapists, therapy, Thomas Mann, Tim Robbins, Welcome to Me, Wes Bentley

If there’s one unifying theme to this crazy, modern era that we live in, I’m willing to wager that it’s narcissism. Never before in the history of humanity has it been so easy to be as completely self-absorbed as it is now. Not only easy, mind you, but also immensely profitable: when average, normal, “every-day” people can clear millions of dollars in ad revenue via YouTube channels devoted to everything from watching them play video games to watching them taste-test sodas, well…it doesn’t really seem to get more “me”-oriented than that, does it? This isn’t even the same thing as watching celebrities shill products: this is watching your next-door-neighbor do the same thing with (presumably) none of the resulting name recognition.

Thanks to the continued explosion of social media, technological advancements, “reality TV” programs and “the 24-hour news cycle,” the unwashed masses now have as direct a pipeline to the cultural zeitgeist as the glitterati. One need not release the “next, great American novel” in order to vault to the top of the literary heap: one need only draw as many curious visitors as possible to their newest blog entry. Want to be a world-famous pop star? Forget paying your dues on the club circuit: start uploading as many videos as possible of you covering that Florence+the Machine song and wait for the offers to start rolling in. In the past, anyone who wanted to “break through” to mainstream fame had a much steeper uphill climb: nowadays, it’s never been easier to shout your opinions to the rafters and actually have someone pay attention. Warhol wanted to give everyone 15 minutes but, nowadays, is there anyone actually watching the clock?

Actor-turned-director Shira Piven tackles this particular phenomena head-on with her spectacular new film, Welcome to Me (2014), a bittersweet ode to wish-fulfillment, mental illness, friendship and self-interest that might just come to define this era in the same way that Easy Rider (1969) would come to define the transitional time between the ’60s and the ’70s. Across the span of 87 minutes, Piven and screenwriter Eliot Laurence put us through the wringer, moving from extreme pathos to extreme hilarity with such stop-on-a-dime dynamics that the whole film becomes a masterclass in how to move your audience. In the process, Piven, Laurence and comedic wunderkind Kristen Wiig present us with one of the greatest cinematic creations of the 2000s, a performance that all but assures Wiig a shot at some genuine award-season gold: Alice Klieg. To paraphrase that most inimitable of comic book possums: we have seen Alice and she is us.

Opening with a quote from French philosopher Michel de Montaigne that might be the best modern mission-statement ever (“I study myself more than any other subject. That is my physics. That is my metaphysics.”), Welcome to Me wastes no time in plunging us into the day-to-day routine of Wiig’s Alice. We see her obsessively arranged house, everything organized by color, shape and whatever random internal qualifiers make sense to her. We witness Alice’s obsession with swans of every size, shape, make and model, along with the seemingly endless rows of videotaped TV shows that seem to fill every available bookshelf in her patently crammed home.

We see her recite every line from a taped episode of Oprah in the kind of off-hand manner that indicates she probably has every line from every Oprah episode memorized. We see her ask a complete stranger if there’s any “rape” in A Tale of Two Cities, a question which is as esoteric as it is mildly disturbing. We watch Alice as she goes about her lonely, oddly structured life, a ghost-like presence in a world that doesn’t quite make sense to her, a world that seems to have no more interest in her than it would any other roadside curiosity or “quirky” bag-lady. She doesn’t even seem to have any friends or casual acquaintances, aside from her mousy BFF, Gina (Freaks and Geeks’ Linda Cardellini). From our first glimpse of Alice, it’s painfully obvious that she has mental health issues, possibly more than one. She seems harmless, however, like so many others, so we just leave her alone to her own devices: what we don’t see can’t affect us, after all.

Alice, however, is destined for much grander things: in a modern era where everyone wants to be heard, why should she be any different? After winning a whopping $86 million lottery, Alice finally gets her chance: she’s going to make a difference in the biggest way possible, all while paying tribute to her greatest idol and influence, Oprah Winfrey. She approaches brothers/TV station owners Gabe (Wes Bentley) and Rich Ruskin (James Marsden) with a proposition: for $15 million, she’ll get her own TV talk show (100 two-hour episodes) and a chance to become as famous/watched/influential as Oprah. The subject? Why, Alice Klieg, of course, in all of her boundless glory.

From the jump, Alice’s show is as insane as expected. She’s wheeled out in a massive swan boat to a pre-recorded theme song that she, herself, croons. Her show features segments like the one where she cooks and consumes a meatloaf cake while the audience watches in confused silence or the numerous reenactments of various moments in her life (the one where she calls out old enemy Jordana Spangler ends with Alice bawling and screaming “Fuck you to death, Jordana!”as the crew frantically cuts to commercial). “Why doesn’t it look like Oprah,” Alice tearfully asks, only to be given the only sensible answer: “Because you ate a cake made out of meat and cried?”

The whole thing is a mess, obviously, the kind of talk show you might expect from someone who proudly discusses her borderline personality disorder as if it were a gluten allergy. It’s not like Alice isn’t seeking professional help, after all: she was happily seeing shrink Daryl Moffet (Tim Robbins) before she decided to quit her meds and regulate her moods with string cheese (always sound medical advice). Now that she’s finally getting what she most wants out of life, she’s happy enough to mitigate the need for mood stabilizers: living well, as always, is its own reward.

But the show is still a mess. Program director Dawn (Joan Cusack) thinks that Alice is a loose cannon waiting to go off, Rich thinks she’s the answer to all of his financial woes, Gabe isn’t quite sure what to make of her (but he kind of thinks he’s falling in love, at least a little bit) and Gina is almost super-humanly supportive, even as Alice seems openly dismissive of anything that doesn’t have to do with her. Hell, Gina even uproots her everyday routine in order to move into a reservation casino with Alice and several dogs…that’s friendship, ladies and gentlemen, no two ways about it!

In order to make her show “better,” Alice throws more and more money at it, all while Rich rubs his hands together and salivates like Scrooge McDuck at an estate sale. And then, of course, the expectedly unexpected happens: “Welcome to Me” starts to gain a following. Before she knows it, Alice has a full studio audience, her ratings are up and she even has her own super-fan, in the person of Rainer (Thomas Mann), an odd man-child who studies Alice in college and wants her show to air five times a week rather than once: he really hates to wait, after all.

And then, of course, the other shoe drops, like an airborne piano through a skylight: as Alice’s show gets bigger and she gets more of a platform, she becomes increasingly unstable and problems begin to crop up everywhere. Alice’s talk show becomes bigger, stranger and more controversial, as each and every whim from her extremely fertile imagination is given life, for better or worse (usually the latter), right through to her decision to spay and neuter dogs on-camera…with Alice actually performing the procedures.

As our erstwhile hero is battered about by any number of external (and internal) forces, Alice finds herself standing on the precipice of the most important, painful decision she’s ever made: embrace the anonymity of “normal” life and give up on her dreams or boldly forge her own path, disregarding the desires, wishes and feelings of all those around her in order to create a more complete version of herself. After all, as the lyrics from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Happy Song” inform us on the soundtrack, “if you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?” Like all of us, Alice has a lot of dreams…will she have what it takes to make them come true?

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way: Welcome to Me is a helluva film, easily one of the year’s best (thus far, at least). Piven, who has only one other directorial effort in her background (2011’s Fully Loaded, which she also co-wrote) is a sure hand with the material, guiding the film (and audience) through its/our paces with an exceptional amount of subtlety and skill. There are plenty of big, laugh-out-loud moments in Eliot Laurence’s excellent screenplay, no doubt about it, but some of the most effective parts of the film are also the simplest, quietest and most subliminal: the powerful scene where we see Alice framed within the solitude (and virtual imprisonment) of her own home…the heartbreaking look on Gina’s face when she sees her secrets laid bare before a television audience…the impossibly beautiful, uplifting moment where we finally see how much faith the crew actually has in Alice…these would be genuinely impactful moments in any film but hit especially hard here.

Indeed, one of Welcome to Me’s greatest strengths is its ability to make us laugh like idiots one minute (the scene where Alice tries to push an ornery dog into a carrier is absolutely sublime) while ripping our hearts out the next (Alice’s “dark night of the soul” moment, in the casino, has to be one of the rawest, most painful and devastating scenes I’ve seen all year and that’s saying quite a lot). Like the very best films, Welcome to Me wants to entertain us but it also wants to make us think: think about the strangers we pass by every day, think about the world around us, think about our own hopes, fears, dreams and inadequacies. Piven isn’t interested in easy, dumb laughs, although there’s still kneeslappers aplenty here: she knows that you can’t have comedy without tragedy and Welcome to Me is tragic, in the very best way possible.

On the technical side, Welcome to Me packs plenty of firepower behind the scenes. Veteran cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards’ resume reads like a virtual ‘who’s who’ of some of the most iconic films of the ’90s (My Own Private Idaho (1991), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), Kids (1995), Cop Land (1997) and Clay Pigeons (1998), to name but a few) and he presents some immaculately framed, beautifully composed shots here. There’s an almost fairy tale quality to the film’s narrative that’s handily echoed by Edward’s camerawork.

We also get an appropriately whimsical, well-utilized score by David Robbins, the composer behind films as far-flung as Bob Roberts (1992), Dead Man Walking (1995) and Cradle Will Rock (1999). The score is never obvious and manages to downplay clumsy emotional cues in favor of mood-setting that always feels organic, especially in regards to Alice’s wacky TV show. Between the narrative, cinematography and score, Welcome to Me has a complete singularity of vision that reminded me of another of my favorite films of the year, Marjane Satrapi’s The Voices (2014): both films utilize the lush visuals of someone like Wes Anderson, while tweaking them in some pretty impressive ways.

Then, of course, there’s that cast…I mean, seriously…get a load of this mob of unduly talented performers: Joan Cusack, Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Wes Bentley, Thomas Mann, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Alan Tudyk, Loretta Devine, Jack Wallace…that, friends and neighbors, is how you cast your film! Regardless of the amount of screen-time, each and every member of the cast comes together to form an absolutely unbeatable ensemble. I hate to pull out the “Wes Anderson” card, again, but there’s certainly a similarity between his high-octane casts and Welcome to Me’s featured players. Hell, Cusack and Cardellini turn in two of the year’s brightest performances and neither of them has a tenth of Wiig’s screen time.

The glittering, dazzling star on the top of this particular tree, however, is the one and only Kristen Wiig. While she’s been a reliably great comic presence since her formative years on SNL, Welcome to Me marks a huge leap forward as far as her dramatic performances go. To not put too fine a point on it, Wiig is absolutely flawless as Alice: this is the kind of organic, well-rounded and utterly human performance that deserves to be lauded by every awards organization under the sun. There are no seams, no notion of where the actor ends and the character begins: like Leland Orser and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the similarly amazing Faults (2014), Wiig isn’t playing Alice…she IS Alice, at least for the 90 minutes that we spend we her.

Whether she’s bawling uncontrollably, propositioning Rainer in the most awkward way possible, throwing a temper tantrum after she gets cut-off for mentioning “masturbation” on-air or sweetly making amends to everyone she’s wronged, Wiig’s Alice is the undisputed master of this particular universe, the sun around which everyone else orbits. Fitting, of course, since the film is all about the eternal struggle for self-validation and personal worth: this is a film about Alice and Wiig towers over the proceedings like the Colossus of Rhodes. Mark my words: Welcome to Me is where Wiig picks up the dramedy mantle dropped by the recently departed Robin Williams and it fits her like it was tailor-made.

Ultimately, the true mark of an unforgettable film is how hard it hits you: from the first minute to the last, Welcome to Me was like a never-ending barrage of body blows, albeit in the best way possible. I’m not ashamed to admit that the final 10 minutes turned me into a bit of a mess: the film’s payoff is undeniably bittersweet but there’s a life-affirming quality to it that’s anything but depressing. Throughout the film, Alice only really wants one thing: to be just like her idol, Oprah Winfrey. While she tries mightily (and fails wretchedly) to emulate her TV show, there is one aspect of her hero that Alice manages to internalize: in the same way that Winfrey derived joy from giving her audience things and helping them, so, too, does Alice learn that the real value of her platform is in her ability to make a difference in the lives of others. Alice’s show is called “Welcome to Me” but, in the end, it could just as easily be called “Welcome to Us.”

As we continue to find new and improved ways to make our own, personal impacts in an increasingly chaotic, cluttered world, it might help to keep one thing in mind: we may all have our own stories, our own triumphs, despairs, victories and losses but, in the end, they’re all part of the same autobiography…the story of humanity, in all its beautiful, terrible, wonderful and hideous forms. We may want to tell our own stories but, in the end, it’s all part of the same narrative. Like Alice, all we can do is strive for happiness and ride our swan boats into the horizon.

8/2/15: Don’t Look Now

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abandoned inns, Brian Austin Green, cinema, Curtiss Frisle, David de Lautour, debut feature, Don't Blink, dramas, Emelie O'Hara, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Fiona Gubelmann, horror, horror movies, independent films, indie horror film, isolated estates, isolation, Jayson Crothers, Joanne Kelly, Leif Gantvoort, Mena Suvari, Mike Verta, missing friends, mountain resort, Movies, mystery, romantic rivalry, Samantha Jacobs, supernatural, Travis Oates, vanished into thin air, weekend in the country, writer-director, Zack Ward

If you think about it, almost all horror films boil down to one central question: how much do you show/explain/reveal to the audience and, conversely, how much do you keep concealed from them? Do you show the whole monster or just a shoulder? Cut to black before the final assault or let the camera’s unblinking eye do its worst? Explain the whole thing via a complicated system of flashbacks and “ah ha!” moments or leave it open-ended so that your audience does the heavy-lifting? Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978) is the film that it is because of what he purposefully doesn’t show, whereas Zombie’s 2007 remake is the film it is because of what he does. It all comes down to that paraphrased adage “To show or not to show…that is the question.”

Voice-over actor-turned writer/director Travis Oates’ feature-length debut, Don’t Blink (2014) is a good example of a film knowing when to keep its mouth shut, even if the result ends up being more than a little vague and kind of arbitrary. Despite any reservations and/or complaints I might have about the film, itself, I have to absolutely give props where they’re due: Oates manages to avoid one of my biggest cinematic pet peeves (let’s call it oversharing, to be generous) and, in the process, turns in a modest, effective and suitably chilling little indie horror film. Toss in a pretty great location and you get a film that gets the job done, even if it’s not setting the world on fire. Sometimes, that’s victory enough.

Utilizing one of the mustiest conceits in the horror film playbook, a group of ten assorted couples, friends, enemies and frenemies all descend upon a suitably isolated location (in this case, a supremely creepy abandoned mountain resort lodge) for some of that good old-fashioned movie r & r that always seems to involved vacationing with folks you kind of hate. In one car, we have Tracy (Mena Suvari), her brother, Lucas (Curtiss Frisle) and her new boyfriend, Jack (Beverly Hills, 90210’s Brian Austin Green). In another car, Claire (Joanne Kelly) and Amelia (Emelie O’Hara), a couple of single girls on the prowl. For balance, we also get best friends, Alex (Zack Ward) and Sam (Leif Gantvoort), along with Sam’s girlfriend, Charlotte (Samantha Jacobs). And, of course, for maximum dramatic potential, we have Jack’s ex-girlfriend, Ella (Wilfred’s Fiona Gubelmann, once again caught in a love triangle) and her new boyfriend, Noah (David de Latour).

Once they’ve all arrived at the lodge, the group begins to notice a few things that make them all slightly uneasy. For one thing, the nearby lake has frozen solid, so fast, apparently, that a row-boat is stuck fast in the middle. This might be explained away by unseasonable weather if the surrounding area wasn’t, conversely, strangely warm. There also seems to be a decided lack of wildlife, including birds and fish: again, not so strange in and of itself but decidedly unsettling when one considers the remote wilderness locale. And then, of course, there’s the little matter of the lodge, itself: each and every guest seems to have just vanished into thin air, leaving behind warm bowls of food, purses, still-running vehicles and handily hidden messages with helpful declarations like “Help me!” and “Don’t blink.”

Just as the group gets down to the business of arguing amongst themselves, with Alex leading the charge to get the fuck out of Dodge, Tracy takes a cue from the other missing guests and just disappears, without so much as a trace. This, of course, does absolutely nothing to quell anyone’s nerves and pretty much wrecks Jack’s romantic weekend, all in one, fell swoop. Once Noah and Lucas follow suit, the rest of the group changes lanes from “rather concerned” to “full-on freaked out,” as they try to figure out what’s going on, all without vanishing themselves. The rules, as inexplicable as they may be, seem pretty simple: don’t stop looking at anyone, don’t take your eyes off them for even a second (in other words, “don’t blink”) or they’ll disappear.

As the group is slowly whittled down, one by one, the remaining “survivors” must band together (multiple eyes, in this case, really are better than two) in order to prevent a repeat performance. Will they be able to hold out until help arrives or are they doomed to disappear, just like the untold number before them? What, exactly, is going on in this picturesque place…and where do the people go if (and when) no one’s watching? They might not want to see but looking away could very well be the last thing any of them ever do.

For the most part, Don’t Blink is a very well-made indie horror flick, even if it never quite scales the heights to become more than that. The acting is pretty solid for this kind of thing, with Green coming out the worst (his performance as Jack is never believable, even if he’s always kind of likable) and Ward’s alpha-asshole take on Alex coming out the best: in between those two poles, the rest of the cast does just fine, even if none of them really stand out (Gubelmann, in particular, is just kind of there).

The film looks consistently good: cinematographer Jayson Crothers produces lots of nicely atmospheric shots, including plenty of cool overheads, and the creepy lodge location makes for a suitably beautiful, eerie location. While the film does feature plenty of red herrings in the form of visual and audio “fake-outs,” it never overuses jump scares, which is another big checkmark in the “plus” column. The script, for the most part, is good: the twist ending is obvious but strong and while not all of the dialogue has an authentic feel to it (Green, again, comes off the worst here), the group really does feel like they at least know each other, which is more than you can say for some micro-budget horror films.

Story-wise, the film is endlessly intriguing, even if it’s also more than a little vague and open-ended. While Oates allows for several different answers to their collective predicament (I, personally, favor a “Cabin in the Woods (2012)-type scenario but that’s probably just my over-active imagination), nothing concrete is ever determined or, to be honest, even strongly hinted at. For the most part, the group just disappears, one by one, and no one is ever the wiser. While I’m sure that some viewers out there might call foul on this, I still prefer this kind of “choose your own adventure” tact over the always eye-rolling “take my hand and I’ll walk you through every nuance” approach that many indie films seem to have tattooed over their collective hearts. Do we ever really know why the group is disappearing? Nope…and the film is actually stronger for it.

All in all, I enjoyed Oates’ debut and certainly look forward to seeing more from the filmmaker: hopefully, this wasn’t just a one-and-done but actually the beginning to the next phase of his career. While Don’t Blink never really explodes out of the box and will never be mistaken as an unsung classic, it also doesn’t make a lot of obvious mistakes: the movie is eerie, tense, interesting and no more weighted-down by clichés than at least two dozen other films I might mention. Not every horror film can be “the next big thing” but I’m more than happy to say that Don’t Blink is a perfectly good way for any horror/suspense fan to spend 90 minutes.

6/27/15 (Part Two): Two is the Loneliest Number

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Adam Cronheim, Alana O'Brien, baseball players, buddy films, Christian Stella, cinema, directorial debut, dramas, end of the world, film reviews, films, friendship, horror films, independent films, Jamie Pantanella, Jeremy Gardner, Larry Fessenden, low-budget films, low-key, Movies, Niels Bolle, post-Apocalyptic, road movie, Ryan Winford, slow-moving films, stranded, The Battery, undead, Walkman, writer-director-producer-actor, zombie apocalypse, zombie movies, zombies

How rad would it be to run wild in a post-apocalyptic world with your best friend? Hunting, fishing, killing zombies, taking whatever you need, never answering to “The Man,” never working another day in your life, just kicking back and taking it all in…if you squint just right, it looks like a damn good life, doesn’t it? Now…imagine the exact same scenario but substitute “a co-worker you don’t know very well” for “your best friend” in the above equation. Not quite as fun, eh?

First-time director Jeremy Gardner (working from his own script) takes a close look at the second scenario, the one that sees you getting stuck with a relative stranger during the fallout from an unnamed zombie epidemic, in the low-key, immensely effective horror-drama The Battery (2012). Utilizing a slow, measured pace and a startling degree of real-world verisimilitude, Gardner has created the equivalent of a mumblecore zombie film, a movie not so much about the ravenous hordes of undead that stagger and groan across empty swatches of abandoned humanity but about the few remaining humans who’ve been left holding the bag. When the end-times come, Gardner seems to say, we’ll all find ourselves doing the exact same things we did during “better times”: arguing, swearing, fighting, listening to music on our headphones, masturbating, hoping, goofing around, wondering and wishing for a better tomorrow.

In as economical a way as possible, we meet our two leads and get the lay of the land right off the bat: Ben (writer-director Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim) are a couple of baseball players who find their lot tied together once the U.S. (and, presumably, the rest of the world) becomes overrun by zombies. We don’t get big explanations, no sense of a larger scheme at play here, just the facts, ma’am. Although the two were never great friends when things were “normal,” they now find themselves needing to rely on each other for their very survival: you might think that making a new friend is difficult…try doing it when mobs of zombies are trying to eat your face!

Personality-wise, the two former teammates couldn’t be more different. Ben is the brash, act-first member of the team, a guy who sees killing zombies as his duty and relishes the opportunity to live “off the grid” and make his own way through life. Mickey, on the other hand, is much more reserved, quiet and withdrawn. With his ever-present headphones and lingering memories of his lost life with his pre-apocalypse girlfriend, Mickey is like an open, throbbing wound, slinking from one place to the next without ever really living. Hell, he even resists Ben’s constant attempts to teach him how to fish: he’s got plenty of canned goods, after all, so why bother with the “real stuff” until he has to? Grizzly Adams, he ain’t.

Change comes to the guys’ daily fight for survival when they happen to pick up a mundane conversation on their walkie talkies. The discussion might not be earth-shattering (picking out the movie choice for that night) but Ben and Mickey are rocked to their very cores: here, at long last, is proof that they’re not alone. For Ben, it means more potential problems but for Mickey, the existence of others allows him the faintest glimmer of hope: for the first time, he can begin to see the path that leads out of their personal wilderness and back into regimented society.

The problem, of course, is that folks in post-apocalyptic societies don’t tend to be the friendliest, most trusting, sorts. One of the voices, Frank (Larry Fessenden), pointedly tells our heroes that there’s no more room at this particular inn, while the other voice, Annie (Alana O’Brien) does much the same thing, albeit in a nicer way. Too late, however: poor Mickey has already locked on to the newly discovered survivors as his own source of salvation and he won’t take no for an answer. Despite Ben’s constant protests, Mickey wants to track down Frank, Annie and the others at all costs: not only does he get a whiff of the civilization he so desperately misses but, with Annie, he gets a hint of that other thing he desperately misses…female contact.

As Ben and Mickey continue to move through the destroyed landscape of what used to be a familiar country, constantly on the watch for ambushing zombies, they find their own burgeoning friendship tested and strained at every twist and turn in the path. Will the two ever be able to set aside their differences and become united in their goals? Will Mickey be able to rejoin the civilized society that he always carries so close to his heart, via his ever-present Discman, or will he spend the rest of his days in the wild, gradually giving his own humanity over to survival instincts? And what, exactly, are Frank and Annie trying to hide from them? What is the truth behind “The Orchard” and will it spell salvation or doom for our hardy protagonists?

Low-key, understated and pitched at a glacial pace, Gardner’s film isn’t what one might call a “thrill-a-minute” ride. What it lacks in visceral action, however, it more than makes up for with intelligent, character-driven drama. The focus here is squarely on the humans, not the monsters: for almost the entirety of the film, give or take a few choice setpieces, the zombies remain in the background of the action, serving as omnipresent threat but allowing Ben and Mickey to take the reins. In some ways, it’s a similar tactic to Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (2010), in which the massive beasts became secondary to the human drama at the film’s core. The Battery is, first and foremost, about the ways in which Ben and Mickey navigate around their world. which is an important distinction from most low-budget zombie films.

Despite this focus on the dramatic aspect, however, Gardner and crew don’t shortchange the horrific aspect. The zombies are all well-realized, with effective makeup, and the violence, although infrequent, is always gritty and physical. When the film wants to pull out the stops, it has no problem doing so: the setpiece involving Ben and Mickey trapped in a car by a veritable army of the undead is as tense as they come, culminating in a truly brave six-minute shot that handily recalls the tent scene in Bobcat Goldtwait’s recent Willow Creek (2013). By not making the zombie action the center of the film’s universe, it makes the scattered horror moments that much more effective: I can’t stress enough how radically different this is from most low-budget zombie fare.

In many ways, The Battery is a two-man show: although we meet a couple other characters, including the aforementioned Annie and a carjacker (played by Niels Bolle), the vast majority of our screentime is devoted to either Ben or Mickey. As with many low-budget films (particularly horror films), this could have been the kiss of death: as a lifelong horror fan, “outstanding acting” isn’t usually something I usually associate with these types of movies, at least not at this level.

Rather than being a deficit, however, the performances in The Battery end up being one of the film’s greatest benefits. Quite simply, Gardner and Cronheim have fantastic chemistry: not only do we buy these guys as real people but we also buy into their developing friendship, warts and all. There are certain moments, such as the minutes-long scene consisting of nothing more than Ben and Mickey brushing their teeth, that feel like nothing less than getting a front-row seat to real-life, albeit one where the occasional zombie pops into view. Both actors give unique life and characterization to their respective roles (Ben is the “asshole,” Mickey is the “nice guy”) that extends beyond easy stereotyping and feels a whole lot more like real acting. In this aspect, The Battery reminded me of another exemplary indie horror film about a friendship, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s extraordinary Resolution (2012). Like Resolution, the characters in The Battery feel 100% authentic, which works wonders on selling the inherent “unreality” of the zombie apocalypse.

While the cinematography in the film is never much more than decent (aside from a few scattered standouts), the sound design is actually pretty brilliant and flawlessly integrated into the fabric of the film. The big conceit here, that Mickey’s Discman provides the score in “real-time,” is pretty damn awesome: that the musical selections are so varied and exceptional (incorporating everything from traditional blues to Neutral Milk Hotel-ish sonic collages) really kicks the whole film up a notch, resulting in scenes and moments that could best be described as “thoroughly kickass.” The montage of Ben and Mickey bumming around the countryside, set to an old blues stomper, is beautifully evocative, as is the wild, chaotic abandon that fuels the scene where Ben gets wasted and dances in front of a mural. Gardner and crew understand that sound design is as integral a part of a film as the visuals and The Battery provides a great crash course in just how to accomplish that.

All in all, I was massively impressed by The Battery: for a low-budget, independent zombie flick, this is just about as artistic and exceptional as it gets. While the film doesn’t always break new ground (Mickey’s obsession with Annie is particularly tiresome and “old hat”), it strikes out on its own path often enough to prove how much Gardner has to say. For some viewers, the slow pace and relative lack of action might be slightly off-putting but more patient audiences will realize one important fact: you have to learn to crawl before you walk. By taking its time and easing into the horror, Gardner’s film demonstrates that it has the stamina to go the distance. Here’s to hoping that Jeremy Gardner and his team continue to pump out effective, well-made little films like this: for a genre that can often be more smoke than fire, there will always be a need for movies that are actually about something.

The Battery may a road movie set during a zombie plague but, in the bigger scheme of things, it’s really about human interaction and the ways in which we’re all intertwined, whether we like it or not. I’ll take that over another bloody disembowelment any ol’ day of the week.

6/2/15: Grand Theft Mariachi

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action films, auteur theory, bounty hunters, bounty killers, Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman, Chilean films, cinema, dark comedies, El Mariachi, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza, exploitation films, Fernanda Urrejola, Film auteurs, film homages, film reviews, films, foreign films, Francisca Castillo, gangsters, Grand Theft Auto, Guillermo Saavedra, independent films, indie films, Jaime Omeñaca, Javier Cay Saavedra, Jorge Alis, Kill Bill, low-budget films, Matías Oviedo, Mauricio Pesutic, Movies, Nicolás Ibieta, over-the-top, retrosploitation, Robert Rodriguez, Rocco, romances, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Sofía García, stylish films, The ABCs of Death, unlikely hero, video games, writer-director-editor

Homage is a tricky thing: it’s no mean feat getting the perfect balance between exacting reproduction and unique perspectives. The original era of grindhouse and exploitation films weren’t really setting out to create a singular aesthetic: this was more the result of budgetary concerns, current events, audience expectations and the technology of the time. When modern filmmakers attempt to emulate the late ’60s-’70s grindhouse aesthetic, it’s always filtered through a modern sensibility, usually the hyper self-awareness that’s plagued us since the days of Pop-Up Videos. Adding fake film grain and scratches to a modern film doesn’t automatically make it a genuine grindhouse film any more than donning fake fangs makes one a genuine vampire.

That being said, many modern films have managed to emulate the grindhouse/exploitation aesthetic to varying degrees of success. Filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Eli Roth and Rob Zombie have all mined the drive-in days of old for films that manage, in one way or the other, to add another few brushstrokes to the overall mural. Chilean auteur Ernesto Díaz Espinoza certainly isn’t the first filmmaker to make us check the wall calendar: while his Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman (2012) is far from perfect and quite a ways from obvious influence El Mariachi (1992), it’s not without its charms and possesses a gonzo sense of energy and invention that often helps to smooth over the rough spots. When it’s firing on all cylinders, the film is nearly as lethal as its titular badass.

Like Rodriguez’s debut, BMTHOTMGW is about the path that an unlikely sad-sack takes from meek acceptance to ass-kicking independence. Our hero, in this case, is Santiago (Matías Oviedo), a small-town DJ who still lives at home with his mother (Francisca Castillo), plays way too much Grand Theft Auto and makes money, on the side, from mob boss Che Longana (Jorge Alis). Longana is the kind of bat-shit crime lord who’s surrounded by topless ballroom dancers, thinks nothing of wasting his own henchmen for the slightest infractions and rules by complete and absolute fear.

Poor Santiago runs afoul of his boss after he happens to overhear Longana discussing a hit on his former girlfriend, the legendary bounty-killer Machine Gun Woman (Fernanda Urrejola). MGW is the kind of person who struts around in a barely-there leather lingerie and fur coat ensemble, mercilessly blasting anything that moves before sawing off heads in order to collect the attached bounties: in other words, not the kind of person you normally want to fuck with. In order to save his own skin, Santiago promises to deliver MGW to Longana, come hell or high water.

From this point on, Santiago enters his own version of the beloved Grand Theft Auto, each new step along his path of personal growth designated by such video game friendly titles as “Mission 01: Get a Clue With Shadeline Soto” or “Mission 03: Get a Gun.” Along the way, Santiago must avoid the other bounty killers, each with their own quirks and Warriors-approved outfits (the lethal chinchinero and his mini-me son were personal favorites). When he finally comes face-to-face with the deadliest killer of them all, Santiago faces a feeling altogether different from fear…love. Will the humble DJ face his fears and double-cross the most feared man in Chile or will he crack under the pressure and turn his back on true love? Unlike his video games, Santiago is only going to get one chance to get this right…will it be love or the head of the Machine Gun Woman?

Despite a few glaring issues and the overridingly gimmicky core concept (the Grand Theft Auto angle wears out its welcome quickly), Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman ends up being a breezy, painless watch, not terribly far removed from the films with which it bears allegiance. The retro-visualization works well overall (the credits are spot-on and the musical score, by eponymous Rocco, is great), although the look is let-down quite a bit by the generally flat lighting: at times, BMTHOTMGW very much looks like a modern, low-budget film gussied up with film grain and random scratches.

Acting-wise, the film tends to be broad, which suits the overall vibe to a tee. Oviedo is likable as the hapless Santiago, although the film has a distressing tendency to make him more of a passive observer to the events than an active participant: it isn’t until the climax that he really gets a chance to let loose. Urrejola does a fine job as the almost mythically lethal Machine Gun Woman, although it’s worth noting that her character is just about as one-note as they come: MGW is an asskicking sexpot, nothing more, nothing less. She belongs to the same video game traditions that spawned similar characters like Lara Croft, traditions that dictate female action stars must show as much skin as possible and act lasciviously whenever the plot needs a little jolt. It’s no more (or less) offensive a representation than many others in the past but BMTHOTMGW does a pretty good of fetishizing Urrejola to an almost distressing degree.

The villains are all nice and slimy, which befits a film like this, with Alis having the biggest blast as the scenery-chewing, howlingly-mad mob boss. In many ways, Alis’ Che Longana hearkens back to the glory days of films like Andy Sidaris’ classic Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) and his ludicrously over-the-top death scene is truly one for the ages. There’s also the aforementioned variety with the various bounty killers (let’s hear it, again, for that father-son duo and the really smart riff on Kill Bill (2003)), which not only helps to play up the video game aspect (at times, the film definitely reminded me of Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010), although that was more structure-related than visual) but also injects much-needed originality into the premise.

While too much of the film seems to fall into generic indie-action territory (lots of noisy shootouts and gratuitous slo-mo), Espinoza finds plenty of new ways to riff on old motifs. The garage “oil check” scene is bracingly original, if thoroughly unpleasant, while the scene where Santiago’s iPod (it has 30,000 songs on it) is treated as if it were Marcellus Wallace’s fabled briefcase is patently great. It’s quite clear that Espinoza (who also scripted the film) has a few new wrinkles to add, whenever he steps away from the more well-trod path.

In the end, the well-trod path is what, ultimately, keeps Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman from having the impact it might have had. The film is lots of goofy fun, no two ways about it, but it never approaches the zany abandon of something like classic Troma or even Jason Eisener’s neo-classic Hobo With a Shotgun (2011). This, of course, is exactly what a film like this really needs: when you have a fur-coat-and-bikini-bedecked assassin spraying bullets every which way but loose, restraint should be the last thing you’re thinking about.

When Espinoza’s film works, it provides more than its share of pleasures (guilty and otherwise), although it never hits the consistent highs of El Mariachi. Here’s to hoping that Ernesto Díaz Espinoza continues to sharpen his blade: if he can make match his explotiation-leaning aesthetic to a genuinely subversive edge, I have a feeling that filmmakers might be paying him homage in the not-to-distant future.

5/28/15: Paved With Good Intentions

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Bottled Up, cinema, dramas, drug addiction, drug smuggling, dysfunctional family, enabling, Enid Zentelis, environmentalists, film reviews, films, Fredric Lehne, independent films, indie films, Jamie Harrold, Josh Hamilton, Marin Ireland, Melissa Leo, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Nelson Landrieu, parent-child relationships, pill addiction, romances, Sam Retzer, Tibor Feldman, Tim Boland, writer-director

In an era when so many films seem to fulfill no greater need than increasing some conglomerate’s bottom line, it’s always refreshing to run across movies that actually have something to say, regardless of whether they have the expense account to say it loudly enough to get noticed. As someone who wearies of the “bigger, louder, dumber” mantra that rules the multiplex, I make a point to seek out the quieter, more modest choices whenever possible. After all: which type of film could really use more support…the billion-dollar tentpole flick or the indie that was probably made for a third of the former’s catering budget?

This, of course, ends up being quite the over-simplification but it helps put us in the proper mind to discuss writer-director Enid Zentelis’ Bottled Up (2013). Zentelis’ drug addiction drama, the follow-up to her debut, Evergreen (2004), is just the aforementioned kind of modest indie drama that normally fits my sensibilities like a glove. It’s the kind of film that I normally have no problem championing, usually over the top of something with a much larger advertising budget. In this case, however, I find myself in a bit of a pickle: you see, Bottled Up has its heart in the right place but the film is so fundamentally awkward that it’s difficult to ever become fully invested. That being said, I’ll gladly take a dozen well-intentioned films like this over much of the soulless superhero drivel and remakes that currently glut the multiplexes.

At its heart, Bottled Up is the story of Fay (Melissa Leo) and her adult daughter, Sylvie (Marin Ireland). Sylvie is a pill addict, supposedly the result of a car accident that screwed up her back, while her mother officially holds the title of “world-class enabler.” While Fay is a hard-working, responsible and caring individual, Sylvie is a complete wreck: manic, an habitual liar, an unrepentant thief and constantly in search of her next fix, Sylvie is like a human-shaped albatross perpetually affixed to her poor mother’s neck. Despite being “in control” of her daughter’s pain pills, Fay really isn’t in control of anything: whenever Sylvie feels like it, she just steals more money or hocks more shit, keeping her sleazy dealer, Jerry (Jamie Harrold), on speed-dial the whole while.

Just when things seem to be at their bleakest for Fay, she strikes up a friendship with Becket (Josh Hamilton), the spacey environmental activist who works at the local organic grocery store. Becket recycles, he composts, he takes samples of the local lake water and sends them to the government for testing and, most importantly, he seems to be swooning over Fay. Despite some obvious chemistry between the activist and the mom, however, Fay actually has different plans for Becket: believing that all Sylvie needs to “fix” her is the love of a good man, Fay does her damnedest to set the two up, despite her daughter’s near pathological desire to fuck it all up. As Fay keeps trying to “weld” Becket and Sylvie together, despite their overwhelmingly awkward interactions, she must also fight down her own growing feelings for the sensitive treehugger.

As is often the case, balance becomes a problem: how does one live their own life when they’re also living someone else’s? Fay continues to negotiate this precarious tightrope act, all while the local doctors get wise to Sylvie’s abuse issues and begin to make life even more difficult for the put-upon mother. Add one all-too-eager drug dealer, a spontaneous trip to Canada and growing self-awareness to the mix and you have yourself the recipe for some cathartic, if painful, personal growth. Will Fay finally discover who she really is or will Sylvie’s addiction wind up destroying everyone around her?

All of the elements are in place for Bottled Up to do exactly what it seems to set out to do. Yet, for various reasons, the film ends up feeling oddly flat and rather awkward. All of the principals – Melissa Leo, Marin Ireland and Josh Hamilton – have been responsible for some excellent performances in the past (Leo, in particular). Here, however, none of them seem to gel together, making much of the romantic angle feel forced and, at times, a little creepy. The ways in which Fay tries to push Becket and Sylvie together have a kind of whimsical “meet-cute” feel, at first, but quickly give way to something more awkward and cringe-worthy. Likewise Becket’s romancing of Fay: while it sometimes hits genuinely “sweet” moments, it all too often feels forced and out-of-place.

While Leo manages to get several very nice scenes and emotional moments (despite being saddled with an unfortunate haircut that spends the majority of the film obscuring her face), Ireland’s performance is almost uniformly awkward and strange. I get that Sylvie is a drug addict, many of whom are known to be rather squirrely individuals. Ireland’s performance is so erratic and wild, however, that it’s often difficult to figure out what which of the traits are the character’s and which are the actor’s. At numerous points, a sly look from Sylvie would seem to telegraph something only to amount to nothing: at a certain point, I was positive that Sylvie was trying to make Becket sick although, as I think about it later, it really wouldn’t make sense, under that context.

For his part, Hamilton plays Becket with such a blase, befuddled sense of inattention that, like with Ireland’s performance, it becomes a bit of a question as to what’s intended and what’s not. While the world is full of oblivious, tunnel-visioned individuals, surely none of them could be as absolutely blind to their immediate surroundings as Becket is: it’s not so much that he seems to be obsessed with the lake as that he seems to be willfully ignoring the highly dysfunctional mother-daughter team before him.

Part of the problem with the film’s overall impact is the disparity between some of the obviously whimsical elements and the more grim, overall feel. The score, courtesy of Tim Boland and Sam Retzer, is what I like to call “indie quirky” and the film features such magical-realist elements as Fay’s workplace, the bizarrely esoteric Mailboxes and Thangs (where one can mail a package, buy a donut and get a nipple piercing, all in the same visit). At times, Bottled Up seems one quirky character or cleverly placed indie tune away from the same patch of land where Wes Anderson normally builds his brand of particularly baroque architecture.

These lighthearted touches, however, end up sitting uncomfortably next to the film’s more unrelentingly dark, rather hopeless tone. Despite any of its issues, Bottled Up manages to be rather on-the-nose when it comes to depicting the humiliating, pointless and painful lives that addicts (and their families) suffer through: while the film never wallows in the shit-and-piss ugliness of something like Trainspotting (1996) or Requiem for a Dream (2000), there’s also nothing wholesome, cute or heartwarming about Fay and Sylvie’s relationship. More than anything, there’s a thick air of hopeless defeat that hangs over the characters: it feels as if we’ve entered Fay and Sylvie’s story at the very end, after both parties have, for all intents and purposes, given up. You always need a rock bottom in any recovery story, of course, but the constant emotional back-and-forth feels schizophrenic rather than organic.

Despite the aforementioned problems and the constant sense of awkward distance, there was still a lot to like here. While she doesn’t always hit the mark, Leo turns in another typically sturdy performance: Fay’s character does go through an arc, over the course of the story, and Leo is an assured pro at letting this comes across organically, rather than conveniently. I also really liked the film’s more loopy elements and wish Zentelis had opted to center more of the story there: there’s endless, virtually unexploited potential in the Mailboxes and Thangs concept, alone, not to mention Fay’s tentative steps into the world of conservationism. I also liked the concept of Jerry, the drug dealer, even if the actual character ended up being under-used and seemed to exit the film all too quickly. While the film is about Fay and Sylvie’s struggles, it also works best when it grounds them within the surrounding community.

At the end of the day, Bottled Up is a film with the very best intentions which, as I’ve stated earlier, certainly isn’t lost on me. Even if the various elements never cohere, it’s quite plain that Zentelis does have plenty of good insights into addiction, co-dependence and dysfunctional relationships. There are moments in the film that ring absolutely true and the final resolution is the kind of hopeful break in the storm clouds that really drives a film like this home. Bottled Up is an ode to addicts and the people who love them, even at the expense of their own individuality. I might not agree with how Zentelis said it, but I’ll damned if I can find much fault with what she had to say.

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

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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.