Opened 40 Years Ago: BLOW OUT (7/24/1981)

 

BLOW OUT opening in Toledo, OH on 7/24/1981

In Theaters/On VOD: DOMINO (2019)

DOMINO
(Denmark/Belgium/Netherlands/Italy/
UK/France/Spain - 2019)

Directed by Brian De Palma. Written by Petter Skavlan. Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Carice van Houten, Guy Pearce, Eriq Ebouaney, Mohammed Azaay, Soren Malling, Paprika Steen, Thomas W. Gabrielsson, Emrin Dalgic, Illias Adabb, Helena Kaittani. (R, 89 mins)

As anyone who saw George A. Romero's final film SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, or John Carpenter's last film to date, THE WARD, or Warren Beatty's RULES DON'T APPLY, or nearly everything Dario Argento's done for the last 25 or so years, or observed the multi-decade downfall of Tobe Hooper can attest, great filmmakers often lose their way as time goes on. It can be due to a variety of reasons--from getting stuck with journeymen gigs, to an inability to get the financing they need to do the projects they want, or simply losing their mojo and coasting on their reputation and name value (or, in Beatty's specific case, being away from the game for too many years). With the exception of 2007's REDACTED, his unsuccessful attempt to replicate CASUALTIES OF WAR in an Iraq War setting, the legendary Brian De Palma has been bankrolled almost entirely by foreign backers since 2002's French-produced FEMME FATALE. There was a time in the early '80s--that incredible streak of DRESSED TO KILL, BLOW OUT, SCARFACE, and BODY DOUBLE--when De Palma, one of the most visionary and stylish American filmmakers of his generation, was absolutely on fire. His dazzling, hypnotic set pieces, the split-screens, and the intricate timing and choreography were uniquely his own even as he constantly paid tribute to Hitchcock. He also demonstrated an ability to handle commercial hits like THE UNTOUCHABLES and the first installment of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE franchise. Now 78, De Palma works sporadically enough these days that each new film still qualifies as legitimate event for those disciples who've followed his career dating back to the late '60s (and if you haven't seen Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow's 2016 documentary DE PALMA, you must). DOMINO, a seven-country co-production and De Palma's first film since 2013's PASSION, was shot back in 2017 and is only now getting a stealth VOD burial from US distributor Lionsgate. This comes a couple months after the trailer went online, prompting De Palma to disown the released version, which he claims was taken from him by the film's Danish financiers--the primary backers of the project--who cut it from 148 minutes down to a bare-bones 89. De Palma's name is still on the film, though other than a few scattered deployments of his signature split diopter shots--which everyone does now in homage to him--the severely-compromised DOMINO never feels like a De Palma film until the climax, and even that is so gutted and badly-assembled that it plays more like someone trying to rip off De Palma and blowing it.

Set for no reason whatsoever in "June of 2020" and headlined by two GAME OF THRONES stars (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Carice van Houten), DOMINO was intended to be a topical thriller addressing issues in the war on terror and government surveillance, but in its current state, it's just another run-of-the-mill VOD thriller that's completely devoid of suspense and almost all sense of its maker's style. Coster-Waldau is Christian Toft, a Copenhagen detective and recovering alcoholic whose absent-mindedness (he left his gun at home) leads to his partner Lars Hansen (Soren Malling) having his throat slashed by a suspect during a botched arrest and falling into a coma. The suspect is Libyan immigrant Ezra Tarzi (Eriq Ebouaney, memorable as "Black Tie" in FEMME FATALE), who was trying to escape an apartment building where he just tortured and killed Farooq Hares (Emrin Dalgic), a member of ISIS who was stockpiling guns and military-grade explosives. After a strangely unexciting chase along steep rooftops with loose clay shingles (during which Toft loses the gun Hansen let him borrow) that finds both men falling into a convenient vegetable cart on the street below, Tarzi is whisked away by a crew of CIA mystery men led by smirking agent Joe Martin (Guy Pearce). Martin is after ISIS leader Salah Al-din (Mohammed Azaay), who's also the man who executed Tarzi's father. This prompts the CIA to form an unholy alliance with Tarzi as Martin gives him a new identity as a Jordanian diplomat with instructions to terminate Al-din. Meanwhile, Toft is assigned a new partner in Alex Boe (van Houten) as the two hunt down Tarzi and end up on a globe-trotting trek throughout Europe, as the search for Tarzi and Al-din dovetails, leading all parties to Spain where ISIS is hiding in plain sight under the auspices of a tomato distribution company, with a team of suicide bombers plotting to take out an Almeria arena during a bullfighting event.

Even with the closing credits rolling at the 82-minute mark (and misspelling Coster-Waldau's co-producer credit as "Nicolaj Coster-Waldau" after spelling his acting credit correctly), DOMINO is a laborious, convoluted slog that never manages to catch fire. Some of this is obviously due to it losing an hour of its running time and the effect that had on its storytelling rhythms and any kind of characterization or nuance, essentially reducing it to something that could pass as a lesser Jean-Claude Van Damme outing. But even taking that into consideration, this has the look and feel of the kind of cheap, made-for-cable TV series that you'd see in late-night syndication in the '90s. De Palma's bravura style is instantly recognizable even in his hired-gun gigs, but for all he brings to this, it may as well have been directed by Keoni Waxman or Brian A. Miller. PASSION was inessential De Palma but it was at least unmistakably the work of Brian De Palma. Only during the impending Almeria arena suicide bombing does that old magic finally make an appearance. Initially, it's such a relief and comfort to see something definitively "De Palma" that fans will feel giddy at the prospect of a classic De Palma set piece about to happen, but it's so truncated and sloppily pieced together that you're almost instantly back to crushing disappointment.

De Palma claims this wasn't his project and that it was given to him by the Danish producers who never had enough money and were constantly cutting corners, even calling it the most miserable experience he's ever had on a movie, and that's from the guy who made THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. For all the different sources of finance that went into getting this made, it looks incredibly cheap and shoddy. The CGI is total amateur hour, whether it s a bit of splatter just freezing and pausing in the air as a victim flails backwards (and no, it's not a "De Palma thing"), or an ISIS decapitation that looks like something out of an Asylum joint. A terrorist attack on a Netherlands film festival, seen via a split-screen livestream on the internet, is absolutely atrocious in both its bungled execution and in how it reveals that De Palma has no idea how livestreaming works. De Palma can't get anything right here, especially with one of Pino Donaggio's most uninspired scores that's not only distractingly intrusive but also generously cribs from Ravel's "Bolero" for the finale, which only serves to reiterate that FEMME FATALE will likely go down as De Palma's last great film. Yes, it's clear that DOMINO had a troubled production but what's here is a depressing reminder of so many great filmmakers before him who have just lost a step and aren't what they used to be. It's insulting that someone of De Palma's stature and influence has to schlep this far beneath his standards to land a gig. There's no shame in bowing out gracefully and going the elder statesman/lecture circuit route in one's emeritus years, but at the same time, a lot of people wrote off Paul Schrader after a long string of misfires and problem-plagued shoots and he came back hard with 2018's FIRST REFORMED. Here's to hoping De Palma has one more great movie in him, because DOMINO is a total embarrassment.

Brian De Palma and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on the set of DOMINO

In Theaters: CARRIE (2013)

CARRIE
(US - 2013)

Directed by Kimberly Peirce.  Written by Lawrence D. Cohen and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.  Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Gabriella Wilde, Alex Russell, Ansel Elgort, Barry Shabaka Henley, Hart Bochner, Zoe Belkin, Samantha Weinstein. (R, 98 mins)

(SPOILERS DISCUSSED THROUGHOUT)

The latest Hollywood horror remake is as unnecessary as you'd expect, despite the involvement of BOYS DON'T CRY and STOP-LOSS director Kimberly Peirce, helming just her third film in 14 years.  Considering how little she brings to the table here, one must be forced to assume that she simply needed the money.  This "re-imagining" of the 1974 Stephen King novel and 1976 Brian De Palma film (there was also a 2002 made-for-TV remake, and the less said about 1999's THE RAGE: CARRIE 2, the better) is about as perfunctory and go-through-the-motions as it gets, remaining watchable and never dull but also never justifying its existence.  It utilizes enough of the 1976 film that its screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen shares a presumably WGA-mandated credit with playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who must share the blame with Peirce for its complete collapse in the home stretch.

The now-familiar story of bullied, telekinetic Carrie White (played here by Chloe Grace Moretz), her religious-fanatic mother Margaret (Julianne Moore), and a prom prank that goes horribly awry was turned into such an iconic classic by De Palma that Peirce seems to throw in the towel from the start.  CARRIE '13 seems to be sprinting past the details, glossing over dramatic and character developments as if to say "Well, you've seen the original enough times, so you know what happens here."  It's almost like it's Cliffs Notes-ing its way through the proceedings.  As a result, there's no tension.  There's no suspense.  When bitchy Chris Hargenson (Portia Doubleday) and dirtbag boyfriend Billy Nolan (Alex Russell) dump the bucket of pig's blood on Carrie at the prom, De Palma's depiction was a stylish, elaborately-choreographed masterwork of stomach-knotting anticipation and dread.  Here...it just gets dumped.  It's a lose-lose for Peirce:  she can't mimic De Palma's split diopters and split-screens without getting shit for it, and his work was so good that it can't be topped, so she's forced to just dump it in the blandest way possible.  She tries to gussy it up by replaying it three times but it serves no purpose.  There's not even the "They're all gonna laugh at you!" refrain. This problem occurs time and again throughout CARRIE '13.  Everything effective under De Palma is neutered or outright absent here.  But could it have turned out any other way?

Peirce and Aguirre-Sacasa do include a few elements from King's novel that didn't make it into De Palma's version:  there's a brief shot of a court inquiry where Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) is being questioned, Chris' big-shot lawyer dad (Hart Bochner sighting!) unsuccessfully tries to throw his weight around with the principal (Barry Shabaka Henley) after his daughter is suspended from school, and gym teacher Miss Desjardin (Judy Greer) gets her original name back and survives Carrie's prom rampage (Betty Buckley played her as "Miss Collins" and got killed), but they also make the curious decision to tone down the character of Margaret.  This could be because Piper Laurie played it just crazy enough without going over-the-top that Moore saw no way to improve on it from that angle.  Moore is fine in the role, but Margaret is really less of a menace here than she is in the 1976 film and in the book.  In King and De Palma, Margaret fears her daughter but also despises her and her burgeoning womanhood, "the blood," and "the boys who come sniffing like dogs, grinning and slobbering to find out where that smell is."  Laurie's interpretation of the character was intimidating and terrifying, where Moore plays Margaret as more overprotective and demonstrates far more affection than she shows in the book or in Laurie's Oscar-nominated performance.

There's no problems with Moretz in terms of her performance, but at the risk of simplifying things, she's too attractive to play Carrie, and slouching her shoulders, hiding behind her hair, and wearing frumpy garments isn't going to disguise that.  She's a terrific young actress, but she's just not right for this role.  Even Sissy Spacek--also Oscar-nominated--didn't fit King's description of a "chunky" Carrie, and while De Palma didn't cast someone overweight in the role, she was one of those actresses who thrived in the 1970s when unconventional looks were acceptable.  Spacek is not someone who's conventionally "hot" by a standard textbook Hollywood definition, either in the 1970s or now.  She has an unconventional beauty to her but she also had a plain, "odd" quality that was well-utilized by De Palma and other directors like Terrence Malick in 1973's BADLANDS and Robert Altman in 1977's 3 WOMEN (even MAY star and horror/cult figure Angela Bettis, in the 2002 version, has an unusual look to her to that made her a believable Carrie).  Moretz looks gorgeous even when she's trying not to be.  By the time we get to the prom rampage, Moretz's Carrie starts behaving like someone who's seen CARRIE.  Instead of slowly walking through the gym and wreaking her vengeance, Moretz has been directed to wildly contort and symphonically gesticulate with wild-eyed abandon, looking more like a villain in the climax of an X-MEN movie than Carrie.

It's the prom where the film really starts to fall apart, despite newcomer Elgort's surprisingly sensitive interpretation of Tommy Ross, though he may not have William Katt's legendary locks (perhaps one improvement this film makes is ensuring the audience knows Tommy has been killed by the bucket hitting his head; Tommy's fate always seemed vague in De Palma's film until it's mentioned in passing near the end).  In the book, nearly everyone was killed, and De Palma even killed off the sympathetic gym teacher after Carrie imagined her laughing at her.  Here, Carrie kills a few people and most seem to escape.  But Peirce and Aguirre-Sacasa save the worst for last, as they inexplicably have Sue show up at the White home after Carrie kills her mother.  They have a conversation and Carrie sees Sue wasn't involved in the prank, and tells her "You're going to have a girl."  Yes, Sue is now pregnant with Tommy's child (hinted at but never overtly stated by King, as Sue either gets her period or miscarries near the end of the novel) and Carrie has somehow developed psychic abilities.  Does this have anything to do with Carrie's ability to move things?  If so, then why wasn't she able to see the prank that was about to happen? 

CARRIE '13 is competently-made and there's nothing wrong with the actors.  The biggest issue is the same as with most other horror remakes:  it just doesn't need to exist.  With one exception (Tommy's death scene), it doesn't improve on anything, it isn't better-directed, the ending can't be anything but lame compared to De Palma's, the CGI visual effects are less convincing than the practical ones from 37 years ago, and the usually reliable Marco Beltrami offers a snoozer of a score in place of the unforgettable Pino Donaggio cues in the 1976 version. All it really adds are newer fashions, cell phones, Chris posting a video of the shower incident on YouTube, and one already-dated mention of Tim Tebow.  De Palma's film is one that's been talked about and revered for nearly 40 years.  Will anyone remember this remake 40 days from now?

In Theaters/On VOD: PASSION (2013)

PASSION
(France/Germany - 2013)

Directed by Brian De Palma.  Written by Brian De Palma and Natalie Carter. Cast: Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth, Paul Anderson, Rainer Bock, Benjamin Sadler, Michael Rotschopf, Dominic Raacke. (R, 96 mins)

Brian De Palma's first film since the 2007 misfire REDACTED is a throwback to his stylish suspense films of old:  hardcore fans will smile and nod at Pino Donaggio's melodramatic score (conducted, of course, by Natale Massara), an early split-diopter shot, and about an hour in, one of those famous De Palma split-screen sequences.  As nice as it is to see and hear those things again, one can't help but think that the legendary director is just punching a clock with this one.  It's a remake of Alain Corneau's French film LOVE CRIME (2010), but even with the uniquely De Palma-esque elements, PASSION is rather dull before the auteur finally snaps out of his trance and starts showing off.  Few directors can manipulate an audience like De Palma and, at 73, he's at the emeritus stage of his career where any shots or scenes that look like his classic work automatically get a pass because it's just "classic De Palma."  That was sort-of the approach he took with 2002's FEMME FATALE, but PASSION is seriously lacking that masterpiece's sense of filmmaking giddiness.   It's very probable that FEMME FATALE will go down as De Palma's last great film, whereas PASSION just finds him throwing some vintage-looking De Palma bits at you and it feels more out of a sense of obligation than engagement with the material. 

A tale of backstabbing bitchiness in the marketing world, PASSION stars Rachel McAdams as American marketing executive Christine Stanford, who oversees the Berlin branch of a big-time agency.  She has a flirtatious rapport with her ambitious underling Isabelle James (Noomi Rapace), who's sleeping with Christine's embezzling, Eurotrash lover Dirk (Paul Anderson).  It would seem that Christine and Dirk have an open relationship, but that doesn't stop Christine's need for control by taking credit for one of Isabelle's marketing concepts, which sets off a chain reaction of psychological and sexual head games between the two women.  First it's harmlessly passive-aggressive, but before long, it escalates into cattiness, public humiliation and, finally, of course, murder.

For its first hour, PASSION plays a lot like a Skinemax erotic thriller from the mid-to-late '90s.  That is, the boring parts between the fuck scenes.  McAdams plays Christine very much like an anachronistic nod to Sharon Stone.  She's often cartoonish but seems to be relishing the opportunity to play an alternate universe version of her MEAN GIRLS character.  It's hard to get a handle on Rapace's character and her performance.  At best, it seems like she's awkward, miscast, and occasionally overwrought, but De Palma has been known to make casting decisions like that before and have the point go over the heads of audiences (much the way he took the inherently bland screen presences of Craig Wasson in BODY DOUBLE and Josh Hartnett in THE BLACK DAHLIA and used it to each film's advantage), but I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish with Rapace's frequently stilted performance.  Before the end of the film, you'll realize both stars are outacted by German actress Karoline Herfurth (recently seen in ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY) as Isabelle's lesbian assistant who pretty obviously has the hots for her boss. 

Ultimately, PASSION is a pretty scattershot affair.  It looks great, is very well-shot by Jose Luis Alcaine, and when those De Palma moments finally start happening, PASSION picks up considerably.  But then the director just starts getting silly with dream sequences within dream sequences, the introduction of a long-lost twin sister, and a blatant swipe from Dario Argento's TENEBRE in the climax (not the first time he's borrowed that famous shot), which ends the film on a frustrating note.  In the right film with the right script, a director staging obvious callbacks to earlier works is a beautiful thing for fans.  De Palma did it the right way with FEMME FATALE.  The story makes all the difference here, and when the too-frequently stale PASSION does it, it just feels trite and forced. It's obviously worth seeing for De Palma obsessives and even uninspired De Palma is better than the A-games of a lot of today's directors, but the "De Palma can do no wrong" crowd on IMDb and other sites needs something a little more concrete than "It's not meant to be taken seriously!" to effectively defend the master, especially since you could say that about most of De Palma's classics.  PASSION should be trashy fun, but it just isn't.