THE LAST OF THE FINEST (US - 1990) Directed by John Mackenzie. Written by Jere Cunningham, Thomas Lee Wright and George Armitage. Cast: Brian Dennehy, Joe Pantoliano, Jeff Fahey, Bill Paxton, Deborra-Lee Furness, Guy Boyd, Henry Darrow, Lisa Jane Persky, Michael C. Gwynne, Henry Stolow, John Finnegan, J. Kenneth Campbell, Xander Berkeley, Pamela Gidley, Michelle Little, Burke Byrnes, Patricia Clipper, Ron Canada, Tom Nolan. (R, 106 mins) "Oh, don't give me that 'patriot' shit! Every time you assholes fuck around with the Constitution, you call it 'patriotism.'" Barely released by Orion in the spring of 1990, THE LAST OF THE FINEST tries really hard to be a Joel Silver production of the era. With its ballbusting banter among buddy cops who play by their own rules, irate captains chewing them out before suspending them, and a drum machine-heavy soundtrack filled with bluesy licks by a famous British guitarist--instead of Eric Clapton, they got former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor--THE LAST OF THE FINEST plays like THE UNTOUCHABLES re-imagined as a post-LETHAL WEAPON cop thriller. It's a lot more overtly political than most, but as we're likely to continue seeing with many films of the last 20-30 years, it takes on new layers of subtext when viewed through the distorted prism of 2017 America and the years that got us to this point. For the most part, THE LAST OF THE FINEST is a routine and by-the-numbers affair, but it makes some pretty angry and cynical points that remain prescient and give this generally forgotten and relatively obscure film some unexpected relevance three decades later.
In a rare big-screen lead, Character Actor Hall of Famer Brian Dennehy stars as Frank Daly, the head of an elite squad of LAPD badasses assigned with busting up the city's drug trade. Daly and his guys work hard and play harder, as evidenced by their regular flag football games with a team of DEA stooges. Joining Frank are brainy, bespectacled smartass Wayne Gross (Joe Pantoliano), straight-from-the-barrio-by-way-of-adoption Ricky Rodriguez (Jeff Fahey), and easygoing Howard Jones, aka "Hojo" (Bill Paxton), and they're convinced local drug kingpin Anthony Reece (Michael C. Gwynne) is running a narcotics distribution ring out of a meat-packing plant but, as per genre rules, they have no proof. Daly is read the riot act and suspended by his captain Torres (Henry Darrow) and warned that he's "close to the edge," to which Daly replies "That's where we live! We're cops, remember?" Daly and his crew's pursuit of Reece ends up getting informant/pimp Fast Eddie (Xander Berkeley) and hooker Haley (Pamela Gidley) murdered, and after a chase, Hojo is killed by a psycho hit man (Henry Stolow) in Reece's employ. Torres isn't interested in hearing about Reece's operation or his ties to wealthy, right-wing businessman R.J. Norringer (Guy Boyd as J.T. Walsh), so Daly, Gross, and Rodriguez turn in their badges in disgust, resort to raiding local drug lords themselves and using the money to launch their own war on Norringer and Reece. Things get really personal when Norringer tries to have Daly's wife (Australian actress and future Mrs. Hugh Jackman Deborra-Lee Furness, really struggling to hide her accent) and family killed. This ultimately leads to a showdown at a baseball diamond (the nearest abandoned warehouse must've been hosting another shootout that night) after they steal $22 million in Norringer's laundered drug money, which he's been secretly funneling to Central American freedom fighters with the help of shady government operative Calvert (J. Kenneth Campbell). Any resemblance to the Reagan Administration's Iran-Contra scandal is 100% intentional.
Directed by British journeyman John Mackenzie (THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, THE FOURTH PROTOCOL) and written by Jere Cunningham (JUDGMENT NIGHT), Thomas Lee Wright (NEW JACK CITY), and George Armitage (MIAMI BLUES, GROSSE POINTE BLANK), THE LAST OF THE FINEST leaves no cop movie cliche untouched, and a scene where they visit retired cop Tommy Grogan (John Finnegan), who busts out his unparalleled lip-reading skills for a silent surveillance video, is ready-made for MST3K mockery. Nevertheless, it gets a lot of mileage from a commanding performance by Dennehy and the enjoyable camaraderie between the actors, even though Paxton is killed off 30 minutes in. Initial villain Reece eventually becomes a non-factor as the investigation turns to Norringer, a villain cut from the same cloth as Cliff Robertson's megalomaniacal Charles Delaney from MALONE, another unjustly neglected Orion actioner from the same era. Norringer goes on and on about patriotism and how the end justifies the means, but he's really just a right-wing fanatic who would probably be holding a key position in the government or hosting a Fox News show if this was made today. There's little subtlety in anything this film does, from Dennehy's barrel-chested bombast ("You just made a fatal fucking mistake!" he yells as he backhands Norringer) to Boyd's snarling villain, and nothing hammers the point home like a climactic explosion of a playground septic tank that's storing Norringer's $22 million, leaving most of the cast standing in a downpour of dirty money and human feces, culminating in the crash of Norringer's getaway chopper because the pilot can't see out of the shit-covered windows. Perhaps skittish about the film's criticism of Reagan-era policies and its direct invocation of Iran-Contra, Orion dumped it in 400 theaters with no publicity at all, grossing just over $1 million. Just out on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber (because physical media is dead), THE LAST OF THE FINEST is hardly an unheralded classic, but it deserved more of a shot than it got at the time and seems to play better now than it did then.
Opening with a lullaby-like la-la-la theme that recalls the late '60s classics ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE and immediately sets an ominous mood, THE ONES BELOW instead aims to be a throwback '90s thriller with the Neighbors from Hell, but it never really catches fire. The chief problem is that it thinks it's the first movie to ever present such a scenario, and as a result, you'll see the twists and reveals coming long before its heroine ever does. Expectant parents Kate (Clemence Poesy) and Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) have had their London flat to themselves for some time since the passing of the elderly downstairs neighbor. That changes when another expectant couple, Jon (David Morrissey) and his Finnish wife Theresa (Laura Birn) move in. Kate and Theresa become fast friends, but a dinner discussion about children gets uncomfortable when Jon and Theresa seem offended that Kate and Justin have been married for ten years and are only now having a child because weren't sure they wanted one. The night ends in rage and grief when the downstairs neighbors go to leave and Theresa trips over Kate's cat in the hallway, taking a nasty tumble down the stairs and losing the baby. Jon and Theresa blame Justin and Kate because the light bulb at the top of the stairs was out, while Kate is quick to point out that Theresa was sneaking glasses of wine behind Jon's back and seemed a little tipsy. With Justin and Kate's baby due to arrive shortly, Jon and Theresa go away to get over their loss and when they return, baby Billy has arrived, apologies are exchanged all around and the neighbors decide to start fresh.
Being around Billy helps Theresa and Jon cope with their loss and their wish to become parents again, but strange things start happening: Billy gets sick from Kate's breast milk, the family arrives home to find the stove left on and the flat filled with gas, their bathtub overflows, and during a dinner downstairs, which is delayed because Jon is running late, Kate swears she hears someone on the baby monitor in Billy's room while the infant is asleep. Kate regularly lets Theresa babysit, and discovers she's been breastfeeding Billy, then finds family pictures with Jon, Theresa, and Billy. She's convinced the downstairs neighbors are plotting to steal Billy to replace the baby they lost and, of course, every time she finds proof, it disappears and she looks insane. It's no secret that Jon and Theresa are gaslighting Kate and turning Justin against his wife, but writer/director David Farr (who scripted HANNA and wrote several episodes of the popular MI-5) doles out the twists in a fairly perfunctory fashion, not bringing much in the way of style or showing any noteworthy skill in generating suspense. This could've been a nail-biting, HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE-meets-ARLINGTON ROAD thriller, but it's so leisurely and predictable that you'll wonder exactly what the point is and why anyone even bothered. There's no momentum, no Polanski-esque sense of encroaching claustrophobia and helplessness as Kate starts going off the deep end to prove that she's not imagining things, that she didn't leave the stove on, that she didn't leave the bath water running. No, it just ambles along and when the big reveals come, you're shrugging because you saw them coming half an hour earlier. It doesn't help that Farr has Morrissey's Jon acting like an overly intense control freak from the moment he's introduced. THE ONES BELOW isn't terrible, but it displays no interest in doing anything out of the ordinary or with any urgency, feeling long even at a brief 86 minutes. It's shrugging ambivalence in feature film form. (R, 86 mins)
URGE (US - 2016)
Obnoxious and unwatchable don't begin to describe this atrocious, straight-to-VOD party weekend-turned-zombie apocalypse retread. URGE is directed by Aaron Kaufman, a producing partner of Robert Rodriguez, and scripted by well-traveled journeyman Jerry Stahl, whose writing credits range from the 1982 porno CAFE FLESH and 2003's BAD BOYS II to TV shows THIRTYSOMETHING, ALF, CSI, and MARON, and whose battle with drug addiction was detailed in the grim memoir Permanent Midnight, which was turned into a 1998 movie with Ben Stiller. Stahl's first-hand knowledge of the horrors of drug abuse does nothing to enhance this vapid, empty film populated by the most insufferable douchebags you'll ever see. They're so loathsome that it's a relief when these Martin Shkrelis finally start dying off, because it means the movie's that much closer to being over. Dickhead tech billionaire brat Neil (Danny Masterson) invites some friends to a weekend retreat at a posh, exclusive island resort. Once there, Neil's pal Jason (Justin Chatwin) is taken to a backroom by a jester-suited halfwit known as The Red Bastard (Eric Davis), who introduces him to a vaping, Mephistophelian figure known only as The Man (Pierce Brosnan, who really should have better things to do). The Man presents to Jason a powerful new designer drug called Urge, which creates an incredible high and casts aside all inhibitions, leaving no residual side effects ("Imagine a key that unlocks that which is most hidden," The Man seductively promises), but comes with one caveat: you can only do it once in your lifetime (much like attempting to make it all the way through URGE). Of course, that rule is instantly disregarded, and while everyone else indulges and the weekend turns into a debauched, animalistic, EYES WIDE SHUT fuckfest, Jason remains strangely immune to the effects of Urge. Before long, everyone keeps doing more and more of the drug, resulting in increasingly aggro behavior that starts with longtime friends telling one another what they really think of them, to orgies and rough BDSM sex, brutal FIGHT CLUB throwdowns, and finally to an island full of Urge-addled dudebros and hotties going on a horrific, drug-induced, zombie-like rampage of bloodshed and slaughter.
URGE doesn't understand that it's hard to generate any suspense whatsoever when there isn't a single character in the film that you don't want to see die a violent, horrible death. It's pretty obvious that Brosnan's The Man is symbolic of the devil or temptation, but is this supposed to be cautionary tale about drug abuse? Or the dangers of living life as spoiled and entitled rich kids able to indulge any whim without consequence or accountability? Or what might happen to Daniel Craig once he's no longer James Bond? A hammy Brosnan is the only reason to bother watching this half-assed synthetic drug redux of PONTYPOOL (unless you count brief bits to rope in any Jeff Fahey or Kevin Corrigan completists out there), but he's not in it enough to justify your suffering. By the time Jason and nice girl Joey (PITCH PERFECT's Alexis Knapp), who gives up Urge after it compels her to have a sexual encounter with a cake, realize they're the only ones not turned into raging-id zombies and try to flee the island, it's clear that Kaufman and Stahl are making this up as they go along and have no idea where to take it. After an abrupt non-ending, there's a stinger post-closing credits--which start at 81 minutes and go really slow to pad the running time--where a mother and her young son go into a NYC grocery store that's strangely dark and quiet, only to be attacked by a zombie horde, the drug virus spreading around the globe. It's supposed to be a shock ending, but the only shocking thing about it is that the mother is played by the once-promising Alison Lohman, who was supposed to be a Next Big Thing after 2002's WHITE OLEANDER and 2003's MATCHSTICK MEN. She appears to have put her career on hold after 2009's DRAG ME TO HELL to be a mom to her two kids with her husband, one-hit-wonder CRANK co-director Mark Neveldine, who's one of 32 credited producers here (along with someone named Kea Ho, who gives herself a prominent "introducing" credit for a tiny part as a stripper at The Man's club). The worst film of 2016 so far, URGE gets that most rare of Good Efficient Butchery assessments: fuck this movie. (R, 91 mins)
After a nine-year hiatus, Chucky is back for the sixth entry in the 25-year-old CHILD'S PLAY franchise. For the most part, CURSE OF CHUCKY plays it surprisingly serious--as serious as a movie about a doll possessed by a serial killer can be--largely jettisoning the direction into outright comedy that writer Don Mancini took with 1998's BRIDE OF CHUCKY and as the director of 2004's SEED OF CHUCKY. It's hard to make Chucky threatening again after showing him getting caught jerking off to an issue of Fangoria, but CURSE is a mostly straight-faced and above-average DTV outing that allows Mancini to wear his love of cult horror on his sleeve. Filled with countless homages and winking references to things like PSYCHO, the "disabled woman in peril" and "old dark house" formulas, gialli, John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Brian De Palma, Pino Donaggio, elaborately-staged and very splattery OMEN-style murders, and one nicely-done shot that manages to include a shout-out to Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS while pulling off a De Palma split-diopter, CURSE OF CHUCKY has plenty more going on for horror fans than just the titular character's antics.
When her mother apparently commits suicide shortly after receiving the Chucky doll in an anonymous package, paraplegic Nica (Fiona Dourif, daughter of Chucky voice actor Brad) can't shake her odd feeling about the doll's strange presence. Nica is also dealing with her high-strung, control-freak older sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti) who's pressuring her to sell their mother's house because she and her husband (Brennan Elliott) are having serious financial problems that still don't prevent them from employing a full-time au pair (Maitland McConnell) for their daughter Alice (Summer Howell). After poisoning a family friend and local priest (A Martinez), it doesn't take long for Chucky to prowl through the house and start offing the obnoxious family members one by one before his final showdown with Nica. Chucky is still a wisecracking smartass (after electrocuting a female character, he quips "Women...can't live with 'em. Period"), but Mancini tones down the comedy significantly, and for much of its running time, CURSE almost functions as if BRIDE and SEED didn't happen. It frequently references "Andy Barclay," the young character played by Alex Vincent in the first two films and by Justin Whalin in the third, and goes into some events that led to Chucky storing the soul of Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif, now 63, sports a hilariously terrible black wig and looks like THE ROOM's Tommy Wiseau in a couple of newly-shot flashback sequences) prior to the events of CHILD'S PLAY. Only very late in the game does Mancini drop the ball when he starts piling on one false ending after another to make BRIDE and SEED tie in, and the final ending (well, not counting the additional post-credits ending that's only in the unrated cut) is pretty lame. While it doesn't work all the way through, CURSE OF CHUCKY is unexpectedly solid and unpredictable for a straight-to-DVD sixth entry in an aging franchise, Fiona Dourif makes a very appealing heroine, and horror fans will really enjoy spotting the many shout-outs and references. (R, 95 mins/Unrated, 97 mins)
EASY RIDER: THE RIDE BACK (US - 2013)
At the end of the 1969 classic EASY RIDER, when two shotgun-toting rednecks blew away bikers Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper), do you remember thinking "Great flick, but I need to know more...like the backstory of Wyatt's younger brother and their cranky dad!"? Yeah, neither do I. But that didn't stop Cincinnati attorney and EASY RIDER superfan Phil Pitzer from somehow clearing the legal hurdles and self-financing one of the most unwarranted sequels in the history of cinema. Filmed in California and Ohio in 2009, the long-delayed (but not long enough) EASY RIDER: THE RIDE BACK is an amateur-night clusterfuck from the start, a total vanity project for Pitzer, who co-wrote the script and stars as Wyatt's brother Morgan. 40 years after Wyatt was killed, Morgan is summoned by his younger sister Shane (Sheree J. Wilson, who also co-produced), who tells him that their father Hickok (Newell Alexander) is near death. Riding Wyatt's refurbished old bike, Morgan hits the road with his buddy West Coast (Jeff Fahey), traveling cross-country to Shane's to reconcile with the old man. Through a series of confusing flashbacks, we see that Hickok, who still suffers from WWII-related PTSD and refuses to enter Shane's house until she raises a flag, was proud of the Vietnam service of his eldest son Virgil (yes, they're all named after the Earps), but resented Wyatt, who left home after the death of their mother. Wyatt was a big influence on young Morgan, who became what Hickok deemed a "gutless hippie" when he burned his draft notice and refused to serve in Vietnam. Virgil returned from Vietnam a changed man and disappeared, and with Morgan and the old man estranged, it's been up to Shane, who lost her son in Iraq, to take care of the irascible Hickok, who's still mad about how the 1960s destroyed his family.
Jesus, this movie is awful. In the hands of Pitzer and director/co-writer Dustin Rikert, a veteran of many of those no-budget westerns you see in the DVD new releases at Wal-Mart, this is really just R-rated, maudlin Hallmark Channel sentimentality that tries to shamelessly cash in on the legacy of an iconic film. Even if the film had a reason to exist, there's still no excuse for the wretched and appallingly wrong-headed execution. The mumbling Pitzer is one of the worst actors you'll ever see, immediately taking his place beside Tommy Wiseau in THE ROOM and John De Hart in GETEVEN in delusional vanity project infamy. Pitzer, who apparently didn't allot any of the film's budget to go toward acting lessons for himself, is so bad that he brings everyone else around him down, especially Wilson, who's not exactly Meryl Streep but the DALLAS and WALKER: TEXAS RANGER co-star has always been at least competent and professional. A scenery-chewing Fahey is limited to little more than "Woo-hoo"'s and "Yee-haaaah!"'s as West Coast, and if your TV screen is dusty and you squint really hard, he and Pitzer almost resemble Hopper and Fonda in their endless riding scenes set to generic country-rock songs that sound like watered-down Don Henley. Michael Nouri also turns up as Shane's asshole ex-husband, Cincinnati Reds great Johnny Bench has a bit as a baseball scout (is Pitzer his lawyer?), and Ron Howard's dad Rance plays one of Hickok's old war buddies, prompting even Clint Howard to look away in shame. There's no sense of filmmaking ability or competence on any level. The sound is so off that Pitzer, in what I strongly suspect will be a one-and-done venture into the movies, is often barely audible, and with no one around to stop him from going all-in on every self-indulgent whim, you get things like Morgan stopping off at a deserted ghost town while some Michael Bolton knock-off sings a piano-accompanied version of "America the Beautiful" as Pitzer's voiceover warns "We've got to start taking better care of this planet." Whatever it was that Pitzer was attempting here, he blew it. (R, 99 mins)
Were it not based on true events with material quoted directly from police reports, it would be easy to dismiss COMPLIANCE as one of the least believable thrillers in years. Inspired by a series of prank call scams over a 12-year period that authorities believe involve the same perpetrator, COMPLIANCE is a dramatization of the last such incident, one that took place at a McDonald's in Mount Washington, KY in 2004. Writer-director Craig Zobel takes small liberties--McDonald's becomes "ChickWich," the assistant manager in the real incident is changed to the store manager in the film, the caller used a supermarket pay phone but in the film, he's calling from his home using a prepaid cell, and all names have been changed--but what's onscreen is largely how the incident played out. Zobel's concern was to focus on the idea of obedience to figures of authority (think Stanley Milgram), be they law enforcement or in the structure of the workplace, specifically the rigid, by-the-book methods of a fast-food chain, but his script also gives the characters subtlely-displayed psychological reasons for some of what transpires. None of these prank calls lasted as long or went as far with as many people involved as the Mount Washington incident, and it's almost impossible to believe that it took several hours and an off-duty maintenance man to put a stop to what was happening.
On a busy Friday night at a ChickWich in rural Ohio, store manager Sandra (TV and stage vet Ann Dowd, given a rare big screen lead and running with it) is already on edge and nervous about telling her district manager about losing $1400 in food because of a refrigerator door that was left open all night. Her night goes from bad to worse when she gets a phone call from an Officer Daniels, who claims that he's got her district manager on the other line and he's with a customer who says that a cashier stole some money from her purse. "Daniels" gives a vague description that Sandra concludes to be Becky (Dreama Walker). Daniels orders Sandra to take Becky to the office, and an over-the-phone interrogation leads to a strip search, and far worse once Daniels badgers Sandra into getting her slightly drunk fiance Van (Bill Camp) involved. Zobel reveals early on that "Daniels" is in fact a seemingly well-to-do guy (Pat Healy) who's just calling from his own house and doing this for the sick thrill of seeing just how much he can manipulate them into obeying his increasingly ridiculous and dangerous demands. Anyone who's ever worked in a fast food or food or customer service environment will recognize how well Zobel captures the atmosphere, the jargon, and the mindset of such places. It helps that the film is cast with people who you've likely seen in many other things, but don't know their names and therefore don't have the distractions you might get if, say, Meryl Streep was playing Sandra. Dowd nails this character, just in the ways she's eager to please and be a team player (her district manager, the irate delivery driver, Daniels), and how, even in the stress of the situation, the harried boss in her still manages to reprimand Becky during the strip search for not wearing "the company's standard-issue khakis." Does Sandra have something against Becky? Is there a small part of her that's OK with what's happening? She did, after all, catch Becky and the much-younger assistant manager (Ashlie Atkinson) snickering behind her back at her awkward attempt to engage in girl talk. Walker also does a commendable job in a difficult and frequently uncomfortable role, spending a good chunk of the film wearing nothing but an apron. Produced by David Gordon Green (taking a break from directing terrible comedies that are sinking his once-sterling rep), COMPLIANCE is a riveting, intense, and often unpleasant film with a cast delivering believable performances as characters behaving in a very unbelievable fashion. (R, 90 mins)
DREDD (South Africa/UK - 2012)
Doing its best to blast away any bad memories of 1995's JUDGE DREDD, no one's favorite Stallone movie, DREDD is a hyper-stylized and outrageously violent take on the character created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, and is a much more successful interpretation. The film pretty much tanked in theaters, due in large part to its opening on a crowded weekend with about six other major releases, but this is one that will find a strong cult following in years to come. In the Cursed Earth wasteland of Mega-City One, merciless law enforcement officer Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is assessing rookie partner Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), who failed her exams but has a strong psychic ability that Dredd's bosses think will be handy in the field. The two answer a homicide call at the 200-story slum block tower Peach Trees, home to 75,000 residents under the control of ruthless, scar-faced drug lord Madeline Madrigal, aka Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), who rules the market on the new and highly addictive street drug Slo-Mo, which creates the illusion of time moving at 1% of its speed for the user. Ma-Ma has had three rival gang members skinned alive and tossed off the top-floor balcony. Dredd and Anderson take one of Ma-Ma's gang, Kay (Wood Harris) into custody when Anderson's psychic senses confirm he's responsible for the three killings. Before they can exit Peach Trees, Ma-Ma orders the entire block put on lockdown, forcing Dredd and Anderson to shoot their way up and down the building, two against several hundred of Ma-Ma's enforcers.
Directed by Pete Travis (VANTAGE POINT) and scripted by novelist and frequent Danny Boyle collaborator Alex Garland (28 DAYS LATER, SUNSHINE), DREDD belongs to the same class of over-the-top insanity along the lines of PUNISHER: WAR ZONE (2008). Travis splatters gallons upon gallons of CGI blood (very cartoony, but appropriate in the context of the film) across the screen, with occasional old-school Karo syrup to keep it real. He does a nice job of establishing a John Carpenter-style siege situation, complete with non-stop, droning techno music, and DREDD immediately joins the short list of "high-rise mayhem" classics like DEMONS 2 (1986), ENEMY TERRITORY (1987) and DIE HARD (1988), and more recent examples like THE HORDE (2010), ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011), CITADEL (2012), and THE RAID: REDEMPTION (2012), to which it drew many unfair ripoff accusations. Urban is absolutely perfect as Dredd, and Thirlby holds her own as the wet-behind-the-ears rookie just trying to survive her first day on the job. The many scenes with characters under the influence of Slo-Mo probably played a lot better in 3D on the big screen than they do flat at home, but they provide some of the trippiest visuals this side of Gaspar Noe's ENTER THE VOID. DREDD simply had the misfortune of opening on the wrong weekend. It's one of the best action thrillers of 2012 and deserved a better reception. (R, 96 mins)
SLEEP TIGHT (Spain - 2011; 2012 US release)
Spanish horror master Jaume Balaguero, best known for co-directing the first two [REC] films with Paco Plaza, made this bleak, unsettling thriller while Plaza helmed [REC] 3 solo. SLEEP TIGHT is definitely the better film, with misanthropic apartment building concierge/handyman Cesar (Luis Tosar) engaging in a quiet war against the tenants of the building when he isn't contemplating suicide. First it's little things like letting plants die and giving a tenant's dog food that he knows will make it sick. Cesar soon devotes all of his psychotic energy to the endlessly upbeat Clara (Marta Etura). At first, Balaguero and screenwriter Alberto Marini deceive the viewer into thinking this is a riff on the 2011 Hilary Swank/Jeffrey Dean Morgan thriller THE RESIDENT, where he's obsessively fixated on her from a misguided romance angle when he sneaks into her apartment, goes through her things, uses her toothbrush, and hides under her bed, waiting until she's asleep to chloroform her and crawl into bed to snuggle with her while she's out cold. No, quite the contrary. He's unable to feel any joy or happiness in his life and simply wants to break her constantly positive, cheery personality. He purposely clogs her sink, hides a cherished watch that was a gift from her mother, sends her anonymous threatening text messages from a prepaid cell, plants cockroach eggs throughout her apartment and injects skin allergens into her cosmetic products to cause a miserable rash all over her body. When her apartment is overrun with cockroaches and he offers to fumigate it, he's enraged to find that she isn't even upset about having to throw so many of her things away. "Oh, well! It's time for spring cleaning anyway!" she says with a smile. Balaguero and Morini approach much of the film with a twisted sense of humor, but things eventually turn grim and violent when Clara rekindles a romance with her ex-boyfriend (Alberto San Juan), who immediately senses something isn't right with the concierge.
There's a few implausible moments here and there that stretch credibility and threaten to derail the train, such as the scenes where Cesar is tiptoeing through Clara's apartment undetected while she and the boyfriend are there, or the fact that there's no security system or cameras in such a nice building. But overall, thanks to a disturbing performance by Tosar (it's interesting to note that he and Etura have been a couple offscreen for several years), SLEEP TIGHT generally works, with some very suspenseful set pieces, generous portions of dark humor (particularly when Cesar finds an unexpected nemesis in a bratty neighbor girl who knows what he's up to but opts to blackmail him instead of telling anyone), and a creative structure in that the film is completely from Cesar's point of view and with the antagonist as protagonist, in a strange way, you find yourself oddly rooting for him when he's trying to glide through Clara's apartment undetected. Overall, Balaguero succeeds in making SLEEP TIGHT an interesting film with a different approach to the psycho stalker flick. (Unrated, 101 mins)
GUNS, GIRLS & GAMBLING (US - 2012)
This wretched, decade-and-a-half late throwback to the post-PULP FICTION wave of Tarantino knockoffs like THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD (1995) and 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY (1996) was on the shelf for two years before Universal quietly dumped it in one theater in L.A. in December 2012. There isn't a single thing that works in this tired, unfunny and utterly pointless endurance test that's only recommended for people who think DESTINY TURNS ON THE RADIO is a unsung gem waiting to be rediscovered. Nice guy John Smith (Christian Slater, whose presence draws obvious comparisons to TRUE ROMANCE) gets in over his head after a night of poker with four Elvis impersonators at a Native American casino. Someone has stolen a priceless Apache tribal mask, and now everyone in town is after it and killing everyone who gets in their way. Among the players: Elvis Elvis (Gary Oldman, another TRUE ROMANCE vet), Gay Elvis (Chris Kattan), Asian Elvis (Anthony Brandon Wong), Little Person Elvis (Tony Cox), The Rancher (Powers Boothe), The Cowboy (Jeff Fahey), The Girl Next Door (Megan Park), The Sheriffs (Dane Cook, Sam Trammell), The Chief (the late Gordon Tootoosis, who died in 2011), and The Blonde (Helena Mattsson, trying way too hard to be Charlize Theron), a sexy, Poe-quoting assassin. It's an endless series of flat jokes and predictable double crosses and the cast just looks lost, though chances are they had more fun making this than anyone will have watching it. I imagine Slater and Oldman (what is he doing in this?) probably reminisced about TRUE ROMANCE and maybe Oldman broke out his Drexl Spivey act to entertain his co-stars and the crew. Regardless, this is his worst career decision since TIPTOES. And for those keeping score, this is the second awful film Slater's made that involves a casino heist pulled off by Elvis impersonators. Did he learn nothing after surviving the wreckage of 3000 MILES TO GRACELAND? (Unrated, 90 mins, also available on Netflix streaming)
