THE SNOWMAN (US/UK/Sweden - 2017) Directed by Tomas Alfredson. Written by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini and Soren Sviestrup. Cast: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, J.K. Simmons, Val Kilmer, Jonas Karlsson, Chloe Sevigny, Toby Jones, James D'Arcy, David Dencik, Ronan Vibert, Genevieve O'Reilly, Jacob Oftebro, Adrian Dunbar, Michael Yates, Jamie Clayton, Peter Dalle, Sofia Helin, Leonard Heinemann. (R, 120 mins) THE SNOWMAN is the first big-screen adaptation of Norwegian mystery writer Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series. Though I believe the intended pronunciation is "Hol-uh," the fact that they didn't take into consideration that the name "Harry Hole" is only going to induce Beavis & Butthead snickers for English-speaking and American audiences, especially since they just say "Hole" throughout the movie (I've read two of Nesbo's Hole novels, and it's easy to overlook on the page) is a good indication that this was never going to work. Nesbo's books--his non-Hole novel Headhunters was turned into a film in 2011--were part of the post-Stieg Larsson/Girl with the Dragon Tattoo explosion that launched the Scandinavian mystery subgenre into the literary mainstream (see also Henning Mankell's Wallander novels, adapted for television with Kenneth Branagh in the title role, and Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q series, which was turned into a movie trilogy) and generated renewed interest in older works by the influential Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo, and others. THE SNOWMAN is a bit fashionably late to the party as far as movie adaptations of Scandinavian noir go, and it was originally conceived several years ago with Martin Scorsese planning to direct. Scorsese eventually left the project in 2013 as it was put in turnaround but remains credited as a producer, having passed it on to Tomas Alfredson to direct when it was given the green light again in late 2015. Alfredson has two classics to his credit--2008's LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and 2011's TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY--but THE SNOWMAN looks like a film that's been so mangled in post-production that everyone involved simply walked away and gave up trying to fix it. After the film opened to disastrous reviews in Europe, Alfredson attempted to do some damage control in the days prior to the US release, saying that the film was rushed into production with little planning, and when it came time to hit the editing room, he found that he only had, by his own admission, "85%" of the footage he needed, forcing him to use voiceovers and restructure character arcs in an attempt to put everything together. The Band-Aids precariously holding THE SNOWMAN together are all too obvious, starting with several name actors having nothing to do with anything, at least two critical subplots dropped without explanation, that there's a plethora of credits for "additional photography" and a team of editors (including Scorsese's legendary secret weapon and right hand Thelma Schoonmaker), and the fact that virtually none of the footage, dialogue, or implied plot developments in the trailer are actually in the movie. If you're enough of a film nerd, you can tell when a movie has had a troubled production and the end result is barely hanging together. And if you're familiar at all with film editing, you know that if Thelma Schoonmaker can't make it work, then it just wasn't meant to be.
That said, it's not terrible. It's by no means "good," but it's hardly the total dumpster fire that its chaotic backstory and Alfredson's excuses would indicate. It looks good, there's some effective atmosphere and striking location work in Norway, and I'm a sucker for cold, snowy, depressing mysteries. As the glum, alcoholic Hole, Michael Fassbender keeps the story interesting even as it's falling apart at the seams. In relatively crime-free Oslo, a serial killer is decapitating single mothers and putting their severed heads on snowmen (the mechanism used is similar to that seen in Dario Argento's 1993 film TRAUMA). He also seems to be stalking cold-case detective Hole, sending him a taunting note calling him "Mister Police." Hole has nothing to do ("I'm sorry about Oslo's extremely low murder rate," his boss tells him) and can go on weeklong benders with no none really noticing he's gone, so he teams with younger investigator Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson), who seems hellbent on tying wealthy Oslo politician and businessman Arve Stop (J.K. Simmons) and fertility doctor Idvar Vetlesen (David Dencik, a fixture in Scandinavian mystery adaptations) to the murders. Hole also digs into secret files Katrine has stashed away about a similar string of killings nine years earlier in Bergen, which were investigated by corrupt detective Gert Rafto (Val Kilmer). Hole's obsession with cracking the case puts a strain on his relationship with Oleg (Michael Yates), the teenage son of his ex-girlfriend Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Hole is still on good terms with Rakel, even though she's involved with shrink Matthias Lund-Helgesen (Jonas Karlsson), but Hole sticks around because Oleg has always viewed him as a father figure and, unbeknownst to the boy, Hole is his biological father (not a spoiler--it's divulged very early).
There's a lot of story in THE SNOWMAN, and I didn't even mention Chloe Sevigny playing dual roles and getting about five minutes of screen time total before disappearing from the movie. The whole subplot about sleazy Stop trying to get the Olympic Games to Oslo ends up being a time-wasting, dead-end red herring that goes nowhere, along with pervy Vetlesen--who paints his toenails--acquiring young girls for him (are they pimps? Human traffickers? Who knows?). The killer's identity is easy to figure out, especially with a flashback to a young boy witnessing the drowning of his mother twenty-odd years ago, which a) must mean something, and b) gives you a good idea of what age that kid would now be, and Rakel and Oleg serve no purpose whatsoever other than being put in jeopardy. The motivations of Katrine and her drive to continue Rafto's work are obvious long before Hole figures it out by visiting a cabin that somehow hasn't been touched in nine years, and the editing is so bad at times that you'll wonder why Schoonmaker even left her name on it (how can the killer be throwing a snowball at an intended victim as she walks to her car and at the same time be in the car parked right behind her when she gets in hers?). The plot requires characters to be idiots in order to move it forward (the killer leaves cigarette butts all over the crime scenes, yet no one runs a DNA test on any of them), and the film's version of high-tech is laughable, as evidenced by the "EviSync," a cumbersome, clunky gadget that Katrine totes around that looks like an oversized iPad prototype from 1988.
But the biggest point of discussion about THE SNOWMAN is bound to be the bizarre appearance of Kilmer, in his first role in a major movie in years. For the last several years, Kilmer's health has been the subject of rumors until he finally admitted earlier this year that he'd been battling some form of tongue or throat cancer. Kilmer's Gert Rafto is only seen fleetingly in a handful of flashbacks. The veteran actor looks gaunt and visibly ill, almost unrecognizable, and when he opens his mouth, it's instantly obvious that he's been dubbed over by a voice that sounds absolutely nothing at all like his own. There's also a near-GODZILLA effect as the words barely match his lip movements--probably a sign of post-production rewrites--and Alfredson bends over backward to keep Kilmer's face offscreen while his character is talking. There's even scenes where people are talking to him and he awkwardly says nothing in return. It's a distraction even if you're aware of Kilmer's health problems (back in the '60s until his death in 1973, throat cancer robbed beloved actor Jack Hawkins of his voice, requiring him to be dubbed in everything, but at least effort was made to sound like him). You're taken out of the movie every time he's onscreen. Kilmer's dubbed voice couldn't be any more jarring if it was done by Gilbert Gottfried. It sounds like the kind of deep-voice distortion given to a silhouetted whistleblower in a 60 MINUTES interview. Sure, maybe he needed the work and has a friend at Universal who wanted to do him a solid, but even if he was unable to speak or if his words were garbled post-cancer, they couldn't find anyone who sounded even remotely like Val Kilmer to dub his dialogue and not completely sabotage his performance?
After taking 20 years off between 1978's DAYS OF HEAVEN and 1998's THE THIN RED LINE, Terrence Malick's directorial output in the 2010s is coming at a furious pace that rivals Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood. Counting the 40-minute IMAX film VOYAGE OF TIME, SONG TO SONG is his sixth movie of this decade, and the final part of a loose trilogy that began with 2013's TO THE WONDER and 2016's KNIGHT OF CUPS. Shot back-to-back with KNIGHT OF CUPS way back in 2012 and endlessly tinkered with by its maker, SONG TO SONG takes the first-world ennui of CUPS' self-absorbed Los Angeles navel-gazers and moves them to the hipster mecca of Austin, TX for maximum insufferability. Any hopes of Malick turning this into his own version of NASHVILLE are dashed the moment the film begins and it's the same kind of pained, whispered, emo journal entry voiceover by a dull ensemble of ciphers played by actors who, for some reason, still want to say they were in a Malick movie. If there's a central character--none of them are referred to by name--it's Faye (Rooney Mara), a waify aspiring musician who's seen onstage with a band a couple of times and seems to be friends with Patti Smith (as herself), but we never really see her working on music or practicing with the rest of the band. Faye's involved with Cook (Michael Fassbender), who's some kind of music industry A&R asshole (I guess), and BV (Ryan Gosling), another aspiring musician who doesn't seem to do much playing or songwriting and, like everyone in this film, appears to have significant disposable income. Faye drifts between both men, and during some downtime, the psychologically abusive Cook hooks up with teacher-turned-diner waitress Rhonda (Natalie Portman), and even coerces Rhonda and Faye to join him in a threesome. Faye also gets involved with Parisian transplant Zoey (Berenice Marlohe) and BV with Amanda (Cate Blanchett), while almost everyone gets their turn at center stage for some of Malick's signature vacuous ruminations of the privileged and aimless. To wit:
"I thought we could roll and tumble. Live from song to song. Kiss to kiss."
"I love the pain. It feels like life."
"I'm low. I'm like the mud."
"Foolish me. Devil."
"I was once like you. To think what I once was. What I am now."
"I played with the flame of life."
"I feel like we're so...connected. I can't really understand. It's like..."
"The world built a fence around you. How do you get through? Connect?"
"You burn me. Who are you?"
"I need to go back and start over."
Malick should've taken that last sentiment to heart. Like KNIGHT OF CUPS, SONG TO SONG shows the revered filmmaker continuing his ongoing descent into self-parody. This does not look like the work of a 73-year-old auteur who's been making movies for 45 years. If this same movie was presented by a film school student, it would be dismissed as self-indulgent, adolescent drivel. But Malick's defenders continue to give him a pass and insist that his detractors--a contingent of former acolytes that's growing with each new Malick journey up his own ass--just can't grasp the level of genius that's being gifted to them. Bullshit. Malick was poised to stake his claim as the Greatest American Filmmaker when Stanley Kubrick died, and brilliant films like 2005's THE NEW WORLD and 2011's THE TREE OF LIFE certainly made a strong case for his inheriting the title. But over the course of TO THE WONDER, KNIGHT OF CUPS, and now SONG TO SONG, Malick has offered enough evidence to suggest that the emperor has no clothes, and rather than the new Kubrick, he's really just the American Jean-Luc Godard, another filmmaking legend who's abandoned any semblance of narrative cohesion and for whom any negative criticism is strictly verboten. Malick goes into these films with no clear vision, instead hoping it comes together in post with the help of eight (!) credited editors. And, as was the case with WONDER and CUPS, a ton of name actors got cut out of the film when Malick decided they weren't needed, among them Christian Bale, Benicio del Toro, Haley Bennett (THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN), Boyd Holbrook (LOGAN), and Angela Bettis (MAY), along with artists Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes, and Arcade Fire (when asked about this film in a 2013 interview after shooting wrapped, even Fassbender said he wasn't sure if he'd end up being in it). Iggy Pop and John Lydon turn up in SONG TO SONG, along with Smith, who gives the film one of its few legitimately worthwhile dramatic moments when she fondly speaks of her late husband, MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith. Alternating between wide-angle and fish-eye lenses and often using GoPro cameras to maximize the faux-experimental aura, Malick and renowned cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki did some extensive shooting at the 2012 Austin City Limits and Fun Fun Fun fests, which gave Fassbender a chance to wrestle with Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea and let Malick waste some screen time on that. For all the impact that the Austin events brought to the film, Malick may as well have shot scenes at that year's Gathering of the Juggalos. Holly Hunter turns up briefly as Rhonda's mom and Val Kilmer does a walk-through as a wildman rock star, onstage with the Black Lips at the Fun Fun Fun fest, cutting off clumps of his hair with a Bowie knife and chainsawing an amp during a live show while yelling "I got some uranium!" Malick would've had a significantly more entertaining movie if he'd just followed Kilmer around and filmed him being weird for two hours.
It's also nice to see Malick has entered his "pervy old man" phase, with lingering, leering shots of Mara and Marlohe caressing each other, Zoey kissing Faye's hand while she masturbates, and Cook in bed with two nude escorts in what looks like an outtake from the harrowing Fassbender sex addiction drama SHAME. It's easy to assume from his last few films that Malick has forgotten how people really communicate and interact and maybe doesn't get out much anymore, and from the looks of some of the more sordid scenes in SONG TO SONG, he's apparently just discovered Cinemax. It's possible that Malick is putting a stop to this myopic nonsense with his next film, the German-set WWII drama RADEGUND, due out later this year. It stars (for now) August Diehl, Matthias Schoenaerts, Bruno Ganz, and the late Michael Nyqvist, and by all accounts, it's actually Malick doing a commercial film with a straightforward narrative. It's about time, because SONG TO SONG is a fucking embarrassment. (R, 129 mins)
SALT AND FIRE (Germany/US/Mexico/France/UK - 2017)
A companion piece of sorts to his 2016 Netflix documentary INTO THE INFERNO (which was shot second but released first), SALT AND FIRE provides further evidence that, much like his 1970s New German Cinema contemporary Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog's strengths no longer lie in narrative filmmaking. A visionary German auteur and one of cinema's most beloved eccentric raconteurs, Herzog is a tireless workaholic whose curiosity of all subjects has led him to create some of the most captivating documentaries of the modern era, including 2005's GRIZZLY MAN, 2007's ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, and 2010's CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS. He once made brilliant, groundbreaking dramas like 1972's AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD and 1982's FITZCARRALDO, but after his superb 2006 Vietnam POW drama RESCUE DAWN, his gonzo 2009 reimagining of BAD LIEUTENANT, and his experimental 2010 misfire (though it has its admirers) MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE?, Herzog's most recent forays into scripted cinema have fallen flat: his Nicole Kidman-headlined historical epic QUEEN OF THE DESERT took four years to get released in the US in April 2017, the same day as the shot-in-2015 SALT AND FIRE. MY SON, MY SON was bad, but SALT AND FIRE is easily the worst Herzog film I've seen, a deadening, ponderous slog with muddled, ham-fisted admonishments about environmental issues and filled with characters who never once speak like human beings who know how to interact with one another. Much of the dialogue sounds like stuff Herzog would've written for himself to narrate in a documentary and honestly, it would play significantly better coming out of his mouth instead of a monotone, somnambulant Michael Shannon, one of the great character actors around but who's having a really off day here. Imagine the curiously soothing tone of Herzog uttering such musings as "Truth is the only daughter of time," "Here lies a monster on the verge of waking," or "The noblest place for a man to die is the place he dies the deadest," and you've got a movie. But when those same lines are mumbled by Shannon, they sound like the pretentious ramblings of the world's most depressed Bond villain.
As SALT AND FIRE opens, scientist Dr. Laura Sommerfeld (Veronica Ferres) is on a UN fact-finding mission in South America with two colleagues--horndog Italian Dr. Fabio Cavani (Gael Garcia Bernal) and stoical German Dr. Arnold Meier (Volker Zack Michalowski)--to look into an impending ecological disaster at the Diablo Blanco salt flats (played by Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni). They're left at an abandoned airport and abducted by armed, masked men and taken to an undisclosed location where Sommerfeld is granted an audience with mastermind Matt Riley (Shannon), the CEO of a mysterious corporation known as "The Consortium." While Cavani and Meier are sidelined in the shitter for the rest of the film after secretly being given a powerful laxative (one of the film's several ill-advised attempts at levity; c'mon, Herzog...you're better than poop jokes), Riley and his chief associate Krauss (theoretical physicist Jonathan Krauss as himself) take Sommerfeld into the middle of the Diablo Blanco, where Riley informs her that a lake that was there just a few decades ago is gone and that expanding Diablo Blanco threatens to reactivate a long-dormant volcano that could obliterate mankind ("It could be 20,000 years or it could be 20...but it will happen"). After confessing that it was his company's unethical, careless practices that brought this certain disaster on the world, he abandons her in the desert with two blind children, for whom she quickly adapts to the situation to be a protective mother figure while trying to ascertain the exact of Riley's actions. Ferres and Shannon aren't given characters to play but rather, talking points to recite, with Shannon's Riley coming off as particularly hectoring in a way that borders on mansplaining, considering Ferres' Sommerfeld is the top ecology expert in her field. Popular German actress Ferres delivers her lines in a stilted, halting way that sounds like she looped them in post-production, while Shannon comes off as so lifeless that you might think Herzog pulled a HEART OF GLASS on him. SALT AND FIRE is anti-entertainment of the highest order, a film that opens as a straightforward hostage drama and flirts with becoming a disaster movie before turning into an overbearing, finger-wagging lecture, and finally, an examination of a career woman finding her true inner self when, like the volcano, her long-dormant maternal instincts are reawakened (it's mentioned that Sommerfeld has a estranged daughter who's in the custody of her ex), along with signs of a budding romance with her kidnapper. It speaks to how random and disjointed SALT AND FIRE is that it's no less than three movies before it finally settles on being a fourth with a clumsy attempt to link motherhood with nurturing Mother Earth, a metaphor that's so ineptly handled by Herzog that it comes off as a passive-aggressive, context-free rebuking of the life choices of a world-renowned science professor that also has her succumbing to the charms (?) of her creepy, morose abductor. Herzog's rarely been as wrong-headed as he is here--he should've just made a documentary about the Salar de Uyuni salt flat and everything would've turned out better for everyone. (Unrated, 98 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
ALIEN: COVENANT (US - 2017) Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by John Logan and Dante Harper. Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Guy Pearce, James Franco, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Amy Seimetz, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby, Goran D. Kleut. (R, 120 mins) Despite the pre-release tap-dancing around the issue, it was obvious that 2012's PROMETHEUS was Ridley Scott's return to the universe he created with the 1979 classic ALIEN. After PROMETHEUS' ultimate reveal as a prequel, Scott has returned with no illusions about what's going on with ALIEN: COVENANT. Picking up ten years after the events of PROMETHEUS, COVENANT centers on a colonization mission on the space vessel Covenant, with a crew of 15 carrying 2000 colonists and 1000 embryos on a seven-year, hypersleep mission to an oxygenated planet known as Origae-6. They're under the watchful eye of "Mother," the ship's computer, as well as Walter (Michael Fassbender), a synthetic in charge of maintaining the ship. A "neutrino burst" causes significant damage to the ship, killing some sleeping colonists and forcing Walter to bring the crew out of stasis. Second-in-charge Oram (Billy Crudup) is forced to assume command when mission leader Branson (a barely-seen and uncredited James Franco) is killed in a freak explosion when his pod won't open. They're still seven years from Origae-6, and Branson's wife Daniels (Katherine Waterston, Sam's lookalike daughter), who's also on the crew, voices her objection when Oram decides to investigate a signal (someone singing John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads," in a garbled audio transmission that's effectively creepy in an EVENT HORIZON way) from a previously unseen planet just a few weeks away that's showing even better habitability figures than their intended destination.
I guess Daniels is the only one who's ever seen an ALIEN movie or an ALIEN ripoff, since this is obviously a decision worthy of a Bad Idea Jeans commercial. While the Covenant and pilot Tennessee (Danny McBride) stay in orbit with two other crew members, a smaller vessel piloted by Tennessee's wife Faris (Amy Seimetz) takes Oram and the rest of the crew to the surface. They split up, with Oram's biologist wife Karine (Carmen Ejogo) collecting samples with soldier Ledward (Benjamin Rigby), who unknowingly stirs some alien spores that enter his ear and go undetected, taking root in his brain. Meanwhile, Oram and the others discover the wreckage of the spacecraft in which Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and synthetic David (also Fassbender) escaped at the end of PROMETHEUS. When a soldier in that group, Hallett (Nathaniel Dean), also gets infected by spores, they head back to the docked vessel where a creature has already burst out of Ledward's back and killed Karine, eventually leading to an explosion that kills Faris. A creature erupts out of Hallett's mouth and soon, others similar to the franchise's signature xenomorphs start attacking until the whole group is rescued by David (also Fassbender), who's been living alone in what appears to be the ruins of a Pompeii-like civilization. Dr. Shaw was killed in a crash landing ten years earlier, and when David isn't weeping at a shrine he's set up in her memory, he's been surviving on his own. He clearly has other intentions, as evidenced by his barely-contained enthusiasm upon being told that there's 2000 hibernating colonists and 1000 embryos aboard the still-orbiting Covenant.
ALIEN: COVENANT is consistently interesting, but it's still a hot mess. The biggest obstacle that it can't overcome--and it didn't seem apparent to me until I considered it and PROMETHEUS as a whole piece--is that knowing the backstory to the events of ALIEN and the whole Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) saga is completely unnecessary. When the actual H.R. Giger-designed xenomorphs finally appear in the last half hour or so, we see entirely too much of them, and in their sleek new CGI incarnation, pinballing all over the screen like sprinting zombies in 28 DAYS LATER, they lack the sense of tangible menace like the aliens in ALIEN and its equally great 1986 sequel ALIENS. This whole saga of PROMETHEUS and COVENANT ultimately feels like little more than ALIEN fan fiction that does nothing to enhance the movies we've been watching for going on 40 years now. Scott throws in enough bizarre and unexpected elements that COVENANT has always got your attention even when it's stumbling--the whole midsection of the film, showing David's routine around the ruins of the society he's adopted as his home, is another example of the director's occasionally insane side making its presence known. But in the end, it doesn't go far enough, like a lobotomized Ray Liotta eating his own sauteed brain in HANNIBAL or Cameron Diaz fucking a car in THE COUNSELOR. Before long, we once again start getting that PROMETHEUS feeling that Scott realizes he needs to appease the studio and abandons the project's unique ideas in favor of rushing through the last 30 or so minutes because he seems to suddenly remember he's making an ALIEN movie. In other words, almost right down to the minute, the same flaws in PROMETHEUS are repeated in COVENANT, with the added detriment of a laughably predictable twist ending and an attempt to turn David into a quipping, synthetic android Freddy Krueger.
Fassbender is fine in both roles, especially as David, with his gentlemanly sinister demeanor and erudite line delivery recalling Peter Cushing not just in his performance, but also in the echoes of Cushing's Nazi mad scientist living on a deserted island among his aquatic zombie creations in 1977's SHOCK WAVES (instead of CGI-ing Grand Moff Tarken in ROGUE ONE, they should've just hired Fassbender to do his Cushing impression). ALIEN: COVENANT feels like three movies in one, all of them tonally different (a late shower kill with gratuitous T&A as an apparently pervy xenomorph peeps in on a cavorting couple feels like it belongs in an '80s slasher movie or, at best, a Roger Corman ALIEN ripoff like GALAXY OF TERROR). Waterston makes a tough, gritty heroine, but elsewhere, there's too much distracting stunt casting, whether it's McBride coming off as "Kenny Powers in space" and not selling lines like "That's one hell of an ionosphere!" or Franco turning in his finest performance in years as a burnt corpse (Guy Pearce also appears as evil CEO Peter Weyland in a prologue). It's intriguing that the crew is almost entirely made up of married couples, with some sociopolitical commentary in Oram being established as conservative and bitching that his faith has held him back in his career, or that Hallett and badass security head Lope (Demian Bichir) are a gay couple, but it's never really explored other than as transparent thinkpiece-bait. Ridley Scott owes no explanations to anyone, and it's great that the 79-year-old legend is still full of piss and vinegar and able to work so much in his emeritus years, but like others in his age bracket such as Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen, his average of a new film every year or year-and-a-half is an indication that maybe a break and a recharging wouldn't be a bad thing. Scott is just spinning his wheels here, and so is the ALIEN franchise.
With a US president still claiming that a "great,big, beautiful wall" is going up along the US/Mexico border, it's not hard to see some prescient political subtext to a film like DESIERTO, even if it spent two years on a shelf before STX released it on just 168 screens in the US. Directed, co-written, and edited by Jonas Cuaron (who co-wrote GRAVITY with his dad Alfonso, who's a producer here), DESIERTO can easily be read as a stern if inadvertent rebuke of the Trump agenda, but it's really a mean, gritty B-movie survivalist thriller that wouldn't have been out of place at a drive-in in the late 1970s with Hugo Stiglitz and Cameron Mitchell in the lead roles instead of today's Gael Garcia Bernal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Bernal is Moises, one of about 19 migrants being taken through the "badlands" of the Sonoran Desert and across the border into Arizona by coyotes Lobo (Marco Perez) and Mechas (Diego Catano). The truck breaks down and they're forced to travel on foot in the baking, 120°F sun. After crossing over into the US, Mechas' smaller group ends up much further behind Lobo's, and they're forced to watch as Lobo and about 15 others are picked off one by one by Sam (Morgan), a racist vigilante who has appointed himself protector of the border. With his vicious dog Tracker at his side, Sam relentlessly pursues Moises and the scant few remaining as a game of cat-and-mouse ensues in the harsh, unforgiving elements.
DESIERTO is a simple, straightforward story that doesn't get bogged down in ham-fisted statements and Big Picture proclamations, It's a mainstream thriller that STX originally planned on opening wide but kept shuffling its release date and eventually downgraded it to a limited release, probably skittish over the tense political climate or, just as likely, commercial concerns that any of the dialogue not spoken by Morgan or, in one brief scene, Lew Temple (THE DEVIL'S REJECTS) as a border patrolman, is in Spanish with English subtitles (a French/Mexican co-production, DESIERTO was submitted to the Oscars to be Mexico's Best Foreign Language Film nominee but didn't make the cut). We don't learn much of Sam's backstory and we really don't need to. Most of Morgan's scenes are by himself or talking to Tracker, and Sam's got a real chip on his shoulder about Mexicans coming into "his" country. Moises' conscientious qualities are displayed when he intervenes when one migrant won't keep his paws off a woman who's clearly not interested, and there's some added poignancy to his situation when we learn he was already in the US and working on becoming an American citizen, but a traffic stop over a busted headlight escalated and he ended up in a detention center on his way to being deported, his wife and son still in America. He's determined to get back to them, even bringing his son his musical teddy bear that, of course, keeps going off at all the wrong times. Fast-paced and smart enough to not overstay its welcome at just 88 minutes, DESIERTO is an intense exploitation throwback with stunning desert cinematography by Damian Garcia that makes you feel every degree of the setting's sweltering temperature amidst the endless barren emptiness that gives Moises and the dwindling band of survivors little opportunity to hide from a psycho who's declared himself judge, jury, and executioner. (R, 88 mins)
MAN DOWN
(US - 2016)
Military personnel returning home with severe PTSD is a serious issue that deserves a serious film, but MAN DOWN isn't that film. That's not on star Shia LaBeouf who, for all of his eccentric performance art stunts and demonstrable past douchebaggery, has emerged as a compelling actor who throws himself into roles and is willing to take chances in outside-the-box projects like Lars von Trier's NYMPHOMANIAC and Andrea Arnold's AMERICAN HONEY. No, MAN DOWN fails because of the wildly inconsistent Dito Montiel, who got some acclaim with his 2006 debut A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS (featuring a younger LaBeouf), but whose best film remains 2009's FIGHTING. Montiel has shown occasional flashes of promise (the posthumous Robin Williams drama BOULEVARD is one of his better movies), but when he's having an off day--THE SON OF NO ONE, EMPIRE STATE--his work borders on the unwatchable, and even his muse Channing Tatum, who starred in his first three films, seems to have abandoned him. MAN DOWN is closer to the bottom end of Montiel's increasingly suspect filmography, and would be a complete train wreck if not for the commitment of LaBeouf, who gives it far more than he or anyone watching will get in return.
MAN DOWN's story is told over three cross-cutting timelines haphazardly cut together with little regard for thematic overlap or storytelling rhythms. One shows Marine Gabriel Drummer (LaBeouf) and his best friend Devin Roberts (Hollywood still trying to make Jai Courtney happen) going through basic training and deployment in Afghanistan. The second is a meeting between a possibly suicidal Drummer and a military psychologist (Gary Oldman) after some traumatic incident that will be made clear later. The third is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland after a biochemical terrorist attack has wiped out most of America, with Gabriel and Devin searching for Gabriel's missing wife Natalie (Kate Mara) and young son Johnathan (Charlie Shotwell). The three narratives play out as tediously as possible, making the film feel much longer than its relatively brief 90 minutes. One storyline doesn't seem to belong and it's clear early on that Gabriel has had some kind of PTSD breakdown and maybe, just maybe, the future dystopia thread isn't really happening. But there's a bigger twist that can't be revealed without significant spoilers, and it feels cheap and insulting once it finally presents itself--not just because it demeans a serious subject but also because any experienced moviegoer will see it coming about 75 minutes before Gabriel does. MAN DOWN wants to pay respect to soldiers struggling with PTSD, but the impact veers too far from the intent. It dumbs the subject down into rote cliches and simplistic characterizations and motivations: Gabriel is ostensibly set off by one tragedy, but it seems driven more by his wife's infidelity; and his entire inspiration for joining the Marines seems to come from catching a few minutes of an O'REILLY FACTOR segment where Bill O'Reilly (credited with playing himself) warns viewers of the potential of terrorists engaging in biochemical warfare. MAN DOWN is heavy-handed and its future dystopia embarrassingly cheap-looking, but if you're a LaBeouf fan, it's probably still worth a look, if for no other reason than to see a fiercely committed performance in a futile search for a better movie. (R, 90 mins)
TRESPASS AGAINST US
(UK/US/UAE - 2016)
Bland and unengaging from the word go, the crime drama TRESPASS AGAINST US recalls films like 1978's KING OF THE GYPSIES and 1997's TRAVELLER and the short-lived FX TV series THE RICHES, all of which focused on a close-knit family of con artists and criminals who are constantly on the move and scraping by on small-time schemes. Despite the presence of two great actors in Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson, TRESPASS AGAINST US never finds its footing and never gives you a reason to care about anyone or anything that's happening. Uneducated and illiterate Chad Cutler (Fassbender) has always lived in the shadow of his gregarious father Colby (Gleeson), who rules their tight-knit band of marauding West England low-lifes who have set up a semi-permanent trailer park in a vacant field. They get by on stealing cars, knocking over convenience stores, and other nickel-and-dime machinations, but Chad wants out. He wants something more for his wife Kelly (Lyndsey Marshal) and their children Tyson (Georgie Smith) and Mini (Kacie Anderson), but finds it hard to escape from under the thumb of the manipulative, controlling Colby. He also has a difficult time dealing with the pressure of being trapped by his own inability to read or write, which is why he insists on putting the kids in a good school even though the Cutler clan's criminal activities cause the kids to be truant enough to get them expelled. Not much happens in TRESPASS AGAINST US: there's a lot of "fook"s and "cunt"s being thrown about in thick accents that make the film reminiscent of early Danny Boyle or earlier Gleeson roles circa I WENT DOWN. The cops, led by Lovage (Rory Kinnear) are complete buffoons who even resort to kidnapping the kids from school in order to lure Chad to the police station, which is indicative of the inability of screenwriter Alistair Siddons and debuting director Adam Smith (a veteran of music videos and British TV favorites like SKINS and DOCTOR WHO) to settle on a tone. TRESPASS AGAINST US can't decide if it's a less grim, gypsy traveller take on ANIMAL KINGDOM or a wacky, would-be Irvine Welsh-type exercise. There's ill-conceived comic relief in the form of Gordon (Sean Harris), aka "Worzel," Chad's half-wit, borderline feral brother, a character so grating that it's a shock that Sharlto Copley wasn't cast in the role. Fassbender and Gleeson are exemplary performers, but they're both on autopilot here with little to inspire them. There's nothing here, no hook to get your interest in this family of assholes, and the stars seem to know it. A total misfire. (R, 100 mins)
Just two years after the already forgotten Ashton Kutcher-starring biopic JOBS, Danny Boyle's STEVE JOBS arrived to tell the Steve Jobs story once again. Based on the book by Walter Isaacson and adapted by Aaron Sorkin in a very Sorkin-esque fashion, STEVE JOBS takes a more experimental approach than most films of this sort. Boyle's film is essentially three long scenes, all taking place before major Jobs product launches in 1984, 1988, and 1998, each shot in, respectively, grainy 16mm, cinematic 35mm, and digital. The opening segment works the best and could almost function as a standalone short film, 40 minutes of dialogue-driven intensity as Jobs (an Oscar-nominated Michael Fassbender) prepares to introduce the world to the doomed Macintosh. He's furious about the "Hello" greeting not working and berates designer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) in front of everyone; he barely makes time for his old buddy Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), who just wants a shout-out to the Apple IIE that he designed; and he's incredibly cold and cruel to his ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston) and five-year-old Lisa (played by Makenzie Moss in the first segment), the daughter that Jobs adamantly refuses to accept is his, even doing everything he can to avoid paying more child support even though Chrisann is going on welfare and he's worth $440 million. All the while, Jobs' long-suffering marketing manager and confidant Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet, also Oscar-nominated) valiantly tries to hold everything together.
The first segment works so well that Boyle and Sorkin essentially repeat it twice more. But as it goes, the dialogue becomes more forced and the Sorkinese more insufferable. The rapid fire delivery of the first segment turns into endless speechifying and pontificating and starts representing all of Sorkin's most grating tendencies. It's no secret that Jobs was kind of an asshole and that comes through loud and clear here, at least until the feelgood ending when he finally accepts Lisa as his daughter (played in the last segment by Perla Haley-Jardine, best known as young B.B. from KILL BILL, VOL 2) just as he's about to unveil iMac as he receives a standing ovation while a cloying, Coldplay-like song by the Maccabees plays on the soundtrack. Boyle should be above such manipulative horseshit. Why are tears streaming down Winslet's face in this scene? The 1984 and 1988 launches were total failures--Rogen's jealous Wozniak keeps wanting to know why Jobs gets all the glory, and frankly, you will too. STEVE JOBS is a film that keeps an impenetrable man at a distance and it's cold by design--the shift into crowd-pleaser territory doesn't mesh with what came before, and by the end, you realize the film is little more than a stagy THIS IS YOUR LIFE with echoes of THE GODFATHER in that Jobs is constantly pestered on the days of product launches by past associates coming to him like he's Vito Corleone doling out favors on his daughter's wedding day. Fassbender nails the "driven intensity" element even though he doesn't really look or sound like Jobs, and Winslet works some occasional magic with what's really a thankless role, but STEVE JOBS just fizzles after the dynamite opening 40 minutes, falling into a comfort zone and riding it out on autopilot. Not bad, but pretty overrated. (R, 122 mins)
TRUMBO
(US - 2015)
A much more traditional biopic than the repetitious STEVE JOBS, TRUMBO is a very entertaining--though undeniably softened and sanitized to varying degrees--chronicle of the Blacklist and the face of the "Hollywood 10," communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976). Trumbo (Bryan Cranston, Oscar-nominated in a magnificent performance), respected Hollywood writer (KITTY FOYLE, THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO) joins the CPUSA in 1943 and in the ensuing years, earns a reputation as a pro-working man troublemaker along with such Hollywood luminaries as Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg) and screenwriter pal Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.), a character invented for the film and a composite of five members of the Hollywood 10, the group of writers who were the first to be blacklisted and turned into industry pariahs at the dawn of the Cold War. Leading the charge against them before HUAC even calls them to testify are director Sam Wood (John Getz), Louis B. Mayer (Richard Portnow), John Wayne (David James Elliott), and the film's nominal villain, bitter, muckraking gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren). Cut to 1951, and needing to work after serving a year in prison for contempt of Congress, Trumbo offers his services to B and C studios and uses a variety of pseudonyms, often working on five scripts at once and popping amphetamines to keep going around the clock. Of course, it takes a toll on his family as devoted wife Cleo (Diane Lane) struggles to hold everything together until rumors abound that Trumbo was actually the uncredited screenwriter of the Oscar-winning ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) and THE BRAVE ONE (1956), eventually leading to Kirk Douglas (Dean O'Gorman) and Otto Preminger (Christian Berkel) breaking the blacklist by hiring Trumbo for SPARTACUS and EXODUS, respectively, and defiantly giving him credit under his actual name.
Trumbo's daughter Nikola (played in the film by Elle Fanning) served as a technical consultant, so of course, Trumbo's hardline communist stance is toned-down significantly for the film, and while it may tap dance around certain issues, Cranston is so good here that it's easy to overlook it. Adapting Bruce Cook's book Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter John McNamara and director Jay Roach (the AUSTIN POWERS trilogy, MEET THE PARENTS, GAME CHANGE) keep things moving briskly and get superb work out of their ensemble cast, particularly John Goodman, who makes every scene count as a bombastic B-movie producer who secretly hires Trumbo. It may take a somewhat simplistic view of a complicated subject, but as popcorn entertainment, it succeeds and never seems to revel in a sense of self-importance like STEVE JOBS. One wishes it didn't treat its subject with such kid gloves, but Cranston inhabits the role to such a degree that he wins over any doubts you might have. (R, 125 mins)
FORSAKEN (Canada - 2016)
Though they appeared in the same films on a couple of past occasions (1983's MAX DUGAN RETURNS and 1996's A TIME TO KILL), the Canadian western FORSAKEN marks the first co-starring pairing of Kiefer Sutherland with his dad Donald. A labor of love for the Sutherlands, with Kiefer bringing along his buddy Brad Mirman to script (he also wrote Kiefer's 1998 directing effort TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M.) and regular 24 director Jon Cassar to call the shots, FORSAKEN is an OK if undemanding western that almost plays like an old-fashioned '50s B oater with some modern F-bombs and a few enthusiastic blood squibs. Kiefer is John Henry Clayton, a Civil War vet, feared killer, and all-around bad guy who's put away his guns and is on his way back to his family home for the first time in ten years. Arriving to find his mother has since passed and his embittered reverend father (Donald) still resents him and everything he represents, Clayton tries to lay low, determined to live a peaceful life and prove that he's a changed man. Of course, that won't happen in a town where greedy robber baron McCurdy (Brian Cox, doing his best Al Swearengen impression) is forcibly buying up everyone's land so he can sell it to the inevitable railroad for a ridiculous profit. McCurdy's men, led by the weaselly Tillman (Aaron Poole), routinely bully and terrorize the landowners, much to the disapproval of the classy and sartorial Gentleman Dave (Michael Wincott), a more refined regulator who respects his adversaries, thinks reasoning can accomplish more and sends a better message than threats and cold-blooded murder, and only resorts to violence as an absolute last resort. Tillman and his mouth-breathing sidekicks never miss an opportunity to see how far they can push Clayton, despite Gentleman Dave's warnings that "You kick a dog enough, he's gonna bite."
Cliched dialogue like that abounds (Tillman when he first spots Clayton in the saloon: "Well, well, well...if it isn't John Henry Clayton!"), and the longer it goes on, the more FORSAKEN takes its cues from the likes of UNFORGIVEN and OPEN RANGE, and it can't help but feel like a lesser retread of both. Plus, it's extremely predictable and even by the standards of dumb underlings, the actions of McCurdy's men defy any kind of logic and reason, so much so that you wonder why McCurdy never dumps these clowns and lets Gentleman Dave do his dirty work for him in a much more diplomatic fashion. Still, it's a comfort-food kind-of western that goes down easy and doesn't aim for much more than straightforward entertainment. That may seem a little overly quaint coming on the heels of a revisionist genre assaults like BONE TOMAHAWK and THE HATEFUL EIGHT, but FORSAKEN seems content being what it is: a chance for a famous father-and-son to work together. Naturally, the scenes with Donald and Kiefer are what play best, and it's hard not to be sucked in when a distraught Clayton breaks down and his hard, stern father takes him in his arms, or when, later on, that hard, stern father tearfully admits "I was wrong about you." You see the scenes coming, but they carry some extra emotional resonance when you see a real-life father and son acting them out. They get some solid support from a supporting cast of friends like Cox, Wincott (who's very good here, playing an intriguing character who isn't a cardboard cutout and should've been given more to do), and Demi Moore as Clayton's one-time love who married another when he disappeared. Filmed in 2013 but only given a VOD and scant theatrical release in early 2016, FORSAKEN isn't even close to being the next great western, but it looks very nice and it's good to finally see the Sutherlands working together, and hopefully not for the last time. (R, 90 mins)
What would seem like holiday Oscar bait was only given a limited run by the perpetually cash-strapped Weinstein Company, who put all their awards season focus on THE HATEFUL EIGHT and CAROL and only rolled out the latest version of MACBETH on VOD and 108 screens at its widest release. A grim, muddy, and bloody take on the Shakespeare play by SNOWTOWN MURDERS director Justin Kurzel, MACBETH is a proper telling in terms of time period and most of the text ("Double double toil and trouble" is never invoked), but highly influenced by the likes of BRAVEHEART, VALHALLA RISING, and GAME OF THRONES. At times boasting the production design and garish lighting of a horror film, Kurzel's MACBETH has Michael Fassbender in the title role, a leader in the army of King Duncan (David Thewlis). Macbeth and Banquo (Paddy Considine) encounter four witches on a fog-enshrined battlefield, speaking of a prophecy in which Macbeth is made king. Macbeth's ambitious wife Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) goads him into killing King Duncan in order to make the prophecy come true, leading to more murder, madness, guilt, and their ultimate downfall. Viscerally brutal but not quite as blood-splattered as Roman Polanski's essential 1971 MACBETH, probably the best big-screen version of the play (there's also Orson Welles' 1948 version), Kurzel's MACBETH is grand and epic in scope, visually stunning and not at all ornate and stagy like many interpretations. Fassbender and Cotillard are excellent, and they get fine support from Thewlis, Considine, Sean Harris as Macduff, Elizabeth Debicki as Lady Macduff, and Jack Reynor as Malcolm. It doesn't supplant Polanski's take, but it more than holds its own. Kurzel, Fassbender, and Cotillard worked together again on the big-budget video game adaptation ASSASSIN'S CREED, due out later this year. (R, 113 mins)
VICTORIA
(Germany - 2015)
There's an admittedly impressive technical achievement on the part of VICTORIA, a German film shot in one uninterrupted 134-minute take that director Sebastian Schipper, cinematographer Sturla Brandth Groven, and the cast pulled off on their third attempt. But after watching VICTORIA and asking yourself "How did they do it?," it's very likely you're next question will be "What the hell for?" A crime thriller where the crime takes place off-camera and the thrills are non-existent, VICTORIA opens in a Gaspar Noe-like strobe-lit club where the title character (Laia Costa), a young Spanish woman living in Berlin, meets a crew of nice enough guys and hangs out with them on a nearby rooftop. She clicks with one, Sonne (Frederick Lau), but an hour later, she ends up being the getaway driver for a hastily-planned robbery they're forced into by gangster Andi (veteran German character actor Andre Hennicke), a former prison acquaintance of Sonne's buddy Boxer (Franz Rogowski). After things predictably go south, Victoria and Sonne find themselves on the run as the cops close in on the area. VICTORIA takes place over a few blocks and Schipper keeps sending his characters in circles as the film plays out in real time and in one take. There's an undeniable accomplishment in the way Schipper coordinated everything in a limited area of real location shooting, but by the end, it doesn't feel like much more than an unedited rough cut of Roger Avary's KILLING ZOE. Because the camera has to follow the characters as they go from one location to another, it's an hour before the robbery even comes up as a subject, and Schipper mainly lets his actors riff and improvise in both German and English, with a couple of flubbed lines and one recovered gaffe where Costa takes a wrong turn during the getaway and Lau, Rogowski, and the other actors in the car start freaking out and telling her to turn the car around, but successfully stay in character the whole time. It shows a commitment by the cast, but to what end? There's absolutely nothing here but the gimmick, and the film's 81% rating (as of this writing) on Rotten Tomatoes is an indicator that critics seem to be praising the technical accomplishment rather than the movie itself. It's not an interesting story when told in this fashion (and it would probably run a leaner, tighter, and much more reasonable 85 or so minutes if told conventionally), the actors aren't really all that great at improv, and whatever appeal Costa establishes as Victoria immediately vanishes when she goes along with such a stupid plan and agrees to get into a car with some guys she met outside a club less than an hour ago, for no other reason than that's what Schipper needs her to do. Intruiging in theory but a deadening endurance test in practice, it's easy to respect the amount of work that went into making VICTORIA (watch Costa's climactic hotel room breakdown, complete with real snot!), but is that supposed to automatically make it a good movie? (Unrated, 138 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
THE TRIBE
(France/Ukraine/Netherlands - 2014; US release 2015)
In its own way as much of a stunt as VICTORIA, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's THE TRIBE is the kind of expectedly grim Eastern European miseryfest that film festival audiences love so much. But be assured, THE TRIBE isn't fucking around when it comes to complete commercial inaccessibility: Slaboshpytskiy shot the film with non-professional actors, all deaf-mute and using Ukrainian sign language with no subtitles, translations or voice-overs. The very concept sounds like a parody of experimental cinema, but Slaboshpytskiy and his neophyte actors manage to tell a story in purely visual and expressive terms, and while specifics may be lost in the non-translation, it's not hard to get the general idea of what's going on. But what's going on isn't something that should've taken over two hours to tell, and in a way that makes the work of Ulrich Seidl look like Garry Marshall. We don't eve know their names until the end credits, but THE TRIBE centers on Sergei (Grigoriy Fesenko), a new kid at a Ukraine boarding school for the deaf and mute. He quickly falls in with a group of powerful students who put him through the requisite hazing rituals before inducting him into their crime ring that's overseen by the hulking woodshop teacher (Alexander Panivan). Sergei is put in charge of transporting two female students that the school-based criminal outfit is pimping out at dive motels and truck stops, and he ends up developing feelings for one of them, Anya (Yana Novikova). The story arc is predictable, with Sergei going full MONA LISA to rescue Anya from her abusive situation. Sloboshpitsky uses a lot of long takes that are reminiscent of VICTORIA, but the film is generally structured in a standard linear fashion using familiar cutting and editing. Boasting a few scattered scenes of explicit sex, THE TRIBE gets more harrowing and brutal as it goes along, with an abortion scene that's difficult to watch and a finale that's memorable, to say the least. It's an unusual film and one that keeps hearing audiences at a distance by design, but it's just pointlessly overlong and there's too many stretches where things get repetitive to the point of oppression. (Unrated, 132 mins)
A quirky western that owes debts to Jim Jarmusch, the Coen Bros., and Robert Altman, SLOW WEST is a slow burner that's more interested in character than shootouts. Make no mistake, you get the shootout, and it's a great one that recalls both OPEN RANGE in the speed of its escalation and THE PROPOSITION in its blood-splattered ferocity. Up to then, it's a quiet, introverted character piece, with gangly, 16-year-old Scottish tenderfoot Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) venturing to America to find his true love, Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius), who fled Scotland under mysterious circumstances with her father John (Rory McCann). Naive, hailing from a world of privilege, and woefully unprepared to deal with the harsh terrain and even harsher denizens of the barely settled west, Jay reluctantly forms an unholy alliance with wily, opportunistic outlaw Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), who will function as his guide and mentor through the trip. What Silas doesn't tell Jay is that there's a bounty on the Ross duo's heads that has to do with why they left Scotland, and he has every intention of using Jay to get him to the $2000 reward for bringing them in "dead or dead." As Jay learns from each hardship and obstacle, Silas takes a liking to the sheltered boy, which helps since they're being pursued by Payne (Ben Mendelsohn), the leader of a gang of psycho desperadoes that Silas left years ago. Every gunfighter and bounty hunter in the region is on the same trail, as all parties are destined to converge at the Ross homestead in the middle of nowhere.
Running a brief 84 minutes, the beautifully-photographed SLOW WEST lives up to its title in terms of pacing, as writer/director John Maclean is more concerned with character building and the occasional odd touch of humor. As tragic as the situation is, there's one bit involving salt and an open wound late in the film that's one of the most darkly funny gags of the year, with the kind of absurd visual punchline that would almost be at home in an AIRPLANE! spoof but somehow works here in a way that's brutally harsh and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time. SLOW WEST is mostly slight and a little pokey, but it looks great and has some fine performances by Fassbender and Smit-McPhee and the patient viewer will discover that it all comes together in the cruel, bitter, and yes, amusing end. Like Fassbender's divisive THE COUNSELOR, this is a film whose treasures don't all reveal themselves until subsequent repeat viewings. Look for a cult to be forming around this very soon. (R, 84 mins)
ABSOLUTION (US - 2015)
As far as Romania-shot Steven Seagal joints go, ABSOLUTION is almost sort-of OK. Sure the plot isn't interesting and Seagal's younger, thinner stunt double logs about as much screen time as the star, handling the action shots while the director cuts to a close-up of Seagal grimacing or waving his hands around as his adversaries pretty much just run into him, but he's made worse. ABSOLUTION reteams the perpetually coasting star with his favorite director/enabler, Keoni Waxman, and unlike their previous projects, ABSOLUTION actually made it into a few theaters simultaneous with its VOD release. It's still standard-issue DTV material, with Seagal as John Alexander, a Black Ops legend in the wrong place at the wrong time (not unlike a moviegoer watching a new Steven Seagal film) when some generic Eastern European flunkies chase Nadia (Adina Stetcu) into a swanky bar where Alexander and his affable buddy Chi (Byron Mann) are having a drink. Nadia falls right at his feet and of course, Alexander breaks several limbs in the process of showing these guys how to treat a lady. It turns out Nadia escaped the HOSTEL-like dungeon of The Boss (Vinnie Jones, an actor who has even less range than Seagal if that's possible, doing his usual wild-eyed, "fookin' 'ell, mate!" schtick), a syndicate overlord who has both ties to Alexander's US government contractor associate (Howard Dell), and a secret penchant for abducting pretty young women and torturing them to death. Wanting to do "something good" for a change and seeking a shot at absolution after mourning his wife's death from cancer, Alexander decides to help Nadia and take out The Boss.
For about 80 of its 96 minutes, ABSOLUTION is strictly standard, typically phoned-in Seagal, who's doubled even in shots when his character walks into a room, the double shot from behind with a quick cut to a Seagal close-up after he sits down. Seagal acts like it's an inconvenience to show up for his own movies and actually interact with his co-stars, and with his painted-on hair, glued-on goatee, and wide array of tinted eyewear, looks like he's in witness protection with disguises provided by Professor Balls. He moves awkwardly (seen that Russian karate demonstration video from a couple months ago?), mumbles incessantly, and often looks confused, unlike his surprisingly solid turn as a mob boss in the little-seen indie GUTSHOT STRAIGHT. ABSOLUTION never quite manages to get the dated torture-porn horror subplot to work but gets a tremendous lift from a spirited and fun performance by Mann. And for all the idiocy on display--Chi gets shot in the back at close range, and it's explained away with Alexander saying "You got shot. You OK?" to which Chi replies "Yeah, I'm all good," as he resumes kicking ass like nothing ever happened--sticking around all the way through pays off. During the final showdown where Alexander and Chi--both of whom are proficient in walking away from explosions in slo-mo--take on The Boss and his goons in the Boss' nightclub with a backdrop of random screensaver designs, ABSOLUTION suddenly becomes self-aware. Instead of attempting to seamlessly edit, Waxman practically starts calling attention to Seagal's double, with the heroes' coordinated attack on The Boss approaching PUNISHER: WAR ZONE levels of over-the-top violence and silliness. Seagal's movies are so downbeat and self-serious these days--if the rest of the film was as goofy as the last 10-12 minutes, ABSOLUTION would be much more entertaining. Seagal is still the laziest actor in Hollywood, but he showed in GUTSHOT STRAIGHT that he's able to cut loose and have fun if he wants to--why he continues to play his action films in such a dour and depressed fashion is a mystery. (R, 96 mins)
THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS (Belgium/France/Luxembourg - 2014)
With 2010's AMER, the French filmmaking team of Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet wore their love of the Italian giallo on their sleeves, fashioning an extremely stylish film whose visual intoxication was largely smoke & mirrors obscuring the fact that they didn't have much to say other than "We really love early Dario Argento movies." Though it contained obvious homages to Argento and Mario Bava, and eventually featured the belated appearance of a black-gloved killer, AMER wasn't so much a giallo as it was a filmmaking experiment that co-opted the style of the giallo, much like Peter Strickland's frustrating BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (2013). Forzani and Cattet have returned with THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS, and it's an altogether more satisfying experience, even if they let their story unfold with little regard for narrative flow or a coherent plot. STRANGE COLOUR is the kind of trippy descent into madness where everything might be imaginary and almost nothing makes sense, but it doesn't matter. It's a triumph of style over substance, and it would seem that since AMER, the filmmakers are at least attempting to pay lip service to the idea of plot mechanics and committed themselves to utilizing the giallo style for something that could be mostly deemed a giallo. Of course, there's the endless visual references and the appropriation of the era's score cues by the likes of Bruno Nicolai, Ennio Morricone, Franco Micalizzi, Nico Fidenco, and Alessandro Alessandroni, but every scene and every shot is a small masterpiece of dazzling artistry. Whether the filmmakers are using a Brian De Palma split screen, conveying the claustophobic, walls-closing-in psychological terror of Roman Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy" (REPULSION, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE TENANT), staging an innovative and highly-choreographed Argento-style murder (hearing noises in the apartment above, a man drills a small hole in the ceiling and sneaks into said apartment while his wife listens with a stethoscope and hears the killer's steps approaching her husband as she witnesses the murder through the hole in the ceiling), or simply granting us the sight of a few Lucio Fulci maggots, their love of that era of Italian thrillers bleeds as profusely as the victims onscreen. THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS is probably a love-it-or-hate-it proposition and those unfamiliar with gialli may scoff at the perceived pretentiousness of it all, but even if you're not a fan, it's awfully difficult to not be seduced by the virtuosi filmmaking on constant display.
Dan Kristensen (Klaus Tange, who has a striking resemblance to Willem Dafoe) returns from a business trip to his lush, ornate building and has to break his door in when it's chain-locked from the inside and his wife Edwige (Ursula Bedena) is nowhere to be found in the apartment. None of the neighbors have seen her and instead, they complain to the building manager (Sam Louwyck) about Dan. Incredulous detective Vincentelli (Jean-Michel Vovk) finds Dan's story increasingly difficult to believe, and doesn't buy his claims of a mysterious bearded man (Joe Koener) sneaking into his apartment when none of the other neighbors have seen him. As Edwige's absence goes on and all manner of psychosexual imagery abounds, Dan's grip on reality and sanity slips as he, Vincentelli, and the building manager all have their own neuroses exposed, all involving an alluring mystery woman known as "Laura," while a mad killer makes their way through secret corridors behind the walls, emerging from hiding to stab people in the head. Argento is the chief influence here, especially with the production design of Dan's apartment building evoking Mater Tenebrarum's NYC stronghold in INFERNO (1980), and Dan's discovery of a dark secret behind a false wall and his misreading of a vital clue being callbacks to DEEP RED (1975). But there's more: certain portions recall the fashion gialli of Sergio Martino, whose THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH (1971) and YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972), along with Giuliano Carnimeo's WHAT ARE THOSE STRANGE DROPS OF BLOOD ON JENNIFER'S BODY? aka THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS (1971) helped coin the film's awkwardly verbose title. Dreamy, slo-mo shots of beautiful women with long, Medusa-like hair draped over pillows are straight from Fulci's A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (1971). THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS does get too obfuscating for its own good on occasion, especially the long, circular sequence where an hallucinating Dan keeps buzzing himself into the building, and there's a few instances where Forzani and Cattet hit a wall and the film has to get itself back on track. They don't break any new ground here, instead mining decades-old material and presenting it in a way that's fresh, alive, and fascinating. It makes little sense in terms of linear plot, but it doesn't matter. Let THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS wash over you and cast its spell. It's an enigmatic, nightmarish, and stunningly beautiful film. (Unrated, 102 mins; also streaming on Netflix Instant) DEAD SNOW: RED VS. DEAD (Norway/Denmark/UK/US/Iceland - 2014)
After licking the wounds incurred from 2013's HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, his disastrous attempt to break into Hollywood, Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola goes back to his roots with an English-language sequel to his 2009 cult zombie hit DEAD SNOW. Intermittently amusing but not nearly as much as it thought it was, DEAD SNOW nevertheless got a lot of love from the horror community with a style that attempted to emulate early Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson as a group of vacationing skiers encountered an army of resurrected Nazi undead. The last thing the world needs is one more zombie movie, but Wirkola surpasses all expectations with bigger-budgeted and wildly inspired follow-up that's got something to offend everyone. Beginning moments after the events of the first film, sole survivor Martin (Vegar Hoel, promoted to co-writer with Wirkola and co-star Stig Frode Henriksen) manages to get away from the horde of flesh-eaters led by zombified Nazi Gen. Herzog (Orjan Gamst) and winds up in a hospital, where he's accused of killing all of his friends and can't convince the cops that the zombies did it. Doctors have also surgically attached what they think is Martin's right arm, which he chainsawed off immediately after he was bitten. The reattached arm actually belongs to Herzog, and now Martin's right arm has immeasurable strength and the ability to reanimate the dead by touch. He escapes from the hospital and makes his way to a nearby town, which is exactly where Herzog's army is heading, still following Hitler's orders to invade and destroy. With the cops on his trail, Martin befriends barely-closeted local museum employee Glenn Kenneth (Henriksen) and adopts an affable and helpful zombie sidekick (Kristoffer Joner) that he can keep putting in dangerous situations and revive if necessary. They're soon joined by a trio of nerdy American siblings calling themselves The Zombie Squad--Daniel (Martin Starr of FREAKS AND GEEKS, PARTY DOWN, and SILICON VALLEY), STAR WARS-obsessed Monica (Jocelyn DeBoer), and brainy Blake (Ingrid Haas)--and they get additional help from a reanimated--and still pissed-off--Russian platoon for a BRAVEHEART-style throwdown where nothing is too over-the-top.
DEAD SNOW: RED VS. DEAD is one of the few zombie comedies that comes close to replicating the anarchic, anything-goes, fuck-you-if-can't-take-a-joke spirit of Peter Jackson's DEAD ALIVE: anyone can be killed in any number of hilariously horrifying yet slapsticky ways, whether they're infants in strollers or geriatrics in scooters; resourceful zombies yank out some guy's intestines so they can siphon gasoline from a bus to a tank; Martin spends the entire film covered in blood and there's no shortage of inventive ways Wirkola has him forgetting to realize his own strength with Herzog's supercharged arm, with a disastrous attempt at CPR on a little kid being particularly memorable and gross; endless impalings, smashed heads, and creative and incredibly gory zombie kills, and in one truly off-the-rails segment, a female zombie coming back to life and screwing her still-grieving boyfriend, all to the tune of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I didn't really get all the love DEAD SNOW received from fans, but DEAD SNOW: RED VS. DEAD is an improvement across-the-board, in every aspect. It's the PUNISHER: WAR ZONE to DEAD SNOW's THE PUNISHER. Fun performances all around, and it gets a lot of mileage from its visiting American cast members, who help make this the most oddly-appealing zombie-battling ensemble this side of SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Back home after an ill-fated Hollywood sojourn, Wirkola gets it right and delivers the gonzo line-crosser that the first film should've been. (R, 100 mins)
FRANK (UK/Ireland/US - 2014)
Inspired by Welsh journalist Jon Ronson's brief late '80s tenure as the keyboardist in Frank Sidebottom's band, FRANK updates the setting to the present day and gained some film festival notoriety as the indie where Michael Fassbender spends 95% of the film wearing an oversized papier-mache head. The head is almost identical to the one sported by "Frank Sidebottom," a character played by British comedian/performance artist/musician Chris Sievey (1955-2010) from the '70s well into the '90s. The film, co-written by Ronson (who also wrote the book The Men Who Stare at Goats, and was played by Ewan McGregor in the 2009 film version), centers on Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), a would-be songwriter who lucks into a gig filling in with an experimental, avant-garde band called The Soronprfbs when their keyboardist has a breakdown. Fronted by the eccentric Frank (Fassbender), whose own bandmates have never seen him without his mask, the Soronprfbs take off to a seaside cottage in Ireland to work on a new album with manager/producer Don (Scoot McNairy). The rest of the band--theremin player Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal), bassist Baraque (Francois Civil), and drummer Nana (Carla Azar)--have little use for Jon and his mainstream, pop aspirations, and even though Jon offers them his life savings to work on the album after they run out of money, they allow him no creative input. Eleven months of isolated living go by before Frank is comfortable enough to begin recording, and Jon, who has been secretly posting their sessions to social media and building the band's brand, has endeared himself to Frank and convinces him to take the band to SXSW. Arriving in Austin on a wave of underground hype thanks to Frank's unique stage presence, the Soronprfbs promptly implode over Jon's increased influence on their sound. This turns the band into the unplugged duo of Frank and Jon as Jon is forced to function as caretaker for the delicate and damaged frontman, who has his reasons for adopting his unusual persona.
Director Lenny Abrahamson keeps FRANK quirky to a fault for most of its running time, and the humor in the defiantly uncommercial, inaccessible, Captain Beefheart-inspired songs quickly runs out of steam. It does gain some significant traction in its late stages once things turn serious as Jon gets to the root of why Frank is the way he is, and Fassbender is such a gifted actor that he can turn nothing into something and create a fully-developed character with his face concealed for most of the film, just on the basis of body language and his muffled vocal inflections. Fassbender is very good and McNairy gets some laughs as the dour, depressed manager with an unusual sexual fetish for mannequins, and while it gets better as it goes along, FRANK is just too aggressive in its bid for prefab cult appeal and too blatantly pandering in its need for the loving embrace of the hipster crowd. (R, 95 mins)
