An ambitious but inert chronicle of the 1880s "War of the Currents" between Thomas Edison (Team DC: direct current) and George Westinghouse (Team AC: alternating current), THE CURRENT WAR has a behind-the-scenes backstory that's ultimately more interesting than the one it presents onscreen. Originally shown at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2017 and set to be released that November by the Weinstein Company (you can already see where this is going), it was one of many films pulled from the release schedule and shelved indefinitely when HarveyGate broke in the October interim. Weinstein had been supervising some last-minute editing, and with the film in limbo and Weinstein out, director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN, ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL, and several episodes of AMERICAN HORROR STORY) appealed to co-executive producer Martin Scorsese to allow him to re-edit the film to his own--and not Weinstein's--specifications as well as arrange some additional reshoots. Gomez-Rejon also tossed the original score heard in the 2017 Toronto version and replaced it with a new one. The end result--sold to the upstart 101 Studios and advertised as THE CURRENT WAR: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT for its theatrical run in October 2019--is a rarity in that, at 102 minutes, it's actually ten minutes shorter than what the notorious Harvey Scissorhands was going to release in 2017. Despite a relentless blitz of TV spots, THE CURRENT WAR died at the box office, though it will no doubt find its proper audience once schools reopen, playing over four class periods to bored junior high science students while the teacher gets caught up on grading papers.
Written by Michael Mitnick, who originally pitched the idea as a musical production over a decade ago (Weinstein's name has been removed from the released version, but other credited producers like Scorsese, Steven Zaillan, Bob Yari, and Timur Bekmambetov should give you an idea of how many people were involved at various points over the long development period), THE CURRENT WAR opens in 1880 as Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch, also one of the producers) obtains a patent on an invention "whose purpose is simple: to give light." It involves lighting by direct current and he attracts the attention of both powerful financier J.P. Morgan (Matthew Macfadyen) and President Chester A. Arthur (Corey Johnson), the latter already impressed with Edison's invention of the phonograph. His work also intrigues engineer and entrepreneur Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), who invites Edison to dinner but is stood up with no explanation. It's this personal slight that begins the "War of the Currents," as Westinghouse and his friend Franklin Pope (Stanley Townsend) tout their method of electric illumination with alternating current, which covers longer distances than direct current. Edison is made aware of this by contract worker and "futurist" Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult), who warns him that most of the country is empty space and that focusing on direct current isn't thinking about the long-term. This leads to a back-and-forth game of one-upmanship that will see tragedies for both men--Edison's wife Mary (Tuppence Middleton) dies from a degenerative disease assumed by historians to be a brain tumor that wasn't helped by that era's all-purpose quick fix of laudanum, and Westinghouse loses his right-hand man Pope to an accidental electrocution--and a frustrated Tesla eventually joining forces with Westinghouse when he can no longer deal with the stubborn and egomaniacal Edison.
Original 2017 poster
THE CURRENT WAR covers the details, but does so in a dry, educational fashion that isn't far removed from those historical films that Roberto Rossellini made in the last years of his career, and Gomez-Rejon's frequent indulgence in fish-eye lenses, Dutch angles, and other flashy moves only serves as a transparent attempt to liven things up. It doesn't handle the time element very well--after captions reading "1880" and "1882," it's pretty much abandoned until the coda at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, so the years are a blur in terms of what happens when. This is especially bungled with the illness of Mary Edison, who's given a diagnosis in one scene, and the next shows the closed casket at her funeral. When did she die? A month later? A year later? Later that same day? Who knows? And we can only surmise a few years have passed when Edison's secretary-turned-partner Samuel Insull (Tom Holland) suddenly shows up in one scene with a glued-on mustache. The actors are fine, especially Katherine Waterston, who provides a spark whenever she turns up as Westinghouse's loving and unexpectedly shrewd wife, and Cumberbatch and Shannon finally meet in passing at the 1893 World's Fair, and while it might not exactly be the diner scene in HEAT, it's the best moment here for both stars. There's nothing really wrong with THE CURRENT WAR, but it's just very slow-moving and the constant tech talk doesn't make for very riveting drama. Fans of Cumberbatch and Shannon should see it, but if you want the gist of the story in a much shorter lesson, just stick with Tesla's video for their minor 1991 hit "Edison's Medicine." (PG-13, 102 mins)
ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA (Australia/UK - 2020)
Based on the true story of three anti-apartheid activists who pulled off a daring escape from a South African prison in 1979, ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA makes sure to cross everything off the prison break movie checklist. After setting off a series of leaflet bombings in Cape Town in 1978, African National Congress activists Tim Jenkin (Daniel Radcliffe) and Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber) are found guilty and thrown into the Pretoria political prison for white males, where Jenkin immediately begins plotting an escape. They find a mentor in legendary ANC member and close Nelson Mandela associate Denis Goldberg (Ian Hart), who's serving four life sentences for trying to overthrow the government. Goldberg warns Jenkin to calm down ("Everybody thinks they're gonna break out next week"), but he wants out, and a photographic memory allows him to draw a detailed sketch of the key used by the guards to unlock the cells. He's able to construct a makeshift wooden key in the prison shop and eventually gets it to work, then methodically creates numerous duplicates, obsessively testing them in the middle of the night while spending his days devising an escape plan and creating keys to all the doors that will eventually allow them to simply walk out when no one is looking. Goldberg ends up sitting out the escape to run interference with the block's least competent guard on duty, and Jenkin and Lee are instead joined by Frenchman Leonard (Mark Leonard Winter), a fictionalized version of the third escapee, Alex Moumbaris.
It took a lot of work and planning, and it's in these scenes that director/co-writer Francis Annan generates the most stomach-knotting tension. But the biggest assist the three men got during their escape was some extremely lax security in that section of the prison complex, subsequently stepped up significantly after the embarrassment of three prisoners getting through a half dozen locked doors and simply walking out of a front gate that was carelessly left unlocked and wide open, which even they find shocking ("The gate's open?!"). ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA takes some liberties beyond not mentioning Moumbaris by name, a big one being its depiction of Jenkin and Lee caught in the act of series of leaflet bombings on a busy street. It makes for a tension-filled opening sequence, but in reality, they were quietly apprehended without incident moving some printing equipment into their residence, which had been under surveillance for some time. Lee almost pulled off his own escape while the pair were awaiting trial, but that's never mentioned here, and it's strange that Lee is more or less relegated to being Jenkin's loyal sidekick, with Webber (best known as Lee Harvey Oswald in the Hulu series 11.22.63 and as Vince Neil in the Motley Crue biopic THE DIRT) given little to do. It does clear the way for a committed performance by Radcliffe, who's never not going to be Harry Potter, but does an excellent job of projecting some genuine grittiness and disappearing into this role. The specificities of the plot aside, ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA is generally routine as far as prison break thrillers go, right down to Jenkin's chief nemesis being a guard nicknamed Mongo (Nathan Page), who's cartoonishly sadistic even by apartheid standards. There's nothing new here, but it's well-made and compelling, like a politically-driven ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ. (PG-13, 106 mins)
THE DIRT (US - 2019) Directed by Jeff Tremaine. Written by Rich Wilkes and Amanda Adelson. Cast: Douglas Booth, Iwan Rheon, Colson Baker, Daniel Webber, David Costabile, Pete Davidson, Levin Rambin, Kathryn Morris, Rebekah Graf, Max Milner, Joe Chrest, Tony Cavalero, Christian Gehring, Elena Evangelo, Kamryn Ragsdale, Anthony Vincent Valbiro. (Unrated, 107 mins) In various stages of development for over a decade, the Netflix adaptation of Motley Crue's 2001 tell-all The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band still can't help but feel a little like BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY II: THE CRUE. One can imagine this becoming a burgeoning subgenre with any major, influential figure or band (there's already an Elton John biopic on the way with Taron Egerton), and like the extremely popular Queen/Freddie Mercury chronicle, THE DIRT glosses over details and fudges some facts. It also omits some of the more vile, salacious, X-rated material while still managing to leave in a visual presentation of drummer Tommy Lee's cunnilingual ability to bring a woman to a geyser-like orgasm in a room full of people. Approved and co-produced by the band, THE DIRT doesn't shy away from showing them at their worst, from letting fame go to their heads, sleeping with each others' girlfriends, vehicular manslaughter, and the deepest pits of smack addiction. It also shows them as human beings with plenty of baggage, from bassist/leader Nikki Sixx's horrible childhood to guitarist Mick Mars' quiet battle with a degenerative bone disease to frontman Vince Neil losing his four-year-old daughter Skylar to cancer. The bit with the phone? Yeah, that got lost in the transition from page to screen.
THE DIRT kicks off at the dawn of the 1980s on L.A.'s famed Sunset Strip, as bassist Sixx (British actor Douglas Booth of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES and THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM) looks to start a new band after the implosion of his last one, Strip fixture London. He's approached by London superfan and amiable goofball Lee (Colson Baker, aka rapper Machine Gun Kelly) and they decide to start a band and begin auditioning guitar players. Enter the jaded, cynical Mars (GAME OF THRONES' Iwan Rheon), who's several years older and with a rare disease that will slowly affect his spine and bones over time. He feels that the clock is ticking and only wants to be in a serious band, and even he's won over when Lee introduces them to Neil (Australian actor Daniel Webber, who played Lee Harvey Oswald on the Hulu miniseries 11.22.63), a buddy from high school who's currently in a cover band called Rock Candy. The magic happens almost immediately when Sixx writes "Live Wire," and after settling on Mars' suggested name (rejected ones included Sixx's "XMass" and Lee's "The Fourskins," so-called because "we fuck the audience in the face every night!"), Motley Crue quickly become the hottest band on the Strip. They're courted and signed by Elektra A&R guy Tom Zutaut (Pete Davidson) and managed by the legendary Doc McGhee (David Costabile), but it's not long before it's all about the groupies, the booze, and every debauched indulgence imaginable (cue Neil screwing Zutaut's girlfriend, Sixx snorting coke out of Lee's girlfriend's ass crack). With the release of the debut album, they land the opening spot on an Ozzy Osbourne tour, and they're warned by Ozzy (Tony Cavalero, doing what's basically an SNL impression) to control themselves and their excesses as he himself snorts a line of live ants and laps up his own piss.
All of the well-known Crue highs and lows are here to a point: a drunk Neil behind the wheel of a car crash that takes the life of passenger and Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle Dingley (Max Milner); Lee's romance and wedding to TV star Heather Locklear (Rebekah Graf); Sixx's worsening heroin addiction where he actually flatlines in the ambulance before being brought back to life; a newly-sober Crue's 1989 Dr. Feelgood triumph followed by Neil's acrimonious departure two years later, during which time his daughter is diagnosed with stomach cancer while the band carries on with new singer John Corabi (Anthony Vincent Valbiro), playing half-filled venues before Elektra eventually drops them; and their inevitable reunion with the caption "The band played for another 20 years" that demonstrates a brusqueness usually reserved for Poochie dying on the way back to his home planet. Yeah, "another 20 years," give or take. Lee's one-album departure and replacement by ex-Ozzy drummer Randy Castillo is never mentioned, nor is (thankfully) his ludicrous side project Methods of Mayhem. Likewise, Lee's marriage to and much-publicized sex tape with Pamela Anderson never comes up, nor does any mention of domestic violence or the time Lee spent in jail because of it.
Taken on its own terms for the somewhat fictionalized '80s nostalgia that it is, THE DIRT is entertaining, never dull, and the four leads do some convincing cosplay (particularly Baker as Lee), though it never goes beyond the superficial and in one case, is utterly cringe-worthy (as Sixx, Booth is actually required to say the line "I fell in love...her name was Heroin"). Each band member (and McGhee and Zutaut) get their turns narrating, with sometimes amusing results, whether it's Zutaut's "Don't leave your girlfriend alone with Motley Crue, because they will fuck her," or Mars breaking the fourth wall with "What you just saw...that never happened" and Sixx introducing a nameless character who literally fades from the screen with the explanation "We cut him from this movie." Like any biopic there's some degree of whitewashing and selective revisionist history, but for the most part, THE DIRT is basically a re-enactment of a BEHIND THE MUSIC episode mixed with JACKASS-like antics (like running through hotels naked and setting Mars' room on fire while he's sleeping), not surprising given that director Jeff Tremaine's resume includes co-creating JACKASS and directing the three JACKASS movies and the JACKASS spinoff BAD GRANDPA. At any rate, any 2019 depiction of the halcyon days of the early '80s Sunset Strip that manages to namecheck Y&T deserves some points for cred.
