DYING OF THE LIGHT (US/Bahamas - 2014) Written and directed by Paul Schrader. Cast: Nicolas Cage, Anton Yelchin, Alexander Karim, Irene Jacob, Ayman Hamdouchi, Claudius Peters, Adetomiwa Edun, Robert G. Slade, Serben Celea, Silas Carson, Arsha Aghdasi. (R, 94 mins)
Evan Lake (Nicolas Cage) is a legend at the CIA headquarters in Langley. He's received virtually every honor the CIA can bestow. One of the most brilliant minds in the history of the agency and a loner who's devoted his entire life to his country, Lake's been saddled with "temporary" desk duty that's now in its sixth year. He's desperate to get back in the field, but his right hand twitches, he drinks too much, and he's been prone to mood swings that are becoming more erratic by the day. He also hasn't been able to let go of a Beirut assignment from 22 years earlier where he was captured and brutally tortured by terrorist Mohammed Banir (Alexander Karim), who repeatedly beat him over the head with an oar and snipped off part his ear before an extraction team swarmed in, took out Banir and his men, and rescued Lake. Lake hasn't shaken the gnawing notion that Banir is still alive, and when he brings it up around the office, it usually provokes eye-rolls and a stern word from the CIA chief to drop it. And the news just got worse for Lake: he's been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, an aggressive brain disease similar to Alzheimer's that provokes difficulty focusing, outbursts, lack of emotional control, and wildly inappropriate overreactions. Respected around the office but stand-offish and cold, Lake's only work friend is young analyst Milton Schultz (Anton Yelchin), who's been doing some investigating in his spare time and gets a hit on a medication that's being smuggled into Bucharest after being prescribed by a Kenya-based doctor (Serben Celea). It's a seldom-used med that treats a rare genetic blood disorder that killed Banir's father and that Banir is known to carry. Knowing Banir has associates in both Mombasa and Bucharest, Schultz presents his findings to Lake, who is more convinced than ever that Banir faked his death and is alive, if not well. When the CIA honchos refuse to hear him out and practically force him to retire when his efforts to conceal his condition fail, Lake has a meltdown that ends up getting him escorted out of the building. With nothing to lose and wanting to nail Banir and prove he was right all along, Lake decides to spend what little time he has left finding Banir and exacting revenge. Lake and Schultz go rogue, heading to Romania where Lake attempts to infiltrate Banir's off-the-grid hiding place by posing as the new hematologist being secretly paid to visit and treat him.
DYING OF THE LIGHT sounds like a standard-issue post-9/11 terrorism thriller, and that's pretty much what it is. But that's not what writer/director Paul Schrader had in mind. Schrader, the oft-embattled '70s auteur whose screenplays include the Martin Scorsese essentials TAXI DRIVER (1976), RAGING BULL (1980), and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988) and whose directorial credits feature BLUE COLLAR (1978), AMERICAN GIGOLO (1980), CAT PEOPLE (1982), and AFFLICTION (1997), had the film taken away from him during post-production, when the producers decided they didn't like the version he assembled, saying it looked nothing like the script he originally presented to them. In October, Schrader, backed by Cage, Yelchin, and co-producer Nicolas Winding Refn (DRIVE), all contractually forbidden to publicly badmouth the film, staged a silent protest on social media that went viral, where they simply wore T-shirts with the contractual clause about not disparaging the movie printed on the front. Schrader said nothing, other than he was locked out of the editing room and the released version of DYING OF THE LIGHT is not his work, while primary producer Grindstone Entertainment and distributor Lionsgate have predictably offered no comment.
Clockwise from top left: Cage, Yelchin, Schrader and Refn display their grievances
with the producers and distributor of DYING OF THE LIGHT
Everything on screen was indeed shot by Schrader, but of course, editing can make a huge difference. Film Comment's Kevin Jagernauth has seen both versions of DYING OF THE LIGHT and says the differences aren't that extensive but that the sense of terror and disorientation in Cage's character has been downplayed in the released cut. In its present form, DYING OF THE LIGHT's biggest sin is its bland, generic execution, looking and playing very much like any random Romania-shot straight-to-DVD actioner. The action is mainly confined to the last 10-15 minutes and feels crammed in, and most of the way, it's a talky drag with performances that never really click. Yelchin is completely miscast, while Cage, sporting a gray version of one of his new Christopher Lee hairpieces, has been given a free pass to Cage it up thanks to the symptoms of his character's illness. He has a few of his patented outbursts, loves to overdo the hand twitch, gets to shout "As-salamu alaykum, asshole!" and absurdly mispronounces "Benghazi" to keep himself amused. There's fleeting hints of a more serious character study with Lake, and Schrader could probably draw a straight line through his past characters like Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle in TAXI DRIVER, William Devane's Charles Rane in ROLLING THUNDER (1977), Willem Dafoe's John LeTour in LIGHT SLEEPER (1992), Nick Nolte's Wade Whitehouse in AFFLICTION, plus others, directly to Evan Lake. They're all men who feel lost and alienated from the world and are reinvigorated when they find a purpose--typically revenge of some sort. That sometimes comes across in some of DYING OF THE LIGHT's more introspective moments, but those are few and far between. What's here is as much of a standard B-actioner that Grindstone and the producers could assemble. It could've just as easily been directed by regular Grindstone hack Brian A. Miller (THE OUTSIDER, THE PRINCE) and starred Dominic Purcell. Refn was attached to direct in the earliest pre-production stages in 2010, along with Harrison Ford as Lake and Channing Tatum as Schultz, but that fell apart when Ford bolted after disagreeing with the ending of Schrader's script, which does stay intact even in this compromised version.
Obviously, the behind-the-scenes discord with DYING OF THE LIGHT is more interesting than anything that's in the movie. Whatever its intentions, it's yet another in a long line of Redbox-ready Nic Cage trifles that seem to come along every couple of months, allowing him to chew the scenery and add to the endless YouTube "Nic Cage Freaks Out!!!" clips. He's almost a pet doing tricks at this point. Perhaps we'll never know what really went down, but by now, this kind of thing is hardly shocking when it comes to Schrader. Back in 2003, he found himself in a very similar situation when Morgan Creek execs took his EXORCIST prequel away from him when they didn't appreciate the cerebral, spiritual film he made that featured very little in the way of levitation, green vomit, and mothers sucking cocks in Hell. Renny Harlin was hired to reshoot some scenes and beef up the crowd-pleasing horror factor, but his additions became so extensive that Schrader's version was scrapped entirely and completely refilmed by Harlan as the awful EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (2004) with the same lead actor (the patient and presumably well-compensated Stellan Skarsgard). The story caused such a stir with Hollywood insiders and fans that Schrader's shelved version, retitled DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST, was given a limited release in 2005. It's not always successful, but it's very character-driven and intelligently-written, and it's certainly better than Harlan's remake.
Schrader with his stars during a break in filming
The 68-year-old Schrader has made great films over his long career, but he never seemed to get over the demise of 1970s maverick auteurism in the wake of Michael Cimino's United Artists-bankrupting HEAVEN'S GATE (1980). Like Terry Gilliam, he appears to enjoy putting himself in situations where he's David taking on the Goliath-like "system." I'm all for giving a filmmaker of Schrader's stature as much wiggle room as he wants. He's earned it, but he's also been in the business long enough to know that a theory-filled religious drama with EXORCIST in the title wasn't going to fly with anyone and that the producers would eventually get their way (was he completely unaware of William Peter Blatty's battles with the same Morgan Creek guys on 1990's THE EXORCIST III?). But even when he works outside the studio system and helms the partially crowd-funded THE CANYONS (2013), the result is a self-indulgent disaster. Did Schrader not see this coming when he got in bed with a bunch of B action producers like Grindstone and the Bahamas-based Tin Res Entertainment and tried to make a serious, meaningful film? Did he think Refn would have enough clout to get him his way? Do any of these guys have an understanding of the business in which they work? Schrader is living in a past where all filmmakers have final cut and it's all about art. It would be great if it could be that way, and it was until Cimino ruined it for everyone, but has Schrader heard of GANGS OF NEW YORK, the film that proved even Martin Scorsese doesn't get final cut and has to answer to his backers? Schrader answering to no one gave us THE CANYONS. I got the impression from that film that Schrader was bitter and angry about a lot of things, and maybe he's justified. Like many of his protagonists, Schrader has been left on the fringes and removed from the process after demonstrating an inability to adapt to a changing world. When he made THE CANYONS, he said he was on the cutting edge of a revolution with crowd-funding. Now, here he is, a year later, fighting the same old battles and expecting a different outcome. Maybe Schrader's director's cut of DYING IN THE LIGHT is his masterpiece. I doubt it, but I'd love to see this once-relevant and frequently brilliant filmmaker knock one out of the park again. Schrader deserves better, but at the same time, you have to wonder if he, like Terry Gilliam, brings a lot of this on himself.
THE NAKED FACE (US - 1985) Written and directed by Bryan Forbes. Cast: Roger Moore, Rod Steiger, Elliott Gould, Anne Archer, Art Carney, David Hedison, Ron Parady, Deanna Dunagan, John Kapelos, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Dick Sollenberger, Cynthia Baker Schuyler, Virginia Smith. (R, 105 mins) Action movies and ninjas may have been what kept the lights on during their heyday, but Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus wanted to take Cannon in a classier direction. Occasional prestige projects like Jason Miller's THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON (1982) would get made, but it wasn't until 1984 that Golan & Globus started to actively court respectable filmmakers who were on the outs with Hollywood or fed up with playing the major studio game: 1984 saw the release of John Cassavetes' LOVE STREAMS and Golan's own Woody Allen-esque OVER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE, while 1985 brought Robert Altman's FOOL FOR LOVE, Liliana Cavani's THE BERLIN AFFAIR, and two American films from famed Russian auteur Andrei Konchalovsky with MARIA'S LOVERS and RUNAWAY TRAIN. With the late 1984 hit MISSING IN ACTION, and then the likes of MISSING IN ACTION 2: THE BEGINNING, DEATH WISH 3, INVASION, U.S.A., and AMERICAN NINJA, 1985 was really the year that Cannon blew up and that beautiful logo became a weekly staple in American multiplexes. However, there were several big-star Cannon offerings in 1985 that, for various reasons, fell through the cracks and didn't get much exposure: Anthony Harvey's offbeat dark comedy GRACE QUIGLEY, an unlikely pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Nick Nolte in a doomed production whose troubles began when original director Hal Ashby quit during pre-production and ended with the film existing in three different versions that satisfied no one; Desmond Davis' Agatha Christie adaptation ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE, starring Donald Sutherland, Faye Dunaway, and Christopher Plummer; J. Lee Thompson's THE AMBASSADOR, a very loose adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 52 Pick-Up, with Robert Mitchum, Ellen Burstyn, and Rock Hudson in his final big-screen appearance; and THE ASSISI UNDERGROUND, written and directed by Polish author Alexander Ramati and based on his own novel, dealing with the Catholic Church's rescue of Italian Jews from the Nazis. ASSISI, starring CHARIOTS OF FIRE's Ben Cross, Maximilian Schell, Irene Papas, and James Mason in his last film (it was released over a year after his death), was originally a three-hour epic that Cannon chopped down to two before they stealthily unveiled it in a few markets.
One such 1985 cast-off was THE NAKED FACE, based on a novel by Sidney Sheldon. The project was chosen by Roger Moore, who was growing tired of his James Bond persona and was looking to branch out into more serious acting roles. Moore tried to leave the 007 franchise after 1981's FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, but was wooed back for two more films: 1983's OCTOPUSSY and 1985's A VIEW TO A KILL. Golan & Globus were happy to accommodate Moore and even went along with his recommendation of hiring Bryan Forbes to write and direct the film. One of Moore's oldest and dearest friends since the two met while in the British Army just after WWII, Forbes was a veteran British journeyman with numerous highly respected films to his credit: THE ANGRY SILENCE (1960), THE L-SHAPED ROOM (1962), SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON (1964), KING RAT (1965), THE WRONG BOX (1966), and his biggest commercial success, THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975). He also wrote several novels and acted occasionally, with his best-known role being Turk Thrust, the guitar-strumming attendant at the nudist colony visited by Inspector Clouseau in Blake Edwards' A SHOT IN THE DARK (1964). Forbes also produced and co-wrote Basil Dearden's doppelganger suspense thriller THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF (1970), regularly cited by Moore as his personal favorite performance of his career. Forbes took the job and THE NAKED FACE was shot entirely on location in Chicago in the fall of 1983 when Moore had some downtime between OCTOPUSSY and A VIEW TO A KILL. During this period, Moore also managed to fit in a cameo as a post-plastic surgery Clouseau in 1983's misbegotten CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER, where he was credited as "Turk Thrust II" as an inside joke for his buddy Forbes that's more amusing than anything in the movie.
THE NAKED FACE presents Moore as Dr. Judd Stevens, a successful Chicago shrink who finds himself the target of a killer. First, a patient is stabbed two blocks from his office after Stevens loans him his raincoat and he's mistaken for the doctor. Then Stevens' receptionist is killed. Stevens, who lost his wife and daughter in a car accident two years earlier, leads a quiet life and is greatly disturbed by these events. Not helping matters is Lt. McGreevy (Rod Steiger), the irate cop assigned to the case with the more sympathetic Det. Angeli (Elliott Gould who had just starred in OVER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE). Loud, bad-tempered bigot McGreevy thinks Stevens is the killer and has something to hide, so he harasses the doctor mercilessly, probing every aspect of his life to find incriminating evidence against him. McGreevy's beef with Stevens is personal: several years earlier, McGreevy's former partner was killed by a perp who got to plead insanity thanks to Stevens' testimony. McGreevy ignores any leads that don't involve arresting Stevens, and even when two gunmen break into his apartment and try to kill him, Stevens still can't convince McGreevy that someone is trying to kill him. Angeli sees that McGreevy is trying to railroad Stevens and gets him taken off the case, which then adds him to McGreevy's endless shit list. While Angeli actually works the case, Stevens resorts to eccentric private eye Morgens (Art Carney), who finds a bomb planted in Stevens' car and quickly finds out who's causing all the mayhem, as McGreevy secretly follows Angeli to stay peripherally involved in the case, plotting his next move.
THE NAKED FACE is a simple and straightforward thriller with some moments of genuine suspense and a good performance by Moore. Moore seems enthused to be away from his winking and increasingly self-deprecating James Bond act and playing a real character who's often presented as weak and vulnerable. Frequently sporting thick lenses in a set of large and unflattering eyeglass frames (even by 1985 standards), Moore's Stevens is hardly a fighting man of action and takes his share of physical and verbal abuse throughout. When he's trapped in his apartment by a gunman, he's practically cowering in the corner of his bedroom when he's rescued by his surgeon brother-in-law (David Hedison, Moore's LIVE AND LET DIE Felix Leiter), who scares away the intruder. There's no wry, snide one-liners here and Moore is quite good in a more subdued role than audiences were accustomed to seeing him play. The major problem with THE NAKED FACE, other than its overbearing score by Michael J. Lewis, is that once the antagonist and their motivation are revealed, your response will likely be along the lines of "And?!" It seems like a lot of people are killed for not much of a reason, and having the villain order his flunkies to kidnap Stevens and bring him to his base of operations so he can talk and talk and over-explain his motive and address Stevens in a dismissive tone seems like something that would happen in a 007 movie. Forbes also changes the ending of the book in a way that does nothing to help the film, which fades to black on a truly bizarre note that doesn't seem to know the difference between "open-ended ambiguity" and "opening a whole new can of worms." The ending of the film wants to be a shocking twist, but it's handled very poorly and comes off as botched and clumsy.
There's still a lot to like in the mostly enjoyable THE NAKED FACE. Though Gould, Carney, Hedison, and Anne Archer (as one of Stevens' patients), turn in solid performances, they have little to do (the rest of the cast is rounded out by Chicago-based actors, including John Kapelos and former Northwestern University theater professor Ron Parady in prominent supporting roles, which begs the question: where's Ron Dean?). Perhaps everyone was just deferring and leaving the scenery for Steiger to gorge himself on. Shouting throughout like a Windy City Chief Gillespie and sporting a terrible toupee, Steiger turns in one of his great bellicose asshole performances in THE NAKED FACE. Moore may have been trying to show some range here with a sincere, serious performance, but Steiger just goes Full Throttle Rod, and while it could easily be construed as self-indulgent overacting, it's a performance that works considering the all-consuming bitterness of the character he's playing. It's hardly the most out-of-control he ever was in a film, and it still pales in comparison to his legendary "You wanna fuck me?!" outburst to Danny Aiello in the otherwise insignificant THE JANUARY MAN (1989), but still, the incomparable Steiger is on fire in THE NAKED FACE.
THE NAKED FACE wasn't the breakaway from Bond that Moore anticipated. Cannon sat on it for over a year before dumping it in a handful of theaters--mostly in the Chicago market--for a one-week run on January 25, 1985. There were reports of disagreements between Forbes and Golan, particularly when Moore's mother became gravely ill during production and Forbes rearranged the shooting schedule to allow the star to take a week off to visit her in London without consulting Golan about it first. A furious Golan reportedly slashed the budget and shortened the shooting schedule, forcing Forbes to make rushed compromises that may be an indication of why the film seems so clumsily-structured in its second half (among other things in the unsatisfying finale, it feels like there should be one more scene between Moore's and Steiger's characters). Whatever the reason--and the clashing with filmmakers and the shelving of relatively prestigious fare out of spite sounds more like Harvey Weinstein than Menahem Golan--THE NAKED FACE was one of several high-end, big-name Cannon projects from 1985 that were buried and quickly forgotten as Golan & Globus turned their attention to the money generated by guys like Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, and Michael Dudikoff. It was also Forbes' last big-screen directing effort. He went on to make the 1990 Showtime miniseries THE ENDLESS GAME, based on his own 1985 spy novel, and he co-wrote Richard Attenborough's CHAPLIN (1992) before retiring from movies. Forbes died in 2013 at the age of 86.
Sir Roger Moore in a publicity photo
for his 2014 memoir One Lucky Bastard
Now 87, Sir Roger Moore has acted sparingly in the years following his 1985 retirement from the world of 007, instead focusing on charity work and his tireless humanitarian efforts (he was knighted in 2003 for his work with UNICEF). Cannon's proposed remake of the classic GUNGA DIN, announced in 1988 with Ben Kingsley in the title role and Moore, Michael Caine, and Sean Connery as British soldiers, obviously never happened, though Moore would star with Caine in the straight-to-video comedy BULLSEYE! (1991) for Golan's short-lived, post-Cannon outfit 21st Century Film Corporation. He played the villain in the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle THE QUEST (1996) and had campy turns opposite the Spice Girls in SPICE WORLD (1998) and as a flamboyant passenger on a gay cruise ship, aggressively hitting on Horatio Sanz ("Would you like a bite of my sausage?") in the Cuba Gooding Jr. atrocity BOAT TRIP (2003). He's done some voice work in a few animated films, usually spoofing his 007 image (2010's CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE had Moore voicing debonair feline spy Tab Lazenby in a joke almost certainly over the heads of the film's intended audience), and in 2006, recorded essential DVD audio commentaries for all seven of his Bond outings. He's written a personal history of the James Bond films (2012's Bond on Bond: The Ultimate Book on 50 Years of Bond Movies), and penned two enormously entertaining memoirs (2008's My Word is My Bond and 2014's One Lucky Bastard), and even if he isn't busy on the big screen, he shows no signs of slowing down. Kino Lorber recently released THE NAKED FACE on Blu-ray, and it's a shame they didn't get Moore to contribute a commentary. As his books and his work on the 007 DVDs demonstrate, he's grown into one of the cinema's great raconteurs. Let's face it: Roger Moore was never going to win an Academy Award. He's rarely busted his ass as an actor and most of his non-007 career choices seemed dictated by where the films were being shot and how nice of a working vacation they'd provide. But Moore has always been the kind of charismatic guy who could get away with that. He's never pretended to be a great actor, but he's a class act and many of those critical of his more lighthearted interpretation of 007 have rightfully come around to appreciating him as a living legend in his emeritus years.
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)
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS (UK - 1984) Directed by Edmund Purdom and Al McGoohan (Derek Ford, Alan Birkinshaw). Written by Derek Ford and Al McGoohan (Alan Birkinshaw). Cast: Edmund Purdom, Alan Lake, Belinda Mayne, Gerry Sundquist, Mark Jones, Caroline Munro, Kelly Baker, Pat Astley, Kevin Lloyd, Wendy Danvers, Lawrence Harrington. (Unrated, 86 mins)
The November 9, 1984 release of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, with its concept of a homicidal, axe-wielding maniac dressed as Santa Claus, was the subject of a major controversy, a media circus, and a ludicrously hyperbolic condemnation from Siskel & Ebert. It's not like the idea of Christmas-themed horror was new: we'd already seen Bob Clark's terrifying BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), the original "the calls are coming from inside the house!" scenario with a hidden killer stalking the stragglers at a sorority house during Christmas break, and the opening "And All Through the House" segment of Freddie Francis' TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972), David Hess' TO ALL A GOODNIGHT (1980), and Lewis Jackson's CHRISTMAS EVIL, aka YOU BETTER WATCH OUT (1980) all dealt with the idea of a killer Santa long before SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT was nearly banned because of it. The breathless panic and the cries of "What about the children?!" that surrounded SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT had more to do with the mindset of the time than anything inherently offensive in the film, which, for the record, is not very good, though even it has its one legitimately iconic moment. Thanks to HALLOWEEN (1978) and FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980), and the flood of imitators that hitched a ride on the bandwagon, the popularity of slasher films was at an all-time high. Much like today's debate over the violence in video games, there was much parental concern about things like movie violence and the "Satanic Panic" of the era, with heavy metal acts like Ozzy Osbourne, W.A.S.P., and Judas Priest being the favorite targets of outraged parents. There was a growing belief that if kids were bad, it had to be the movies they were watching, the music they were hearing, and the books they were reading.
Prior to SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT's release, protest groups announced plans to picket and demonstrate outside theaters showing the film. But, as in most cases like this, all they really succeeded in doing was drawing more attention to a cheap, forgettable film that, because of all the media hype, stayed in theaters for two weeks instead of just the one it would've lasted had the protesters simply said and done nothing at all. SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT landed in eighth place at the box office in its opening weekend, dropped significantly in its second weekend, and was gone--or "pulled from release," depending on who's telling the story--by Thanksgiving, with a May 1985 re-release generating little fanfare. It's still revered as a "classic" by '80s horror fans prone to grading on an overly nostalgic curve, and it spawned four sequels (the last two in-name-only) and an abysmal 2012 remake. But late 1984 also saw another Santa-themed slasher film that fell through the cracks: the British-made DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS only got a very limited release on December 7, 1984 by exploitation outfit 21st Century Distribution Corp. before turning up in video stores several months later courtesy of the immortal Vestron Video. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS was produced by veteran American schlockmeister Dick Randall, who had just set up shop in London after a decade-long run in Italy and Hong Kong, and Steve Minasian. Minasian was a veteran in grindhouse distribution and theatrical exhibition with his time logged as co-owner of Esquire Theaters and Hallmark Film Distributors. Minasian helped conceive the infamous "vomit bag" campaign for Hallmark's 1970 release of the German WITCHFINDER GENERAL ripoff MARK OF THE DEVIL. He was Randall's business partner on a number of 1980s European ventures, including the Spanish PIECES (1983) and the British SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986), but is perhaps best known for being involved as an investor in Georgetown Productions, the company that independently-produced FRIDAY THE 13TH. Minasian knew producer/director Sean S. Cunningham, who produced the Hallmark-released Wes Craven debut THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972). Minasian was a money man, had no creative input in FRIDAY THE 13TH or the first four sequels that carried a Georgetown Productions credit, and he isn't individually credited anywhere on the film, but that didn't stop him or Randall from exploiting that connection to the box-office phenomenon time and again throughout their partnership.
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS newspaper ad
from the Temple of Schlock archives.
Perhaps the most interesting figure involved in DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS was Edmund Purdom. Purdom (1924-2009) was a British actor who had some small roles in a few UK films and appeared on Broadway with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh before heading to Hollywood in search of stardom. He had bit parts in TITANIC (1953) and JULIUS CAESAR (1953), and in 1954, lucked into the lead in the lavish MGM musical THE STUDENT PRINCE. Mario Lanza quit the film over a dispute with the studio, who apparently expressed their displeasure with the star's sudden weight gain. The very popular Lanza, a beloved tenor who parlayed his voice into a movie career, was prone to binge-eating and wildly fluctuating weight. He had already recorded the soundtrack to THE STUDENT PRINCE before shooting began on the film, and as a result, MGM owned the rights to the music. This put Purdom in the awkward position of lip-syncing Lanza's vocals in a film that was actually advertised as "featuring the singing voice of Mario Lanza!" The film was a huge success, but people were going to hear Mario Lanza, not to see Edmund Purdom. Purdom's next film was the 20th Century Fox mega-budget Biblical epic THE EGYPTIAN. Marlon Brando was cast in the lead, but decided he didn't like the script and bailed at the eleventh hour. Fox courted Farley Granger and an up-and-coming Dirk Bogarde, and both declined the offer. Scrambling, they finally settled for their fourth choice--Purdom--and, coming on the heels of the Lanza brouhaha over THE STUDENT PRINCE, the Hollywood gossip rags started derisively referring to him as "The Replacement Star." MGM offered him a contract and appeared committed to making Edmund Purdom happen: he and Vic Damone romanced Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds in the musical ATHENA (1954), with Purdom's character being the only lead to get no musical numbers, presumably because MGM had no more Mario Lanza vocal tracks lying around; he starred with Lana Turner in the epic spectacle THE PRODIGAL (1955); and was billed above the likes of David Niven and George Sanders in the swashbuckler THE KING'S THIEF (1955). None of these three post-EGYPTIAN films were successes, and just like that, Purdom's Hollywood career was over. He never got past the stigma of "The Replacement Star" and after an Allied Artists quickie with 1956's STRANGE INTRUDER, he left Hollywood to test the waters of the Italian film industry. He ended up spending the rest of his life there, his career largely concentrated in Italy with a few British, Spanish, French and/or German co-productions scattered throughout his filmography.
Purdom starred in adventures, westerns, gangster dramas, and horror films during this second career, and also found much work as a voice dubber and voiceover artist. There were some prestigious Italian productions for him in the 1960s, but as time went on, he was relegated to supporting roles in everything from high-end gialli like THE FIFTH CORD (1971) to low-grade Eurotrash like Jess Franco's THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF (1973) and the Italian-made Randall production FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1973), featuring the infamous credit "and Boris Lugosi as Ook the Neanderthal Man." Purdom would appear as Vittorio De Sica in the 1980 TV-movie SOPHIA LOREN: HER OWN STORY and had small roles in a pair of 1983 miniseries: THE WINDS OF WAR for ABC and THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK for CBS--all American productions with scenes shot in Purdom's base of Rome--but by the 1980s, he was mostly appearing in things like Joe D'Amato's HALLOWEEN ripoff MONSTER HUNTER (1982) and grimy Randall fare like Alan Birkinshaw's INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD (1982) and the legendary PIECES, as the chainsaw-killer college dean assembling a human jigsaw puzzle out of the body parts of his victims. It was Purdom's friendship with Randall that led to their final, doomed collaboration: DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS.
Still basking in the glow of their PIECES triumph, Purdom talked Randall into letting him direct DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, where the veteran actor plays Scotland Yard Inspector Harris, investigating a string of brutal and graphically gory murders of men dressed as Santa in the days approaching Christmas. The Santas are, in no particular order, shot in the head, stabbed, have a spear run through their head and out of the mouth, forced face-first onto a grill, and in the film's most infamous scene, castrated with a straight razor while using a men's room urinal. Much of the film focuses on Kate Briosky (Belinda Mayne), the daughter of one of the victims, and her busking flautist boyfriend Cliff (Gerry Sundquist), who's immediately pegged by Harris as a suspect. There's also Harris' partner Powell (Mark Jones) doing some investigating on his own after being tipped off by sketchy journalist Giles (Alan Lake), as well as a porn palace peep show stripper (Kelly Baker) who witnessed one of the killings and is eventually abducted by the murderer. There's an unusually large number of characters drifting in and out of the film, and many of the scenes appear awkward, choppy, and incomplete, with a seemingly romantic dinner between Harris and Kate immediately cutting to Kate alone in her apartment, or Kate suddenly seen in a waiting room and being told "Dr. Bridle will see you now," and we never see Dr. Bridle, nor was he mentioned before or after this scene, and we never know the reason nor the result of this phantom appointment. There's a reason for the frequently random, nonsensically slapdash feeling throughout DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS: even by Dick Randall standards, the production was a complete clusterfuck.
At some point during filming, Purdom was relieved of his duties as director and subsequently quit the project as an actor, with Randall handing the task of directing off to screenwriter Derek Ford. Ford was best known for scripting the excellent 1965 Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper thriller A STUDY IN TERROR and the sublimely trashy 1968 Peter Cushing plastic surgery laser hippie freakout CORRUPTION, but eventually found himself in the smutty 1970s British sex farce gutter with the likes of I AM A GROUPIE, THE SWAPPERS, SUBURBAN WIVES, and COMMUTER HUSBANDS. Randall wasn't happy with Ford's work and after a few days, fired him and brought in Alan Birkinshaw, the man responsible for the truly pathetic INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD and now in charge of saving CHRISTMAS. Now that Ford was gone, Birkinshaw was assigned to completely overhaul the script to factor in the star no longer being around, take over directing the film, and reshoot some earlier Purdom sequences with which Randall was dissatisfied. Purdom wanted to make an old-fashioned thriller, and in a revelatory archival making-of on Mondo Macabro's 2011 DVD release, he's shown directing one murder scene involving the porn-booth stripper and says "I'm not really interested in showing a lot of blood here," demonstrating a fundamental disconnect with everything Dick Randall. Both the actress and the Santa actor are not the ones in the finished film. Birkinshaw reshot this sequence with a different actress (Baker) and buckets of blood and was actually responsible for almost all of the gory murder sequences. Purdom wasn't interested in splatter, and, by all accounts, was an eccentric and well-meaning guy who wanted to direct a movie but was in over his head and really didn't know what he was doing behind the camera. This is evident in a lot of the scenes in which Purdom is acting, which have the actors positioned in odd ways in shots that have a tendency to end abruptly, sometimes in mid-sentence, in an editorial necessity that can probably be chalked up to little or no coverage. Even with Birkinshaw's reshoots, new storylines, and massive re-edits, the film just doesn't cut together well at all.
Caroline Munro in DON'T OPEN
TILL CHRISTMAS, for some reason
Birkinshaw rewrote much of the script, introducing the subplot about the abducted stripper (Purdom never directed Baker at all), and another explaining the long stretches where Harris, the ostensible central character played by ostensible star Purdom, is completely absent from the action. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is entertaining for all the wrong reasons--way to waste the iconic Caroline Munro in a three-minute cameo as "herself" in a concert sequence, performing something called "Warrior of Love"--and barely hangs together, but it has its charms. Des Dolan's synth-heavy score has sections where it sounds a bit like something John Carpenter might compose on an off-day, Dick Randall aficionados will appreciate its sometimes PIECES-levels of nonsensical stupidity and incompetence, and the sight of the killer's smiling mask is undeniably effective. Birkinshaw hides behind a pseudonym, getting an "Additional scenes written and directed by Al McGoohan" credit presumably shared with Ford's equally anonymous directing contributions, and estimates that once Purdom's and Ford's useable footage was salvaged and he knew what he had to work around, he ended up directing about half of the film. Birkinshaw, the director of the 1978 video nasty KILLER'S MOON as well as dreadful remakes of THE HOUSE OF USHER and THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH for Harry Alan Towers during that ill-fated late '80s Poe revival, describes Purdom as "a sweet man," but this whole grease fire begs the question: how badly do you have to fuck up and how catastrophic is the destruction left in your wake when Alan Birkinshaw is the guy who gets called in as a cleaner?
Diana Dors and Alan Lake in
happier days, in an early 1970s
photo with their son Jason
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is also morbidly noteworthy for the premature and tragic ends of two of its stars. Born in 1940, Lake, a veteran British TV actor with a busy but unexceptional career, was known to UK audiences for his marriage to 1950s starlet Diana Dors in 1968 after her divorce from Richard Dawson. Dors, the British Marilyn Monroe in her prime, drifted into Shelley Winters-esque character parts as she got older but was nonetheless a popular tabloid subject throughout her life due to her sultry screen image, her weight gain as she aged, and stories of hosting celebrity orgies and homemade stag films dating as far back as the late 1950s. Lake also earned some notoriety when he served a year in prison over 1970-71 due to his part in a violent pub brawl. Dors wrote several tell-all memoirs about her storied life, and she and Lake were regulars on British talk and game shows. Dors was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1982 and was only 52 when she died in May 1984, a couple of months after Lake finished his work on CHRISTMAS. A devastated and inconsolable Lake was finding it difficult to cope with her death, and a bad situation only got worse: shortly after losing Dors, Lake was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. On October 10, 1984, five months after Dors' death and two months before the release of DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, Lake, just 44, took a shotgun to his head and ended his life, leaving the couple's 14-year-old son an orphan.
Born in 1955, Sundquist was a promising young actor who arrived on the scene in the mid '70s, and was soon labeled "the best-looking man on British TV." His biggest success in British cinemas was THE MUSIC MACHINE (1979), a knockoff of the 1977 blockbuster SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER that never got released in the US. Outside of the UK, he's known for the 1978 German sex comedy BOARDING SCHOOL, a favorite on late-night cable in the early '80s thanks to an early appearance by Nastassja Kinski, but his most high-profile role in the US was as the love interest to Esmeralda (Lesley-Anne Down) in the Anthony Hopkins-as-Quasimodo CBS/Hallmark Hall of Fame TV-movie THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1982). Sundquist also had a supporting role in the 1984 ABC miniseries THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII just prior to DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, but his momentum was quickly stalling. The actor was plagued by depression throughout his life, and he developed a serious drug problem as his career fizzled out in the mid '80s. He only managed to score a few sporadic TV guest spots over the next few years, and his personal issues worsened into the next decade. In 1993, the 37-year-old Sundquist committed suicide by jumping in front of a train at London's Norbiton train station. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS was the final film credit for both Lake and Sundquist.
Purdom in his later years
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS opened in several theaters in and around NYC on the same day as BEVERLY HILLS COP, 2010, and CITY HEAT. It never expanded nationwide and didn't attract any of the controversy or media attention heaped upon SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, which was already out of theaters and yesterday's news. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS got some coverage in Fangoria and became a video store fixture in the VHS glory days. It's earned a solid cult following over the years, mainly due to increased interest in the trashy grindhouse legacy of Dick Randall (1926-1996), who also produced the 1980 Bruce Li epic CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER and the 1981 Weng Weng classic FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY, both of which, like PIECES, have to be seen to be believed. Purdom licked his wounds and kept working throughout the '80s and '90s, either in voice work or in brief onscreen appearances in films like the Golan-Globus prestige project THE ASSISI UNDERGROUND (1985), and in ENDLESS DESCENT (1990), PIECES director Juan Piquer Simon's contribution to the late '80s undersea monster craze. He never attempted to direct another film. His final screen appearance came in Pupi Avati's medieval Italian epic KNIGHTS OF THE QUEST (2001), headlined by F. Murray Abraham, Thomas Kretschmann, and an unlikely Edward Furlong. He died of natural causes on January 1, 2009 at the age of 84, a highly recognizable, respected figure to fans of Eurotrash cult cinema. Purdom seemed to realize very quickly that Hollywood stardom wasn't in the cards for him, and he instead stayed consistently busy in movies that were mostly far beneath him, but he seemed OK with it. He was a working actor who went where the work was. He likely lived a very comfortable life of luxury in Europe, but he's still regarded--if at all--by devotees of Hollywood's Golden Era as "The Replacement Star," a heavily-hyped washout and the George Lazenby of his day, a strong and capable actor thrown into a can't-win situation and rejected by moviegoers mostly for not being someone else.
HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 (US - 2014) Directed by Sean Anders. Written by Sean Anders and John Morris. Cast: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Chris Pine, Christoph Waltz, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Banks, Keegan-Michael Key, Lindsay Sloane, Kelly Stables, Lennon Parham, Rob Huebel. (R, 108 mins)
As pointless sequels go, HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 isn't as stultifyingly unfunny as last year's ANCHORMAN 2, but in its own way, it's just as depressing. ANCHORMAN 2 was astoundingly bad, but that was due as much to the material as the creators' monumental self-indulgence and the misguided belief that what they were doing was setting new standards in comedic brilliance. After one of the most prolonged and aggressively obnoxious ad campaigns in cinema history, ANCHORMAN 2 was a stunning misfire that Ron Burgundy fans would rather just avoid discussing than admit how terrible it really is, and though I'm sure a burgeoning cult of apologists will someday declare it Will Ferrell's Pinkerton, it's a reassessment that's been very slow in its formation. But if nothing else, for all its infinite faults, ANCHORMAN 2 had ambition, whereas HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 is coasting from the start. Were there really enough unanswered questions and dangling plot threads from HORRIBLE BOSSES to justify a sequel? The 2011 original was an inspired and darkly hilarious look at three average guys reaching their breaking points with their abusive, asshole bosses. It was a funny and mean farce that allowed the actors in the title roles--Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell and Kevin Spacey--to let it rip in ways they never had onscreen before, with the possible exception of Spacey, who was cast because he's so good at playing this kind of asshole. There's really nowhere to take HORRIBLE BOSSES 2, so nowhere is exactly where it goes. File it with the likes of CADDYSHACK II, WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S II, and BLUES BROTHERS 2000 on the list of thoroughly disposable, instantly forgettable sequels that everyone involved--from the cast to the intended audience--approaches with a sigh and a shrug like it's a clock-punching obligation.
Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis), and Dale (Charlie Day), having extricated themselves from the clutches of the titular trio of supervisors, have gone into business for themselves by patenting the "Shower Buddy," a shower apparatus that dispenses shampoo, soap, and water all in one function. Looking to manufacture the item domestically and provide made-in-America jobs, they're wooed by catalog retailing magnate Bert Hansen (Christoph Waltz), who promises them some start-up money for a factory and an initial order of 100,000 units in exchange for exclusive retailing rights. Upon completion of the order, Hansen abruptly cancels it, which will send the trio into bankruptcy, at which point Hansen will buy them out for pennies on the dollar, own the patent, and set up a manufacturing deal with a Chinese factory. Enraged, Nick, Kurt, and Dale attempt to collect a hefty ransom by kidnapping Hansen's dude-bro son Rex (Chris Pine), who hates his father and becomes an unintended partner in the plot to extort him.
Of course, assorted hijinks ensue in order to pad the paper-thin plot and clumsily work in Aniston, Spacey, and Jamie Foxx, also returning as the trio's sage criminal advisor Dean "Motherfucker" Jones (fortunately for Farrell, his character was killed by Spacey's in the first film, thus sparing him from any phoned-in participation here). Spacey has two brief scenes probably shot in half a day, delivering a couple of Spacey-esque takedowns weakened by his wandering eyes clearly reading cue cards, but Aniston and Foxx have about as much to do here as Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd in CADDYSHACK II. Both make fleeting appearances early on, with Kurt and Dale breaking into Aniston's nympho dentist's office to steal laughing gas only to find she's now running a sex addiction group as a way to hook up with fellow sex addicts, and both are awkwardly squeezed into the third act to beef up their screen time. Foxx's Motherfucker Jones at least gets to take part in a climactic car chase but Aniston has nothing to do except be the center of a potential four-way as Nick, Kurt, and Dale have an endless debate over which of them gets "face, puss, or butt." Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis don't even seem to be playing the same characters from the first film. Because there's nowhere for the writers to take them, they go with the easiest option: making them louder and dumber. Day, in particular, resorts to screeching his way through, dialing it up to 11 and grating in ways that even the most fanatical IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA fan will find hard to take. Sudeikis also consistently mistakes yelling for actual comedy and gets to do an extended riff on his "Maine Justice" judge from SNL, while Bateman, again cast as the Michael Bluth-ian voice of reason (in other words, "Jason Bateman"), just looks tersely irritable throughout, like he'd rather be anywhere else.
None of the behind-the-scenes personnel from HORRIBLE BOSSES made the return trip, with the reins handed to the writing team of John Morris and Sean Anders, with Anders directing. This pair also had a hand in scripting SEX DRIVE (2008), HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (2010), the surprisingly good WE'RE THE MILLERS (2013) and the recent DUMB AND DUMBER TO (2014), but fail to bring anything interesting to the table with HORRIBLE BOSSES 2. It's never egregiously terrible, but it's bland, repetitive, and worst of all, dull. And what would a present-day studio comedy be without a montage set to The Heavy's "How You Like Me Now?" or '70s and '80s FM radio staples used for lazily ironic laughs, in this case, Toto's "Hold the Line" and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's "If You Leave"? "I guess that'll do," seems to be this film's mission statement. The very definition of "perfunctory," it's the kind of movie you'll have already forgotten about by the time you exit the multiplex. Even the end-credits bloopers are boring, except for one crack Sudeikis makes regarding Bateman's acting that ends up being the one legitimate laugh-out-loud moment in the entire film.
HELLO LADIES: THE MOVIE (US - 2014) Directed by Stephen Merchant. Written by Stephen Merchant, Gene Stupnitsky, and Lee Eisenberg. Cast: Stephen Merchant, Christine Woods, Nate Torrence, Kevin Weisman, Kyle Mooney, Sean Wing, Stephen Tobolowsky, Allison Tolman, Adam Campbell, Henrietta Meire, Stephanie Corneliussen. (Unrated, 80 mins)
Cancelled after one season by a network that somehow kept ARLI$$ on the air for seven, HELLO LADIES garnered enough of a fan base for HBO to greenlight a spinoff film that doubles as a feature-length finale, albeit one with a few more aerial shots than usual for a bit of a cinematic flourish. The brainchild of THE OFFICE co-creator Stephen Merchant and BAD TEACHER co-writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (also a writing team on the American OFFICE), HELLO LADIES dealt with Brit Stuart Pritchard (Merchant) and his escapades as a would-be player in the L.A. dating scene. Stuart is a nice guy who means well, but he tries too hard and has always been obsessed with being popular, and his awkward attempts at ingratiating himself in with the cool kids at trendy nightspots and any other social setting provided some outstanding bits of wincing, cringe-worthy discomfort comedy. That element of the show tapered off as that lone season wore on, with more of a focus on his "Will They or Won't They?" platonic relationship with his friend and tenant, aspiring actress Jessica (Christine Woods), who was spinning her wheels in a dead-end relationship with her douchebag agent Glenn (Sean Wing).
HELLO LADIES: THE MOVIE picks up right where the first season left off, with Stuart still sucking up to Glenn to get into parties attended by supermodels, Jessica abandoning her acting career after a humiliating audition for a yogurt commercial, and Stuart's divorced best friend Wade (Nate Torrence) still tagging along as his hapless wingman. Stuart is panicked after getting a phone call from Trudy (Henrietta Meire), an ex from the UK who's visiting L.A. with her husband Mike (Adam Campbell). Trudy left Stuart for Mike, and Stuart was so traumatized that he moved to L.A. in an attempt to reinvent himself. Obsessed with showing Trudy and Mike that he's "won at life," Stuart manages to convince one of Glenn's Russian supermodels (Stephanie Corneliussen) to go on a double date, but she backs out to go to a party instead, prompting Stuart to press Jessica into service as a last-minute replacement. The night goes perfectly, at least until Stuart and Jessica are forced to confront their feelings for each other.
HELLO LADIES worked best when Merchant got Stuart into situations that were so awkward that it was difficult to even look at your TV (ask anyone who saw the fourth episode, "The Dinner," where Stuart starts telling jokes, gets some laughs, gets a bit overconfident, and has what he deems a smartly-conceived observational one about hypocrisy that blows up in his face...and then he somehow makes it worse). The cringing genius of HELLO LADIES at its best is a good indication that while Ricky Gervais is essentially the face of the UK version of THE OFFICE, Merchant probably came up with a lot of the show's most memorable laughs. Merchant and his co-writers packed these kinds of moments into the first half of the season and they're the ones that provided the biggest laughs, but anyone approaching HELLO LADIES: THE MOVIE cold will get a perfectly entertaining movie with Merchant's love of '70s and '80s songs, with a very effective use of Gerry Rafferty's "Days Gone Down," but one more in tune with the latter part of the series. The aftermath of Stuart and Jessica taking things to the next level provides some truth bombs from Jessica that force Stuart to take stock of his life and exactly why he's the way he is. It's well-written and believably acted, but the film needs more scenes like Stuart pestering Nicole Kidman at a party because Trudy's a fan and a bullshitting Stuart claims to be friends with her. There's a nice subplot later on with Nate meeting a woman (Allison Tolman, of FX's FARGO) who's just as likably odd and as thoroughly comfortable about it as he is, and one laugh-out-loud reveal of Stuart's "assistant" Rory's (Kyle Mooney) new hairstyle, but their horndog, wheelchair-bound buddy Kives (Kevin Weisman) more or less gets relegated to the sideline. HELLO LADIES: THE MOVIE seems poised to end on a bittersweet note, but it also needs to bring closure, so there's really nothing surprising about the crowd-pleasing wrap-up. It's hard to tell where HELLO LADIES would've ended up had HBO given it another season or two. Maybe there wasn't enough there for a long-running series, anyway. Amusing and occasionally heartfelt, HELLO LADIES: THE MOVIE is an enjoyable enough coda to a series that hit the ground running and didn't exactly switch gears, but seemed to burn brightest too early, losing some of its edgy fearlessness.
