On Blu-ray/DVD: FINAL SCORE (2018), BEL CANTO (2018) and THE PADRE (2018)

FINAL SCORE
(UK/US - 2018)

As DIE HARD celebrates its 30th anniversary, it's only fitting that FINAL SCORE exists as a testament to its enduring influence. Entire scenes and situations are lifted completely, whether it's the hero listening in on the bad guys' walkies and jotting their names down or throwing a henchman off the top of a building with a message for the asshole police honcho who refuses to believe his story. The busy Dave Bautista gets a rare heroic lead as ex-Navy SEAL Michael Knox, who's in London to visit his dead combat buddy's widow Rachel (Lucy Gaskell, a second-string Sally Hawkins) and troubled 15-year-old daughter Danni (Lara Peake), who's always angry with her mum but appreciates "Uncle Mike" still being in their lives and looking out for them. Knox scores two tickets to the West Ham football semi-finals (he keeps calling it "soccer" like every American) at a nearby stadium, and--wouldn't ya know it--fanatical "Sokovian" terrorist Arkady Balov (Ray Stevenson) has packed the place with bombs and commandeered the power grid in an attempt to force the British government to turn over his brother Dimitri, who was presumed killed in a 1999 skirmish when Russia quashed a Sokovia rebellion led by the Balov brothers. Turns out Dimitri is very much alive, having turned himself over to the CIA after faking his death, getting plastic surgery, moving to London, becoming a huge football fan, and getting as much screen time as director Scott Mann (reteaming with Bautista after the better-than-average Lionsgate DTV thriller HEIST) could manage in Pierce Brosnan's two, perhaps three days on the set.

Like John McClane at the Nakatomi Plaza, Knox figures out what's going on and starts taking on Balov's goons one by one while the sellout crowd and the teams are oblivious to what's going on, which also gives FINAL SCORE a chance to rip off the 1995 Van Damme hockey actioner SUDDEN DEATH as an added bonus. After Danni gets separated from Knox, he finds an unlikely sidekick in lowly security usher Faisal (Amit Shah) while butting heads over the radio with both Balov and Steed (Ralph Brown), the bullheaded London police commissioner and this film's Dwayne T. Robinson. He also get in a couple of throwdowns with Tatiana (Alexandra Dinu as Alexander Godunov), Balov's most feral accomplice, who of course takes it personally when Knox dunks her lover Vlad's (Martyn Ford) head in a boiling concession stand fry vat, after which he bears an uncanny resemblance to The Toxic Avenger. As far as belated DIE HARD knockoffs go, you can do a lot worse than FINAL SCORE if it's a slow night and you're looking for a brainless action movie. Bautista (one of 25 credited producers) is an engagingly brutish hero who doesn't have much tolerance for bullshit ("Seriously? That guy's a dick," he scoffs when introduced to Danni's would-be boyfriend), and he's a better Bruce Willis than Bruce Willis is capable of being right now. There's nothing wrong with FINAL SCORE--it's better than a lot of DTV and Redbox-ready B action movies--but there's really nothing to make it all that memorable, either. (R, 105 mins)


BEL CANTO
(US - 2018)

One of the most inert hostage thrillers ever made, BEL CANTO is a lifeless and ultimately absurd adaptation of Ann Patchett's 2001 bestseller, itself inspired by a several-month hostage crisis at the Japanese embassy in Peru in 1996. Directed and co-written by an out-of-his-element Paul Weitz (AMERICAN PIE, LITTLE FOCKERS), the film also takes place in 1996, as wealthy Japanese industrialist and opera enthusiast Katsumi Hosokawa (Ken Watanabe) travels to an unnamed and politically unstable South American country with his interpreter Gen (Ryo Kase), where the president and assorted investors and diplomats plan to woo him into a building a factory by arranging a swanky dinner and intimate birthday performance by world-renowned American soprano Roxane Coss (Julianne Moore). The president bails, sending his VP (J. Eddie Martinez) instead, and Roxane is barely into her first piece when a group of armed rebels led by Comandante Benjamin (Tenoch Huerta, a last-minute replacement for Demian Bichir) storm the mansion and hold everyone hostage. They're demanding the release of a group of fellow guerrillas imprisoned by the president, as Red Cross negotiator Messner (Sebastian Koch) is called in to attempt to broker a peaceful resolution. Messner manages to convince Benjamin to release the women as well as Roxane's diabetic pianist (22 JULY's Thorbjorn Harr) but Roxane remains held due to her value as an American celebrity.

Weeks and months drag on as Benjamin refuses to budge and Messner comes and goes from the grounds as he pleases, and eventually Stockholm Syndrome-esque bonds form between the captors and their captives, especially with Gen falling in love with Carmen (Maria Mercedes Coroy), one of Benjamin's loyal soldiers. Romance blossoms between Hosokawa and Roxane as well, and as time goes on, the mansion becomes a sort-of idyllic paradise that no one really wants to leave ("This is where we live now," Carmen tells Gen). Call it DOG DAY AFTERNOON meets THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL as the outside world gradually ceases to exist. They play chess and soccer, they exercise together, they eat lavish meals, they teach Benjamin's soldiers English, Hosokawa learns Spanish, Roxane becomes a mentor to one of the rebels who's inspired to pursue his love of singing, and all the while, an incredulous Messner--perhaps a surrogate for the viewer--can't believe what he's seeing. There seems to be no urgency on the part of anyone--Messner, the president, various world governments (also among the hostages are Christopher Lambert as the French ambassador and Olek Krupa as a Russian trade delegate), and the hostages themselves--to bring this crisis to an end. When Messner finally loses it with Benjamin and shouts "You must release these people! Now!" it's hard to tell if he's talking about the hostages or the audience  This sort of kumbaya utopia might've worked better in Patchett's novel where the medium allows the reader to get into the characters' heads, but it's absolutely ludicrous and deadening on the screen, and the abrupt shift in tone of the last ten minutes shows that Weitz had something in mind here, and I get it, but by that point, it's too little, too late. BEL CANTO is hobbled by wishy-washy politics and the bizarre intent of being a feel-good hostage thriller, leaving great actors like Moore (who doesn't even lip-sync Renee Fleming's vocals convincingly) and Watanabe completely defeated by the material, and even their presence couldn't get this barely-released dud on more than 30 screens for a paltry $80,000 gross. (Unrated, 101 mins)


THE PADRE
(Canada/Ireland - 2018)

Some good performances and gritty location work throughout Bogota elevate this minor chase thriller/character piece slightly above the norm among the plethora of VOD and Redbox options out there. Disguised as a priest, British con man Clive Lowry (Tim Roth) is on the run in Colombia, picking pockets and running scams and doing whatever he can to keep moving. In pursuit is Nemes (Nick Nolte), a retired and still-obsessed US marshal hunting the man known as "Padre" on his own time and dime, even hiring local cop Gaspar (Luis Guzman) to be his guide and translator. Padre crosses paths with Lena (Valeria Henriquez), a 16-year-old orphan desperately trying to get to the US to find her 12-year-old sister, who's been bought on a black-market adoption web site by a family in Minnesota. But with Nemes and Gaspar never far behind, Padre and Lena only keep moving south, with a plan to rob a church and fence some priceless goods to secure passage to the States. It's obvious Nemes' quest is personal, in ways that are both poignant and predictable, as is the way that Padre seems destined for redemption, but Gaspar is quick to remind Nemes of that old adage "Those who seek revenge should dig two graves." Nemes is hesitant to get into specifics in the quest for what's essentially his white whale, telling Gaspar--in a way that sounds awesome when grunt-croaked by a grizzled, 77-year-old Nick Nolte--"I'm bound to him...I lashed my fate to a spear and I aimed it at his heart!" a line fraught with such heavy-handed portent that he repeats it verbatim later on. Henriquez carries much of the dramatic weight, and Roth and Guzman play characters similar to those they've played before (Guzman seems to be the same guy he portrayed in THE LIMEY), but it's great seeing Nolte get such a showy role that keeps him onscreen from start to finish, even busting through doors with his gun drawn and constantly grumbling like a geriatric Jack Cates. With a cast headlined by Roth, Nolte, and Guzman, THE PADRE would need to take a time machine back to 1998 to have any chance at a wide theatrical release. It's easy to see why Sony relegated it to VOD--it's slight and forgettable, and it gets a little sluggish in the second half--but it's a decent enough time-killer that's worth seeing for some frequent flashes of vintage Nolte. (R, 95 mins)

In Theaters/On VOD: MAPS TO THE STARS (2015)

MAPS TO THE STARS
(Canada/Germany - 2014; US release 2015)

Directed by David Cronenberg. Written by Bruce Wagner. Cast: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, Sarah Gadon, Evan Bird, Carrie Fisher, Kiara Glasco, Dawn Greenhalgh, Jonathan Watton, Niamh Wilson, Jennifer Gibson, Justin Kelly, Jayne Heitmeyer, Joe Pingue. (R, 112 mins)

As we've observed with the ongoing tragedy of Dario Argento, seeing a great and influential filmmaker skidding in his elder statesman years is never a pleasant sight, and David Cronenberg's MAPS TO THE STARS is, if nothing else, a slight step up from 2012's career-worst COSMOPOLIS. Other than one character having some significant body scarring that recalls his CRASH (1997), there's very little to here to suggest that the 71-year-old Cronenberg really has his heart in this one. It's written by Bruce Wagner, best known for the 1993 Oliver Stone-produced ABC miniseries WILD PALMS, but also a novelist (his so-called "cell phone trilogy" of I'm Losing You, I'll Let You Go and Still Holding), whose chief focus has always been the skewering of cliched L.A. and Hollywood types. Wagner also wrote Paul Bartel's 1989 satire SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS and in many ways, MAPS TO THE STARS plays like a grim spinoff of that film, one that was lambasted when it was released and only remembered today by the cult of Bartel (DEATH RACE 2000, EATING RAOUL) and the most devoted Jacqueline Bisset stalkers. MAPS TO THE STARS is yet another tiresome entry in the "Hollywood taking misanthropic shots at itself" subgenre, one that's brilliant when it's done right (SUNSET BOULEVARD, S.O.B., THE PLAYER, TROPIC THUNDER) and insufferable when it's not (almost everything else). Cronenberg has been trying to get MAPS TO THE STARS made for the last decade, and Wagner's script dates back further than that (in fact, when the project stalled three years ago and Cronenberg moved forward with COSMOPOLIS, Wagner turned his script into the 2012 novel Dead Stars), only with some added mentioning of Twitter and the name-dropping of some current stars to spruce it up. Considering how long MAPS TO THE STARS was gestating in development hell, it's alarming how utterly disconnected from it Cronenberg seems. It's not a David Cronenberg film--it's a Bruce Wagner script that Cronenberg happens to be directing. Unlike guys like Billy Wilder, Blake Edwards, and Robert Altman, the Canadian Cronenberg's never been a Hollywood insider (indeed, MAPS is his first film to features scenes shot in the US), so MAPS' potshots at industry types seem especially cheap and hollow. And by this point, Wagner's scripts are all the same, stuffed with loathsome, decadent L.A. asswipes drowning in ennui and self-absorption who do shitty things and screw over anyone to get ahead. Wagner's covered these subjects ad nauseum in past screenplays and novels and at 60 years old, he's starting to sound less like a guy with keenly satirical insights into the Hollywood machine and more like a bitter curmudgeon who's having a hissy fit because he never quite made it to the A-list.

MAPS TO THE STARS is one of those "everyone is connected" ensemble pieces: washed-up, pill-popping actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) desperately wants a part in a remake of an old movie that starred her late mother Clarice Taggart (Sarah Gadon), who died in a fire 30 years ago and frequently appears in ghost form to taunt Havana about, among other things, the state of her career, the smell of her vagina ("That hole smells worse than I do!"), and their incestuous past as mother-daughter lovers; Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird), a teenage movie star who combines the worst parts of Justin Bieber and Joffrey Baratheon, is just out of rehab and shooting the next entry in his BAD BABYSITTER franchise; his enabling mother Christina (Olivia Williams), and his father Stafford (John Cusack), a famous New Age TV therapist who counts Havana as a patient and is prone to declarations during massage sessions that go something like "I'm going to press on a personal history point--memories are stored in the thighs"; Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska), an odd, burn-scarred young woman who arrives from Florida boasting of a Twitter friendship with Carrie Fisher (as herself), who gets her a job as Havana's personal assistant, or "chore whore"; and Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattinson), a limo driver and would-be screenwriter who occasionally turns up as part of Agatha's character arc until the film forgets about him once more.

Wagner's script is so sloppily-constructed that things that should be big reveals and surprises land with a complete thud. Is it supposed to be a surprise that Agatha is Benjie's older sister and the disowned daughter of the Weisses? Because by mentioning her last name as soon as we see her, we've put that together. Wagner tries to demonstrate some complexity in the various parallels that manifest between characters involving ghosts, fire, and incest, with a particularly creepy focus on the latter, and he only succeeds in repetitious overkill, especially if you're one of the four people who can recall that ghosts reminding characters of their past misdeeds was also a major part of SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS. Elsewhere, Cronenberg props things up with the unfortunate crutch of shock value in ways that do nothing to further the story, whether it's bodily discharges with Agatha leaving a menstrual blood stain on Havana's $12K couch or a constipated Havana struggling to defecate and only loudly passing gas. Yes, David Cronenberg has been reduced to fart jokes and drags Moore down with him.

The best thing that can be said about MAPS TO THE STARS is that the actors commit. Moore overdoes it, but the character requires such, and one of the few satirical bits that actually has some scathing bite to it is when she loses the role in the movie to younger rival Azita (Jayne Heitmeyer), known for "letting producers put their dick in her ass and take a piss," only to win it back when Azita's six-year-old son Micah drowns in a swimming pool, prompting her to have a breakdown and drop out of the film. The role then goes to Havana, who reacts by joyously dancing through the house and outside by the pool, shouting Micah's name and singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye." Moore won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her scenery-chewing work and prior to her eventual Oscar win for STILL ALICE, was generating some Academy buzz for MAPS until its US release got pushed to 2015 (it was out in Europe last summer), preceded by one of the most blatantly misleading trailers in quite some time, edited in a way to make it look like Wasikowska is the psycho in a SINGLE WHITE FEMALE-type thriller. Bird does a solid job at playing a spoiled and thoroughly despicable turd, and even Cusack, taking a break from his new career in D-grade action movies, has some good moments, though he's first seen vaping--apparently his go-to prop as DRIVE HARD and RECLAIM introduced him the exact same way. Some good performances aside (though Pattinson is wasted in a rather nothing role), MAPS TO THE STARS is all bark and no bite, filled with tired depictions of debauchery, transgression, and generally bad behavior, plus an act of self-immolation that features the worst CGI fire I've ever seen. Cronenberg needn't prove anything to anyone at this point, but he's still smarter than a de facto follow-up to a forgotten 25-year-old movie that almost nobody liked. One leaves MAPS TO THE STARS wishing its poster art's tag line "Eventually stars burn out" didn't seem so oddly prophetic for its director. And as far as Wagner is concerned, his only significant contribution to cinema remains sharing a story credit with Wes Craven on 1987's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS.

In Theaters: SEVENTH SON (2015)

SEVENTH SON
(US/China - 2015)

Directed by Sergei Bodrov. Written by Charles Leavitt and Steven Knight. Cast: Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Ben Barnes, Djimon Hounsou, Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Olivia Williams, Antje Traue, Jason Scott Lee, John DeSantis, Gerard Plunkett, Kandyce McClure, Luc Roderique, Zahf Paroo. (PG-13, 102 mins)

Filmed way back in 2012 and bounced around the schedule since its first announced release date of February 2013, the $100 million SEVENTH SON has finally arrived with some of the lowest expectations this side of 47 RONIN. The original release date was postponed after one of the film's primary companies in charge of the visual effects went bankrupt. After that was sorted out, the first official trailer appeared in theaters in July 2013, followed by numerous release date shuffles pushing the movie into 2014. Some time later, Legendary Pictures ended their partnership with distributor Warner Bros., setting up a new deal with Universal, who bumped SEVENTH SON to February 2015, likely to afford it a reasonable opportunity to distance itself from the 47 RONIN debacle of Christmas 2013. The train-wreck potential on this one is pretty high, but its primary offenses are shoddy visuals, sloppy writing, and a strict adherence to a stale formula. Despite the buckets of money thrown on the screen, SEVENTH SON doesn't look any better than one of Uwe Boll's straight-to-DVD IN THE NAME OF THE KING sequels, with some alarmingly unimpressive greenscreen backdrops and the daytime exteriors given the same kind of blurry, smeary soft focus that ABC News uses on Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer.

Based on Joseph Delaney's 2004 novel The Spook's Apprentice (retitled The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch in the US), the first part of the "Wardstone Chronicles" (UK)/"Last Apprentice" (US) medieval fantasy series (now up to 13 books, plus several spinoff novels), SEVENTH SON deals with Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), a wise old warrior fighting the supernatural. Known as a "spook," he's the last of his kind, the sole survivor of a legion of warriors defeated by evil. Now a mercenary witch hunter, Gregory is called back into action when Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), a nefarious spellcaster he imprisoned in a mountain dungeon decades earlier, escapes and kills his apprentice Bradley (Kit Harington). Mother Malkin, who frequently shapeshifts into a dragon, is set to reclaim her throne and unleash her evil over the world upon the rise of the Blood Moon, a once-per-century lunar event that happens to be a week away. Gregory needs a new apprentice, a seventh son of a seventh son, which leads him to earnest farm boy Tom Ward (Ben Barnes). Tom leaves his family to join Gregory in his quest, falling in love with Alice (Alicia Vikander), the half-witch niece of Mother Malkin. As Gregory trains Tom in the ways of being a spook--of course they initially butt heads but come to a mutual respect--they're joined by Gregory's faithful servant Tusk (John DeSantis) and prepare for battle against Mother Malkin, who's assembling her army of fellow shapeshifting witches and warlocks in order for evil to reign supreme at the coming of the Blood Moon.

No stranger to planned franchises that stall after one film, director Sergei Bodrov--well-respected in Russian and, since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakh cinema--is best known to arthouse audiences for his Genghis Khan epic MONGOL (2008), the first installment of an announced trilogy whose second chapter has yet to materialize. It's hard to say what drew the 64-year-old Bodrov to a mega-budget Hollywood blockbuster-type project 40 years into his filmmaking career (he also directed PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS, a 1996 Oscar-nominee for Best Foreign Language Film), but the look and feel of SEVENTH SON is purely that of a B-grade LORD OF THE RINGS knockoff, from the inevitable swooping, circular aerial shots of the heroes walking along hills and mountaintops to the sage old mentor instructing a naive, impulsive pupil. The bland Barnes, who's seen whatever momentum he had going from being THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA's Prince Caspian derailed by films shelved for anywhere from two (THE BIG WEDDING) to three (this) to even five years (LOCKED IN), was 31 at the time of filming and looks a good decade too old for his role. Barnes, currently the British guy you go to after Andrew Garfield, Jim Sturgess, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Alex Pettyfer turn you down, is largely indistinguishable from his CGI surroundings, and in many scenes, he and the supporting cast appear to be looped in a way that's just ever-so-slightly off, giving a certain slapdash feel to the proceedings. It's especially noticeable with Swedish Vikander and German Antje Traue (as Mother Malkin's witch sister), who are clearly dubbed with different voices in some scenes, and speak with their own audible accents in others. This, along with some later scenes where Barnes' hairstyle and Bridges' hair color have changed, are obvious indicators of hasty reshoots.

Even Moore flubs it at times, using a comically regal tone most of the time and occasionally slipping into her normal way of speaking. She goes through rants and raves with a look on her face that indicates she's well aware of how dumb all of it sounds, but she trudges through like a pro, as does the great two-time Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou, who deserves better than a stock henchman role as one of Mother Malkin's supernatural cohorts. It's hard telling what's up with Bridges, who really seems to have stopped trying after his CRAZY HEART Oscar. Bodrov obviously just let Bridges do whatever he wanted to do, which apparently involved playing Master Gregory as a some sort of bizarre mash-up between Gandalf and Karl Childers. Enunciating oddly through a jutted-out lower jaw, Bridges is mannered and hammy, much like he's been since his Oscar-nominated turn as Rooster Cogburn in TRUE GRIT. That was a fine and fun performance in 2010, but a coasting Bridges has just kept delivering it over and over again since. Jeff Bridges is one of the greats and while we all love The Dude, maybe it's time for him to start giving a shit again.

Earlier Warner poster art reflecting just
one of the film's many bumped release dates.

Bridges does get a couple of funny one-liners, but the script--credited to BLOOD DIAMOND screenwriter Charles Leavitt and LOCKE writer/director Steven Knight, who separately rewrote an earlier draft by Matt Greenberg (REIGN OF FIRE)--is all over the place, often feeling like we're watching the sequel to something that doesn't exist, arbitrarily pulling new rules and stipulations out of its ass when it gets backed into a corner, and not even following its own logic: why does Master Gregory even need an apprentice?  He has Tusk, a more than formidable sidekick. And the only time Tom comes to Gregory's rescue is after the pupil's stupidity causes the mentor to be captured in the first place. If Gregory has a week to stop Mother Malkin's Blood Moon-abetted reign of terror, he and Tusk seem more than up to the task--why take all the time to train Tom, who's obviously dead weight until the script needs him to be the hero? Ultimately, all of this "seventh son of a seventh son" malarkey does nothing other than make you wish Iron Maiden was handling the soundtrack duties. On the plus side, SEVENTH SON moves quickly, Bodrov deserves some credit for getting Jason Scott Lee (DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY) back on the big screen again even if it's a brief role as a warlock who shapeshifts into a giant bear, and I'm sure Bridges and Moore had a great time between takes reminiscing about THE BIG LEBOWSKI. It's just too bad that SEVENTH SON doesn't end NEWHART-style with The Dude waking up from a hazy dream and trying to explain it to an incredulous Maude Lebowski.

In Theaters: NON-STOP (2014)

NON-STOP
(US/France/UK - 2014)

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.  Written by John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, and Ryan Engle.  Cast: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Michelle Dockery, Scoot McNairy, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll, Linus Roache, Anson Mount, Shea Whigham, Lupita Nyong'o, Omar Metwally, Jason Butler Harner, Frank Deal, Corey Hawkins, Jon Abrahams. (PG-13, 106 mins)

No one expected 2009's TAKEN to turn the now-61-year-old Liam Neeson into the modern-day Charles Bronson and an icon of AARP asskickers (how is he not in EXPENDABLES 3?), but he's carved a niche for himself at a time when most actors his age are settling into character parts and elder statesman roles.  Sometimes, as in the case of Neeson and Kevin Costner, star of last week's 3 DAYS TO KILL, which looks and feels like it was written for Neeson, a good actor can dabble in both.  Neeson's latest is NON-STOP, and a cursory glance at the poster art and the trailer might suggest it's TAKEN ON A PLANE but that's an incorrect assumption.  True, it probably wouldn't exist had TAKEN never happened, but in the hands of underrated director Jaume Collet-Serra, it plays a lot like a Hitchcockian "wrong man" situation in the era of post-9/11 security and technology.  Collet-Serra, a former music video director, has turned into a solid suspense craftsman after an inauspicious debut with the 2005 remake of HOUSE OF WAX, where he was saddled with the then-ubiquitous Paris Hilton in co-starring role.  But even in retrospect, HOUSE OF WAX shows a method to Collet-Serra's madness:  as a filmmaker, he's rooted in the classics, even if HOUSE OF WAX was a dumb remake of a beloved horror film (1953's HOUSE OF WAX, itself a remake of 1933's THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM).  After the barely-seen soccer sequel GOAL II: LIVING THE DREAM (2007), Collet-Serra established his bona fides with 2009's ORPHAN, a BAD SEED-inspired thriller with a deliriously gonzo plot twist that has to be seen to be believed, and 2011's UNKNOWN, his first teaming with Neeson, where the star found himself in the middle of another classic old-school suspense thriller standard:  a man waking up from an accident to find that those closest to him have no idea who he is and that he's being pursued by killers for reasons he doesn't know or can't remember.

NEESON!

Like TAKEN's absent-dad-trying-to-make-good Bryan Mills and THE GREY's suicidal John Ottway, NON-STOP's Bill Marks is another flawed Neeson hero with a certain amount of baggage.  Marks is a Federal Air Marshal with alcohol and money problems.  Of course, his wife and kid are out of the picture and all he's got is his job and he's barely holding on to that.  Haggard and bleary-eyed, Marks boards his latest assignment, a flight from New York to London that's so routine that he thinks nothing of downing a shot beforehand, keeping a flask in his jacket pocket, attempting to order a gin & tonic from flight attendant Nancy (DOWNTON ABBEY's Michelle Dockery), who knows he's on the job and brings him water instead, and occasionally heading to the restroom to smoke.  It's business as usual until Marks gets a text from someone onboard the plane demanding $150 million or a passenger will be killed every 20 minutes.  The spoilers start pretty quickly, so to recount any more of the plot would do a disservice, but with each new development and each new corpse, it becomes clear to Marks--and only Marks--that someone among the passengers is trying to frame him and orchestrate this elaborate scenario as a hijacking by an angry, bitter, paranoid alcoholic who can't be trusted with the lives of innocent people.

NEESON!

There's little new or innovative here, but for a good chunk of its duration, NON-STOP is exactly that in terms of nail-biting suspense.  It's great fun watching an appropriately disheveled-looking Neeson grow increasingly desperate and angry when everyone--the pilot (Linus Roache), a second marshal (Anson Mount), his TSA boss on the ground (Shea Whigham), Jen (Julianne Moore), the woman sitting next to him, and even the sympathetic Nancy--dismisses the situation as Marks' imagination run wild or just presuming he's on yet another bender ("Really, Bill?  How many have you had today?").  When Collet-Serra focuses on these interactions--Marks' frazzled paranoia as he looks more guilty by the minute and loses the confidence of the flight crew (he's eventually denied access to the cockpit after the pilot demands his badge and gun), the increasingly irate passengers plotting to subdue Marks and take over the plane--NON-STOP is tremendously entertaining.  Of course, numerous passengers--a hot-headed, homophobic NYC cop (Corey Stoll), a software programmer (Nate Parker), a nerdy schoolteacher on his way to Amsterdam (Scoot McNairy), a Muslim doctor (Omar Metwally), Jen, who was peculiarly adamant about getting a window seat and was hesitant to discuss her career with Marks, and even the co-pilot (Jason Butler Harner), seen by Marks shiftily whispering to his secret girlfriend Nancy--are presented as possible villains, but all the evidence seems to point to Marks.   Things do grow more implausible, but when done right, that can be part of the fun. 

NEESON!

The plot turns and plot holes that abound late in NON-STOP are a bit too silly and nonsensical to overcome, but what really dampens the finale is the usual shitty CGI.  Again, it's difficult to discuss without spoiling the plot, but it's another case where something that should look spectacular looks like it was taken from a video game on short notice.  Admittedly, my complaining about cut-rate CGI is pretty much beating a dead horse at this point, but there's no reason for AIRPLANE! to have more convincing visual effects in 1980 than NON-STOP does today.  Even a scene on the runway is obviously done with a greenscreen.  Really?  You can't even drag the actors out to a runway and shoot it for real anymore?   Some say it doesn't matter, but when the artifice sticks out like a sore thumb in 2014, it does matter.  Or, if you can't do it for real, can you at least make it look convincing?  It can be done.  You'd be surprised how many streets and backgrounds and buildings in movies and TV are CGI or greenscreen effects.  But when time and care are put into it, you can't tell. The best CGI doesn't draw attention to itself.  I get that CGI is here to stay, but quit half-assing it.  When it stops taking me out of the movie, I'll stop bitching.  Until Collet-Serra basically steps aside to let the CGI team take over, NON-STOP is quintessential post-TAKEN Neeson, right down to the usual "particular set of skills" gravitas inherent in selling-point lines like "I'm not hijacking this plane...I'm trying to save it!" that sound awesome when said by Liam Neeson. It's not perfect, but it's Neeson, he's bellowing, and he's kicking the shit out of people.  Not even some subpar CGI can ruin that.

NEESON!

On DVD/Blu-ray: JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA (2013); DON JON (2013); and DARK TOUCH (2013)

JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA
(US - 2013)

BAD GRANDPA is a departure film for the JACKASS team as Johnny Knoxville goes solo in the franchise's first narrative feature.  Of course, the plot isn't the focal point of this ramshackle affair as Knoxville, under heavy makeup as lecherous 86-year-old widower Irving Zisman, who goes on a road trip to throw his wife's body off of a bridge (per her final wishes) and turn his eight-year-old grandson Billy (Jackson Nicoll) over to his shitbag father (Greg Harris) when Irving's daughter (Georgina Cates) has to go to jail.  The hook here is that other than the primary actors, no other onscreen players are in on what Knoxville and a show-stealing Nicoll are up to as they go on a series of outrageous misadventures that owe more than a slight debt to Sacha Baron Cohen's BORAT and BRUNO.  There are quite a few screamingly funny scenes--Irving in an African-American male strip club; Irving sharting in a diner; Irving bringing a margarita blender to a bingo hall; Billy in drag at a beauty pageant, dancing to Warrant's "Cherry Pie"--and quotable dialogue ("They used to call me Jizzy Gillespie in my younger days"), but the whole narrative element is unnecessary and not that interesting.  It works best when focused on the shocked reactions of those around them, caught by numerous concealed cameras as shown during the closing credits (usually the owners of the establishments were in on it, but not the patrons).  Knoxville has a great rapport with a game Nicoll, a brave and fearless young actor who's so good at staying in character and keeping a straight face that you can see genuine affection and admiration even through the old-man latex on Knoxville's face.  It's ragged and inconsistently-paced, but an outrageous, offensive blast all the same.  (R, 92 mins; 102-minute unrated version also available)

DON JON
(US - 2013)

In films both small (MYSTERIOUS SKIN, THE LOOKOUT) and huge (INCEPTION, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES), Joseph Gordon-Levitt has built a solid reputation as one of the most gifted, natural actors of his generation.  He's also an immensely likable guy, though he does seem to occasionally try a little too hard to please, so it's nice to see that his debut as a filmmaker--directing, writing, and starring in DON JON--is indicative of a confidant and assured talent behind the camera as well, the work of someone who's clearly spent a lot of time on movie sets observing and learning from others.  It's to Gordon-Levitt's credit that DON JON isn't the vanity project that it could've been, though it's not quite as deep and meaningful as its creator intended.  In a role originally planned for Channing Tatum but taken over by Gordon-Levitt himself, the actor plays Jersey meathead Jon, a cartoonish pussy hound who enjoys the simple things in life:  working out, clubbing with his bros (Rob Brown, Jeremy Luke), and getting laid.  He also has a serious pornography addiction that's rendered real sex with real women unsatisfying, and he goes to church every Sunday to confess his sins, which are usually limited to out-of-wedlock sex and how many times he masturbated to online porn.  Thinking a meaningful relationship will make the sex more fulfilling, Jon pursues Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson), a gum-smacking Jersey goddess who tries to mold him into her image of the perfect guy, including making him watch insipid romantic comedies and badgering him into taking night classes to better himself.  While the sex is OK--he laments that she won't do anything but missionary and refuses to give him blowjobs--he genuinely loves her but can't resist the temptations of the anything-goes, money-shot netherworld that awaits him on his laptop.

Gordon-Levitt is good as the conflicted Jon, who's not quite as dumb as he tries to make himself look.  He and Barbara exists in one of those Italian-American Jersey enclaves firmly devoted to tradition and remaining largely unchanged over the decades:  other than the HDTV and Jon's morose sister (SHORT TERM 12's Brie Larson) silently texting, Jon's parents (screeching Glenne Headly and a bloviating Tony Danza) live in a house that looks like it's frozen in 1980, with Jon Sr. generally wearing a wifebeater with a football game blaring in the background and Mom wanting nothing more than grandchildren (the first thing out of Jon Sr.'s mouth when he hears the name "Barbara Sugarman" is "She a Jew?  She sure as hell ain't Italian").  Though very light on explicitness, there's a hard-R boldness to DON JON in its dialogue and in Gordon-Levitt's decision to play a character that constantly straddles the line between likable mook and a lunkheaded Neanderthal.  A late-film subplot involving Julianne Moore as a middle-aged classmate is well-played by Moore but its transformative effect on Jon doesn't really ring true, nor does his falling head over heels for Barbara, who almost immediately comes off as a manipulative, ballbusting cliché.  DON JON is a credible directing debut for its talented star, but it plays a lot like the kind of diverting but generally forgettable indie that Miramax would've bought at Sundance in the '90s.  (R, 90 mins)


DARK TOUCH
(France/Ireland/Sweden - 2013)

Since working for her mentor Francois Ozon as an actress (1997's SEE THE SEA, 1998's SITCOM) and as a writer (2002's 8 WOMEN), Marina de Van has demonstrated a no-holds-barred penchant for in-your-face provocation.  2002's IN MY SKIN, her profoundly disturbing directing debut, found the writer/star crafting an almost Cronenbergian take on self-harm and body image, with de Van casting herself as a young woman whose leg injury leads to self-mutilation and eventually graduating to consuming her own flesh.  2009's double-identity head-games thriller DON'T LOOK BACK was purported to be her "maturing" work, though it comes off as a bit too ponderous and gimmicky despite strong performances from Monica Bellucci and Sophie Marceau.  Apparently staying behind-the-camera full-time now (she hasn't acted since 2007), de Van returns with DARK TOUCH, which has an almost mainstream air about it (it's also her first English-language film) while still dealing with sensitive and uncomfortable issues.  Opening in a disorienting, in medias res cacophony of confusion, 11-year-old Niamh (Missy Keating) flees her house and takes refuge with neighbors/family friends Nat (Marcella Plunkett) and Lucas (Padraic Delaney).  Niamh's tongue is cut and she's covered in bruises, which are explained away by her parents Maud (Catherine Walker) and Henry (Richard Dormer) when they arrive to pick her up.  The next night, a supernatural force invades Niamh's house, destroying the interior and brutally killing her parents.  Her infant brother, also seen covered in bruises, dies as a result of Niamh clutching him too tightly while escaping the destruction.  The local Garda attribute it to a home invasion, but nobody seems to do much investigating as Niamh temporarily moves in with Nat and Lucas, who have two children of their own and recently lost their oldest daughter--around Niamh's age--to cancer.  Niamh remains unreceptive to any kind of affection and soon demonstrates a telekinetic, CARRIE-like ability to move objects as well as possessing a strange, psychic hold over other children when she feels threatened by them.

Young Keating is very impressive in a demanding, difficult role, and de Van succeeds in weaving a thorny subtext into what plays very much like a commercial horror film.  The abuse Niamh endures at the hands of her parents has generated an uncontrollable telekinetic ability born of sheer rage, and it's an anger she uses to take on the adults in her town, even ones like Nat and Lucas, who are trying to help her but don't really know how.  Feeling almost like it could've been a British or Italian fright film made in the 1970s, DARK TOUCH uses the classic tropes of the "evil children" subgenre--in addition to CARRIE, you'll spot elements of ORPHAN (2009), Tom Shankland's little-seen gem THE CHILDREN (2009), the OMEN-inspired British cult favorite THE GODSEND (1980), and Narciso Ibanez Serrador's WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? (1976)--to show the horrific effects of child abuse on the victims and those around them.  It works merely on a surface level, but de Van is digging for something more and doesn't always find it.  Some plot threads are underexplored, perhaps intentionally, and some may find the loose ends frustrating.  It's not the confrontational galvanizer that IN MY SKIN was, but de Van continues to be a bold, ballsy voice in European cinema.  (Unrated, 92 mins)

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?

On DVD/Blu-ray: 6 SOULS (2013); INESCAPABLE (2013); and THE RAMBLER (2013)

6 SOULS
(US - 2013)

Shot in 2008 under the title SHELTER, it took five years for the newly-christened 6 SOULS to get a 54-screen US release courtesy of Radius TWC, the B-movie arm of The Weinstein Company.  Like many of today's horror films, it gets off to an interesting start before collapsing under the weight of its own silliness.  In what will be nothing more than a minor footnote to her career, a decidedly overqualified Julianne Moore stars as Dr. Cara Harding, a widowed psychologist whose dismissal of multiple personality theory as an excuse used by guilty killers to plead insanity gets tested when her father/mentor (Jeffrey DeMunn) has her observe his latest patient, Adam (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).  Adam's second personality is the paralyzed David, and while on an outing with "David," Cara is introduced to Wes, a third personality.  After some investigating, Cara figures out that all of Adam's personalities--and Adam himself--are murder victims who may have been sacrificed by a backwoods cult that practices "sheltering," or sucking out the soul via the mouth, and filling it with dirt to deny the soul future re-entry.  But who is this man claiming to be Adam, David, and Wes, and, eventually, Cara's late husband Charles, who had his throat slashed on Christmas Eve?

6 SOULS has more plot holes than scares, starting with the way Adam, confined to a mental institution, is free to roam about wherever he pleases, even showing up at Cara's daughter's (Brooklynn Proulx) school in his "Charles" guise.  Are there no guards at this hospital?  DeMunn's character has to be one of the most unprofessional medical figures in recent cinema, basically smirking with glee whenever Cara figures out another traumatic layer to "Adam"'s and her own story, reveling in the fact that she now must be forced to believe in multiple personalities.  He acts less like her father and colleague and more like J. Walter Weatherman on ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.  And, excuse me, but does the internet exist in this film's world?  I realize it was on the shelf for five years, but none of this would've happened if DeMunn's idiotic character had bothered to do a Google search or even checked with the police, hospital, or public records or the DMV in regards to Adam/David/Wes before he opts to just blithely put his entire family in danger.  And who still goes to a musty old library to research old high school yearbooks to get to the bottom of something?  Shots of medical files in the movie indicate that it's set in 2008, and the characters use cell phones, but their research methods and everything else feel more like it's 1978, right down to DeMunn's boat of a car.  Yeah, it's a supernatural horror flick and there has to be some suspension of disbelief, but the implausible things in 6 SOULS reek of laziness courtesy of IDENTITY screenwriter (and, more importantly, the killer snowman classic JACK FROST writer/director) Michael Cooney and the Swedish directing team of Mans Marlind & Bjorn Stein, who would go on to bury the UNDERWORLD franchise with the pathetic UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING. 6 SOULS has some interesting ideas and Moore soldiers through it and gives it some credibility because she's a pro, but it's just not good.  (R, 112 mins, also available on Netflix streaming)


INESCAPABLE
(Canada/South Africa - 2013)

This boring, predictable melodrama is more serious than TAKEN but still owes a lot to its basic premise.  Adib (Alexander Siddig) left Syria 20 years ago and has settled down in Toronto with a Canadian wife and two daughters.  The oldest daughter is a photographer who disappears on an overseas trip when she takes an unplanned detour to Damascus.  Adib, a former Syrian Intelligence officer who fled the country after accusations that he was a turncoat working for Israel and the Mossad, returns to Syria, where he's still a wanted man, teaming up in the search for his daughter with his ex-fiancée Fatima (Marisa Tomei, appearing to be auditioning for the lead in the THE SHOHREH AGHDASHLOO STORY) and a Canadian Consulate official (the perpetually bland Joshua Jackson) who--wait for it--may know more than he's letting on.  Written and directed by Ruba Nadda (who previously teamed with Siddig in CAIRO TIME), INESCAPABLE is one of those films, like 6 SOULS, where no one knows how to use the internet.  Adib is still wanted by the Syrian government, but hides in plain sight in Toronto.  He hasn't changed his name and yet his Syrian Intel past is somehow still a secret to his oblivious wife and daughters, who just accept that Dad never talks about his youth when they would only have to go to Google to see that he was the subject of a controversial, headline-making espionage scandal in his homeland.  He also manages to effortlessly get back into Syria simply by giving the border guards a bottle of whiskey, even though his passport has his actual name on it and he's a despised traitor throughout the country.  The only thing inescapable here are the plot holes.  It's nice to see busy character actor Siddig (STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, SYRIANA) in a rare big-screen lead but it's too bad it wasn't in a more worthy effort.  Justifiably released on just seven screens to a whopping $4300 box office total. (R, 93 mins)

THE RAMBLER
(US - 2013)

Don't try to make sense of this surreal road movie/horror film from writer/director Calvin Lee Reeder, one of the contributors to the overrated V/H/S anthology. THE RAMBLER is an impossible film to love and an easy one to hate (I wish I could've seen this in a theater just to see how many people walked out), but if you like unconventional cinema and can just roll with it, it'll certainly keep your attention even if you can't make heads or tails of it.  A well-cast Dermot Mulroney, who doesn't get many starring roles these days, plays a man-of-few-words drifter who's just been paroled after four years in the joint.  He immediately leaves his annoying girlfriend (Natasha Lyonne) and quits his job at a pawn shop when he decides to thumb his way through the small towns and desolate back roads of the southwest to go work for his brother.  He's followed on his journey by a mystery girl (Lindsay Pulsipher) who may not be real but turns up wherever he goes.  He gets duped into some cage-style fighting against an opponent with a literal left hook.  Then he encounters a mad scientist (James Cady) with a machine that reads people's dreams and records them on a VHS tape (hipster cred!) but inevitably causes their heads to explode.  The scientist also has a collection of mummies and keeps his grown daughter--who has an extended vomiting episode all over Mulroney that immediately takes its place among cinema's all-time great puking scenes--chained to a stake in the yard.  Mulroney also meets a FRANKENSTEIN-obsessed taxi driver, has periodic visions of a naked, slime-covered figure slithering across the floor and repeatedly sees Pulsipher killed only to have her turn up in the next town.  All the while, he's hearing strange, garbled radio transmissions and spots surveillance satellites that seem to be following him, blipping through the sky. 

Reeder borrows quite a bit from other filmmakers:  for a while, the film plays a lot like a weird, dark-humored fusion of Rob Zombie and PARIS, TEXAS-era Wim Wenders before we get some Alejandro Jodorowsky imagery, a little Polanski, some gratuitous David Lynch tributes (the naked slithering thing's first appearance is in a scene that could've come straight from TWIN PEAKS), and some Troma-style over-the-top splatter.  I'm not gonna lie: this is an abrasive, frequently off-putting movie that's bound to alienate a lot of people.  But even with the ending that you'll see coming, it's hard to write off the sheer lunatic feel that Reeder brings to it, almost like he's afraid he might never get another shot and is just throwing every homage and every idea he's ever had into this one project.  Without question the strangest thing Mulroney's ever done, and perhaps 2013's most unapologetically bizarre movie, THE RAMBLER isn't something I can wholeheartedly recommend to a casual moviegoer or someone who sees Dermot Mulroney and thinks "Oh, MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING!" but I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it, and that has to count for something. (R, 99 mins)