Shoot 'Em Up/The Brave One (2007)

Oh, a two-fer for "Take Out the Trash" Day, both written at the time of these mis-fires' discharges.

"Guns Don't Kill People....But It Sure Does Help!"

"The Angriest Man in the World," Mr. Smith, is sitting on a street bench in a squalid part of town. He's introduced with a Leone-style close-up of only his eyes. Then, cut to his face. It's Clive Owen in full wide-eyed coma look. He brings a carrot up to his face and loudly crunches into it.

What's Up, Doc? 

Well, it's certainly not anybody's IQ.

Next, a very pregnant woman runs past him (shot none too elegantly), followed by a speeding car that noisily and gratuitously slams into another car, trapping the driver. He gets out the passenger door, spewing paper and fast-food bags and garbage out of his car onto the street.

There...right there...maybe two minutes into the film is the only amusing idea in the whole movie. And it was only amusing to me because it reminded me of my car. 

But that's it--the only thing I enjoyed in the entire film, no help from director Michael Davis. In the sums-it-up Shoot 'Em Up, Clive Owen's "Mr. Smith" finds himself charged with protecting a baby, just like Children of Men, but without all that boring social commentary and stuff. With the help of a lactating prostitute (Monica Belluci, shot through a vaseline-greased lens, and utilizing the time-honored 60's-style "Bad Italian Actress" technique), Smith and child evade Mr. Hertz (a bug-eyed Paul Giamatti, reminding me that it was only a few years ago that he starred in stuff like Big, Fat Liar) who has an infinite number of disposable goons, with an infinite number of bullets that seem predisposed to not hit anything, while Smith's gun hits something (usually lethally) every time.

Shoot 'Em Up tries to align itself with the Warner Bros. cartoons of Bugs and Elmer but has not the wit, the style or the precise timing (Giamatti starts the movie with a Merrie Melodies lisp, but inexplicably drops it a few minutes in). I was really hoping that at some point Owen would hit him in the face with a frying pan, so we'd see Mr. Hertz's face flatten out, but no such luck.

And, of course, after every set-piece or innovative killing technique (Smith kills with a carrot--twice) there are the inevitable one-liners that haven't been so eye-rollingly bad since Roger Moore was James Bond, with all the sophistication of the chat-room droolings of pre-teens. After a simultaneous shoot-out and screw where both participants reach their ...climax, Owen turns to the camera and in his best Terminator-in-Chief drone says, "That's what I call shooting your wad." But then there's "Eat Your Vegetables.." (after a carrot-killing), "That's what I call a hand-job," and the immortal "Fuck you, you fuckin' fuckers!" That kind of lummoxy aside reached its satiric punch-line with the antics of "McBain" on "The Simpsons," but it gives me hope that someday I can get just such a writing job. At the end, Belluci looks at Owen and says "What took you so long?" I half expected the lame-ass line that ended Robert Altman's The Player: "Traffic was a bitch."

According to this flick, there's nothing worse than "a pussy with a gun." I dunno, how about "a pussy with a movie camera but without an original idea in his head, a lick of talent, or the smarts God gave a radish?" Yeah. That's worse. A lot worse.

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Oof. Talk about your awkward segues.

"The Angriest Woman in the World" Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) by the end of The Brave One is in the same mode: "Who's the Bitch now?" she screams as she mows down one of the men who beat her into a coma, killed her fiancee...and stole her dog. Not only does she get her revenge, but she gets her dog back (oh...spoiler alert!), so everything's all right, right?*

Never mind that for the preceding two hours--that feel like four--she's bided her time by capping the asses of whatever scum of the earth crossed her path. At least she's an equal opportunity vigilante: one group's Latino, another is black, and three separate white guys--bonus points for the rich one.

Were I John Hinckley, I'd stay in prison.

The critical rags are calling this "Dirty Harriet,"* but that's all wrong. Its the daughter of Death Wish, the Charles Bronson viscerally charged revenge-actioner with the same formula and practically the same resolution--except with a gun rather than the earlier film's non-cinematic plea-bargaining.

Erica is a radio-journalist--well, an audio-documentarian, whose love affair (and experience) with New York extends as far as her ear-buds, spinning chatty little stories about the "myth" of old New York, and what gentrification is taking away. Tellingly, one of the first things we see her doing is recording her own foot-steps as she walks the city streets. From there, she goes to her little iso-booths and spins her valentines to "the safest big city in the world" (except it's missing a couple of prominent buildings downtown, and not to gentrification).

After the attack, she's even more isolating, and butches up her wardrobe, symbolically shedding her skin to become a new person that she doesn't know or understand. Oh, and there's that shooting-people-in-subways thing. "Inside you is a stranger," she narrates to herself. "Why don't my hands shake? Why doesn't anyone stop me?" Pretty soon she's doing it not because she's threatened, but because she can, and in a perverse cat-and-mouse game strikes up a friendship with detective Terrence Howard, who is feeling increasingly powerless to stop the newly-empowered vigilante messing up his mean streets. I came away thinking "never give Terry Gross a gun."

Of all people, Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with a Vampire) directs this,** and his way of showing fear and Erica's world out of whack is with slowly tilting shots with a steadicam (with its gyroscope knocked out), which made me think we were heading for the Penguin's dastardly bird-themed lair. It's a little tough to take this stuff seriously when it reminds you of the old "Batman" show. About the only pleasure in the film is the beyond-cynical banter of Howard and his partner investigating the crime scenes (My favorites: "Guy had a rap sheet longer than my dick" "No priors?" and "Any idea what killed him?" "Could be the fall--could be the crowbar stuck in his head--I'm thinkin' 70/30, maybe 50/50"). And a tiny scene with a police desk-clerk who routinely mantras "I know how difficult it can be, but if you will be patient and have a seat an officer will be down shortly to help you." It makes the same point about institutional disinterest in 20 seconds that it takes the whole of In the Valley of Elah to make.

And the acting. Even with this type of material, Foster takes it right down to her marrow, until she no longer looks like the same person. There is a terrific scene of her and Howard in a diner not talking about what they're talking about while "You Don't Know Me" echoes over the PA that's very well done.

Wish it were in another movie.

* 2023 Update: "The dog bit." I thought it was a lame pull-for-the-heart-strings back when this was released, and even more so when John Wick stole it as a semi-serious/semi-jole motivation in that increasingly-escalating-with-diminishing-returns series.

 

** "Dirty Harry," the police-as-vigilante movie was co-written by Rita Fink.

*** Yes, but Joel Silver produces. That might be the answer.

Marlowe (2022)

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day...

The Permanent Wave

or
A Tarantula on an Angel Food Cake

I have read everything by Raymond Chandler—the novels, the short-stories, the essays—and I've always loved his writing. His plots sometimes suffered, but the writing...the prose. The hysterical metaphors. There was a bemused humor behind the familial carnage that Chandler cranked out, and a jaded realization that behind every fortune there was some crime involved, and that, if you looked close enough, Tinsel-town was as rusty an old scow. What Chandler wrote was thrilling, even if the plots were mundane, with a depth of consciousness and virtue that a lot of pulp-writers couldn't be bothered with.  

 

Chandler wrote: “Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production." Philip Marlowe, Chandler's private detecting knight in crusted armor could have easily said those words, but he wouldn't. Especially the "magic" part. Marlowe would be watching the hands and checking for wires, and be amused while he was doing it. Like his perpetual solo chess-games.

And I've written a lot about Chandler here: the movies—a lot of them—and I had a deep affection for the TV series out of Canadian TV and HBO decades ago, the ones that starred Powers Boothe as "Philip Marlowe, Private Eye." Marlowe's a good part and most people are good at playing him—Bogart, Powell, Mitchum, both Montgomery's, Garner—even Elliott Gould had a nice "take" on the character, although director Robert Altman seemed to think of Marlowe as an out-of-date fool—"Rip Van Marlowe", he called him. So, Marlowe is good for the most part.

But, you can get Chandler wrong. One has to merely look at Michael Winner's remake of The Big Sleep, with Mitchum (who came to the part late), for what "stands out like a tarantula on an angel food cake." The money for that production came from Lord Lew Grade, so (of course) it had to be set in England. Metaphorically speaking, it's the wrong side of the road. America—and Los Angeles, in particular—was young and finding its feet, exploding with development and cash (but no water) but (changing tenses here) with the rush of money comes an emotional adolescence, that one couldn't conceive of in "old money" families. Every family has a black sheep, or secret. But, there are usually structures in place to keep everything "in house." Marlowe's job was usually to roust the cattle after the proverbial barn-door was left negligently open.

Marlowe, the latest film with the character—titular because the source novel, "The Black-Eyed Blonde"* (written by John Banville under the nom de plume Benjamin Black) has a title that implies abuse—tries to evoke the period and the convoluted scenarios that Marlowe regularly skulked, but is a misfire in so many ways that one is just tempted to ash-can with the couple other bad adaptations that have rumbled down the boulevard over the years. And one should state the obvious first: Neeson is too old to be playing Marlowe. True, there is less stunt-work needed to be done, so it's more suitable for the actor's age, but Marlowe was a perpetual 37-45 in the books. Mitchum was too old to play him at 57 in Farewell, My Lovely. Neeson is 70. It makes the redundant smashing of a chair over an already out-cold sparring partner entertainingly apt, but this Marlowe is decades too old to be duking it out with thugs and peeping through people's windows. Marlowe would regularly have his bell rung in the books, but this is the first time I've ever worried about him breaking a hip. There's a difference between being world-weary and just-plain haggard.

And, yes, the film is financed by Irish firms for Irish artists—Neil Jordan directs—but Neeson is also too Irish to be playing Marlowe, his Americanisms slipping with "yer's" and dropped "g's" (although accents usually don't bother me). He wears a three-piece suit—which I can't imagine Marlowe doing unless it was a formal dinner—and (for cryin' out loud), he has a secretary in the office. Marlowe was too loan-wolfish and, more importantly, not that successful to afford one.

They got the louvers right...

 

The story (adapted by William Monahan, who hasn't done an improvement on anything except The Tender Bar) is not much: Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) is shown into Marlowe's office ("How private are you?") with a job that requires discretion: her lover Nico Pederson (François Arnaud) has disappeared and she wants to know what happened to him without alerting her jerk of a husband. Nico was doing some studio work, but also had a, shall we say, "importing business" as well, the likes of which involve local crime-boss Lou Hendricks (Alan Cumming), local "bordello" manager Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston), a well-connected studio-head (Mitchell Mullen), who just happens to be involved with star Dorothy Quincannon (Jessica Lange, who is doing a tremendous job at the start of her "Kate Hepburn" eccentricity-acting phase). To paraphrase the detective: So many relations, so few brains. You could figure things out, just by following the strings attached.

Any joys are few and far between: everybody smokes, the women all have shellaced permanent waves, and sometimes the location work done in Barcelona, Spain could make you believe they found some un-gentrified corner of Los Angeles—if you squinted through the bottom of a half-empty shot-glass, that is. It doesn't quite pencil and smacks of trying to stretch a budget until you hear it snap. That stuff's always trouble. And the dialog by everybody is too clever by-half. You want them to just talk without being so damned witty. There is a nice line of dialog as Cavendish exits Marlowe's office, "You're very perceptive and sensitive, Mr. Marlowe. I imagine it gives you trouble."

I imagine a better movie, maybe finding something a little closer to home, maybe with Ron Livingston or Kyle Chandler as Marlowe, and fewer Chinatown call-backs (although the movie-eye-make-up bit produced a snort out of me). I imagine a lot of things, but I can't imagine a duller version of Chandler—or Banville—than this one.

* "The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde" was the 37th episode of the Raymond Burr "Perry Mason" series, based on Earle Stanley Gardner's 25th book, published in November, 1944.

Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (Neil Jordan, 1994) I remember reading Anne Rice's novel of "Interview with a Vampire" many, many years ago and found it a dispiriting read. In fact, by the time I got around to watching the film, everything about the story had evaporated into the ether, like one of her vampires sun-bathing. I do remember the controversy of Tom Cruise being cast as vampire-manipulator Lestat and that there was much consternation about it. My viewing of it made me think that Cruise was the best thing about it, one of his very few performances where he stretched as an actor and a personality. The rest of it, if you'll pardon the pun, sucked.

Certainly, director Neil Jordan isn't to blame. His direction and general look for the film is exemplary, giving the film an elegant if decaying look—after all, vampires are immortal, so why would they be concerned with daily chores (plus vampirism is 180° from Godliness). Casting is fine (even if some of the acting isn't), and Jordan even throws in a couple of touches of the surreal, if only for the sheer creepiness the effect has.

Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater) is in a nondescript San Francisco apartment, waiting for his interview subject to arrive. Surely it will be an evening interview, as he is Louis de Pointe Du Lac (Brad Pitt), who is supposedly a vampire. Skeptical, Molloy quizzes him about the various vampire tropes, which he dismisses, the legends he says coming from "a demented Irishman". But, the coffins, yes.

Then, he tells his story—of how, in 1791, despite wealth and property in Louisiana, he falls into self-destructive depression when his wife dies during childbirth. During a drunken night, he is followed by the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (Cruise) and after being attacked by him, is offered to be killed and turned into a vampire, "giving you the choice that I never had." The two become constant companions of the night-world, never again seeing the sun (in a neat little bit, Louis becomes obsessed with the sun, even going to see Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans directed by F.W. Murnau, who, more famously, also directed Nosferatu, the first vampire movie).

But, the two have decidedly different ideologies of life...or after-life. Lestat is a libertine with no moral code, taking his victims at his pleasure, perhaps in vengeful bitterness for the way that he was turned without having any choice in the matter. Louis is appalled by this and regrets the taking of human life and would rather feed on animals, which is something that Lestat constantly mocks. He does make one exception. When a plague decimates the country-side, Louis finds a child (Kirsten Dunst) whose mother has died of the disease and turns her, giving her immortal life. For him, this creates a sort of ersatz family. For the child, Claudia, it gives her immortality, but traps her forever in the body of a child. She may mature, growing older and wiser in her mind, but will remain at the age in which she is killed.

The novel and film have become favorites in the LGBTQ community for its metaphorical take on hidden societies and non-traditional families, and one can see that point of view. One rebels, though, that the metaphor is ensconced in such an anti-life trapping. These vampires are murderers, and even Louis, squeamish as he may be at homicide, loses his moral ambiguities when it suits his purposes. They seem more like a cult to me than a healthy representational metaphor. Your moral mileage may vary.

And, these vampires are also incredible narcissists. Everyone is selfish to a degree, but these nether-folk would be death at a party, fixating on themselves, bloviating their philosophies and negatively-lighted world-view and looking upon the lighted world as merely a buffet to exploit. Given the era in which it's set, one would half-expect them to become imperialist and invade other countries.

But, what leaves me as cold as a corpse about Interview with a Vampire is Brad Pitt's performance as Louis. Granted, that he was only a couple of years from his true break-out roles and was still finding his way to matter as more than a pretty face. But, his Louis is such an opaque presence that he seems at sea most of the time, not able to make depression, self-destruction, or even drunkenness very interesting. He internalizes so much as to make any emotion he's trying to convey invisible to the naked eye. He's turned into a phenomenal talent as actor. But, at this point, he wasn't.

And while I'm no fan of Tom Cruise, one has to give kudos to his Lestat, as grandiose and theatrical a performance as he's ever given. Sure, he can go too far in movies, but, his Lestat is such an unmitigated purveyor of debauchery (and loving it) that Cruise could never really go too far "out there" and not have it seem uncharacteristic. His Lestat simply wouldn't care, and it makes it one of Cruise's best works, horrific as it is.