WHITE BOY RICK (US - 2018) Directed by Yann Demange. Written by Andy Weiss, Logan Miller and Noah Miller. Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Richie Merritt, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Piper Laurie, Bruce Dern, Brian Tyree Henry, Rory Cochrane, RJ Cyler, Jonathan Majors, Eddie Marsan, Taylour Paige, Raekwon Haynes, YG, Kyanna Simone Simpson. (R, 111 mins) The story of teenage street hustler Ricky Wershe, Jr., aka "White Boy Rick," is known by anyone who lived in Detroit in the 1980s, but in bringing that story to the screen, WHITE BOY RICK comes up short. Part of the problem is that the film feels rushed at best and incomplete at worst as it tries to tell too much in under two hours. There's obviously pieces of the story either cut out for time or never shot at all, but the bigger issue is its insistence on shaping the events to engineer the maximum amount of sympathy for both Ricky Jr and his "broke-ass" criminal dad Richard. This is particularly egregious when it comes to the depiction of Richard, played here by Matthew McConaughey in a fine performance when judged solely on what the screenplay is asking him to do. It's not McConaughey's fault that Richard Wershe was, according to Detroit reporters and cops who worked the case, an unrepentant shitbag that the film feels the need to present as some pie-in-the-sky dreamer and single dad selling modified AK-47s out of the trunk of his car because he just wants a better life for his kids by using the profits to open his own video store, which we see exactly one time and where he never seems to be after that.
That's the kind of checklist storytelling WHITE BOY RICK devolves into in its messy second half after a reasonably compelling first hour. 17-year-old newcomer Richie Merritt brings a sort of mush-mouthed, streetwise grittiness to his portrayal of Ricky Jr, who's 14 as the film opens in 1984, unloading some modified guns and homemade silencers on a gang run by Johnny "Lil Man" Curry (Jonathan Majors), who's an underling to his older brother, high-powered Detroit crime lord Leo "Big Man" Curry (rapper YG). Dubbed "White Boy Rick," he ingratiates himself into Lil Man's all-black crew, where he manages to stick out like a sore thumb and immediately captures the attention of FBI agents Snyder (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Byrd (Rory Cochrane), and Detroit vice detective Jackson (Brian Tyree Henry). They're looking to bust up Lil Man's operation, which is being shepherded by corrupt cops and has tangential ties to Mayor Coleman Young, thanks to Lil Man being engaged to Young's niece Cathy (Taylour Paige). Deciding to use a little fish to catch a bigger one, they badger Ricky Jr into working as a paid informant by threatening to nail Richard on gun charges. White Boy Rick starts with small drug buys that escalate, and finally has to start dealing when Jackson and the Feds want him to get closer. It isn't long before Lil Man realizes there's a snitch in his crew, with White Boy Rick obviously drawing the most suspicion.
So far, so good. But director Yann Demange ('71) tries to juggle too much in the second half: Richard valiantly trying to keep his family together; White Boy Rick's crackhead older sister Dawn (Bel Powley); falling in love and having a baby with Brenda (Kyanna Simone Simpson); recovering from an attempt on his life; hooking up with Cathy, etc. Broke after barely surviving a gunshot wound to the gut, White Boy Rick voluntarily gets back in the crack dealing business, bringing in tons of cash and getting cocky and stupid, still living with his dad in the city's dangerous east-side with a Mercedes parked outside sporting a vanity plate that reads "SNOW MAN." WHITE BOY RICK makes a point of mentioning how the Feds' interest in him was a way of exposing a ring of police and municipal corruption in the city (there's a few passing mentions of famed Detroit homicide inspector Gil Hill, best known to moviegoers as Eddie Murphy's ass-chewing boss in BEVERLY HILLS COP, but he never figures into the narrative beyond that), but this is all glossed over, more or less an afterthought. Rushing through the story leaves several characters abandoned, such as Art Derrick (Eddie Marsan), a flashy Motor City drug kingpin, and Richard's crotchety parents (Bruce Dern and Detroit native Piper Laurie), who disapprove of all the crime shenanigans but passively enable whatever their son and grandson are up to. The period detail is hit or miss and not much attention is paid to pop culture timelines (Dawn is watching the legendary Luke and Laura wedding on GENERAL HOSPITAL in a scene set in 1986, five years after the episode aired), though some more rundown areas of Cleveland do a suitable job of playing mid '80s Detroit.
The things that work in WHITE BOY RICK do so largely because the actors are up to the task (and, for DAZED AND CONFUSED superfans, a 25th anniversary reunion of McConaughey and Cochrane). There isn't a weak performance to be found here, with Powley being a real standout, but the film seems hellbent on bending over backwards to make the Wershes as likable as possible. White Boy Rick got back into dealing on his own volition before being busted and was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without parole, even after being promised by the FBI that his sentence would be reduced if he cooperated. He did, and got the life sentence anyway. There's an injustice there, especially considering the cops and the other criminals (including Lil Man) nabbed in the resulting investigation have been out of prison for years (the real Lil Man actually attended the film's Detroit-area premiere). If the filmmakers wanted to make a statement about mandatory minimums for non-violent offenders, that's fine, but by this point, WHITE BOY RICK is just bum-rushing through plot points. None of this ever resonates because it never bothers to really explore how White Boy Rick's case tied to the police corruption scandal, other than a few comments about Cathy being the Mayor's niece. We never even see the corrupt cops in the context of the story. But the worst part of WHITE BOY RICK's fast and loose historical contortions comes at the end, when onscreen text says White Boy Rick was ultimately paroled in 2017. Yeah, for the drug dealing charges. There's even a recording played of the real Ricky Wershe Jr talking about how great it is to finally be released after all these years. But the film doesn't mention that he was paroled and immediately transferred to a Florida prison for his involvement in a stolen car ring while behind bars, instead giving WHITE BOY RICK the Hollywood happy ending that Detroit's Ricky Wershe, Jr didn't get. He's scheduled to be released from his current prison stay in 2021, but you'd never know that by watching the consistently misleading, cherry-picked WHITE BOY RICK.
The real Ricky Wershe, Jr upon entering prison in 1988.
ANNIHILATION (US/UK - 2018) Written and directed by Alex Garland. Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, Benedict Wong, David Gyasi, Sonoya Mizuno. (R, 115 mins)
Though he initially made his name as an acclaimed author with his 1996 novel The Beach, Alex Garland has become much better-known in recent years for his contributions to sci-fi cinema. He didn't pen the screenplay adaptation for Danny Boyle's 2000 film of THE BEACH, but he did team with the TRAINSPOTTING director on two future projects, scripting 2003's zombie apocalypse trailblazer 28 DAYS LATER and 2007's underrated environmental sci-fi gem SUNSHINE. Garland also scripted Mark Romanek's 2010 future dystopia drama NEVER LET ME GO, based on Kazuo Ichiguro's 2005 novel, and Pete Travis' 2012 cult classic reboot DREDD. But it was with his 2015 directing debut EX MACHINA that Garland really gained some serious momentum, including an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. EX MACHINA brings us to his first major-studio filmmaking effort, the $40 million ANNIHILATION, an adaptation of the first novel in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy. Garland uses the book for the core concept and the structure, but largely takes it in his own direction, and anyone who's seen EX MACHINA or the films he's scripted will see recurring themes and ideas. As shaped by Garland, ANNIHILATION is densely-packed and thought-provoking, and while the utilization of ideas from films that have come before--the 1982 version of THE THING, EVENT HORIZON, THE RELIC, THE DESCENT, various old-school Cronenberg-derived body horrors, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, ARRIVAL (which was hitting theaters when this was in production in 2016), and even a mutant bear on loan from 1979's PROPHECY--do give the story mechanics a too familiar feel at times that keeps it just shy of perfection, ANNIHILATION's real success lies not with the What, but with the Why, the How, the Who, and the When. Garland introduces some heady, hard-science ideas throughout, and it's refreshing to see a horror film trust and respect its audience enough to refuse to spell everything out for them. ANNIHILATION expects you to pay attention and keep up (multiple viewings are likely required). This trust and respect Garland placed in the audience caused friction with Skydance CEO and co-executive producer David Ellison, who was concerned about a disastrous test screening and complained that the film was "too intellectual." When Garland refused to make any changes and co-executive producer Scott Rudin remained supportive of the filmmaker's vision and backed him up (Rudin had final cut written into his deal, essentially pulling rank on Ellison), Skydance partner and distributor Paramount--perhaps out of spite or fearing they had another CLOVERFIELD PARADOX on their hands--sold the distribution rights to Netflix everywhere in the world but North America and China, then decreased the US theatrical screen count to around 2000.
Lena (Natalie Portman) is an Army vet and Johns Hopkins cellular biologist with a focus on cancer research. Other than her work, she's largely withdrawn from the world in the year since her career military husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) vanished along with other soldiers during a secret mission to a location he couldn't divulge. Out of nowhere, Kane returns home confused and distant and begins coughing up blood. A military convoy intercepts the ambulance and whisks Lena and Kane to a top-secret compound constructed at a location off the coast of the southern US termed "Area X." A comatose, quarantined Kane is on a ventilator and Lena is interrogated by Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a psychiatrist stationed at Area X. Outside the compound is a translucent, floating mass called "The Shimmer." Described by Ventress as "a religious or an alien event," it first appeared three years earlier and has slowly been growing and expanding, even taking over a small town that was evacuated under the pretext of a chemical spill. No one who's gone into The Shimmer has emerged except Kane, and prior to his coma, he had no recollection of his time inside, what happened, or how long he was there. Ventress is planning an expedition into The Shimmer with a trio of contracted personnel--paramedic Anya (Gina Rodriguez), physicist Josie (Tessa Thompson), and geologist Sheppard (Tuva Novotny)--that eventually includes Lena. Once inside The Shimmer, what feels like a few hours ends up being at least several days, as they've already gone through several meal rations and have no recollection eating or even setting up camp. The area is a vast forest filled with a mash-up of flora that don't exist in the same family. Josie is attacked by an alligator that's shot dead by Lena, and upon examination, has teeth that belong to the shark family and exhibits other signs of DNA that it shouldn't. As they venture deeper into The Shimmer, time blurs more and strange sights abound--deer with plants sprouting from their antlers, trees and plants growing in the shape of human bodies, Anya noticing her fingerprints fluidly moving on her fingertips, and the discovery of a memory card left behind by Kane's group at an abandoned Army base--as Josie theorizes that The Shimmer is prismically "refracting" everything contained in it, absorbing the DNA of whatever life forms have entered and creating an almost constantly-shifting change in them.
Things go much deeper--and get a lot worse--for the expedition, and Garland keeps the audience on its toes by the very gradual and subtle reveal of information, whether it's the framing device of Lena being debriefed by a mysterious, Hazmat-suited figure (Benedict Wong) in an observation room or the life choices made by the five women that led them on what's ultimately termed a "suicide mission" ("We're all damaged goods," Sheppard confides to Lena). Garland isn't afraid make Lena a very flawed character and even risks turning the audience against her, depending which way you read a key development. The film takes a downright trippy turn into Kubrick "2001 Stargate" territory in the last 20 or so minutes, leading to an ambiguous ending that's riddled with multiple interpretations and prompting reflection upon a number of small but very significant details parsed throughout (keep an eye on that ouroboros tattoo). While Garland goes for a couple of easy jump scares, where he really succeeds with ANNIHILATION beyond the implications of what The Shimmer is capable of doing, is by creating one of the most ominous and unsettling vibes that I've felt from a horror film in quite some time, probably since THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER, so much so that even the recurrent use of Crosby Stills & Nash's "Helplessly Hoping" starts to make you uneasy. This is an uncomfortable film whose images and soundscapes burrow under your skin and haunt you, with at least two nerve-shredding sequences of extended creepiness that aren't easily shaken. Whatever commercial potential Paramount thought ANNIHILATION might've had is irrelevant after the opening weekend. Mainstream audiences probably won't be very receptive to it, but Garland's film--pretty close to an instant genre classic--is a reminder that there was once a time when major studios welcomed creative artists with open arms and championed intelligent and challenging films that might stand the test of time rather than merely clean up at the box office for a week or two and quickly fade from memory. It will probably be out of theaters in two weeks, but ANNIHILATION is a film that's playing the long game, and it's one that fans will be discussing and debating for years to come. And coupled with EX MACHINA and his screenwriting resume before, it unquestionably establishes Alex Garland as a leading figure in sci-fi cinema today.
On the shelf so long that the prefix "the long-delayed" should just be tacked on to the title, the long-delayed AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING was shot was back in 2014 with a trailer hitting theaters that fall, ahead of its planned January 2, 2015 release. After being abruptly pulled from the schedule and sent back for reshoots, with at least six more release dates announced then bumped or canceled over the next two and a half years, the film finally debuted--for free and with disgraced co-executive producer Harvey Weinstein's name awkwardly erased from the opening credits--on Google Play in October 2017, ahead of a ten-screen theatrical release for a total gross of $742. It's hard telling what caused the delay, other than the Weinsteins' perpetual financial issues or that they just knew it was dog shit. A reboot of the AMITYVILLE franchise for the Blumhouse era of horror, THE AWAKENING has 17-year-old Belle (Bella Thorne) moving into the infamous house with her widowed mom Joan (Jennifer Jason Leigh), little sister Juliet (McKenna Grace), and James (Cameron Monaghan), Belle's comatose twin brother, who hasn't moved or shown any brain activity since a horrible fall from a third story balcony when he go into a fight with a guy who posted nude pics of Belle all over the internet. Rebellious, sullen Belle doesn't fit in and gets bullied because of where she lives, but makes a couple of friends with nerdy Terrence (Thomas Mann) and goth Marissa (Taylor Spreitler), who inform her of the legend of the "Amityville Horror" by showing her the 1979 movie.
Now, what the hell kind of bullshit is writer/director and Alexandre Aja protege Franck Khalfoun (the 2013 remake of MANIAC) trying to pull here? Are we going the meta WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE and SCREAM route with an AMITYVILLE movie that takes place in a world where the movie franchise is a known thing? If so, then you have to try harder. Exactly how has Belle made it to 17 years of age without hearing of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR? I'm not even asking her to know the James Brolin version since it's like, so old and she probably can't even--but she doesn't even know the Ryan Reynolds remake, as evidenced when Terrence suggests it and Belle and Marissa roll their eyes and vocal fry "Remakes totally blow!" OK, so if you're a savvy enough movie watcher to conclude that remakes totally blow, then how are you unaware of any incarnation of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR? At this point, James--unlike Khalfoun's script--starts showing signs of brain activity thanks to malevolent spirits in the basement's "Red Room," and Belle becomes convinced that the same evil that possessed Ronald DeFeo Jr to slaughter his family in 1974 is inhabiting James and risking all of their lives. A tired jumble of AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION and PATRICK with hints of last year's already forgotten SHUT IN, AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING stumbles to its tired conclusion, relying completely on predictable jump scares and hinging on Joan's thoroughly idiotic reasons for moving into a house she knew was home to a godless evil, all the while abandoning plot points and completely forgetting James' doctor (Kurtwood Smith cashing a paycheck), who has a swarm of bush-league CGI flies go down his throat before excusing himself and vanishing from the movie. That's about what Khalfoun does with the limp finale, which looks so much like a hastily tacked-on epilogue that if you analyze the audio and listen deep into the mix, you can probably hear Khalfoun saying "Let's just get this over with." (PG-13, 87 mins)
SAVAGE DOG (US - 2017)
The latest from busy VOD/DTV action star Scott Adkins is a period adventure set in 1959 Indochina, which has become a safe haven for despots, warlords, Nazi war criminals and other undesirables. Fugitive Irish boxer Tillman (Adkins) is one of the top fighters in a tournament overseen by the camp's commander, former Nazi Steiner (Vladimir Kulich, looking like a dead ringer for '60s German bad guy Peter Van Eyck). Tillman is released from the compound and gets a job as a bouncer at a bar owned by American expat Valentine (Keith David). He finds love with Isabelle (Juju Chan), and is eventually drawn back into Steiner's tournaments since they provide easy money. Steiner and his overly enthusiastic henchman Rastignac (Marko Zaror), who humbly refers to himself as "The Executioner," inform Valentine that they'll be taking over his business, which results in a dispute leading to Rastignac losing his shit and blowing everyone away, with Tillman left for dead. Of course, he's not dead, and after recuperating with the help of a local tribal chieftain (Aki Aleong sighting!), he returns to Steiner's camp as a one-man killing machine, blowing shit up and shooting, slicing, and dicing his way through everyone, including another bad guy played by Cung Le, before his inevitable confrontation with The Executioner.
Written and directed by DTV vet Jesse V. Johnson (THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT, GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS 2), SAVAGE DOG is pretty pedestrian stuff in the early going, with clumsy narration by David's Valentine (who continues narrating even after he's killed, actually saying "Well, there I was...killed by three slugs from my own gun"), and a drinking game-worthy amount of cliched dialogue (of course, Isabelle tells loner Tillman "Some animals are not meant to be caged," and "We build our own cages," and Steiner sucks on a cigar while smugly informing Tillman "You're not so dissimilar to us"). Once Tillman returns to the camp and starts killing everyone, SAVAGE DOG becomes a rowdy gorefest along the lines of Stallone's 2008 resurrection of RAMBO, culminating in an unexpected final blow to The Executioner that's pretty transgressive as far as by-the-numbers DTV actioners go. The copious splatter is a mix of practical and CGI, with an unfortunate emphasis on the latter. It's distractingly cheap-looking at times, but it almost goes hand-in-hand with the low-budget aesthetic of the whole project, with the jungles of Indochina being played by the Sanna Ranch in Santa Clarita, CA. With some more convincing gore and some better writing, SAVAGE DOG could've been a minor gem among the year's VOD releases. It's not bad and Adkins fans will definitely want to give it a look, but it's the kind of budget-deprived corner-cutter where a big action sequence shows the same extra, wearing three different outfits, getting killed three times in about five minutes of screen time. (Unrated, 95 mins)
GOOD TIME (US/Luxembourg - 2017) Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie. Written by Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein. Cast: Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Benny Safdie, Barkhad Abdi, Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster, Peter Verby, Necro, Rose Gregorio, Gladys Mathon, Saida Mansoor, Eric Paykert, Robert Clohessy, George Lee Miles. (R, 101 mins) In the tradition of SPRING BREAKERS, THE ROVER, THE WITCH, IT COMES AT NIGHT, and A GHOST STORY, GOOD TIME is another love-it-or-hate-it A24 pickup that gets great reviews from critics but a toxic reception in wide release and almost immediately becomes a revered cult movie. A Palme d'Or contender at Cannes and the most high-profile film to date from sibling indie auteurs Josh and Benny Safdie, who earned significant acclaim for their 2014 heroin addiction drama HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT (Josh, the elder of the pair, got some indie buzz for his 2008 solo effort THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED), GOOD TIME is like nothing else you've seen in multiplexes this year. It's brash, ballsy, and out of its own time, and with its grainy look and a supporting cast of mostly amateur actors from Queens and Flushing, it resembles a 2017 interpretation of one of those really gritty NYC films of Abel Ferrara or Paul Morrissey, while owing a debt to the "No Wave" movement of no-budget DIY movies in the early 1980s that helped establish underground filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch, Eric Mitchell, Beth B, Susan Seidelman, Slava Tsukerman, and Amos Poe. The garish Argento colorgasms in Sean Price Williams' cinematography and propulsive, non-stop Tangerine Dream-ish score by Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) give it an enervating, exhilarating aura that's hypnotic and surreal, like a nightmare from which its hapless shit show of a "hero," Constantine "Connie" Nikas can't wake. As played by Robert Pattinson, whose post-TWILIGHT career choices are proof positive that he's a serious actor who's made more money than he'll ever need and is drawn to challenging projects with very little mainstream appeal, Connie is a petty criminal and a total loser who doesn't realize he's a loser. He's got big ideas and seems to pull them off but they always lead to bigger problems and end up sucking more unfortunate bystanders into his toxic orbit. Nobody has a good time in GOOD TIME, which is one of these familiar "survive the night" scenarios, but pulled off with such imaginative panache that it ends up being one of the most stylish fusions of sight and sound this side of BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW.
After crashing a therapy session for his mentally-challenged, deaf younger brother Nick (co-director Benny Safdie), Connie talks his brother into accompanying him on a Flushing bank robbery that almost works. They wear very lifelike masks that don't attract attention from the other customers and the teller follows directions and doesn't hit the panic button. Of course it's too good to be true, since the dye packs explode in their getaway car. While fleeing the cops, Connie gets away but Nick is apprehended and taken to Rikers. Connie takes the stained money to a bail bondsman, who says he still needs another $10,000 to get Nick out. The rest of the film chronicles Connie's attempts to bail Nick out, running into one problem after another, starting with his older sometime-girlfriend Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a hot mess in her 40s who seems to have stopped maturing at 17 and is so stupidly infatuated with Connie that she lets him badger her ("What the fuck's the problem? It's like a loan...you'll get it right back!") into unsuccessfully trying to use her mom's credit card for Nick's bail. That doesn't work, and Connie then finds out that Nick can't be bailed out anyway since he's been involved in a fight in jail and has been taken to a hospital in the city, prompting one of the least-plausible escape sequences you'll ever see, and eventually leading to the introduction of three other key characters: just-paroled Queens pusher Ray (Buddy Duress, star of HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT), 16-year-old delinquent Crystal (newcomer Taliah Webster), and security guard Dash (CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Oscar-nominee Barkhad Abdi), who runs afoul of Connie and Ray when they try to recover a drug stash at a dilapidated amusement park.
GOOD TIME always keeps you on edge, with the constant use of close-ups with handheld cameras, and the grainy, 16mm-looking imagery giving it a genuinely frazzled, scuzzy vibe. An absolutely magnetic, frenetic Pattinson has never been better, seemingly going full Method by the end, where it looks like he's been awake for a week even though the film takes place over a 24-hour period (there's a couple of time flubs that undermine the flow of the story, like one character mentioning it's "almost 9:00 pm," then a bit later, someone else saying it's 7:30 pm). GOOD TIME basks in the seedy underbelly of dangerous areas of working class Queens that you really don't see much of in movies anymore, giving it a distinctly 1970s mood but coming off like Nicolas Winding Refn, Gaspar Noe, and Larry Clark teaming up to make a Michael Mann movie. The Safdies take advantage of actual locations--some shots seem to have been captured on the fly, guerrilla-style--in places that don't appear to have changed much over the last few decades. It's only fitting that this film comes off like a welcome relic from another era, a late-summer shot of adrenaline that unfortunately will be loathed by the few mainstream moviegoers who don't ignore it in the first place. It's a powerfully off-kilter moviegoing experience where nothing plays out as you expect, from the opening credits taking place over 20 minutes into the movie to the way Ray ends up entering the story and briefly hijacking it (Duress gets a long speech and flashback sequence out of nowhere that's the most inspired non-sequitur aside for a character since Victor's trip through Europe in Roger Avary's THE RULES OF ATTRACTION). There isn't much here on a narrative or subtextual level--there's probably some parallels to be drawn from Connie, Nick, and Crystal all having absentee parents and being raised by their grandmothers--and it comes up a bit short on that front, but as a character study in lowlifes and for its colorful visuals and shot compositions and aural razzle-dazzle (goddamn, that score is incredible), GOOD TIME is a gem that sticks with you and is one of the audacious films of the summer.
MORGAN (US - 2016) Directed by Luke Scott. Written by Seth Owen. Cast: Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rose Leslie, Toby Jones, Paul Giamatti, Michelle Yeoh, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Cox, Michael Yare, Boyd Holbrook, Chris Sullivan, Vinette Robinson. (R, 92 mins) Luke Scott has served as an assistant and a second-unit director on several films by his legendary and seemingly ageless father Ridley Scott, but MORGAN marks the 48-year-old scion's feature directing debut (Ridley's other filmmaker son, Jake Scott, debuted with 1999's PLUNKETT & MACLEANE). Pops Scott produced the film, and if Luke had any hopes of emerging from the long shadow cast by his visionary father, he's gonna have to try a lot harder than MORGAN. In all fairness, MORGAN looks fine, with some effective set design and a few breathtaking exterior visuals in a surrounding forest and on a lake (this was shot in Ireland), but the script by Seth Owen (rumored to be overhauled and rewritten by the director) is so derivative and obvious that any seasoned moviegoer will figure out where this thing is headed by the ten-minute mark. At a secret research facility in remote upstate New York, scientists have succeeded in creating, after two failed attempts, a flesh-and-blood, A.I. humanoid named Morgan (THE WITCH's Anya Taylor-Joy), who's five years old but whose accelerated growth rate gives it the appearance of a girl in her late teens. Cold and standoffish Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is a risk assessment agent sent in by the project's corporate benefactors to determine Morgan's viability after it attacks one of the scientists, Dr. Kathy Grieff (Jennifer Jason Leigh), gouging out her eye in a fit of rage when it's informed it disobeyed the rules and can't go outside anymore. Lee is naturally met with apprehension and scorn by the rest of the research team--Dr. Simon Ziegler (Toby Jones), Dr. Amy Menser (Rose Leslie), Dr. Ted Brenner (Michael Yare), married Drs. Darren and Brenda Finch (Chris Sullivan, Vinette Robinson), and the head of the project, Dr. Liu Cheng (Michelle Yeoh)--with her only real ally coming from the facility's nutritionist/cook/potential love interest Skip (Boyd Holbrook).
Why these people can't prepare their own meals and require Skip to be on the payroll in a sworn-to-secrecy, middle-of-nowhere location for a minimum of five years is the least of the questions you'll have after watching MORGAN. As Morgan demonstrates more human qualities and has tangible feelings of joy and sorrow (it loves the outdoors and opera, and is set off when it's punished for wandering off the property while out on a walk with Amy), they've grown attached to it and refer to it as "she" and "her," which doesn't fly with the no-nonsense Lee. With her aloof, bottom-line attitude, Lee's character arc is pretty easy to pick up on thanks to Scott's inability to grasp the concept of subtlety. There's a big EX MACHINA influence on MORGAN, but it also works in a significant plot point of Dad Scott's first or second-most famous film in such a ham-fisted way that the biggest mystery isn't what the twist is, but how long it's going to take the rest of the dim characters to figure out what you already know. With her saucer-like eyes and the large pupil contacts she wears in some scenes, Taylor-Joy evokes memories of Delphine Chaneac's more monstrous Dren in Vincenzo Natali's 2010 film SPLICE, which took things in a decidedly more Cronenberg-ian slant, but whose transgressive perversions are hinted at here and dropped almost instantly. Indeed, there's something strongly suggested in outsider Amy's feelings for Morgan--feelings that don't seem to be maternal or sisterly. There's a throwaway line by Skip about how he briefly hooked up with Amy years ago before realizing "I'm not her type." There's enough in Leslie's performance here to suggest that Amy has other designs on Morgan but nothing comes of it (those who've seen SPLICE will recall that, yes, it went there).
There's good performances in MORGAN in the early-going, before it turns into a rote body count movie when Morgan escapes from the lab and starts killing everyone off one by one. Taylor-Joy does a solid job of balancing childlike innocence with palpable rage, but Alicia Vikander did it much better and with more complexity and ambiguity in EX MACHINA. Still, Morgan shows more emotion than Mara's Lee, whose brittle chilliness is oversold with a stick-up-her-ass demeanor and an "I'd like to speak to a manager" hairstyle that exemplifies MORGAN's rush to show its cards too soon. The veteran actors in the cast are underutilized: Leigh pretty much lies in a bed with gauze over her eye, catatonic with painkillers in one of the most inactive-by-design performances this side of Eric Stoltz in ANACONDA; Yeoh's Dr. Cheng drifts in and out of the story in ways that suggest Scott only had the actress for a very limited time (why is she not there for the big assessment of Morgan?); Brian Cox almost literally phones in his entire performance as the CEO of the company bankrolling the Morgan project; and Paul Giamatti has one ten-minute scene, breaking out every move in his "Paul Giamatti" arsenal as Dr. Shapiro, the psychologist brought in to interview Morgan. Giamatti's character is a man so bellicose and arrogant that the actor has barely finished emitting his first dismissive sneer before you conclude that he's not making out of the room alive. The fact that Shapiro's there because Morgan has attacked Kathy and his plan is to sit with it at the same table and agitate it to evaluate its temper--essentially poking Morgan with a stick until it attacks--tells you how smart this film and its characters are. MORGAN looks like what might've happened if EX MACHINA was made at a major studio and the suits let the test audiences and the focus groups dictate the outcome. It's never dull but it's doomed to be a forgotten afterthought as soon as its over, its primary influences thuddingly apparent to any knowledgeable cineaste with even a passing interest in genre fare. They've seen things the makers of MORGAN wouldn't believe. All those ripoffs will be lost online, like streams on demand.
THE HATEFUL EIGHT (US - 2015) Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum, James Parks, Zoe Bell, Lee Horsley, Gene Jones, Dana Gourrier, Keith Jefferson, Craig Stark, Belinda Owino. (R, 168 mins) Quentin Tarantino's second consecutive western (after 2012's spaghetti tribute DJANGO UNCHAINED) is a three-hour epic that's equal parts classic western, Agatha Christie mystery, Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, bitterly misanthropic screed, and a horrific, splatter-filled gorefest. It has everything you'd want in a Tarantino film--quotable dialogue, vividly-detailed characters, a spirited love of all cinematic genres, and some truly inspired creative violence. But it's also Tarantino at his most self-indulgent. THE HATEFUL EIGHT is a very good movie that could've been a great one if there was less of it. For the first time since the 107-minute European cut of DEATH PROOF, the shorter version of which was his contribution to GRINDHOUSE, a Tarantino film has moments of rambling, florid overwriting. Tarantino characters have a lot to say, but in THE HATEFUL EIGHT, they simply talk too much. And then they talk some more. It's the stagiest Tarantino film--even more so than his 1992 debut RESERVOIR DOGS, which had a lot more cutaways and flashbacks and was an hour shorter--but that's by design. For about 90 minutes, THE HATEFUL EIGHT is top-tier Tarantino, with a deliberate buildup that brings a group of wildly disparate characters together during a blizzard and the audience can just lean back and watch a great filmmaker get great performances out of his cast, letting the story gradually build into a stomach-knotting powderkeg of suspense and tension. But then Tarantino loses focus, a couple of major characters are Janet Leigh'd out of the film far earlier than you'd expect, and then it becomes a bit of an unwieldy mess, complete with the requisite Tarantino flashbacking, fractured timelines that bring both plot threads together. To call Tarantino self-indulgent is like calling water wet, but as a director, he's growing too enamored of the words of his favorite writer--Quentin Tarantino--to remain objective. DJANGO UNCHAINED ran a little long, but THE HATEFUL EIGHT starts to feel oppressive after a while, its story not nearly substantive enough to justify its bloated run time. It may sound like I didn't care for it, but I liked it quite a bit. I just would've preferred less of it.
Set several years after the end of the Civil War, THE HATEFUL EIGHT opens during a Wyoming blizzard as a stagecoach heads toward the mountain town of Red Rock. Bounty hunter and former Union Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), with the corpses of three outlaws in tow, hitches a ride on the coach transporting legendary bounty hunter John Ruth, aka "The Hangman" (Kurt Russell), who's taking his latest capture, outlaw Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to hang in Red Rock (she's wanted dead or alive, but as Ruth says, "I don't like to cheat the hangman"). As the blizzard gets closer and travel becomes more treacherous, they decide they'll have to wait it out at a lodge called Minnie's Haberdashery. Warren and Ruth form a Leone-esque unholy alliance to have one another's backs with their respective bounties, and on the way to Minnie's, they're joined by another traveler, new Red Rock sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), on his way to being sworn in and whose horse broke a leg in the storm and had to be killed. Mannix is the son of a legendary Confederate officer and tensions flare with Warren over old North and South grudges. Coach driver O.B. (James Parks) gets them to Minnie's to find others stranded: former Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern); cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), who's penning his memoirs; the very British Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), Red Rock's hangman; and Bob (Demian Bichir), a Mexican employee of Minnie's. Owners Minnie and Sweet Dave are nowhere to be found and Bob claims they went to visit Minnie's mother on the other side of the mountain and left him in charge. Warren is suspicious of their absence (Bob: "Are you calling me a liar?" Warren: "Not yet") and Ruth doesn't trust anyone in the group, remaining shackled to Daisy in the event anyone plans on collecting the $10,000 reward for her capture. Words are exchanged, war-era grievances exhumed, and alliances shift as it becomes clear that at least one person in the room isn't who they claim to be.
Though it doesn't involve an alien creature, the scenario should sound familiar to any Kurt Russell fan who's seen John Carpenter's 1982 version of THE THING. That's one of the most obvious homages in THE HATEFUL EIGHT, right down to the film's use of unused cues from the legendary Ennio Morricone's THING soundtrack (one of the very few times a Carpenter film was scored by someone other than Carpenter). Though Tarantino uses his usual mix-tape approach to scoring the film, throwing in some Roy Orbison and The White Stripes as well as a memorable borrowing of Morricone's "Regan's Theme" from EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, the film also contains some original Morricone music written specifically for it. Tarantino's grandiose vision for THE HATEFUL EIGHT borders on hubris at times--who else would stage an overlong drawing-room mystery taking place mostly on one set while shooting in Ultra Panavision 70, a 65mm format that hasn't been used since 1966 (in keeping with that, a roadshow edition running 175 minutes (plus an intermission and an overture with some new Morricone music, debuted on 100 screens a week earlier than this general release version)? The snowy exteriors look incredible on a big screen, and Tarantino's the kind of gifted filmmaker who can make such lofty ambitions work in such a claustrophobic setting, also tossing in a few unmistakably De Palma split diopter shots to make the really hardcore movie nerds trickle a little with giddy excitement (guilty as charged).
From Tarantino's ego (the opening credits declare "The 8th Film by Quentin Tarantino," and midway through, he can't resist giving himself the role of narrator) to the inflated length to the use of Ultra Panavision for what's mostly a single-set production, everything about THE HATEFUL EIGHT is grandiosely overblown, including--intentionally so--the performances. Russell fans will be delighted to see him resurrecting the John Wayne swagger he used as Jack Burton in 1986's BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, though his better--and more restrained--2015 western performance can be seen in BONE TOMAHAWK. Jackson does his furious indignation schtick that no one does better, and no one drops an enraged "motherfucker" quite like him (and he gets to spit out his most vile Tarantino monologue yet with a story he tells Dern's Smithers about crossing paths with his son), and Leigh is positively feral at times, especially once she's missing some teeth and covered in blood and brain matter, looking like a possession victim in a '70s EXORCIST ripoff by the end. THE HATEFUL EIGHT is a film that's unmistakably the work of its mad scientist auteur creator, showcasing both his strengths and weaknesses, and operating at an estimated rate of 75% riveting to 25% tedious. Tarantino is one of the very few major directors whose new films constitute a legitimate event, but he could really stand to start taking a "less is more" approach.
