FREE FIRE (UK - 2017) Directed by Ben Wheatley. Written by Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley. Cast: Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Jack Reynor, Sam Riley, Michael Smiley, Noah Taylor, Patrick Bergin, Babou Ceesay, Enzo Cilenti, Tom Davis, Mark Monero. (R, 90 mins) A critical and fan favorite who's received so many accolades that he's in danger of becoming the British Ti West, Ben Wheatley has what it takes to be major voice in genre filmmaking and he's been endorsed by the esteemed likes of Martin Scorsese and Edgar Wright. But other than two standout films--2012's beyond misanthropic black comedy SIGHTSEERS and 2013's profoundly unsettling A FIELD IN ENGLAND--the results have been mixed at best. I never understood the critical acclaim and scenester love for his 2011 breakthrough KILL LIST, a film that can only knock you on your ass or even surprise you in the slightest if you're a serious, well-versed film connoisseur who's somehow never heard of THE WICKER MAN. Last year's HIGH-RISE gave Wheatley his largest budget and biggest-name cast yet, but his adaptation of J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel, with its Margaret Thatcher premonitions and themes and ideas seen in so many subsequent things over time, seemed in 2016 like little more than a nice-looking exercise in production design and pointless retro '70s fetishism. With his latest film FREE FIRE, which gets a cosmetic cred boost from an executive producer credit for A FIELD IN ENGLAND fan Scorsese, Wheatley and his wife and regular screenwriting partner Amy Jump offer their take on the 1990s staple of the post-Tarantino crime flick, combined with some retro '70s leftovers from HIGH-RISE.
In 1978 Boston, Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Wheatley regular Michael Smiley) are two IRA members in town to buy guns with the help of local small-time criminals Justine (ROOM Oscar-winner Brie Larson), Bernie (Enzo Cilenti) and Frank's idiot nephew Stevo (Sam Riley). They're all greeted outside an abandoned factory by the sardonic Ord (Armie Hammer), who arranged a meet with South African arms dealer and "international asshole" Vernon (Sharlto Copley) and his associates Martin (Babou Ceesay), Gordon (Noah Taylor), and Harry (Jack Reynor). Stevo, bruised and battered from a fight he got into the night before after smashing a bottle over a woman's head and being beaten by her cousin, recognizes Harry as that cousin and tries to keep a distance from the negotiations, which are going south when Chris discovers Vernon, aka "Vern & Learn," didn't bring the weapons he ordered, instead trying to push lesser inventory off on him. Tensions escalate but Ord helps cool things down until everything blows up when Harry recognizes Stevo. Pushing and shoving leads to a forced apology from Stevo, but when he ends up boasting about what he did to Harry's cousin, Harry grabs a gun and shoots him, which sends various parties scattering about the main area of the factory as a feature-length gunfight erupts, with the added bonus of two hidden snipers--Howie (Patrick Bergin sighting!) and Jimmy (Mark Monero)--trying to pick off members of both groups for the mystery figure who hired them to abscond with both the guns and the money.
After a 15-minute set-up that includes CCR's "Run Through the Jungle"--apparently now required to be in every Brie Larson movie--being played as the characters walk through the warehouse, FREE FIRE is essentially a 75-minute version of the RESERVOIR DOGS standoff, which is amusing for a few minutes until it devolves into tedium. These buffoons are the worst shots in the history of gunfights, never killing anyone and mainly just clipping arms, legs, and shoulders, sometimes with the help of a ricocheting bullet, and before long everyone's just crawling around trying to get the edge on everyone else. This also leads to a lot of "Fuck you! No, fuck you! Gimme the money! Fuck you!" ad nauseum. It says a lot about the utter obnoxiousness of this character ensemble when Sharlto Copley is playing maybe the third-most annoying of the bunch. Top honors go to Riley's Stevo and Reynor's Harry. Murphy's Chris and Larson's Justine (this was shot two years ago, before ROOM was released) are the most reasonable and tolerable of the criminals, while Hammer's smirking, smartass Ord is obviously meant to be the source of quips that aren't nearly as quotable as Jump and Wheatley think they are.
There's a great '70s Ennio Morricone-goes-prog original score by EX MACHINA composers Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, a few funny lines that land and a couple of inspired gags--one involving Vernon completely engulfed in flames and using a fire extinguisher on himself, the other involving a van running over a guy's head and splattering it flat while an 8-track blares John Denver's "Annie's Song" from its radio, maybe the most jarringly incongruous use of a song accompanying horrific violence this side of the scalding LAYER CAKE beatdown set to Duran Duran's "Ordinary World"--but FREE FIRE doesn't really have enough to it to sustain even a 90-minute film. It's a throwback to Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS and Guy Ritchie's LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, with a little of Troy Duffy's cult classic THE BOONDOCK SAINTS with its Boston setting, but in the end, FREE FIRE isn't even on the level of a latecomer like Joe Carnahan's SMOKIN' ACES. It's fine that Wheatley holds those films on a pedestal, but he doesn't really do anything to justify FREE FIRE's existence. It's perfectly watchable and will probably be a Netflix and cable favorite for the next two decades that you end up watching because you can never remember until halfway through that you've already seen it, but it's still a prefab cult movie that doesn't understand cult cred is earned and not instantly granted just because of kitschy music and references to shoulder pads and 8-track tapes. Plus, Wheatley falls into the same trap Duffy did on the lackluster BOONDOCK SAINTS II, mistaking "insufferable assholes yelling and shouting" for "funny."
Nominated for 2016's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (it lost to Asghar Farhadi's THE SALESMAN), TONI ERDMANN was one of the most critically-praised arthouse titles of last year. The third film from acclaimed German writer/director Maren Ade, and her first since 2009's EVERYONE ELSE, TONI ERDMANN has some amusing moments, heartfelt observations, and fine performances from its two leads, but at an absurdly bloated 162 minutes, there's simply too much of it, as Ade obviously loved everything she shot so much that she wasn't willing to part with any of it. Winfried Conradi (Austrian actor Peter Simonischek) is a retired, widower music teacher and an affable eccentric, an incessant prankster who's introduced answering the door for a package and telling the delivery driver it was ordered by his brother, who's just been paroled from prison where he was serving time for sending mail bombs. He excuses himself to get his brother, who's revealed to just be Winfried in a different robe, with a wig and fake teeth. The set of fake teeth is his go-to prop, and when his beloved, elderly, and blind dog Willi dies, Winfried is sure to take them with him to Bucharest, where he drops in for an unannounced visit with his daughter Ines (Sandra Huller, so memorable in 2006's REQUIEM). Ines is a consultant for firm dealing in oil export, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that her goofball dad gets in the way despite her insistence that he keep his silliness at a distance. Winfried is a free spirit who wants to enjoy the moments as they happen and not take life so seriously. He tries to pass this philosophy on to Ines, but she's only focused on her work, and the two have a falling out ("Do you have any plans in life other than slipping fart cushions under people?") after she misses an important meeting because she dozed off and Winfried didn't wake her.
That's the first hour of TONI ERDMANN. There's a lot of insider talk about the corporate world and how the structure is such that Ines has to work twice as hard as her male counterparts to make an impression, and even after she delivers a presentation to her boss Henneberg (Michael Wittenborn), he concludes the meeting with "Well, gents," choosing only to address the men in the room. Ade makes salient points like this, but belabors them. It's roughly 65 minutes in before we finally meet "Toni Erdmann," who shows up at a bar where Ines is having drinks with two female colleagues. "Toni" is clearly Winfried in his most grandiose prank yet, with a shaggy black wig and those same fake teeth, the Tony Clifton to his Andy Kaufman, claiming to be a life coach visiting Bucharest for the funeral of his Italian dentist friend's turtle. This kind of absurdist humor provides the highlights of TONI ERDMANN, but these moments are too sporadic. As "Toni," Winfried keeps following Ines around, meddling in her work life, eventually working his way into her office to act as a life coach for Henneborg and later trying to pass himself off as the German ambassador to Romania. Ade eventually caves to shock comedy with a pair of much-talked about scenes that really aren't that funny: one in a hotel room where Ines denies sex to workplace friend-with-benefits Tim (Trystan Putter), forcing him to masturbate and ejaculate on to a tray of petits four brought up by room service, after which she scarfs down one of the semen-covered appetizers. The other is the impromptu "naked party" sequence that was hailed as a set piece of Blake Edwards-ian genius but is really just awkward, uncomfortable, and not funny, especially when Winfried crashes it wearing a Bulgarian kukeri costume. Of course, it goes for sentiment at the end when father and daughter reach an understanding, but should it have taken a meandering and punishing two hours and 40 minutes to get there? TONI ERDMANN has already been deemed a modern classic, and yeah, there's some big laughs scattered throughout, Huller has a great incredulous, deadpan glare and convincingly belts out an impressive version of Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All," and Simonischek often demonstrates a kind of Peter Sellers-meets-Sasha Baron Cohen quality with his endless antics (though his "Toni Erdmann" get-up really looks a lot like the late, great Alan Bates). With a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I'm obviously in the minority by not adoring this film, but by the two-hour point, part of me was hoping Winfried would choke to death on those goddamn fake teeth the next time he slipped them into his mouth with an impish grin. A Hollywood remake is already in the works, with Kristen Wiig and Jack Nicholson in his first film since 2010's HOW DO YOU KNOW? (R, 162 mins)
WAR ON EVERYONE (UK/UAE - 2016; 2017 US release)
An equal opportunity offender, the aptly-titled WAR ON EVERYONE is a bile-soaked, misanthropic screed of a buddy/cop movie from Irish writer/director John Michael McDonagh (THE GUARD, CALVARY). The story centers on two outrageously dirty cops running rampant in Albuquerque, New Mexico: brainy and philosophical Bob Bolano (Michael Pena) and impulsive anger management case Terry Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard). Sort of like a well-dressed STARSKY AND HUTCH filtered through BAD LIEUTENANT, Bolano and Monroe are introduced deliberately running over a mime and telling a witness that they can get away with because they're cops. They've just been taken off suspension by the perpetually flustered Lt. Stanton (Paul Reiser) after allegations of bribery and corruption and an unfortunate incident involving Bolano beating the shit out of a racist colleague who called him a "wetback," with Stanton explaining "This is the police department! We're surrounded by racist pigs!" but empathizing by explaining "I get it that he's racist...I understand. I'm married to a chink. I have chink kids." That's WAR ON EVERYONE in a nutshell: a feature-length trigger warning that wallows in cheap shots not just at Asians, but at African-Americans, homosexuals, transgender, Muslims, Quakers, dyslexics, overweight kids, people with MS, bad British teeth, the mentally ill, Stephen Hawking, and the Irish, just to show McDonagh's not excluding anyone. Much of it is admittedly funny in a "Did they just go there?" kind-of way, but WAR ON EVERYONE's convoluted plot feels like a half-baked rough draft that Shane Black scribbled out and would've tossed aside until he could devote his full attention to it. After framing an informant named Reggie X (Malcolm Barrett) with drug possession, Reggie coughs up some info: he was the getaway driver for a $1 million racetrack heist orchestrated by sleazy, heroin-addicted British dignitary Lord James Mangan (Theo James). After numerous run-ins with Mangan and his fey underling, strip club manager Russell Birdwell (Caleb Landry Jones as old-school Crispin Glover), Bolano and Monroe plot to steal the racetrack take for themselves which, naturally, leaves a trail of corpses all over Albuquerque.
There's also time for Monroe to have a romance with stripper Jackie (Tessa Thompson of CREED), and for him to find the caring soul within when it comes to Danny (Zion Leyba), a nice kid whose mother's been arrested for killing his father for reasons that are deliberately left obscure but, of course, will tie into the main plot much later. There's a lot in WAR ON EVERYONE that's amusing, but too much of it is just posturing attitude and characters saying things just to see how offensive the film can get. Elsewhere, McDonagh (the older brother of IN BRUGES writer/director Martin McDonagh) tries too hard to do some post-Tarantino pop culture riffing, with Monroe being an obsessive Glen Campbell fanatic (there's a Monroe/Jackie dance number set to "Rhinestone Cowboy"), Bolano and Reggie griping that "you can't see Jennifer Lopez's tits" in OUT OF SIGHT, and Monroe trying to recall if the first movie he ever saw was THE BLUE LAGOON or DOC SAVAGE: MAN OF BRONZE. There's scattered moments where WAR ON EVERYONE gets some momentum going and scores an occasional sterling bit of quotable dialogue ("European jizz?"), and James (the DIVERGENT series) makes a truly loathsome villain, but McDonagh probably should've given his script another polish before rolling the cameras. (R, 98 mins)
TANK 432 (UK - 2016)
There's a strong sense of the familiar with TANK 432. It's produced by cult filmmaker Ben Wheatley (KILL LIST, HIGH-RISE, the upcoming FREE FIRE), and it's the feature writing/directing debut of protege Nick Gillespie, who's served as a camera operator on all of Wheatley's films. The plot begins with faint echoes of Neal Marshall's DOG SOLDIERS before becoming something more surreal and psychological and by the end, it feels like a longer-than-usual episode of BLACK MIRROR, something that's probably inevitable in UK genre fare given the show's popularity and fervent following. An enemy is closing in on a team of mercenaries led by blustery, barking Smith (Gordon Kennedy), who orders everyone to retreat and leave injured Capper (Wheatley semi-regular Michael Smiley) behind with a bone jutting out of his leg. Smith has two hooded prisoners in orange jumpsuits and they pick up another tag-along in an unnamed woman (Alex March), who they find in utter hysterics until she's sedated by medic Karlsson (Deirdre Mullins). The squad is rounded out by unstable Gantz (Steve Garry), who's already seeing flashing visions of a barely-discernible creature following them, and requisite voice-of-reason Reeves (Rupert Evans, of Amazon's THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE), who's struggling to hold it together. After finding several headless bodies of decapitated mercenaries in a barn, Smith leads everyone--minus one of the two prisoners who's killed a scuffle, leaving only Annabella (April Pearson) as the recovered quarry in their unspecified assignment--to an abandoned tank in the middle of an empty field. Deciding it's the safest place to take refuge from whatever is pursuing them, they all pile into its cramped, claustrophobic confines.
It isn't long before everyone's sanity starts to crumble, especially once they're inside and the only door in or out is jammed and no one can pry it open. Whatever's after them taunts them from outside, clanging and banging on the tank. Gantz unsuccessfully tries to start the tank, shits himself, and goes catatonic after being exposed to a strange orange powder. And Karlsson finds a box filled with files--on each of them. Too much of TANK 432 is just everyone shouting at one another, and Gillespie tips his hand too early with constant shots of Smith eyeballing everyone, scribbling in a notebook, and being evasive whenever anyone asks what he's writing, making it fairly obvious that things aren't what they seem, there's some kind of secret, and that Smith is on it. When that secret is finally revealed, it's hardly worth the elaborate and shouty buildup. Gillespie does a decent job establishing a tense atmosphere early on, but the film eventually grows tedious, and by the time Capper improbably reappears, Gillespie and Wheatley just let their buddy Smiley run rampant, ranting and yelling and basically hijacking the climax. (Unrated, 88 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
HIGH-RISE (UK/Ireland/Belgium - 2016) Directed by Ben Wheatley. Written by Amy Jump. Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, James Purefoy, Keeley Hawes, Bill Paterson, Peter Ferdinando, Sienna Guillory, Reece Shearsmith, Stacy Martin, Augustus Prew, Tony Way, Enzo Cilenti, Dan Skinner, Louis Suc, Neil Maskell. (R, 119 mins) Producer Jeremy Thomas has tried to put together an adaptation of J.G. Ballard's novel High-Rise since it was first published in 1975. Though regarded as unfilmable, it nearly came to be in the late '70s with director Nicolas Roeg and screenwriter Paul Mayersberg intending it to be their next film after 1976's THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH. That never happened, nor did any other attempt, and the closest anyone got prior to now was when CUBE director Vincenzo Natali nearly got the greenlight in the early 2000s. It took 40 years, but Thomas finally got HIGH-RISE made, with acclaimed British cult filmmaker Ben Wheatley at the helm, working from a script by his wife and writing partner Amy Jump. Wheatley has acquired a cult following with the overrated WICKER MAN knockoff KILL LIST, the dark comedy SIGHTSEERS, and the unnerving A FIELD IN ENGLAND, but HIGH-RISE is his most ambitious project yet, working with his biggest budget and largest, most prestigious ensemble cast yet.
Combining the coldness of David Cronenberg (whose controversial 1996 film CRASH was based on the Ballard novel of the same name) with the absurdist black comedy of Terry Gilliam, HIGH-RISE is ultimately done in by a too-lengthy delay between the publication of its source novel and its eventual big-screen adaptation. Had Roeg and Mayersberg made this in 1977, it likely would've been prophetically visionary and as highly regarded as THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH But now, in 2016, it's exhaustingly heavy-handed, hammering its points over the audience's head again and again, and even ending with a Margaret Thatcher soundbite just in case the themes of class struggle and the haves ruling the have-nots wasn't quite hammered home for the preceding two hours trip into the hellhole of dystopia and capitalism run amok. Med school instructor Robert Laine (Tom Hiddleston, in a role that would've been perfect for David Bowie had Roeg had his shot at this way back when) moves into the 25th floor of a Jenga-esque 40-story high-rise tower block. The swingin' 70s are here in all their glory, as Laine quickly hops into bed with sexually liberated single mom Charlotte (Sienna Miller), and the residents of the high-rise form a very insulated community with every convenience--a gym, pool, 15th floor grocery store--readily available. The not-very-subtly-named Royal (Jeremy Irons), the building's architect, lives in the top floor penthouse, and when problems start arising--priorities for supply deliveries going to the wealthy one-percenters on the top floors and the lower class near the bottom being plagued by frequent power outages--he dismisses it as "teething" and "the building settling in." Disgruntled, philandering TV documentarian Wilder (Luke Evans) lives on one of the lower floors with his very pregnant wife Helen (Elisabeth Moss) and several kids, and eventually leads a revolt against the rich and powerful in the high-rise. Soon, all sense of order disintegrates as the high-rise becomes both the entire world of its occupants and a microcosm (SYMBOLISM!) of societal inequality and injustice: garbage piles up, food molds, and it's kill or be killed as life metamorphoses into a visceral orgy of rage, violence, hate-fucking, and all manner of degradation, debauchery, and destruction.
This feels a lot like SNOWPIERCER in a skyscraper, from the class struggle motif to Wilder's making his way to the top of the building, all the way to one character admonishing Laine to "know your place." Sure, in retrospect, it looks like SNOWPIERCER--and other movies--co-opted a lot of Ballard's ideas, and that's not the fault of the filmmakers here, but it doesn't do this belated adaptation any favors. It's also reminiscent of a somewhat less abrasive BLINDNESS, though Wheatley and Jump do keep the unpleasantness to a minimum, mostly implying it except for a few examples of shock value shots and dialogue (Royal to Laine, during a game of squash: "By the way, I hear you're fucking 374...she has a tight cunt as I recall"). Laine is the relative "everyman" audience surrogate, a successful career man who lives in the middle of the building and is comfortable screwing third-floor Charlotte and hobnobbing with penthouse Royal and other near-the-top residents, like sneering, asshole gynecologist Pangbourne (James Purefoy). Royal, the Trump of the high-rise if you want a present-day analogy, speaks of the building as both a living, breathing entity and as a symbol of society. It's all rather facile and obvious, though again, it could've been the angry FIGHT CLUB of its day had it been made 40 years ago. Whatever ham-fisted conclusions there are to draw from the events in HIGH-RISE have already been made decades ago. Wheatley scores some points for the film's retro-future look that ties in perfectly with Laine's observation that it "looks like a future that had already happened," and trippy, early '70s prog tunes by Amon Duul and Can, and a Portishead cover of ABBA's "S.O.S." provide a lot of atmosphere, but HIGH-RISE is repetitive, dated, and eventually oppressive. The filmmakers swing for the fences and get a few hits, but it goes on forever and you'll be ready for it to end long before it finally does.
Directed by Ben Wheatley. Written by Amy Jump. Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Michael Smiley, Peter Ferdinando, Richard Glover, Ryan Pope, Julian Barratt. (Unrated, 90 mins)
With his working-class, financially-strapped characters and his "kitchen sink" aesthetics, British filmmaker Ben Wheatley is frequently described as the Ken Loach or Mike Leigh of horror cinema. Wheatley established a name for himself with his second feature, KILL LIST (2011), which found much praise in cult horror circles but suffered from a young filmmaker too eager to show his hand, thus dampening what he thought was a shocker of a twist ending when in fact, any horror fan worth their salt should've seen it coming 20 minutes into the movie. While KILL LIST could've used some work on the writing end, it was extremely well-made, and Wheatley's next film, SIGHTSEERS (2012), a deadpan black comedy about the world's dullest couple on a serial-killing road trip, was a significant improvement, though some of that may be due to it being written by others. Wheatley's usual writing collaborator is his wife Amy Jump, and she gets sole writing credit for Wheatley's latest film, A FIELD IN ENGLAND, released in the UK last summer but just now arriving in the US, complete with a glowing recommendation from none other than Martin Scorsese.
The kind of film for people who found Nicolas Winding Refn's VALHALLA RISING a little too mainstream, fast-paced, and audience-friendly, A FIELD IN ENGLAND is a departure from Wheatley's usual downtrodden killers and miscreants in bleak surroundings, a psychedelic, mind-altering period piece set in 1648 at the time of the English Civil War--Cromwell is invoked at one point--that could almost be titled VALHALLA TRIPPING. Opening at the conclusion of an offscreen battle, alchemist's assistant Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) meets a trio of deserters--Jacob (Peter Ferdinando of the Brit cult film TONY), Friend (Richard Glover), and Cutler (Ryan Pope)--and the four make camp in a field as Cutler prepares soup with some mushrooms found in the vicinity. From that moment on, nothing is as it seems as a rope appears as the men seem to engage in a one-sided game of tug-of-war. Materializing at the end of the rope is O'Neil (Michael Smiley, looking like Vincent Price in WITCHFINDER GENERAL), a renegade alchemist who was being hunted by Whitehead. O'Neil has other plans, turning the tables on the four men and forcing them to dig in the field for an alleged buried treasure. Before long, the men are turning on each other, Friend is killed but resurrected, and all are haunted by visions of a black, pulsating sun--even Whitehead, who didn't even eat any of Cutler's soup.
The film opens with a warning that it contains flashing images and stroboscopic sequences, and that's when all hell breaks loose near the finale as O'Neil's psychological grip on the men reaches its apex. It's basically the kind of trippy visuals where any random shot could be freeze-framed and used as a '70s prog rock album cover. Wheatley and Jump are never explicitly clear on anything, but there's obviously some other world/other dimension stuff going on, and classical "death/rebirth" mythic elements. Witness the fact that O'Neil doesn't appear until they've ingested the mushrooms, but it almost feels as if they're "pulling" him from another place during the tug-of-war sequence--or perhaps he's pulling them. Either way, A FIELD IN ENGLAND has "midnight movie" written all over it, like it's gunning to be the EL TOPO of the streaming generation (there's some pretty clear Jodorowsky worship going on in the closing scenes). Shot in black and white, there's no shortage of visually stunning moments, with Wheatley and usual cinematographer Laurie Rose using every bit of the 2.35 frame to maximize the vastness of the field and its simultaneous feeling of trapped claustrophobia. Some of the character arcs are interesting, especially the spineless, cowardly Whitehead's transformation into a badass, earning the respect of the initially dismissive Jacob. Shearsmith runs the gamut of emotions here, the high point being a scene of sustained offscreen screaming followed by a "rebirth" of sorts, emerging from a tent with the most disturbing, almost demonic facial expression you'll ever see. It's a long shot that Wheatley lets play out in slow motion, and it's unforgettable.
There's a whole subgenre of films whose biggest fans insist "You gotta be stoned to get it," and A FIELD IN ENGLAND falls into that...not that I agree with that assessment, but this is that kind of movie. Like VALHALLA RISING, it's an acquired taste (and VALHALLA really is an accessible crowd-pleaser compared to this), and for every person who loves it, there'll be one who loathes it. I wouldn't call it a great film, but I admire its audacity and its individuality. It refuses to be labeled and with every shot, you can tell Wheatley is making the film he wanted to make. By design, it doesn't fully come together on a narrative level (though this is probably a case where layers reveal themselves on repeat viewings), and even with a pace that makes you feel like you took some Slo-Mo from DREDD, Wheatley's enthusiasm and stylish direction shine through. I'm still not ready to anoint him a master of horror, primarily because I'm just not sold on all the KILL LIST love. I still think SIGHTSEERS is his best work thus far, but there's a bold ambition to A FIELD IN ENGLAND that can't be ignored, regardless of your feelings about it. It's such a radical change in style and tone from his past work that I'm wondering if even Ben Wheatley is sick of the Ben Wheatley hype (though it did get him the sweet gig of helming the first two episodes of the Peter Capaldi incarnation of DOCTOR WHO and he's doing the upcoming HBO series SILK ROAD). With shout-outs to the likes of Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ingmar Bergman, and Bela Tarr, A FIELD IN ENGLAND is bound to be a divisive film that provokes as many declarations of brilliance as it does sighs of "What a pretentious asshole," but that's likely the intent.
As found-footage continues its status as the horror subgenre that refuses to die, largely because it's cheap to produce and it's a way for young filmmakers to get their feet wet, it can also function as a last-ditch place for long-established filmmakers to run when they find themselves in a career rut. It worked surprisingly well for Barry Levinson with THE BAY, and now DIE HARD 2 and CLIFFHANGER director Renny Harlin, who hasn't had a hit since 1999's DEEP BLUE SEA, as he belatedly hops on the bandwagon with the barely-released DEVIL'S PASS. Written by reality TV vet Vikram Weet (whose production associate credits include THE REAL WORLD and KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS), the film ostensibly tries to get to the truth behind the mysterious Dyatlov Pass Incident, which took place in the mountains of northern Russia in 1959. Nine mountain climbers were found frozen to death, many displaying inexplicable injuries like severed tongues and crushed chest cavities with no exterior bruising, and one had an exceedingly high amount of radiation. The official word from the Russian government was hypothermia, but there's long been conspiracy theories about everything from UFOs to nuclear testing to a yeti attack. University of Oregon psych student Holly (Holly Goss) has been obsessed with the case for much of her life, and gets a grant to shoot a documentary where she attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery. Joining her on the project are her platonic friend and cameraman/conspiracy theorist Jensen (Matt Stokoe), sound operator Denise (Gemma Atkinson), and experienced guides JP (Luke Albright) and Andy (Ryan Hawley).
For about 2/3 of its running time, DEVIL'S PASS is on the high end of the found-footage genre. The characters aren't too irritating, Harlin stays fairly consistent with the camera work, and the frozen, desolate surroundings are always effective for horror films. There's a couple of brief glimpses of figures lingering in the snowy background, and strange footprints start appearing near their camp. JP and Andy think Holly is playing games, but of course she isn't. The film only starts stumbling when it busts out the night-vision and the requisite "running around screaming with a shaky cam," gets sloppy with the consistency of the camera operation, the dialogue starts to sound a little too scripted, and Harlin and Weet start piling on everything from alien abductions, psychic and paranormal phenomena, wormholes and teleportation, time travel, the Philadelphia Experiment, and even the Mothman. It's not for nothing that JP is seen reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five at one point. It almost threatens to turn itself into a found-footage take on THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, but Harlin eventually buckles down for a twist ending that's goofy but mostly works. Just don't expect any serious examination of the Dyatlov Pass Incident and you'll be reasonably entertained. There are some undeniably chilling moments throughout, but it's getting difficult at this point to get excited about anything related to found-footage. (R, 100 mins)
ALIEN UPRISING isn't very good, but it would be a bit better if Burns had a more competent star than Bree, a beautiful but astonishingly inept actress whose presence is likely a contractual demand to secure the guest-star participation of her father: Jean-Claude Van Damme. JCVD has put his daughter and son Kristopher Van Varenberg in most of his own recent films (Kristopher sits this one out), but Bree has never had this much screen time before. But this isn't really a Van Damme vehicle: he appears in a couple of two-second cutaways early on and isn't properly introduced until around 75 minutes in, exiting approximately 12 minutes later. He's sleepwalking through his one day on the set and is just here for distribution value and to get his daughter a leading role, and while I'm sure he loves his little girl like any dad would, Bree is just absolutely god-awful. Brosnan, on the other hand, has enough of his old man's screen presence that he could probably have a future in DTV actioners. If Burns can nix the shaky-cam and deliver a sci-fi action flick that pairs up JCVD and young Brosnan, he might have something. (R, 101 mins)
SIGHTSEERS (France/UK - 2012/2013 US release)
The third effort by British filmmaker Ben Wheatley (DOWN TERRACE, KILL LIST) is a misanthropic, absurdist road movie/black comedy that almost plays like Mike Leigh remaking NATURAL BORN KILLERS. The humor is of the darkest sort and most of the laughs come from discomfort as awkward, sheltered, mom-jeans-wearing Tina (Alice Lowe) is 34 and lives with her controlling mum (Eileen Davies), who won't let her forget about a freak knitting accident that resulted in the death of her beloved dog ("It was an accident!" Tina pleads. "So were you," Mum replies). Tina has just started dating affable caravanner Chris (Steve Oram), an alleged writer who wants to take his "muse" on an "erotic journey" as they hit the road for inspiration for his latest book. On a tour bus, Chris gets irate with a litterer and later, accidentally backs over the guy, killing him. Tina is horrified and Chris tries to shield her eyes from the gory sight, but the grin of satisfaction on his face tells us there might be more in store than an erotic journey. Yes, Chris is a serial killer who mainly takes out people who piss him off, like a successful writer he pushes off a cliff (and steals his dog to give to Tina), or a guy who yells at Tina in a park after the dog defecates and she has nothing with which to pick it up. Tina finds the killing a turn-on, but when she tries it herself, it puts a strain on the relationship, as does Chris' man-crush on a bicyclist (Richard Glover) they meet on the road. Executive produced by Edgar Wright and written by Lowe and Oram, along with Wheatley's KILL LIST co-writer Amy Jump, SIGHTSEERS is decidedly not for all tastes with its morbid, deadpan humor and moments of comically over-the-top gore, but if you appreciate this sort of thing, it's a worthwhile film, an often subtly, grimly hilarious study of two lonely, murderous souls lucky enough to find one another. It also shows Wheatley coming into his own after the inexplicable acclaim bestowed on KILL LIST, which was very well-made but had a plot that was stale and predictable, a WICKER MAN retread with the filmmaker telegraphing the twists far too early. SIGHTSEERS is a major improvement. (Unrated, 88 mins)
