A film so quiet and low-key that it could almost qualify as ASMR, FIRST COW is the latest from minimalist auteur Kelly Reichardt, best known for character pieces like 2006's OLD JOY and 2008's WENDY AND LUCY, as well as 2011's MEEK'S CUTOFF, a covered-wagon western so authentic that one scene focused on Michelle Williams as she spends several minutes painstakingly reloading a frontier-era rifle in real time. FIRST COW is a slow-burner even by Reichardt standards, and with a lot of scenes taking place in near-total darkness, it's the first of her movies that I've found to be a patience-tester in spots. Pacing and natural lighting hiccups aside, FIRST COW is still a good film, adapted from The Half-Life, a 2005 novel by frequent Reichardt collaborator Jon Raymond, and though they whittle the story down significantly, it still feels a bit stretched at just over two hours. A present-day prologue shows a woman (Alia Shawkat) walking her dog in the woods, where it sniffs out a partially exposed skull. The woman digs around the area and soon uncovers two human skeletons lying side by side. The setting immediately shifts to 1820 in the Oregon territory, where kind-hearted Maryland native "Cookie" Figowitz (John Magaro) is traveling with a group of surly fur trappers. He's responsible for collecting their vittles but earns their scorn and derision when the barren areas only yield scattered mushrooms and berries, along with a squirrel that got away. At a camp site, Cookie finds Chinese immigrant King-Lu (Orion Lee) hiding outside his tent in the middle of the night, fleeing a group of ruthless Russian trappers, one of whom he's accused of killing. Cookie feeds and shelters King-Lu, who takes off undetected at sunrise. After splitting from the trappers, Cookie heads to a remote trading post where he runs into King-Lu. A friendship is formed as they head nowhere in particular, though Cookie has a pipe dream of opening a hotel or a bakery in San Francisco. He talks of buttermilk biscuits, and after setting up camp, they spot a lone cow on property of a nearby estate. She's the only cow in the surrounding settlement, having lost her mate and calf in the journey overseas with British aristocrat Chief Factor (Toby Jones), who more or less runs the area by virtue of being the richest guy around.
With some egging on by King-Lu, Cookie sneaks onto Factor's property and milks the cow to create buttermilk for biscuits and scones, which become huge hits at the trading post. Even Factor is impressed ("I taste London in this cake! It's astonishing!" he exclaims), hiring Cookie to prepare some pastry for an upcoming gathering. The friendship between Cookie and King-Lu is mirrored by the bond formed between Cookie and the cow--named Evie--which is almost exposed when Factor shows her off to his guests and she affectionately nuzzles Cookie, knowing him from his covert nightly milkings. FIRST COW eventually becomes as much of a pursuit thriller as Reichardt allows once Factor discovers what's been going on and vows to kill Cookie and King-Lu, but her primary concern is the mood and the atmosphere in the film's intricately-crafted rustic production design. The pace is leisurely and the tone meditative, though there are some attempts at humor (asked about their special ingredients, King-Lu declares "Ancient Chinese secret!"), and the scenes between Cookie and Evie reveal a sensitive, respectful soul probably not cut out to be in such a dangerous environment (he even expresses sympathy to her over "the loss of your husband and your calf"). Magaro and Lee are a likable team, even if the material requires them to deliver largely internalized performances, and the supporting cast has some always-reliable character actor ringers like Jones, Ewen Bremner, Gary Farmer, and the late Rene Auberjonois in one of his last roles as a grubby old prospector (he died in December 2019). FIRST COW got some positive buzz and critical acclaim on last year's festival circuit, but like everything else from spring 2020, it was halted by the pandemic, opening in March in limited release a week before theaters began shutting down, with A24 eventually relaunching it on VOD in late July. (PG-13, 122 mins)
RETALIATION aka ROMANS (India/UAE/UK - 2017; US release 2020)
Hiding behind what appears at first glance to be a generic revenge thriller for Orlando Bloom is actually a grim and heavy day-ruiner of a British kitchen sink throwback that deals quite frankly with the PSTD effects of childhood sexual abuse. Shot in late 2015 and released everywhere else in the world as ROMANS in 2017 and into 2018, the newly-rechristened RETALIATION managed to fill a VOD void for Lionsgate and Saban Films when they needed pandemic product, likely the only reason this finally saw a US release after so long on the shelf. It's a hard sell even under ideal circumstances, but their decision to make it look like any random Redbox action movie is really doing it a disservice. It's a bit heavy-handed and lays the Biblical metaphors on a little thick at times, but Bloom is a revelation here in a harrowing performance as Malcolm, or "Malky" to his friends. Malky works on a demolition crew currently tearing down a dilapidated London church in his neighborhood--the very church he attended as young boy. Malky served two years in prison on an assault charge some years back, and considering that he's pushing 40, is referred to by everyone by his childhood nickname, and lives with his aging mum (Anne Reid of THE MOTHER) who can barely hide her disappointment in him, there are numerous indicators that his maturation has been stunted to some degree. But he holds down a job and has a casual relationship with Emma (Janet Montgomery), who works at the pub where he hangs out with his buddies after work, though he's prone to raging outbursts and shuts down whenever Emma talks about getting serious.
Malky goes off the deep end when he spots an elderly, white-haired man (James Sallie) at the pub. He instantly recognizes him as the priest who raped him when he was 12 and left the parish shortly after. As the memories come flooding back, Malky can no longer keep his issues bottled up inside. He pushes Emma away and we see his buried shame manifested in self-harming episodes, whether he stabs his hand repeatedly with scissors or violently sodomizes himself with a police truncheon in front of a full-length mirror ("I try to dig him out of me...I rape myself until I bleed," he later confesses). An expansion of ROMANS 12:20, a 2008 short film written by abuse survivor and counselor Geoff Thompson, directed by the Shammasian Brothers (Ludwig and Paul), and starring Craig Conway (DOOMSDAY) as Malky, RETALIATION is bleak and uncompromising. It takes some unexpected turns that are best left for the viewer to discover, and fans of Bloom will certainly want to give it a look, with the caveat that it's extremely downbeat and unpleasant. The only real downside is that the Shammasians and Thompson didn't need to be so on-the-nose with the symbolism, especially with the crew that employs Malky having a specialty in demolishing churches. We get it! And I really can't stress it enough--RETALIATION is not the movie the Blu-ray artwork is selling. (R, 96 mins)
THE BIG UGLY (US - 2020)
Several smaller distributors usually relegated to VOD managed to carve a niche for themselves during the initial months of the pandemic. In particular, IFC Films and Vertical Entertainment took advantage of the scarcity of product and got exposure for some unlikely titles at drive-ins and at the scattered handful of theaters that remained open over the spring and summer of 2020. One such title was Vertical's THE BIG UGLY, which opened on 68 screens in late July to become the #2 movie in the country, eventually staying in the top ten through August, which is not something one can normally say about a new film starring Vinnie Jones. The former footballer-turned-LOCK STOCK-era Guy Ritchie bloke and subsequent DTV fixture is in vintage "fookin' 'ell, mate!" mode as Neelyn, the top enforcer for London-based crime boss Harris (Malcolm McDowell). With their girlfriends in tow--Neelyn is in a committed relationship with Fiona (Lenora Crichlow), while Harris is a sugar daddy to paid escort Jackie (Elyse Levesque)--they land in the heart of Appalachia, where Harris has a large stake in the operation of West Virginia oil man Preston (Ron Perlman). Everything goes smoothly until Preston's Joffrey-esque asshole son Junior (Brandon Sklenar) hooks up with Jackie behind a bar and then tries to pick up Fiona after Neelyn goes back to the hotel to sleep it off following a brawl at the local shitkicker bar, appropriately called 86 ("Only you could get 86'd from a bar called the 86!" admonishes an outraged Harris). Neelyn wakes up in the morning and Fiona is nowhere to be found. Refusing to go back to London with Harris, he instead starts asking questions around town, finds Fiona's body floating in a lake, and confronts a smirking Junior, who has a large scratch across his forehead. Tempers flare, punches are thrown, and Neelyn ends up in jail, where Preston's loyal fixer Milt (Bruce McGill) more or less concedes that Junior is a worthless piece of shit, but he'll still be forced to intervene on his behalf if Neelyn tries to go after him. Any guesses what Neelyn decides to do anyway?
Co-produced by Jones, McDowell, and Perlman, and written and directed by Scott Wiper (who directed Jones in 2007's Stone Cold Steve Austin actioner THE CONDEMNED), THE BIG UGLY is the kind of uncomplicated B-movie that would've been banished to VOD and Redbox were we not in These Uncertain Times™. It's surprisingly engaging, considering Jones hasn't exactly been associated with high-quality titles of late. And while it's a tad overlong and it doesn't make much sense why Harris and Neelyn would've brought their girlfriends along for an overnight trip to rural West Virginia when they were heading back to London in the morning anyway, THE BIG UGLY generally works if you don't think too much about it. Much of that is due to Jones' gritty performance (imagine an older, grizzled Jason Statham) and Perlman's character having some unpredictable quirks, like ripping some local dipshits over their Confederate flag and tossing it in the trash, and adamantly refusing to engage in fracking (it isn't every day you get a liberal oil baron who's concerned about the environment). Sklenar (MIDWAY) is utterly loathsome as the thoroughly repugnant Junior, the kind of sniveling brat who thinks his dad's money is a pass to do whatever he wants, and who's such an irredeemable prick that his inevitable comeuppance is the kind of applause-worthy crowd-pleaser of a moment that we've missed in these months without going to theaters. Some minor nit-picks and contrivances aside, THE BIG UGLY is certainly above-average for this sort of thing, and as far as incongruous montage-into-closing credit needle-drops go, Exile's "Kiss You All Over" is as good a classic rock earworm as any. The film is dedicated to Jones' late wife Tanya, who died of cancer in 2019. (R, 106 mins)
RABID DOGS
(France/Canada - 2015; US release 2016)
Mario Bava's RABID DOGS was shot in the summer of 1974 but went unseen for 23 years after being caught up in a bankruptcy quagmire involving producer Roberto Loyola. A departure for horror icon Bava, RABID DOGS (also seen in the inferior alternate cut KIDNAPPED, with scenes added two decades later by Bava's son Lamberto) was a crime thriller that crammed all of its characters into a getaway vehicle commandeered by a trio of robbers, with a hostage, and the carjacking victim who's trying to get his sick kid to a hospital. Now that the long-lost RABID DOGS has been readily available in the home video age (unfortunately, only the KIDNAPPED cut is currently on Blu-ray in the US), fans of Bava and Eurocrime have had a chance to see one of the director's strongest efforts from the latter days of his career. Directed and co-written by Eric Hannezo (THE HORDE director Yannick Dahan also co-wrote, and Oscar-winning ARTIST star Jean Dujardin is one of the producers), the remake of RABID DOGS follows the same basic concept but consistently displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what made Bava's film work so well. Sure, RABID DOGS '15 is a lot more flashy and stylish than Bava's minimalist thriller, but that only goes so far. Hannezo spends much more time on the robbery and the getaway, and makes some incidental changes: here, it's not a random flunky who gets killed, but the ringleader (Laurent Lucas), leaving his protege Sabri (Guillaume Gouix) in charge of two volatile hotheads, Vincent (Francois Arnaud) and Manu (Franck Gastambide). During a badly-staged shootout at a mall and a standoff in the underground parking garage, they take an innocent bystander (Virginie Ledoyen) hostage and eventually carjack a father (Lambert Wilson), who only has a few hours to get his gravely ill daughter to a hospital for a kidney transplant.
That's more or less how Bava's film starts, minus the remake's specificity of the child's illness and the gaudy visual flourishes. Bava got his characters in the car a lot quicker than Hannezo does, and unlike Bava, he can't wait to keep getting them out of the car, never establishing the sweaty tension and increasing claustrophobia that makes RABID DOGS '74 so intense and nerve-wracking. No, Hannezo insists on giving us backstories of the bank robbers--who gives a shit that Manu is participating in the bank robbery to get enough money to get to see his estranged son? It doesn't humanize him at all, and it doesn't make him as dangerous as Aldo Caponi's comparable Bisturi in Bava's film. All we knew about the bad guys in Bava's film is that George Eastman's psychotic "32" had a huge dick. Hannezo's characters encounter various obstacles along the way, with a traffic jam of almost Godard/WEEKEND proportions slowing them down, and when they stop so the father can change a flat tire, the film completely falls apart. Even though the clock's ticking on the transplant, they take time to bullshit in the woods, share some smokes, and talk about themselves, as Hannezo cuts to a flashback of Vincent and Manu in some FIGHT CLUB-type activities in a garishly-lit red hallway seemingly on loan from Gaspar Noe. Later on, they get stuck in a WICKER MAN situation, with a town of gun-toting weirdos celebrating "The Feast of the Bear," which shuts the whole area down, preventing them from getting through or back out. The filmmakers do keep the devastating twist ending from the Bava film, but don't pull it off nearly as effectively. There's a few good moments that come mostly early on, though a later one, in the Bear town where an elderly, mute woman paralyzed by a stroke recognizes Manu from TV news reports and keeps incessantly ringing her little bell for help that never comes, is a memorable little set piece of which RABID DOGS '15 doesn't have nearly enough. There's some nice scenery in the Quebec location shooting (even though it takes place in France), but Hannezo is too focused on style over suspense here, as when he stops the climax cold for a slo-mo scene of everyone in the car bathed in more Gaspar Noe lighting schemes to the tune of Scala & Kolacny Brothers' cover of Radiohead's "Creep," featured prominently in the trailer for THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Why? Who knows? Who cares? On one hand, it's nice to see an obscure Bava film getting props from a fan who must love the movie (there's even a music cue that recalls Stelvio Cipriani's score for the 1974 film), but on the other, if he loves it so much, it's too bad Hannezo didn't do better by it. Then again, revisiting Bava's RABID DOGS right before watching the remake probably didn't do it any favors. (Unrated, 94 mins, also streaming on Netflix).
GRIDLOCKED (Canada - 2016)
When you wade through enough DTV B-movie swill, you're bound to accidentally find a pleasant surprise every now and again. The NYC-set, Canadian-made GRIDLOCKED is an unabashed homage to the late '80s-to-mid '90s heyday of action producer Joel Silver, though the chief influence, according to director/co-writer Allan Ungar, was John Badham's THE HARD WAY (1991), with James Woods as an angry cop forced to chaperone a spoiled movie star (Michael J. Fox) who's riding along with him to prep for an upcoming role. Ungar goes so far as to have HARD WAY villain Stephen Lang play the bad guy here, but the whole movie is an affectionate mash-up of Silver-produced classics like LETHAL WEAPON, DIE HARD, and THE LAST BOY SCOUT, with a big nod to John Carpenter's ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 to cap it off. When Canadian-born child actor-turned-Hollywood bad boy Brody Walker (Canadian karate champ Cody Hackman) has yet another public meltdown when he punches a cameraman for a TMZ-like tabloid show and gets the latest in a string of DUIs, his foul-mouthed agent Marty (Saul Rubinek, cast radically against type as "Saul Rubinek") tells him his next mega-budget, pre-packaged blockbuster will be canceled if he doesn't get his shit together. Brody's lawyer plea bargains a cushy deal for him: community service in the form a ride-along with a local cop. The cop turns out to be Hendrix (Dominic Purcell), a badass SWAT legend busted down to patrol duty after a botched raid that resulted in too many casualties. The stoical, humorless Hendrix isn't excited about the assignment and resists any attempt by Brody to bond, sighing in disgust as the pampered Hollywood brat takes selfies with perps and generally makes an ass of himself.
Wanting to visit his old pals, Hendrix takes Brody on a late-night tour of his old Strategic Response outpost and armory about 40 miles outside of Manhattan, where the staff includes elderly Sully on desk duty, running the check-in. That Sully is a) near retirement, and b) played by LETHAL WEAPON star Danny Glover, it should come as no surprise that he ends up dead not long after declaring that he's gettin' too old for this shit. A dull and quiet night comes to an abrupt end when disgraced former SRT commander Korver (Lang) leads a team of mercenaries in an attempt to raid the facility, which the government has been using to covertly store assets seized both legally and illegally. Korver is after several hundred thousand dollars in bonds acquired from a raid involving a Central American drug lord, and he's not about to let his old buddy Hendrix stand in his way. Of course, the SWAT team on duty, plus Hendrix and Brody, have to work together--if they don't kill each other first!--to survive the night and keep Korver's guys (Vinnie Jones among them, as a corrupt and improbably Cockney, fookin' 'ell, mate!-accented NYC cop) from getting in. Purcell is an actor who has specialized in the unwatchable since PRISON BREAK went off the air, and relative to 98% of his headlining filmography, GRIDLOCKED is pretty damn good, right up there with his surprisingly solid boxing drama A FIGHTING MAN. He's perfectly cast and a great seething foil for the snotty Brody, who's obviously meant to be Justin Bieber several years from now (strangely, the film never makes use of Hackman's martial arts skills). GRIDLOCKED doesn't have an original thought in its head, but it wears its love of a specific era of action cinema on its sleeve and replicates it quite convincingly in a John Badham/Richard Donner/Walter Hill kind-of way, from the glossy production values to the smartass buddy action comedy bickering, and it's punctuated with some occasionally shocking, stomach-turning violence. Against all odds, this is definitely one of the better straight-to-DVD titles to come down the pike in quite a while, even if it's several years too late: had Purcell had this in theaters with some major studio backing right after PRISON BREAK ended, he would've never returned Uwe Boll's phone calls. (R, 113 mins) THE ABANDONED
(US - 2016)
Not to be confused with Nacho Cerda's 2006 Lucio Fulci homage with the same title, THE ABANDONED (shot in 2013 under the title THE CONFINES) is an intermittently effective chiller with some terrific atmosphere but it's saddled with a story derived from a hodgepodge of influences ranging from THE ORPHANAGE to SESSION 9 to CROPSEY to the jump-scares of Blumhouse to the facepalm-worthy twists of M. Night Shyamalan. Julia, aka "Streak" (Louisa Krause) is a troubled single mom in danger of losing her daughter if she screws up one more time. Her last chance is a gig as an overnight security guard at a posh, abandoned NYC apartment building. Her co-worker is bitter, wheelchair-bound Cooper (Jason Patric), who mans the control room and watches the monitors as Streak patrols the premises. They get off to a rocky start, with Cooper tired of breaking in newbies only to have them flake out after a week over the tedious nature of the job (though it could be that he's just an unpleasant asshole) and not even masking his contempt for Streak. She doesn't win him over by breaking the rules on her first night by letting a homeless man (Mark Margolis) and his dog stay in one of the rooms. It gets worse when she finds a bolted door blocking off a section of the building that Cooper claims was unfinished. Of course, Streak unlocks the door and finds that it leads to a series of dark, ominous underground tunnels branching off of the basement, along with the requisite checklist of things you find in dark, ominous underground tunnels, like hidden rooms with filthy mattresses, creepy childrens' drawings on the walls, and occasional taunting whispers and banging on doors. Of course, this used to be a secret orphanage from decades back, used to stash away deformed or mentally and physically challenged children of parents too poor to care for them or too embarrassed to acknowledge them at all, and of course, their vengeful spirits still haunt the premises. Or do they?
Making his feature directing debut, Eytan Rockaway has a good eye for chill-inducing atmosphere with his use of darkness, light, and shadows. But the script by Ido Fluk seems like the end result of a particularly wild weekend video roulette binge with his DVD collection. As messy as THE ABANDONED's story is, it's a film that's obviously trying hard. Maybe too hard, as if its makers weren't confident they'd ever corral the cash to make another movie, so they're cramming everything they've got into this one. They had to be happy to get access to even a faded star like Patric, who helps the young filmmakers out by turning in a surprisingly strong performance and giving this low-budget affair what little commercial value he can (it still took three years to get released). The final twist packs a punch, but at the same time renders much of what's happened before meaningless. THE ABANDONED falls apart by the end, but it's not fair to bag on it too much--Rockaway and Fluk give it their best shot, and even when you're shaking your head as the plot collapses and the cliches abound, it looks too good to just dismiss. He's not quite there yet, but if Rockaway can find a script that's up to par with his command of the camera and his staging of set pieces, he might go places. (PG-13, 87 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
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 CONGRESS (Israel/Germany/Poland/Luxembourg/Belgium/France/India - 2013; 2014 US release)
Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman's WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008) was a unique, gut-wrenching animated documentary with Folman addressing traumatic, long-suppressed memories of his time serving in the Israel Defense Forces during the 1982 Lebanon War. It was powerful enough to be banned in Lebanon, and Folman immediately began conceiving his next film, THE CONGRESS. Shot in 2011 and loosely based on Solaris author Stanislaw Lem's 1971 novel The Futurological Congress, THE CONGRESS is split just about evenly between live-action and animation, a hard sci-fi mindbender headlined by Robin Wright as a fictionalized, alternate-universe version of herself. A single mother of two--snarky daughter Sarah (Sami Gayle) and mildly autistic son Aaron (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who suffers from a rare disease that's slowly robbing him of his hearing and vision--who lives in a refurbished hangar next to an airport, Wright has been out of the Hollywood scene for some time and has a reputation as an unreliable, temperamental diva with an abundance of burned bridges in her wake. Her concerned, fatherly longtime agent Al (Harvey Keitel) laments the squandered potential after THE PRINCESS BRIDE and comes to her with an offer from Miramount Pictures: sell her digital likeness for a massive, one-time lump sum payment and have that likeness function as an undetectable CGI "Robin Wright" for 20 years worth of acting while she's free to live her life and never worry about working again ("Keanu Reeves and Michelle Williams just did it!" Al insists). Miramount head Jeff Green (Danny Huston, clearly basing his performance on what we imagine Harvey Weinstein to be) lays it on the line for Wright: she's got a bad reputation, she's not getting any younger, and her son has some serious health issues that will require her attention. "You gotta be what, 45? 48? You can be 34 forever!" he promises. Wright agrees to have her body and the gamut of her emotional responses scanned and captured and then Folman jumps ahead 20 years. An aged Wright is venturing to an event known as "The Congress," which takes place in a world where one must morph into animated form to visit. Six other "Robin Wright"'s are at The Congress, and she learns that the digital manifestations of herself that have been used in movies also "exist" in this animated realm. She finds she's been the star of a blockbuster sci-fi franchise called REBEL ROBOT ROBIN, and that the powers-that-be at Miramount have another plan for "Robin Wright." Movies are done, she's told by the animated recreation of Green. Miramount has gotten out of the movie business to become a pharmaceutical empire. Celebrity is a substance to be consumed. "Robin Wright" will now be available to her fans in liquid form.
There's some heady themes running throughout THE CONGRESS, a trippy and wildly ambitious film that unfortunately gets lost up its own ass time and again. The idea of "experiencing" your favorite celebrity recalls--and predates, considering it was conceived before--Brandon Cronenberg's ANTIVIRAL, but it's not really explored by Folman, and the notion of the digital actress is straight out of Andrew Niccol's underrated and virtually forgotten Al Pacino bomb S1M0NE, while the ability to traverse real and animated worlds owes a bit to Ralph Bakshi's COOL WORLD. As Wright enters the world of The Congress, the film incorporates numerous animation styles that alternately channel Bakshi, Rene Laloux (FANTASTIC PLANET, LIGHT YEARS), the 1981 cult classic HEAVY METAL, and the work of PINK FLOYD: THE WALL animator Gerald Scarfe. Folman is aiming at so many targets that THE CONGRESS eventually collapses in on itself and becomes a ponderous, patience-testing slog. He has some pointed observations about the banality of modern pop culture, the struggle of aging actresses in an industry that worships youth, and a sense of societal disconnect in the way that the world of The Congress is ultimately shown to be the product of Wright's subconscious. There is no reality--only what people construct in their mind after taking a pill available to everyone in the dystopia of 2033--everyone literally lives in their own world. The film looks superb--the production design of the live-action sequences is eye-catching and the animated sections have some surreal, midnight-movie appeal--but Folman has a pronounced lack of discipline and focus here and can't really decide what his film is about. Genuinely emotional moments are scattered here and there, and there's a good performance by Paul Giamatti as Aaron's sympathetic doctor, but a second-half subplot with animated Wright falling in love with activist Dylan Truliner (voiced by Jon Hamm), and joining him in a rebellion to break out of the animated world goes nowhere, and while Wright is fine, her casting makes no sense. Do we know all that much about the real Robin Wright? The idea of presenting herself as this horrible Hollywood asshole who closed every door that was opened for her seems pointless without comedic motivation, like seeing Ted Danson or Michael J. Fox playing boorish versions of themselves for laughs on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM. Usually, in those instances, the whole reason is to play off and have fun with a celebrity's image (like, say, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH). What's the point of Wright playing this scripted, dramatic version of Robin Wright, unlikable and with a fading career, if it says nothing about the real Robin Wright? Has anyone ever read a negative Robin Wright story in a tabloid? She may as well be playing a faded actress named "Jane Smith." This is the kind of meta role that could've used an 45-or-older actress with a history of being difficult on a movie set, like a Sharon Stone or a Madonna, or maybe an actress like Catherine Keener, by all accounts a nice woman who's great at portraying cold, brittle bitches and it could've made a statement about the pitfalls of typecasting. As it is, THE CONGRESS is a stylish and extremely well-made film but in terms of story, it's just blowing a lot of hot air and it's ultimately a long, slow road to tedium. A major disappointment after Folman's triumphant WALTZ WITH BASHIR. (Unrated, 123 mins)
GUTSHOT STRAIGHT (US - 2014)
There's enough intriguing, quirky touches and flashes of a legitimately interesting film in GUTSHOT STRAIGHT to make you wish it was something more. Its biggest fault is that there really just isn't much of a story, and what's there has been done countless times in the past. But director Justin Steele commendably avoids going for yet another belated Tarantino knockoff and does a really nice job of capturing the seedy side of Vegas that you don't see much of in movies anymore. He catches a lot of location footage on the fly, as evidenced by tourists looking at the camera in a welcome throwback to the old-school guerrilla tactics on the mean streets of Times Square in the '70s and '80s, and he has scenes take place not in the flashy, tourist-friendly establishments, but in the aging and past-their-prime Vegas casinos that have seen much better days. The film stars CSI's George Eads (also one of 30 credited producers) as Jack, a perpetual Vegas small-timer in a porkpie hat who tries to pass himself off as a high-roller but always loses big. He's $10,000 in the hole to loan shark Paulie Trunks (a surprisingly well-cast Steven Seagal) and sees no way out until a chance meeting with rich gambler Duffy (Stephen Lang). Duffy presents Jack with a business opportunity that happens to be worth $10,000: "I want you to fuck my wife," Duffy says, adding "$20,000 if you let me watch." Understandably skeeved out by the proposition, though he's tempted once he sees Duffy's wife May (AnnaLynne McCord), Jack declines and when he rejects $50,000, a scuffle ensues and Jack ends up killing Duffy in self-defense. May takes charge of the situation, telling Jack that Duffy was abusive, that she was a prisoner, and she'll deal with disposing of the body. Jack goes about his business until he realizes he left his wallet at Duffy's house, and when he tries to sneak back in the next night, he encounters the outwardly gregarious but incredulously sinister Lewis (Ted Levine), who wants to know where his brother Duffy has gone.
GUTSHOT STRAIGHT is the sort of indie-noir that filled the new release shelves of video stores 20 years ago in the wake of sleepers like RED ROCK WEST and THE LAST SEDUCTION. There's bits of HARD EIGHT mixed with BODY HEAT and INDECENT PROPOSAL and the cast is populated with colorful character actors and recognizable faces (there's also Vinnie Jones, doing his patented "fookin' 'ell, mate!" shtick as a Paulie Trunks strongarm, and a useless one-scene bit by WAYNE'S WORLD's Tia Carrere), but there's just not much here and Jerry Rapp's script is lacking. The climax doesn't make much sense, Jack is too arrogantly full of himself and too stupid for the audience to really get on his side, and it's painfully obvious from the start that May is your standard-issue femme fatale. The film plays out as if the actors are working from a checklist rather than a script, which may explain why it never feels like Jack is in serious danger, and that overwhelming, crushing feeling of there being no way out is essential for a film like this to really work. There are worthwhile elements to GUTSHOT STRAIGHT--where most films today hold off any credits until the end, this has got one of the best opening credits sequences of the year, a total homage to the fun and catchy opening credits of the 007 franchise. I'm not sure why it's in this movie, but it works beautifully. Levine and Lang are always effective at playing creeps, and Seagal, in rare character actor mode, steals the few scenes he's in, breaking out a not-bad Vito Corleone voice as the feared mob figure with an inexplicable soft spot for the hapless Jack. If you watch enough of Seagal's recent starring vehicles, then you know it's a small victory if you can get him to simply show up for work awake, let alone turn in an actual performance. According to Eads in the DVD's making-of segment, Seagal was only on the set for one day, so maybe he was excited about not having to stick around, but he's very good here. He gets a terrific monologue about why he's called "Paulie Trunks" and has a few genuinely funny, possibly ad-libbed lines and though his screen time is limited, he makes every moment count. GUTSHOT STRAIGHT has a lot of positives in its favor, and there's much here for Steele to build upon, but it just needed a stronger foundation than the weak script provides. (R, 89 mins)
