A Few Thoughts After A First Viewing of Mad Max: Fury Road

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Best of 2015, Charlize Theron, cinema, film reviews, films, first thoughts, George Miller, Mad Max, Mad Max: Fury Road, Movies, Tom Hardy

In almost all cases, I prefer to ruminate on a film before I sit down and try to attempt any manner of critique or discussion. In honor of George Miller’s rule-breaking little film Mad Max: Fury Road, however, I’ve decided to break my self-imposed rules and offer some initial thoughts on the film, straight from my very first viewing (the credits have just finished, as we speak). Keep in mind that, as with any and everything on The VHS Graveyard, these are the thoughts of a very stubborn and obnoxious individual and should, of course, be taken with the utmost caution. In that spirit, then: my initial thoughts:

— There is no better paced action film this year than Fury Road. After thirty minutes of break-neck, ceaseless action, Miller takes a little breath…before going into the next half hour of ceaseless action. It’s the same concept behind the best songs: build to epic proportions…wait…and then…slam the guitar solo in your face. Fury Road is the Pixies song of action films.

— Isn’t it about goddamn time we had an action film that not only featured a kickass female lead but an overtly female focus? This isn’t simply the case of having CT whip ass from one sandstorm to the next (more on that later): this is the case of having a film in a traditionally misogynist genre (I can rib cuz I love) where the female characters are not only not helpless damsels in distress but are active participants in their own salvations. This, friends and neighbors, is not the status quo.

— And while we’re talking about kickass heroes…holy shit…did ya get a load of Furiosa? Effortlessly, casually, leisurely amazing (her quick fix with the wrench is poetry), Theron’s Furiosa is, without a doubt, an iconic character, easily in league with a genre mainstay like Lt. Ripley. It’s tempting to call Hardy the lead, simply because he’s got his name in the title, but take a look at who really moves the machine.

— And what about Hardy? I’ll admit: I’ve never been bonkers on the guy, although I’ve enjoyed him from time to time. Here, his Eastwood (but mumblier) routine is so good it hurts. Or looks like it does, at least. As a total geek for the original trio, it was always gonna be hard to replace Gibson in my head: with Fury Road, Hardy went a long way towards showing me my fears were unfounded. Max Rockatansky: thy name…just might be Tom Hardy, after all!

— The world-building in this is simply stunning. And I mean that in an age where that particular term has probably lost a lot of luster: the world-building is stunning. This isn’t some half-assed “five years in the future,” people in a white office, funny lights on the wall kinda bullshit…this is the real McCoy, Jack! This is the kind of fully immersive world that lets you leave your questions at the door and just live it: there’s so much getting thrown at the screen, at any given point, that’s all but impossible to pick up the details on one viewing (says the guy who’s only seen it once). The fact that there are no easy answers only makes it that more mysterious, leading us into our next point…

— There are no hands held here and no desire, whatsoever, to dumb the film down to fit a modern aesthetic. Need an info dump to keep up? Stay confused, sunshine. Need a preexisting set of characters in order to feel safe within the chaos of a complicated storyline? Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. Unlike pretty much every superhero, comic book, fantasy or sci-fi film in recent memory, Miller’s Fury Road doesn’t see fit to hammer audiences with all the pertinent backstory, minutiae, repetitive details and tedious A-B bullshit that they think they need: Miller knows that the film stands on its own and he’s more than happy to let audiences come to it that way or not at all.

The film starts in high gear and only ratchets up from there: any breaks in the action aren’t to allow for needless information downloads (so-and-so is the so-and-so of so-and-so so blah di blah) so much as to give audiences a chance to take a breath and relax for a beat. Same basic idea behind roller-coasters. Most importantly, let Miller be the shot across the bow in a new war on information: audiences don’t have to know every single aspect of a film. Once upon a time, we were allowed to use our imaginations to supplement what we saw: Miller is giving us the greatest gift of all by giving that back to us. We’d be fools not to take it with open arms.

— The effects and actions sequences in Fury Road are so astounding that Miller just throws away sequences that would be centerpieces in other films.  It’s like a car maker saying, “Well, it’s a Stingray but it’s not a Rolls Royce…toss it on the scrap heap.”

— Immortan Joe is a great villain but never really gets the chance to be a truly despicable one, ala Toecutter in the first film. I’m not saying he’s not one totally cool dude, mind you, but I have a feeling the most interesting part of Joe’s tale happened just prior to this film.

— There’s a lot of sensory overload in the film but that axe-rockin’ mutant dude is always gonna be a highlight. That’s what I see whenever I headbang to Maiden.

— This film manages to (inadvertently) make a better version of Dune than the actual film.

— The “blue swamp” scenes (capped by that bit that stomps Sin City into mush) are pretty damn amazing.

— I spent the entire two hours on the edge of my seat. That’s actually a lie: I spend a fair portion of the time standing up, as well.

— In a very full, very rich year of genre cinema, Mad Max: Fury Road still manages to effortlessly rise to the top of the pack. Is it the best film I’ve seen this year? I believe it is. With a week to go, will The Revanant and Hateful Eight top it? To be honest, I’m not sure. They don’t make movies like Fury Road any more. Well, actually, someone does. His name is George Miller and I think he just sent everybody back to square one.

2/28/15 (Part One): The Tin Man Rides Into the Sunset

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'90s films, 1990s films, action films, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Locke, CCH Pounder, cinema, cyborgs, Daniel von Bargen, Delta City, Detroit, dystopian future, evil corporations, Felton Perry, film reviews, films, franchises, Fred Dekker, Jill Hennessy, John Castle, Judson Vaughn, Mad Max, Mako, man vs machine, mercenaries, Movies, Nancy Allen, near future, Night of the Creeps, OCP, Officer Lewis, Officer Murphy, Peter Weller, rebels, Remy Ryan, Rip Torn, Robert Burke, Robert DoQui, RoboCop, RoboCop 3, sci-fi, sequels, set in Detroit, Shane Black, Stephen Root, street gangs, The Monster Squad, writer-director

Sometimes, a film can hit just about all its marks and still be disappointing: take Fred Dekker’s RoboCop 3 (1993), for example. Here’s a movie where expectations are already set fairly low (this is the third one, after all, and the first without Peter Weller behind the helmet), yet there’s every possibility to be not only pleasantly surprised but genuinely blown away…after all, Dekker is the unmitigated genius behind two of the greatest genre films of all time, Night of the Creeps (1986) and The Monster Squad (1987). In his more than capable hands, RoboCop 3 could have been the caustically funny, surprising joy that RoboCop 2 (1990) should have been. Instead, the film ends up being a thoroughly competent, middle-of-the-road sci-fi action film with only hints of Dekker’s demented genius. An auteur like Dekker reduced to the role of hired gun? Say it ain’t so, Joe!

The film kicks off with a pretty familiar scenario: the loathsome OCP is still trying to build their dream project, Delta City, over the charred bones and lower-class citizens of near-future Detroit. As in the previous RoboCop films, Detroit is still a war-zone: this time around, the prime offenders are a mob of stereotypical “punk” marauders dubbed The Splatterpunks, who seem to delight in setting any and everything ablaze with Molotov cocktails. In a telling development, OCP is taken over by the Japanese mega-conglomerate, Kanemitsu Corporation, making Detroit the first U.S. city to come under foreign rule. The new president, the titular Kanemitsu (Mako), is a no-nonsense businessman who’s tired of OCP continually missing its deadlines for breaking ground on Delta City.

In order to help along the process of claiming property that the residents don’t want to part with, OCP employs a collection of mercenaries known as Urban Rehabilitation Officers (Rehabs, for short). The Rehabs are, ostensibly, being used to fight the rising crime wave: in reality, they’re being used to forcibly remove the residents of the various slums that OCP wants to demolish. The residents are moved to “refugee camps” where they promptly seem to drop off the grid: the ultimate case of the “haves” doing away with the “have-nots.”

Our intrepid heroes, Officer Murphy (now played by Robert Burke, who looks a little like Weller, if you squint) and Officer Lewis (Nancy Allen) get caught up in the struggle when a group of homeless revolutionaries, led by scrappy Bertha (CCH Pounder) and Nikko (Remy Ryan), a pint-sized hacker who’s ably to handily turn lethal ED-209s into loyal “puppies” with the push of a button, butt heads with the Rehab officers, led by the odious Commander McDaggett (John Castle). In the ensuing chaos, Officer Lewis is killed (RoboCop’s sad “Officer down” line is just as ludicrous on paper as it is in the film) and Murphy is branded a murderous renegade. As OCP and the Kanemitsu Corporation fill the airwaves with bogus stories about RoboCop’s villainy, OCP’s CEO (Rip Torn) and Kanemitsu work behind the scenes to eliminate the cyborg avenger and clear the last roadblock to the long-delayed Delta City. To this end, Kanemitsu unleashes his own cyborg, a lethal-killing machine known as Otomo (Bruce Locke). Will RoboCop and the revolutionaries be able to stop OCP and the Rehabs once and for all or does the dawn of Delta City begin now?

While the first film was a fairly streamlined, subtly ironic sci-fi action film, ala Mad Max (1979), the sequel employed the “bigger is better” aesthetic, pumping up the action scenes while letting some air out of the more subversive ideas. In the process, RoboCop 2 became a much sillier, louder and goofier film, albeit one with enough inherent parallels to the original to serve as a more than suitable follow-up. RoboCop 3, by contrast, is the most cartoonish of the three films, as well as the first of them to earn a PG13 rating: as expected, this means that the film is exponentially less gritty and gorier, although the body count is still exceptionally high…in this case, it just means that hordes of baddies “fall down,” ala old Westerns, rather than explode in red sprays of arterial fluid.

By itself, this isn’t really a problem: the second film was, in reality, only a few small steps removed from a complete cartoon and (brain surgery scene notwithstanding) had about as much impact. The bigger issue comes from the fact that the whole film is obviously pitched at much younger audiences: all of the issues are very black-and-white and the very character of Nikko feels like nothing more than an attempt to insert a pre-teen hero into the mix. Compared to the foul-mouthed urchins in RoboCop 2, Nikko is Little Orphan Annie and the whole thing has a trite feel that definitely feels aimed at the lowest common denominator.

Acting-wise, RoboCop 3 is extremely broad, although the style does tend to work, since the film is inherently broad and silly. Burke does a suitable job as Weller’s replacement, although he doesn’t sound anything like our original Officer Murphy. We get a few “regulars” here, such as Nancy Allen, Felton Perry and Robert DoQui, although they’re pretty much relegated to the background for the majority of the film, allowing newcomers like Ryan, Pounder and Stephen Root (always a joy to see) to step up to the plate. For his part, Rip Torn turns in the kind of performance that he’s been autopiloting for way too long, although his smug bureaucrat fits the film’s heart-on-sleeve politics like a glove.

More than anything, I’m disappointed that so little of Dekker actually shows through in the final product. Short of a few scattered scenes and details (the OCP exec jumping out of a window while his wife harangues him on the phone, RoboCop driving the blazing, Pepto-pink pimp-mobile around like it was a tank) that are explicitly reminiscent of Dekker’s tongue-in-cheek approach, the film is depressingly generic and middle-of-the-road. It’s always bummed me out that Dekker only directed three films in his entire career and this was one of them: it’s equivalent to Francis Ford Coppola’s entire filmography consisting of The Godfather (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Jack (1996). At the very least, Dekker has recently been rumored to be involved in Shane Black’s new Predator reboot: fingers crossed that this translates into him directing the film, although a Dekker script is (usually) a thing of beauty, so that’d be fine, too.

Ultimately, RoboCop 3 is not a terrible film: in many ways, it’s no worse (or better) than a hundred other direct-to-video, ’90s era “gems.” While the film is competently done, however, it also possesses no real sense of identity or even much in the way of distinguishing features: it just “is,” for better or worse. Since the third entry seemed to effectively nail the coffin lid shut (at least until the recent reboot), it’s fair to say that our heroic man of steel had already passed his expiration date by this point, a mere six years after he debuted. Quite the pity, really: with Fred Dekker writing and directing, RoboCop 3 should have been one of the most unforgettable franchise entries ever. Instead, the film is so generic as to be completely forgettable: now that’s irony that’s right up Fred Dekker’s twisted little alley.

 

1/30/15: Toecutter’s Last Jam

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'70s action films, '70s films, A Clockwork Orange, action films, Australia, Australian films, auteur theory, Brian May, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, cops, cult classic, David Bracks, David Cameron, David Eggby, Death Wish, dramas, dystopian future, feature-film debut, Film auteurs, film franchise, film reviews, films, gang rape, gangs of punks, Geoff Parry, George Miller, highway patrol, Hugh Keays-Byrne, iconic villains, James McCausland, Joanne Samuel, law and order, Mad Max, Max Fairchild, Max Rockatansky, Mel Gibson, motorcycle gangs, Movies, Paul Johnstone, post-Apocalyptic, revenge, road movie, Roger Ward, set in Australia, Sheila Florence, Steve Bisley, The Warriors, thrillers, Tim Burns, Toecutter, vendetta, vengeance, vigilante, Vince Gil, writer-director

When George Miller first introduced the world to Max Rockatansky in 1979, I wonder if he could have predicted that the character would be popular enough to warrant reexamination almost 40 years later. With three films in the Mad Max canon and a fourth coming this year, however, it’s pretty clear that Miller’s Australian “Road Angel of Death” has had some serious staying power. While the upcoming Fury Road (2015) appears to follow the template set by latter-day high velocity outings like Road Warrior (1981) and Beyond Thunderdome (1985), the original film, Mad Max (1979), was a much leaner and meaner affair, albeit no less over-the-top and prone to some particular comic-book affectations. Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Death Wish (1974) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) while bearing more than a passing resemblance to The Warriors (1979), Miller’s initial outing is a real doozy and one that would go on to influence generations of action and post-apocalyptic films to come.

Kicking off with an epic, 10-minute smash-and-bash car chase between the howling mad Nightrider (Vince Gil) and a group of unfortunate highway patrol officers, we’re thrust into the middle of the action with no info-dump or warning. As things gradually settle down, a bit, we come to discover that this appears to be a rather lawless, possibly post-apocalyptic, society, where cops and criminals duke it out on the dusty highways that stretch across Australia. At first, Nightrider seems unstoppable, a Tazmanian Devil behind the wheel who handily out-runs, out-drives and out-bravados every cop he comes across. Cue our hero, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), the coolest, toughest and most badass patrol officer of the bunch. Max shows up, mirrored shades reflecting back the blistering sun, and proceeds to drive Nightrider straight into an early grave. This, ladies and gentlemen, is his business…and business is very, very good.

Max’s partner, Jim Goose (Steve Bisley), is a good egg and loyal as the day is long, while his superior officer, Fifi (Roger Ward), treats Max like royalty and holds him up as shining example for the rest of the officers. At home, we get to see the softer side of Max: his loving wife, Jessie (Joanne Samuel) blows a mean sax and he’s got a cute baby named Sprog. Life seems pretty darn groovy for this Down Under Dirty Harry but there’s big trouble brewin.’

This big trouble arrives in the form of the dastardly Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and his marauding biker gang. Seems that the gang has a bone to pick with Max for snuffing out their beloved Nightrider and Toecutter has sworn vengeance, the bloodier the better. When the gang blows into town to retrieve Nightrider’s coffin, they end up trashing the place, ala an old-fashioned Western, and chase a couple out onto the open road where they destroy their car, chase the guy away and gang-rape the young woman. Max and Goose arrive in time to pick up the pieces, finding the chained, traumatized woman and one of the gang members, Johnny (Tim Burns), so drugged-out that he forgot to run away when the others did.

Faster than you can say Dirty Harry (1971), however, the case gets tossed out and Johnny is released because none of the victims, including the young woman, will come forward to testify. Johnny walks, after taunting the cops, and Goose is furious. When the gang ambushes and attacks Goose in a particularly terrible way, however, Max will have to decide which path to follow, the one that leads to his family or the one that leads to revenge. As Toecutter, his cold-blooded lieutenant, Bubba (Geoff Parry), and the rest of the gang get closer and closer to Max, they will learn one very important lesson: you can do a lot of things to Max Rockatansky but the last thing you wanna do is get the guy mad.

Despite the often grim subject matter (children in peril, rape, collapsing society) and the often intense violence (immolations, dismemberments, semi driving over people), there’s a sense of buoyancy and energy to Mad Max that makes the whole thing a lot closer to a comic-book movie like RoboCop (1987) than to something more serious like, say, The Road (2009) or The Rover (2014). In addition, Miller uses several techniques, such as the wipe transitions between scenes and the jaunty score (courtesy of Australian composer Brian May) that help to elevate this sense of action-adventureism. To be honest, Mad Max often feels like a synthesis of Lethal Weapon (1987) (not specifically because of Gibson’s involvement but more for the depictions of Max’s home-life and the way in which the film’s action constantly toes the “silly/awesome” dividing line) and A Clockwork Orange (the gang’s affectations, slang and Toecutter’s casual brutality all reminded me explicitly of Kubrick’s adaptation), as odd as that may sound.

While never completely serious, aside from the film’s handful of heartstring-pullers, Mad Max never tips all the way over into campy or silly. This isn’t quite the novelty of The Warriors: Toecutter’s gang has an actual air of menace to them, an air that’s not helped by their propensity for rape and assault on innocent civilians. Keays-Byrne is marvelous as the insane gang leader, easily going down as one of the most memorable villains in these type of films: his polite, slightly foppish mannerisms are completely off-set by his hair-trigger barbarity, making for a bracing combination. Nearly as memorable is Geoff Parry’s turn as Bubba Zanetti: his laconic delivery perfectly contrasts with his hot-headed personality making for a character who would’ve been perfect going up against Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti Western.

In fact, more than anything, Mad Max is like a spaghetti Western, albeit one filtered through all of the influences listed above. The interplay between the gang members, between Max and his superiors, between the law and the lawless…the setpieces that could have easily been chases on horseback or wagon…the lonesome, wide-open devastation of the Australian landscape…Sergio Leone might have been proud to call any of them his own.

As one of his first roles, Mad Max set a course for Mel Gibson’s career that would serve him quite well, right up to the point in time where he self-detonated it. Here, however, we get Mel before the headlines, stupidity and career suicide: he’s rock-solid as Rockatansky, bringing just enough vulnerability and indecision to the role to prevent him from ever seeming as completely callous as someone like Eastwood’s Harry Callahan. He also brings a physicality to the role that helps make the whole enterprise seem that much more authentic: Gibson’s performance is so “all-in” that the scene where he limps and drags himself down the pavement genuinely looks like it hurts like hell. It would be the easiest thing in the world to play Max like a video game character but it’s to Gibson’s immense credit that he makes him both so human and so completely badass: it’s easy to see why this became a franchise so quickly, as the magnetism is undeniable.

In some ways, the differences between Mad Max and its predecessors is the same as the difference between the first two Alien or Terminator films: Mad Max is more of a small-scale revenge drama (very similar to Death Wish, particularly in the final reel) whereas the films that followed it are more wide-screen, adventure epics. Despite this, however, I was genuinely surprised to note how honestly cartoonish the film is. Perhaps I picked up on this when I watched the film in the past but it was more apparent now than ever before that the first film fits in perfectly well with the more OTT vibe of the other films. While it may be smaller scale, it’s definitely of a piece with The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome: Toecutter would have fit in nicely in either of those.

With Fury Road on the horizon, I thought it might be useful to go back and revisit the film that started it all. As always, Mad Max doesn’t disappoint: from the rousing action setpieces, astounding car chases, cool-as-a-cucumber lead character, colorful villains and genuine sense of danger and tension, Mad Max is an absolute blast from start to finish. Here’s to hoping that Miller manages to maintain this classic feel with his newest: the world has been without a Rockatansky for way too long now…we need our Mad Max now more than ever.

1/25/15: The Man With Nothing Has Nothing to Lose

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Animal Kingdom, anti-hero, Antony Partos, Australia, Australian films, brothers, car chases, cat-and-mouse chase, cinema, David Field, David Michôd, dramas, dysfunctional family, film reviews, films, foreign films, Gillian Jones, Guy Pearce, Jamie Fallon, Joel Edgerton, Keri Hilson, Mad Max, Movies, Natasha Braier, post-Apocalyptic, road trip, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy, set in Australia, stolen car, Tawanda Manyimo, The Rover, The Way of the Gun, writer-director-producer

Midway through David Michôd’s post-apocalyptic The Rover (2014), Rey (Robert Pattinson), a possibly mentally disabled young man, relates a rambling, seemingly pointless story to Eric (Guy Pearce), his captor: as Rey yammers on and on, we watch as frustration and boredom wage war across Eric’s sun-bleached, weathered face, his quick-set lips constantly suppressing some sort of cranky comeback. After Rey finishes his story, Eric regards him with something approaching contempt and snaps, “Why’d you tell me that?” The young man shrugs and nonchalantly states: “It was interesting and I remembered it…not everything has to be about something.”

In a way, that’s as good a micro-philosophy for Michôd’s film as any: indeed, if one boiled The Rover down to its essential parts, one would get a narrative that consists entirely of a man pursuing another group of men in order to retrieve his stolen car. This is overly reductive, of course, since there’s a bit more going on here than that (The Rover is definitely about “something”) but Australian writer-director Michôd, who first hit the public eye with his brutal Animal Kingdom (2010), is a master of economy and the whole thing buzzes along with the extreme focus of the best single-minded revenge flicks. Think of this as a moodier Mad Max (1979) minus the tricked-out cars, intense action setpieces and over-the-top characters and you’re definitely in the right vicinity.

We begin in Australia, ten years after some sort of ill-defined “collapse” has led to some pretty miserable conditions: everything seems sun-baked and cracked, food and water are now luxury items and every single person packs as much heat as they can possibly carry. Into this heat-mirage of failure steps Eric, as beaten-down and weathered as the landscape around him. While stopping at what appears to be a nearly empty “water saloon,” Eric kicks back for a moment of peace and quiet, during which absolute disaster strikes: his one and only possession, his beat-up car, is stolen by a trio of thieves on the lam, Caleb (Tawanda Manyimo), Archie (David Field) and Henry (Scoot McNairy). The trio have just crashed their truck and jack Eric’s before he can stop them.

Jumping into their abandoned vehicle, Eric gives chase, on the thieves’ tail like flies on cow-shit. After a suitably thrilling cat-and-mouse chase, Eric gets out to confront them, at which point he’s cold-cocked and left to wake up in the dirt. As he continues his pursuit, Eric runs into Rey, Henry’s gut-shot brother. Seems that Rey was injured in whatever heist the group was involved in and the others just left him there, rather than dragging his soon-to-be carcass around. Since Rey claims to know where the group is headed, Eric takes him along, with the stipulation that he’ll slit his throat if Henry and the others aren’t where Rey says they’ll be. From that point on, Eric and Rey travel in uneasy companionship, their relationship never as simple as “captor and captive” or “traveling companions,” but never quite as cold-blooded as Eric’s relentless pursuit of his car. As the duo get closer and closer to their destination, Rey will have to make some awfully difficult decisions about family, loyalty and doing the right thing, even as Eric continues to shave his own humanity down to the bone, turning himself into a killer as remorseless and barren as the landscape around him.

For the most part, The Rover is well-made, heartfelt and consistently interesting, albeit  a tad confusing, from time to time. The script, based on an idea that Michôd developed with actor Joel Edgerton, is lean and mean, wasting as little time as possible on anything that doesn’t propel the story (and the characters) forward. Due to this economy, we don’t get much in the way of character development whatsoever (the only backstory we receive regarding the protagonist is one extremely confusing tidbit related after he’s been captured by the military and the film’s twist ending), which tends to give the various people we meet a rather “half-formed” nature.

In particular, the scenes involving Grandma (Gillian Jones) and the strange, old man at the film’s conclusion are enigmatic precisely because they’re sort of dumped on us with no explanation as to their significance. The bit involving the old man is particularly frustrating, since it seems to involve a fundamental emotional beat with Eric that never makes much sense: he seems to have an emotional reaction to someone he’s never met, for no perceptible reason, when he’s been largely emotionless before that. There’s also zero development with the trio of thieves, although McNairy and Pattinson do get a nicely emotional bit during the climax: Caleb and Archie are never anything more than generic types, however, giving their ultimate fates next to no real importance. While many films are filled with faceless villains, this seems an odd tact to take for a film that only features a small handful of actors: a little more depth would have opened up the film immensely.

From a production-standpoint, The Rover looks and sounds great: Natasha Braier’s cinematography perfectly captures the sun-bleached desolation of the uncompromising landscape and the occasional nods to an “artier” style (the slo-mo car flying by the window as Eric sits at the bar, drinking water and listening to an Asian pop song on the radio, for example) prevent the film from ever looking too “utilitarian.” The moody score, by Antony Partos, is particularly good: there’s one supremely cool driving sequence where the score approximates the sparse keyboard squelches of No-Wave legends Suicide and I, for one, could not stop grinning. I also got a kick out of the way Keri Hilson’s “Pretty Girl Rock” (you know, the “Don’t hate me ’cause I’m beautiful,” song) scores a key setpiece: while the film is never less than dour, it’s pretty obvious that a subtle (very, very subtle) stream of dark humor runs through everything.

Performance-wise, I was quite taken by both Pearce and Pattinson: Pattinson, in particular, turns Rey into the kind of twitchy, fidgety weirdo that seems a million miles from his usual roles and I agreed with almost all of his acting choices, although his odd, slightly slurred accent is often more than a little hard to parse. Pearce, for his part, can pretty much do these kinds of roles in his sleep and his world-weary, defeated but determined take on Eric is sturdy and feels authentic. One of the most interesting aspects regarding the character of Eric is just how poorly he fits the role of “hero”: hell, even “anti-hero” seems a bit of a stretch, at times. For much of the film, Eric is violent, uncompromising and kills at the drop of a hat, often with as little provocation as possible. The final twist makes his character more sympathetic (barely) but the road leading there is paved with plenty of “questionable” activities, as it were. It’s to Pearce’s great credit that we’re always on Eric’s side, even if it’s not always easy (or possible) to agree with his actions.

Ultimately, I enjoyed, but didn’t love, The Rover. On the plus side, the film stakes out a claim as a reasonable neo-Western, ala The Way of the Gun (2000) and that will always receive my stamp of approval. Michôd’s film looks and sounds great, slotting in nicely with similar Australian fare, such as the aforementioned Mad Max, as well as “arty” post-apocalyptic films like Bellflower (2011). There are also plenty of good performances here, including an above-average turn by Robert Pattinson in a rather non-typical role. On the downside, the film feels a little long, especially for such a streamlined narrative, and I never felt emotionally engaged with it until the final revelation, which does end up packing a bit of a punch. That being said, fans of low-key post-apocalyptic tales should find plenty to approve of, even if the final result is decidedly less than a game-changer.

6/2/14 (Part Two): From the Sublime to the Rocket Launcher

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'80s action films, 1980's, action films, Alex Winter, Assault on Precinct 13, bad cops, Charles Bronson, cinema, crime wave, Death Wish, Death Wish 3, Deborah Raffin, Ed Lauter, film franchise, film reviews, films, Fraker, gang rape, gangs of punks, Gavan O'Herlihy, gun enthusiasts, guns, Jimmy Page, Kirk Taylor, liberals vs conservatives, Mad Max, Marina Sirtis, Martin Balsam, Michael Winner, misogyny, Movies, New York City, over-the-top, Paul Kersey, post-apocalyptic wasteland, revenge, rocket launcher, sequel, sequels, set in the 1980's, the Giggler, The Warriors, Tony Spiridakis, Troma films, vengeance, vigilante, vigilantism

As a youth, many of my favorite films tended to be of the ultra-violent action variety. While I watched a lot of different things, there was a certain group of films that seemed to get rewatched endlessly, as if on a loop: Magnum Force (1973), Pale Rider (1985), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Death Wish 3 (1985), RoboCop (1987) and Die Hard (1988). Most of these could probably be chalked up to the fact that Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson were two of my parents’ favorite actors, thereby gaining plenty of airtime in our household. As for RoboCop and Die Hard: what 11-year-old boy wouldn’t love those? As time passes, I find that my opinion on most of them still holds up: for one reason or another, these are all fundamentally solid films.

Of the group, Death Wish 3 is one of the ones I watched the most, while younger, but have revisited the least as time goes on. As part of my personal film festival, I decided to finally revisit the film, pairing it with the original (if I had access to the second film and hadn’t just watched the fourth a few months back, this would have been the whole quadrilogy). As seen in my previous entry, I found that the original Death Wish (1974) still holds up some forty years later, retaining lots of subtle power among the flying bullets. How, then, would one of my formerly favorite films hold up? Journey behind the curtain and let’s find out.

As far as genre franchises go, the Death Wish series actually tells a continual story, give or take the rather large lapses in time between the first and third entries (8 years). In the first, we were introduced to the character of Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson), a mild-mannered, pacifistic New York City architect who becomes a vigilante after a gang of punks rape his daughter and kill his wife. The second film continues the storyline as Kersey and his daughter, Carol, move to Los Angeles in order to start a new life. After Carol is once again attacked and ends up killing herself, Paul picks up his revolver and hunts down the creeps responsible. By the end of the film, we see Paul all alone, the last of his family gone: the assumption is that he will continue to hunt the streets, cleaning up the criminal element. Since there ended up being a third (and fourth) film, that assumption would be right on the nose.

After some time has passed, “legendary” vigilante Paul Kersey boards a bus and returns to New York City, the place where it all began. He’s on his way to visit an old war buddy, Charley (Francis Drake), but this isn’t the same New York City from a decade before: this is the ’80s, baby, and shit’s bad…real bad. It seems that roving gangs of punks, similar to the creepazoids from Max Max (1979) or Troma’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986), have taken over the city and Paul gets to his friend’s apartment just after the punks have beaten him nearly to death. Charley dies, the cops burst in and Paul is hauled off to the station house for a little good-natured “interrogation.”

Once there, Paul catches the eye of Lt. Shriker (Ed Lauter), who just happened to be a beat cop when Paul went on his initial “cleaning” spree in NYC. Seems that Shriker is fighting a losing battle against the punks on the street and he needs something that his entire police force can’t provide: he needs the “bad guys” to start dying. Shriker knows that Paul used to handle that particular “job” quite handily and offers him a deal: he can return to the streets, killing as many punks, criminals and ’80s metal-heads as he wants, as long as he keeps Shriker in the loop and throws him a few choice busts every so often. When the alternative is a hefty jail sentence, Paul agrees: time to hit the streets, once again.

As Paul wanders the post-Apocalyptic neighborhood outside Charley’s apartment (seriously: the place is like a cross between The Warriors (1979) and Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) on a bad day), he starts to figure out the hierarchy. Seems that Fraker (Gavan O’Herlihy), the platinum-blonde psycho that Paul briefly encountered in lockup, is the ringleader, ruling everything with an iron fist and really sharp knife. With his gang of goons, including The Giggler (Kirk Taylor), The Cuban (Ricco Ross) and Hermosa (Alex Winter), Fraker has the entire neighborhood terrified and paying protection money in order to stay alive. It’s a bad bunch of dudes…but there’s big trouble coming.

Paul also meets the residents of Charley’s apartment building, including Charley’s best friend and fellow war vet, Bennett (Martin Balsam), Manny and Maria Rodriguez (Joseph Gonzalez, Marina Sirtis), Eli and Erica Kaprov (Leo Kharibian, Hana-Maria Pravda) and Mr. and Mrs. Emil (John Gabriel, Mildred Shay). To complete his merry circle of friends, Paul also becomes romantic with Kathryn Davis (Deborah Raffin), the attractive young public defender that he met at the police station. It would all be so lovely, of course, if Fraker wasn’t so dead-set on running Paul out of the neighborhood, one way or the other. In short order, the place becomes an absolute war-zone and death comes to visit them all: it comes for the punks, of course, because Paul is one helluva shot. It also comes for the innocents, of course, because this wouldn’t be Death Wish without a whole lotta revenge. As the body count rises on both sides of the line, one thing remains clear: Kersey ain’t leaving until he’s either outta ammo…or targets.

Right off the bat, there’s absolutely nothing subtle or subtextual about Death Wish 3 whatsoever: this film is all raging id, rampaging from one extreme to the other. Unlike the basically good but ineffectual cops from the first film, every cop in DW3 comes across as a steroid-addled, trigger-happy goon, particularly the incredibly dastardly Lt. Shriker. Hell, he was technically only one twirled mustache away from a Perils of Pauline-era villain. He bashes Paul around, snarls that he could have him killed at any time and punches him square in the face just because it’s “his” jail.

Whereas the punks from the first film weren’t exactly multi-dimensional (Jeff Goldblum’s sneering mug was about as much character development as we got), the gangs in DW3 are completely over-the-top and cartoonish. Many of them do seem to have been lifted wholesale from The Warriors, right down to the odd matching outfits for certain groups within the gang (Gang subgroups? What nightmare of micro-management is this?!) and by the time we get to the finale, where gang members ride around on motorcycles while hurling grenades willy-nilly, it will be pretty impossible to not expect Mad Max to come zooming over the horizon. Fraker is so evil that he easily surpasses Bond villains, winding up somewhere in the neighborhood devoted to Marvel villains.

In many ways, there’s definitely a consistent through-line from the first film to the third: after all, director Michael Winner was on board for the first three films and the overall message (a good man with a gun trumps a bad man with a gun) is unwavering. Where Death Wish was careful to portray both sides of the issue, even if it obviously only gave credence to one side, DW3 dispenses with this facade completely. Paul isn’t on any kind of journey in DW3: he’s already there. While the first film grappled with the disparity between wanting to defend yourself and taking revenge, there’s no question as to what needs to be done by the time the third film opens. If Death Wish and its first sequel could be seen as drama-suspense hybrids, DW3 is almost entirely an action picture. In the first film, Paul has to deal with both the police (polite society) and the criminals: the police didn’t condone his activities, they just ran him out of the city. In the third film, not only do the police condone Kersey’s vigilantism, they actively push him into it. By the time we get to the finale, where Paul and Shriker run down the street, side by side, merrily gunning down anonymous bad guys (the body count in this thing, for the gangs alone, has to be in the mid-hundreds), DW3 is the furthest thing from the original film it could possibly be. The thought-provoking, gut-quaking violence of the first film has been replaced by a Ren and Stimpy-level of carnage that certainly befits most mid-’80s action sequels but makes it impossible to take anything seriously.

Perhaps the biggest issue with the film, however, and one that continually flew over my head as a kid, is the rampant misogyny. Admittedly, the first and second films were precipitated upon the sexual assault of a young woman but they also featured peripheral female characters: in DW3, every single (good) female character is either assaulted or killed. It’s such an obvious part of the film that it’s hard to believe the filmmakers didn’t intend it but it’s unpleasant, nonetheless. ’80s action films were never known for their progressive gender politics, in the best of situations, but the female characters in DW3 all seem doomed from their introductions. When combined with the over-the-top, testosterone-fueled action sequences, the absolute lack of surviving female characters makes this very much a “boys’ club.” To be honest, it’s probably no wonder that this film appealed to me so much as a kid: this movie was pretty much made for boys in their early teens, rating be damned.

And yet, despite its inherent flaws and ham-fisted politics, there something kind of charming about Death Wish 3. The parts that I remembered loving as a kid (blowing away the purse-snatcher, Paul’s ingenious booby traps, Fraker’s delicious villainy) were just as enjoyable this time around. Sure, the film may be full of holes and uses a disturbing amount of fantasy to glide over the rough patches (the cops are nowhere to be found, while everything is blowing up, until they’re needed for the big finale, at which point they all swoop down, en masse: were they all on break or something?) but it also has a gonzo sense of energy and vitality to it. The film looks pretty great, full of rich, vibrant colors and the soundtrack, by Jimmy Page (yep, that Jimmy Page), is pretty awesome: it’s a keyboard-heavy, funky batch of tunes that perfectly evoke the theme songs to various ’80s cop shows…in the best way possible, mind you).

Unlike Death Wish, which operated in shades of gray, Death Wish 3 is very much a black-and-white film: the bad guys are all absolutely bad, the good guys are all absolutely good. Guns are not only good but absolutely necessary. When the law fails you, take measures into your own hands. There’s no room for dialogue or division here: you’re either standing with Paul, shooting at the creeps, or you’re getting shot at…simple as that. When I want to watch something thought-provoking and visceral, I’ll undoubtedly return to the original. When I want to turn my brain off and root for the white hats, however, there’s no doubt that I’ll be returning to Death Wish 3. After all, any film that features a reverse mohawk, giggling purse-snatcher and death by (close-range) rocket launcher can’t be all bad. It was the ’80s, after all.

1/8/14: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Tags

action-adventure, B-movies, Bounty Killer, dark comedies, De Noorderlingen, Dick Maas, Drifter, evil corporations, foreign films, forests, isolated communities, Mad Max, Mary Death, Netherlands, post-Apocalyptic, Road Warrier, sainthood, saints, Stagecoach, The Northerners, Westerns, white collar criminals

Hello, fellow cinematic wanderers! This installment will cover the films that were watched this Wednesday, including a confounding bit of strangeness from the Netherlands and another fun/dumb action/adventure. Saddle up and let’s ride out.

When I was a wee lad, one of my greatest thrills was going to our local video and browsing the stacks for new material. I usually went by the covers (the more gory and outrageous, the better), the stars (anything with Eastwood, Bronson, etc…) and, occasionally, the title itself. I’ve made some wonderful discoveries this way, films that have become like friends to me over the years.

One of the films that I selected based solely on its title was Amsterdamned. C’mon, now: look at the title…Amsterdamned. How could I pass it up? The film was about a wet-suit bedecked serial killer hiding in the canals of Amsterdam, popping out periodically to slay unknowing tourists and quickly became one of my favorite cop/killer stories. Amsterdamned was directed by the wonderfully named Dick Maas, a director/producer that I’ve been following since I first picked up that video tape in the late ’80s. Maas is something of a Netherlands institution, directing twenty-four films and producing another twenty-six since the mid ’70s. As of late, Maas made a pretty good splash with 2010’s Saint (Sint), probably the best evil Santa Claus ever made (sorry, Rare Exports…).

All of this is a long-winded way of getting us to The Northerners (De Noorderlingen). I’ve had my eye on this little curiosity for a while, so imagine my complete surprise and delight when my old buddy Dick Maas’ name turned up as producer in the opening credits. As soon as I saw that, I knew I was in for one helluva ride.

It’s no hyperbole to say that this was, easily, one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen, much closer to a Guy Maddin flick than anything else. The premise is simple, yet almost nightmarish: in the ‘late ’50s, a fancy new housing development is touted as the wave of the future in Holland. One street in the development is built and filled with houses and businesses, while the rest is touted to be coming in 1960. Two years later, the development has been abandoned, leaving only one populated street midst a desolate wasteland. The residents have, likewise, been abandoned to their own devices and lives…extremely strange lives, as it were.

We’re introduced to each of the various families in turn. The film mostly centers around young Thomas and his parents. His father is the perpetually horny “town” butcher: his only hobby appears to be trying unsuccessfully to have sex with his thoroughly turned-off wife. When the butcher persists, nearly to the point of rape, his wife retreats completely into her worship of St. Francis (complete with living St. Francis statue and bird). She begins to starve herself, inching ever closer to sainthood as the town gathers outside their house to worship at her bedside. Poor Thomas retreats into the safety of national news events, dressing up like Lumumba, the Congolese prime minister he sees every night on TV.

We have the local bully, Fat Willie, who lives with his mother and menaces Thomas from atop a ridiculously small bike. Plagge, the town postman, makes a daily habit of retreating to the tiny forest situated near the town, where he reads and burns most of the mail he’s supposed to deliver. Plagge is best friends with Thomas: he assists him in dressing up like Lumumba by playing the legs, as Thomas sits on his shoulders draped in a huge coat. The postman’s arch-enemy is Anton, the town’s authority figure. Anton serves as the local police/fire department/busybody (and, possibly, mayor), which essentially means that he sticks his nose into everyone’s business constantly, despite being unable to make love to his voracious wife.

Into this hearty stew of neuroses is dropped a pair of travelling missionaries and the African native they’ve brought back as a souvenir of sorts. Feeling a primal connection to Lumumba, Thomas frees the native, setting off a chain of events that will lead to murder, sainthood and several different shades of come-uppance. The film manages to tie all of these loose ends into a perfect bow by the end, no mean feat when faced with so much disparate insanity.

The Notherners is one of those films that you’ll either love or hate. Personally, I loved the hushed, almost funereal atmosphere, which bumped up nicely against some almost Jodorowsky-ian touches (the statue of St. Francis coming to life; a strange forest nymph that may or may not be the previously unseen female nose monkey; the increasingly strange behavior of Anton; Martha’s self-saintification). The film is also full of gorgeous static shots and long takes, making it a true pleasure to look at. There’s some truly funny material here, too, although the humor is decidedly pitch black. The film was written and directed by Alex van Warmerdam, who also played the part of the puckish Plagge.

This is a strange film but one that I found myself thinking about more and more after it was over. In the best possible way, Dick Maas has struck again.

As of late, I appear to be in a bit of a B-movie frenzy. We had Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters the other day and now I bring you Bounty Killer. I’ll admit that what originally drew me to this film was the promised storyline of hunting white-collar criminals in a post-apocalyptic landscape. I like nothing more than seeing corporate America get its just desserts, even if only in a movie, so this became a must-see. Luckily, there’s more than concept holding this one together.

Right off the bat, it should be noted that Bounty Killer is a very, very self-aware film. Very. This can become a problem when trying to craft a quality B-picture, since the best Bs weren’t trying to be cult films: they were just born that way. This self-aware tactic, however, worked wonders for Hobo with a Shotgun and the Grindhouse double-bill and, for the most part, works well here. If anything, the best parts of Bounty Killer (and there are many) remind me of Joss Wheadon’s Firefly: just the right balance of modern sass, sarcasm, old West and Mad Max.

The film is pretty simple: in the future, rich corporations have royally fucked over the U.S., left it to burn in the midst of armed “brand wars” and absconded with all of the money. To combat this, a council of nine arises and charges a group of highly trained killers with the task of finding and bringing these miscreants to justice. These Bounty Killers track down the suit-and-tie misanthropes, delete them from the earth in various blood-drenched ways and receive fat paychecks from the council. They are also the only thing to pass for celebrities or heroes in the burned out world they exist in.

Enter Drifter and Mary Death, two of the best BKs. They end up going on a mission to bring down the Yellow Ties, the leading white collar gang. As can be expected, much blood is spilled, many pithy quips are quipped, loyalties are tested, betrayals are had and the hope of our future rests on their mighty shoulders.

Despite going into this expecting to turn my brain completely off, I found that I only had to cut it to 50% power. Bounty Killer, despite all appearances, is actually a pretty savvy, clever film. In fact, certain sequences like the “stagecoach” composed of a VW bus pulled by a team of motorcycles and the inspired title sequence are absolutely genius, possessing a truly bezerk sense of energy. Other sequences (the obligatory training sequence, almost any scene that Mary Death has to carry by herself) have the unfortunate feel of filler, spinning their wheels until the next big action sequence.

And what sequences they are! Splitting the difference between spaghetti western and post-apocalyptic survival tale (the box art calls this “The Road Warrior meets Kill Bill” and that’s pretty accurate), the fights are truly something to behold, especially the aforementioned stagecoach bit and the absolutely thrilling final battle. The film generally looks pretty good, too, with only a few moments falling prey to overly glossy CG effects.

All in all, this was a really fun film. The acting was suitable, the action was outstanding, the gore was surprising (there were at least three points where I found myself saying “Wow” under my breath) and the sense of humor was strong. Plus, you get a surprise appearance from one of the most genuinely insane actors in Hollywood. I won’t tell you who it is but you might just make lemonade in your pants when you find out.