Film Friday: Trance (2013)

Danny Boyle is a mixed bag for me. I loved Trainspotting and the first half of 28 Days Later. I hated the second half of 28 Days Later. 28 Weeks Later and Sunshine bored me. And Slumdog Millionaire felt like the film version of a tourist trap. Today we talk about another Danny Boyle film, Trance and I put this in the “loved” category, with a minor reservation. Indeed, with a great cast, nice direction and a strong story, I highly recommend this one.

The description of this film did not sound promising: “A fine-art auctioneer joins forces with a hypnotherapist to retrieve a stolen painting.” Hmm. Sounds like some erudite version of Matlock, doesn’t it? It’s not. Before I tell you what it is though, let me say that I went into this film knowing nothing at all and I found that to be a very pleasant way to watch this film. So you might want to skip this review and do the same, though I will carefully avoid spoilers. In any event, come back and share your views.

Plot

The story opens with the main character giving you a brief history of how art theft once worked and what the auction house he works for now does to stop modern thieves. Our hero happens to have a specific role in that, which requires him to spirit away the most expensive piece of art in the event of a robbery and drop it into a huge time-lock safe. The hero, by the way, is Simon (James McAvoy). No sooner does Simon tell us this, than a robbery takes place. As thugs release smoke grenades, Simon does his thing, only before he can drop the painting into the vault, he runs into Franck (Vincent Cassel). Franck takes the painting from Simon.

The movie has begun.

To dance around some spoilers, Simon attacks Franck even though his employer has explicitly told him never to do that. Franck, in turn, knocks Simon out with the butt of his shotgun. Simon seems badly hurt. Franck then disappears with the painting... only, the painting isn’t in the case. Somehow, it has vanished.

When Simon gets released from the hospital, Franck and his crew find Simon and they try to get him to tell them where he put the painting, but Simon has amnesia from the blow to the head. To overcome this, Simon’s doctor suggests that they seek the help of a hypnotherapist. This is how they come to meet Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson), who undertakes to help Simon recover his lost memory.

That last line probably has you thinking that this film will be really dull with Simon going through a journey of discovery about childhood trauma as he weeps on Elizabeth’s couch. It’s not. (Remember my spoiler warning.) Elizabeth figures out who Simon is and what he’s after and she decides she wants a piece of this, so she makes a deal with the group for a share of the take if she can help Simon figure out where the painting ended up. From there, the story turns into a bit of a mystery of what really happened to the painting, who is on what side, and how did this all really happen in the first place. You will be surprised.

Really A Top Notch Film

As I said, this is a Danny Boyle film. I actually didn’t know that when I went in, but I see it now that I know. Boyle has a strong style that employs witty dialog, great use of color and music, a solid eye for images, and solid pacing to all of his scenes. All of those things are at play here. Boyle sometimes has an unfortunate penchant for drifting far left in some of his films, but this one is politics free, except perhaps for a bit of feminism near the end. So that’s not a problem.

The film also has a strong plot, though it’s not as profound or revealing as Trainspotting or as creative as 28 Days Later. What makes the plot so strong is three things. First, Boyle takes his time revealing his secrets. He doesn’t prematurely eplotulate onto the screen, so you will find yourself amazed throughout as the plot unfolds. In fact, at almost every turn, you learn something new about the characters and you come closer to understanding what really happened.

Secondly, Boyle doesn’t mind keeping things ambiguous. I know a lot of people hate this and that’s probably why the film wasn’t embraced by the general public, but it makes the film a lot stronger. Indeed, there are several minutes toward the middle-end where you have no idea if what you are watching is the real world or a dream brought on by hypnosis. And that really helps you feel what the characters are going through as the whole scheme starts to unravel near the end.

But third and most importantly, Boyle never cheats. In so many heist films, things happen that can’t be explained, so many holes are left ignored, and the film passes off these problems with a wink and some fake after-the-fact presentation that only fills in the holes in a broad way but aren’t things the audience could ever have guessed. This film isn’t like that. Yes, this film has some serious twists as it drives toward the ending and, no, you won’t figure it all out, but this film gives you all the clues you need to figure it out. In fact, watching it a second time, it’s shocking how blatantly all the pieces are strewn about the film. You just don’t understand their importance until later.

For these reasons, I really highly recommend this film: (1) great cast, (2) solid direction with great eye for images, (3) fast paced, (4) the twists and turns are organic to the story and are fully earned, yet they are unpredictable and change the movie in fascinating ways, and (5) the story is strong and holds your attention throughout.

I do, however, have a huge caveat. Before I discuss it, let me warn you that this will involve BIG, HUGE spoilers!! Ok. When the ending finally unfolds, you discover who is really behind the heist and why they did this. The reason has to do with Simon’s character being less than savory. You are suppose to feel uplifted by a sense of vindication in this, i.e. that the victim has turned the tables on their abuser. Unfortunately, there are some problems with this that produce the exact opposite feeling. First, it doesn't fit the Simon we know. Simon is presented as violent and obsessed and that is why he was put through this. However, throughout the film, there is no sense that this is Simon’s true personality. Throughout the film he plays a genuinely nice guy who is meek and seems to be a victim himself. So it’s very hard to believe that he was this other person the film claims and it just doesn’t feel right.

Secondly, for this to feel right, we need to see Elizabeth as the victim who is justified in striking back. But that becomes really hard because of some choices the film makes. First, to make this work, she uses Franck as well as Simon and Franck becomes a very sympathetic character over time. So that doesn’t feel quite right. More importantly, however, because of her messing with Simon’s mind, Simon brutally kills an innocent woman and Elizabeth doesn’t really seem to feel any sense of responsibility for this. That makes her just as rotten as Simon, if not worse, and it wipes out the happy/sexy feel that the film tries to end upon. Thus, while the film is really well done and enjoyable up to this point, the ending is a bit jarring when it's meant to be sexy and light, and that ultimately hurts the film.

Thoughts?

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Guest Review: Mulholland Drive (2001)

A Film Review by Tennessee Jed

There are a handful of filmmakers who evoke true passion when discussed among film buffs, but perhaps none more so than David Lynch. Supporters have elevated him to the level of genius, while detractors claim his work is overly complex, inaccessible, and symbolic to a fault. Few are without opinion, and it is usually strong.

* * * TOTAL SPOILER ALERT * * *

Somewhere between those extremes is probably where I fall, having not even seen his complete body of work. I couldn’t watch Eraserhead, but enjoyed both Blue Velvet, and Lost Highway. Of those I’ve seen, Mulholland Drive strikes me as easily the best. Lynch was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for best director. Like much of his work, it’s left to the viewer to make sense of what has been seen, and to interpret any symbolism or deeper meaning. In fact, Lynch, (particularly with this film) has developed a large cult following. Like Dylan song lyrics, more analysis and interpretation exists for this than any other film that comes to mind. That may not necessarily be the mark of a great film, but it certainly indicates a level of interest bordering on the compulsive for a great many people. Let’s examine why, but if you have yet to see the film, I suggest you do so before reading further.

The Plot is difficult to summarize. Like Pulp Fiction, scenes develop seemingly disparate story lines that don’t necessarily appear in chronological order, while bizarre characters appear and re-appear in scenes that make little sense on the surface. For most, repeat viewings are necessary to sort everything out, and put it all in proper context.

As the film begins, a group of 50’s era teens frantically jitterbug to big band music while an over-exposed image of a young blonde and elderly couple is superimposed over them. There is a brief cut to a red comforter covering a sleeping body. This in turn cuts to a street sign of Mulholland Drive, and a beautiful brunette woman (Laura Harring) in the back of a limo which stops in the middle of the street. There are flashes of two cars full of youngsters racing downhill on a dangerous curving road. The woman asks why they stopped, and the driver turns, points a pistol at her, and tells her to get out. The two cars barrel around a curve and slam into the limo killing all except the woman. Bloodied and dazed, she staggers down the hill, crosses Sunset Boulevard, and hides in shrubs outside a gated apartment complex where she falls asleep. In the morning she sneaks into an apartment while the occupant is in the process of leaving.

The perky, wholesome young woman seen briefly at the beginning is Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) from Deep River, Ontario. She arrives in Hollywood to “apartment sit” for her actress aunt, and pursue her own dream to make it as an actress and movie star. The elderly couple originally shown with her turn out to be her traveling companions from the plane. Betty is startled to find the mysterious brunette in her aunt’s shower. When asked her name, the woman appears confused, but seeing a poster of Rita Hayworth as Gilda on the wall, answers “Rita”. Betty quickly learns Rita is not her aunt’s friend, and is suffering from amnesia, but still befriends her, and together they try to find out who Rita is, and what has happened to her. They also discover a wad of cash and mysterious blue key in her purse which they hide in a hat box in the closet.

In a parallel story, a young movie director, Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) attends a meeting with studio executives, to re-cast the lead role in his film. Also there are the Castiglione Brothers (Dan Hedaya and Angelo Badalamenti), mobsters with apparent studio control. They pull out a picture of a young actress named Camilla Rhodes (Melissa George) telling Adam “this is the girl” who must be cast as the lead. Adam refuses, but various characters, including a cowboy, subsequently threaten Adam, ultimately securing his acquiescence.

Betty is scheduled to read for a part at an audition arranged by her aunt. She practices reading the lines in a conventional boring manner with Rita. At the audition, Betty takes it to a whole new level. This earns her a different audition for Adam’s movie,The Sylvia North Story, but Adam, as we know, has already agreed to cast Camilla Rhodes. Betty leaves without auditioning. She and Rita follow a lead to the apartment of Diane Selwyn (also played by Naomi Watts) where they break in only to find Diane dead in the bedroom. Rita becomes hysterical, and when they get home, she cuts her hair and dons a blonde wig that looks exactly like Betty’s hair. Betty invites Rita to share her aunt’s big bed, and they engage in a lesbian encounter.

Rita has a dream in which she speaks Spanish. She asks Betty to go with her to a seedy club (Club Silencio). An extremely surreal scene ensues where performers explain things are not what they appear. Betty begins to shake violently. A female vocalist performs Roy Orbison’s Crying in Spanish causing both Betty and Rita to weep. They find a blue box in Betty’s purse. Upon returning, Rita turns to get the hatbox where she earlier hid her own purse with the cash and blue key, but when she turns back, Betty has disappeared. Rita uses the blue key from her purse to open the blue box, and the camera zooms down into the darkness of the box. This occurs nearly 80% of the way through the film, and from here on, ensuing scenes are designed to tie together the loose ends from the first two hours.

The camera cuts to Diane’s apartment. She is lying on her bed in exactly the same position she was earlier when found dead. A door knock sounds, and the same Cowboy (Monty Montgomery) who earlier convinced Adam to cast Camilla Rhodes as the lead in The Sylvia North Story says “Come on pretty girl, time to wake up”. We notice a red lamp shade by the bed, and a blue key on the coffee table. Diane turns around and fantasizes that her lover, who had apparently broken up with her, has come back. Surprise! It’s “Rita” whose real name is Camilla.

The final scenes tend to hop about in a series of flashbacks. Diane receives a call from Camilla telling her she is sending a limo for her. We see the same shot of Mulholland Drive and the limo stopping, but this time, it is Diane in the back seat. Camilla walks up to greet her, then takes her up a shortcut path to Adam’s house where a party is in progress. Many characters from earlier in the movie now appear in different persona. During cocktail chatter, we learn Diane was from Deep River, Ontario where she won a dance contest that inspired her to become an actress using some of the money she inherited from an aunt in the film business who passed away. She recounts how she met Camilla on the set of The Sylvia North Story when Camilla beat her out for the lead role. Subsequently they became friends (and apparently lovers). Adam and Camilla announce their engagement, and we see a tear trickle down Diane’s cheek followed by a look of hatred.

The scene jumps to Winkie’s on Sunset Blvd., a diner that has shown up repeatedly earlier in the film. Diane appears to take out a hit on Camilla with an unsavory character introduced previously. She pays with a roll of cash, possibly the inheritance from her aunt. He tells her he will leave a blue key “where they had discussed” when the job is done. Behind the diner is a grotesque, homeless man seen early in the film. At his feet is a paper bag with the blue box. Miniature versions of the elderly couple scurry out of the bag laughing hysterically. The scene shifts back to Diane’s where she sits on her sofa. There is a door knock, and the little people scurry under the door to attack her. She retreats to her bedroom, gets a gun from the night table, and shoots herself. Silencio!

So What Does It All Mean? - Well, there in lies the fun and mystery of the film. After seeing it a couple of times, it became pretty clear to me that most of the first two hours are essentially a dream fantasy of Diane Selwyn, a would be actress who has been ground down by Hollywood. Rejected both professionally and personally, she reacts in an unfortunate way, contracting to have the lover who jilted her murdered. The subsequent despair experienced at her circumstances drives her to take her own life, but not before dreaming of the events that transpired to bring her to this lowest point. Naturally, she retreats to an earlier, happier time, imagining a career and relationship more the way she hoped they would turn out. As often happens in dreams, many of the characters who inhabit them are drawn from actual people she has recently encountered, even if only in some small way.

In subsequent viewings, the story becomes clearer since Lynch left plenty of clues. The color red (similar to The Sixth Sense) is shown with comforters, lampshades, or an appliance “on” switch, and seemingly signals changes from dream to reality or at least a shift in time. In fact, Lynch lists this in the DVD package as one of 10 clues to help viewers “unlock the thriller.”

Then, Is This A Masterpiece? - Those words tend to get thrown around far too much, however I do think this is an exceptional film, and easily Lynch’s best. The first two hour segment (the dream sequence) was written as a t.v. pilot. When it was clear it wouldn’t be picked, Lynch cobbled together the last half hour to wrap things up and transform it into a feature film. The way he did is exceptionally skillful. It also became the breakout role for the actress Naomi Watts who displays an incredible range in portraying Betty Elms and Diane. Her scene with the actor Chad Everett during Betty’s audition is actually a stunning example of how superb acting can transform a set of lines into something extraordinary. It is clear his spoofing of Hollywood could only be told by someone who had actually experienced it.

Lynch is able to mix in the right amount of his unusual humor into several scenes. Two great examples are Badalamenti spitting the expresso into his napkin, and the mob enforcer encountering Adam’s ex-wife and Billy Ray Cyrus as the pool man who was bedding her.

One of my gripes with David Lynch has always been that he goes out of his way to place the weird or bizarre in everyday settings. I first noticed that during the Twin Peaks t.v. series, when he included a scene at the vet with a Llama in the waiting room. It seemed like he was trying just a little too hard to be David Lynch. In this film, though, while there is a little of that, it never rises to the level of a turn-off and the really great elements far outweigh any negatives. Many have found incredibly rich allegorical meaning in this film citing their belief that with Lynch, virtually no single frame is ever without symbolism. Others have expressed their hypothesis of a return to themes of sexual abuse prevalent in his earlier work, or prostitution. Lynch’s exact intention can’t be known since he won’t discuss them.

My preference is to not deconstruct every scene or hypothesize about implicit meanings, although doing so surely is a hell of a lot of fun. There are definite allusions to many classics such as Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona, and The Wizard of Oz. Personally, my feeling is that this one is probably Lynch’s own updated version of or homage to the classic Sunset Boulevard, told in his own peculiar style. The similarities are just too striking. But then, that is only one opinion. How about yours?

There are many links to essays or reviews which are helpful to better understand Mulholland Drive. With the prior caveat about seeing the film first, some of the most helpful include:

http://www.mulholland-drive.net/home.htm
http://www.salon.com/2001/10/24/mulholland_drive_analysis/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulholland_Drive_(film)
http://www.themodernword.com/mulholland_drive.html

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Words Have Meaning!!

Have you ever thought about how a single line of dialog can change a movie? It's true. A single line of dialog can convey enough information to completely change a character, a plot point or even a theme. Indeed, think about the infamous "Noooooooooo!" from George Lucas and how that completely changed the nature of Darth Vader.

This idea has long fascinated me and frustrated me. It fascinates me because of the vast amount of power that just a few words can have to change a meaning. Think about it. You can take a movie of any length, say two hours, and with the right word or sentence... only a few seconds long, you can completely the change movie. That is amazing. And it's a real testament to the power of words and of language. It's also the basis of "the twist."

What frustrates me is that this should be obvious to anyone who writes. Yet, so few scriptwriters pay attention to the importance of the details. They look for big themes, cool moments and symbols of whatever point it is they want to make, but they completely overlook the little things that trip up films. How many times have I seen a film that makes no sense, but which could be saved by the hero uttering one single line... one single line to explain why they did something inexplicable or couldn't do something obvious. How many characters could be given depth with a single additional line of dialog? How many could be kept from being ruined by avoiding that stupid line you never needed to say. As a lover of words, and an understander of the power of words, I find this very frustrating that people who make a living writing can't see these things... or won't bother.

Anyway, let's make a game out of this. And for this, I need to credit tryanmax. He mentioned a couple weeks back how you could completely change the meaning of Planes, Trains and Automobiles by adding this one line: "Marie is in the trunk!" Wow. LOL! Yeah, that would totally change the movie!

So lay it on us. Tell us how you could totally change a movie with one little line.

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How To Outsmart Your Audience

Modern audiences have become too sophisticated to be surprised. They know all the clichés and they understand the mechanics of storytelling on film too well. But there are some tricks you can use to create genuine mysteries which will keep your audience interested.

Here’s the problem. Audiences understand movie mechanics. If you see something, it matters at the end. A gun in the first frame means someone dies later. When a character tells you something, it will become relevant. If the hero’s father vanished when he was young, you know there will be a mystery old guy who just happens to be the father. Characters also have stereotypical motivations. A businessman will always go for money. A mother will always go for family. Ghosts want their remains given a proper burial. Cocky jocks are cowards or gay. And if a character has a flaw, they will need to overcome that particular flaw to win the movie. . . every single time. This is how films work and audiences know it. That makes it hard to surprise audiences because they can pretty much outline your movie the moment they see the setup.

So how do you get around this? The most obvious solution is to create something new that audiences haven’t seen before. Most of the great films of recent vintage involve new storylines that haven’t been done before. But originality is tricky and dangerous. Audience cling to the familiar even as they claim they want originality. So how else can you surprise your audience? How about this:

● A Genuine Twist: Probably the best way to turn a predictable film unpredictable is to give the film a genuine twist. I don’t mean a stupid twist. . . “the bad guy is really your boss! Oh my!” No. Instead, a genuine twist is something that fundamentally changes the nature of the narrative of the story.

Think about what made the twist in Sixth Sense or Fight Club or Usual Suspects so effective. In each instance, the twist change the way the story needed to be viewed at a fundamental level by changing the nature of the character through whose eyes we saw the film. Basically, everything we knew up to that point was suddenly cast in doubt and a whole new meaning was attached to every minute of the film. So long as the story works under both realities (pre- and post- twist), this is the perfect way to create a genuine surprise.

As an aside, the problem with lousy twists like making the main character’s boss be the bad guy is that this does nothing more than solve the supposed mystery. It doesn’t change the narrative in any way that requires a re-examination of what the audience believed to be true.

● Twist the Mystery: Unfortunately, coming up with a genuine twist can be difficult, especially in less fantastic genres. So a second alternative would be to start out creating a particular mystery, but then twist that into a second mystery. And example of this might be uncovering a larger force behind the one your characters are initially investigating.

The benefit here is that this adds a surprise to the film right at the point where the film normally has worn out its interest factor. It also lets you raise the stakes, which always helps. Moreover, because this happens later in the film, you can introduce the evidence to support this mystery quicker because you have less run time to fill, which makes the story feel faster paced.

All in all, this doesn’t have anywhere near the power of the genuine twist, but it gives you a way to mislead your audience into thinking they didn’t see the ending coming because they will perceive both mysteries as the same mystery even though the second doesn’t actually begin until late in the film.

● Delay: A related version to the idea of twisting the mysteries involves delaying the introduction of the mystery. This is probably best done in comedies where you can roam for a while before you need to start zeroing in on the storyline; in other genres, you run the risk of making the story feel rudderless. Alternatively, you can keep a mystery fresher by delaying the most obvious clues until very near the reveal. This will keep the audience from piecing everything together too quickly, but it runs the risk of making the feel audience cheated because they will feel they weren’t given a fair chance to figure out it.

● Twist the Clichés: Finally, we come to one of the easiest ways to make a story feel fresh: embrace the clichés that normally fill your genre, but twist them. An example of this might be to use the gun from the first frame in a completely unexpected way, like having the characters discover that it has no bullets and that they need to find some other solution, or having the obnoxious jock turn out to have the heart of gold, not the hooker. This works because it takes the expected and makes it unexpected. It unsettles the audience’s ability to rely on things they’ve seen in the past as a way to judge how this film will turn out and it puts them in uncharted territory right at the point where they feel they’ve solved the film and will lose interest.

This is one that surprises me that more films don’t do it. It’s a really easy way to both give an audience something familiar but then to surprise them in the end.

Anyway, if you ever do some writing or you want to think about how to improve films that just don’t quite get there, here are some ideas.

Thoughts? What would you add?

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Film Friday: The Village (2004)

I wanted to like The Village so much. After The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and even Signs, M. Night Shyamalan had won me over, even if his films weren’t as well received by the public as they should have been. But The Village never worked. It started well, but it fell apart quickly and it just kept getting worse.

** heavy spoiler alert **

The Plot

The Village is an odd story about a group of people who live in a village surrounded by a vast forest. The film appears to take place in the 1880s or in a world where humanity has been reduced to the technological and cultural level of the 1880s. Indeed, these people have no modern machinery, no cars, no electricity and no modern medicine. They also dress like Mennonite farmers and they talk like caricatures of the 1880s. The story centers around Ivy Elizabeth Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard), who can best be described as Tom Sawyer in a dress. Ivy is the daughter of the village leader Edward Walker (William Hurt), and she is blind.

As the story begins, we are told that the forest is controlled by evil creatures the villagers call “Those We Do Not Speak Of.” These creatures wear red cloaks and look something like wild boars. And apparently, there is some truce which involves the villagers staying out of the forest so the monsters won’t raid the village. But then there is an attack. In the meantime, a love story has arisen between Ivy and Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix). Lucius wants to brave the forest to get medicine from some nearby town to stop children from dying from common illnesses. The village elders forbid this. But then Lucius gets stabbed by Noah Percy (Adrien Brody), a retarded man. He is dying. So the elders decide to let Ivy venture to the town to get medicine to save him. That’s when the “big” secret gets revealed.

The Problems

Like I said, I wanted to like this film a lot. And the beginning of the film has a neat vibe to it that does present you with an interesting world that pulls you into the story, even if the dialog feels oddly stilted. Soon, however, the plot falls off the rails. And the reason it does this is because Shyamalan couldn’t decide what he really wanted to make. Did he want a horror movie? A romance? A tale of evil? A psychological thriller? Yeah, sort of.

The ultimate problem with The Village is that Shyamalan never picks a single genre which will drive the film. Instead, the film meanders between genres. By failing to pick a dominant genre, Shyamalan ends up creating a film which dabbles in several genres but never does any of them effectively. For example, the idea of the creatures in the woods is truly terrifying. And when they first appear, you really do get the makings of a heck of a horror movie. But that idea resolves itself without ever delivering a real bang. The romance between Ivy and Lucius starts well enough as well. You like both characters and you see how their relationship will ultimately prove to be satisfying once they overcome the obstacles in their path. This is a classic romantic premise and you feel like you are on your way to an exceptional romance. But that never goes anywhere either.

Both of these storylines basically stop when Lucius gets stabbed. At that point, a new storyline begins which asks whether or not the people who created the village have done something truly evil to the kids who are stuck in the village. But frustratingly, the film never delves into that either. It sets it up and it spends a few minutes batting the idea back and forth, but before this issue can be explored to any degree, the film shifts to Ivy walking through the woods to save Lucius.

This is a storytelling disaster. At each phase, you are presented with a story that you instinctively know has been very well setup and could be a great story – a horror film, a romance, and psychological thriller/tale of evil. But each time, right after the setup, the film cuts off that storyline and starts a new one. Thus, you get a horror film which becomes a romance before it unleashes any horror, and the romance becomes a psychological thriller before it give you any romantic payoff, and the psychological thriller morphs into “blind girl walking through the woods” before the issues are even fully established. This is highly frustrating.

For one thing, this wastes all the investment in the horror and romance storylines because they prove meaningless to the story. For another, the blind girl walking through the woods is the weakest storyline, so focusing on that is a huge mistake. Moreover, if anything in this film could be called a common theme, it is the storyline questioning whether or not the adults have been justified in their deceptions. That is the only storyline that really is relevant in each part of the film. BUT, once their deception is revealed, i.e. right when you expect the payoff to this story, the film shifts to blind girl walks through the woods, and all the questions that were raised by the actions of the adults get dropped, if they even got asked. This is like watching the first two thirds of a Twilight Zone only to have the last third be replaced by something from another drama. It’s completely unsatisfying.

Further, this structure undermines the big twist Shyamalan drops at the end. When the blind girl makes it through the forest, we suddenly learn the BIG secret about the adults. This secret is meant to shock the audience and to cast everything the audience has seen in a new light. But because this relates to the storyline which was already dropped by the time the secret is revealed, it lacks punch. A twist simply won’t work when it doesn’t relate to the story that is on people’s minds at the moment, and when this twist arises, the only thing the audience is left with is “girl walking through the woods.” Each of the other stories ended by that point.

Mixing genres is one of the hardest things to do in storytelling. Unless you really are an expert in both genres and you are a talented enough storyteller to bring those two storylines together seamlessly, then what you end up with is a story that is neither fish nor fowl and satisfies no one. Shyamalan’s problem is in the mixing. Indeed, his problem isn’t that he couldn’t have told a horror story, a romance, or a psychological thriller. Clearly he could, as each of these started quite promisingly. But rather than weave them together to create one overall film, he just runs them in series and cuts them off when he needs to start the next one. Thus, you end up with three partial stories and one complete story, none of which satisfy. Had Shyamalan actually brought them all together, The Village might have been his best film. Instead, it was just another Shyamalan film that didn’t live up to the hype.

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Film Friday: The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

The Thirteenth Floor is a film I should like more than I do. It’s thoughtful and is premised on a truly inspired science fiction idea. And that should easily vault it above most of the garbage that is out there. But The Thirteenth Floor isn’t all that great, and while I recommend seeing it, my recommendation is lukewarm.

** spoiler alert **

On the surface, The Thirteenth Floor is about the murder of Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the owner of a billion-dollar computer company which has created a virtual reality simulation of 1937 Los Angeles. But in reality, this is a science fiction story of a world within a world within a world. The story follows Fuller’s protégé, Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko), who is the prime suspect in Fuller’s death, as he investigates the murder in both the world of 1990’s Los Angeles and the virtual reality world of 1937 Los Angeles. In the process, he runs across the same people in each world and he learns a shocking secret.

If you just look at the concept of this film, this film should be fantastic. Not only does it promise the always fascinating idea of multiple realities overlapping, but it involves intrigue which spans each world in the form of a killer on the loose. This should be a nearly can’t-miss prospect. But it does miss.

The first reason this film misses is the acting. I like Armin Mueller- Stahl and Vincent D’Onofrio, and they are fine as always. But after that, things get dicey. Gretchen Mol plays Fuller’s daughter and Bierko’s sort-of love-interest, but there’s no point where you get the sense she cares about anything. Even when she’s confronted by the killer, she just stands there and hopes the scene works out. All-State Insurance Rep. Dennis Haysbert plays the detective who is investigating the murder. He doesn’t care either. He doesn’t even seem to care when he learns about the multiple worlds and that people are traveling back and forth. The worst offender, however, is Bierko who plays the protégé. He also never cares about anything, which is problematic when he needs to project wonder and terror at his discoveries. And at times, it almost seems like he thinks he’s in a parody (fyi, he was the lead in Scary Movie 4 and his acting there is indistinguishable from here).

The sets are bad too (except the fantastic effect of 1937 Los Angeles), and that’s problematic. The payoff of the film is that you’re supposed to wonder if we might not be inside a machine right now and not know it. But the world the film presents as real never feels like a real world. It feels like a movie with people who don’t change clothes, don’t have homes or friends, and spend their lives in smoky dramatic shadows. There are no personal effects anywhere and no sets that look like anywhere we work or live. This makes it hard to see ourselves in this world.

The dialog is bad too because it lacks grace, subtlety and cleverness. The film starts with Descartes’ quote “I think, therefore I am.” This is a bad omen because this quote is THE generic quote about the nature of existence. It’s so generic it’s almost cartoon-level. And this foreshadows the level of what is to come as throughout the film you get quotes like: “what is real?” and “maybe we’ve met before in another life?” This is the sledgehammer approach to dialog. This is like lovers saying, “I love you” or killers saying, “I am going to kill you.” Also, there is no wit anywhere in this film. And the characters never discuss the philosophy of what is going on -- a glaring omission for a film premised on a philosophical point. Essentially, the dialog in this film is blunt plot and nothing more.

There are also deeper problems. The murder which is meant to keep you interested until the reveal is little more than a pretext. There is no motive for the audience to latch onto until the end and the investigation is little more than a collection of scenes that don’t logically relate to anything. For example, Bierko runs around meeting people but we have no idea where he got their names or why these people matter. The cops don’t seem to follow up on leads. There’s also no sense of urgency. You’re never told the cops are closing in or that the killer is planning to strike again. It seems that Bierko has as long as he needs to solve this.

The machine they are using makes no sense either. They have created an independent simulation of another time and place for no apparent reason. In fact, when the detective asks why they’ve done this, Bierko tells him that is a company secret and he can’t share that information. While that’s a valid answer at that moment, the problem is it leaves the audience with a machine that does nothing except drive the plot. Even when the characters in the simulation discover the truth and demand to know why they created the simulated world, Bierko still has no answer.

The reveal is problematic as well. For one thing, the idea that there’s another world comes from out of the blue, and the idea that characters can somehow move up a level to the real world seems like deus ex machina as it is never explained and seems like a cheat to resolve the plot. Also, the way the movie ends makes everything we’ve seen irrelevant. But worst of all, the ending ties in poorly with the rest. Yes, it explains the murders, but it’s not something anyone could have guessed and really is better at explaining “how” the murders happened than “why” they happened. Indeed, there is a disconnect here because there is nothing happening in the real world which would force the murderer to come commit the murders. That makes the ending feel entirely random.

Finally, where this movie really fails is its utter lack of consideration of the psychological aspects. For a film like this to work, i.e. a film based on the confusion of multiple realities, there must be a sense that the realities really are blurring and that the character we are meant to follow is losing their grip on reality -- you can’t just occasionally have a supporting character ask, “what is real.” None of that happens here. Only the Vincent D’Onofrio character ever seems to grasp the sense of confusion at finding out his world is not real. Bierko and the others remain perfectly clear throughout and it never takes them more than a moment to realize when someone is being inhabited by someone from another reality. Because of this, it’s impossible to wonder, as the film hopes we do at that end, if our world might not be fake as well.

I also wonder if another problem with this film isn’t the concept itself? Perhaps the idea of a simulated world within a world has been done so often that audiences are just too wise to the clues and have seen it all before?

Despite these problems, the film is worth seeing. It presents an interesting take on the idea of a world within a world and it has some clever moments. For example, how people come to realize they are in a simulation is well thought out. And the mystery is enough to keep you wondering, though it’s ultimately disappointing.

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Film Friday: Triangle (2009)

This film is brilliant. It’s tense, it’s incredibly well-written and well-directed, and it’s thought provoking. Unfortunately, non-spaceship science fiction films have a hard time finding audiences. Plus, the whole Bermuda Triangle angle has been saturated by a bevy of lousy films. But this one deserves to be noticed and you should see it.

Triangle is a science fiction, suspense movie about a group of people who find themselves on an abandoned cruise ship, the Aeolus, when their sailboat overturns during a freak storm. Once onboard the Aeolus, they quickly come under attack from an unknown enemy, a crewman who is wearing a bag over his head. Up that point, this is a fairly straight forward Bermuda Triangle film. But then the film takes an incredible turn into the unexpected as each of the survivors is killed except a young mother named Jess. Jess manages to kill the attacker just in time to see the survivors board the Aeolus again. . . including herself. Soon, events repeat from an entirely different perspective.

Why This Is A Brilliant Film

This film is brilliant on so many levels. For one thing, the twist of finding Jess repeating events rather than simply finding a creepy ghost ship presents something not seen before in Bermuda Triangle films. Ditto on her observing the loop as an outside witness rather than just being aware she is personally repeating events. The ending is also genius. And even more importantly, this film never cheats.

When I finished watching this film the first time, the ending blew me away. It was like The Sixth Sense in the way it fundamentally changed the nature of the story and I immediately started the film over again just to see if the director had included any clues, because I never saw the ending coming. Imagine my surprise to find that not only is all the evidence there, but the film keeps pounding you in the face with the clues. . . yet you never see them!

** MAJOR spoiler alert, I am about to discuss everything **

Before I can continue, I have to lay out the ending and the twists. When the survivors first board the Aeolus, they are attacked by what appears to be a rogue crewman, a man wearing workman’s clothes and a sack over his head. Jess eventually kills him by pushing him over the side of the ship. That’s when events begin repeating. As they do, Jess first tries to help the other survivors, but then decides she must kill them so she can complete the loop and return home to save her son. That’s when you learn that she was in fact the mysterious crewman all along. She is eventually killed the same way she killed her other self before, and she wakes up on the shore. Once there, she rushes home to her son expecting a happy ending. Only she sees another version of herself with her son. She kills this other self and claims her son, but the trauma of seeing his mother killed by his mother upsets the boy and they fight. This causes an accident, which kills her son. That’s when she realizes that the only way to save her son is to go to the marina and start the loop over. Essentially, she voluntarily re-enters the loop with the intent of killing her friends so she can return and save her son. Wow!

But does the beginning of the movie hold up to these new facts? Actually, it does. When Jess first shows up, she seems stunned, hesitant and upset. We are told something is wrong with her and that her story about her son being at school is lie. But we quickly dismiss this because we’re told she has an autistic son who could well be in school on Saturday and her being stunned could be the result of a fight with her son and with the cold reception she gets from her new boyfriend’s (Greg) friends.

Interestingly, the opening is crawling with double meanings. For example, she’s asked several times if she feels “guilty” about her son. Without knowing the ending, this sounds like her guilt is about leaving him at home while she’s having fun. Knowing the ending, this is a much more pointed comment. She’s also asked how her son is and she responds: “The same, every day is the same, if I do one thing differently, I lose him.” Again, this could be a mother struggling with an autistic child, but it’s also a clear description of the plot as it points to both the time loop and her need to complete the loop to save him.

Once they board the Aeolus, the clues become much more blatant. Jess says several times that she feels like she’s been on this ship before. Further, you learn that Aeolus was the father of Sisyphus, who cheated death and was cursed by the gods to push a boulder up a hill every day, only to have it roll back down, just as Jess is repeating events every day. There’s even a record player which keeps repeating the same few notes over and over (caused by Jess). These are major clues. Not to mention they find her keys, an impossibility, her watch alone is set to ship time, and the other survivors immediately begin swearing that Jess told them things we never saw her do, suggesting a double. The other characters also tell her several times that “this is all just in your mind” and they suggest that she’s in “her own world” at the moment and not reality.

There’s also one more major give away. We assume the crewman who is trying to kill them is a man because it looks like a man in the work clothes and with the bag over his head. But it turns out to be Jess. And when we learn this, we notice something incongruous about the crewman image: her shoes. Indeed, it’s blatantly obvious from her shoes at that point that this is Jess, and one of the characters even identifies her that way. But the viewer never notices this key clue until after the crewman is revealed to be Jess. So did the director cheat and not show us her feet before? Actually, no. They are clearly visible three times before you know this is Jess, but the director uses the action to pull your eyes toward other parts of the screen at those moments and you never notice. Once you know to look for them, it’s obvious, but until then, this major clue really is hidden in plain sight. Amazing.

Moreover, once events begin repeating and we watch Jess watching the loops, only certain portions of the original dialog get repeated -- the biggest clues as to what is going on. So you are constantly hit with these clues throughout.

All of this dangles before our eyes. We know something traumatic happened to Jess before she boarded the sailboat and it relates to her son, that she feels guilty about it, that she is doomed to repeat this day like a mythical figure who tried to cheat death, that she believes she must kill everyone to “save” her son (who we didn’t know needed saving), that she’s done this hundreds of times already, and that she is the attacker. She even tells us this is about her son, “if I do one thing differently, I lose him” and “I have to get back to save him.” And these things get repeated over and over. Essentially, the writer shows us his cards and dares us to solve the riddle. Yet we never notice any of this because the writer gives us other possible explanations which we accept because they are less fantastic, e.g. her behavior being the result of her autistic son. That’s great writing.

Finally, I want to comment on the ending, which is truly brilliant. One problem with time loop stories is that it’s usually easy to break the loop, so there’s often an unwritten rule in these films that everyone will agree to ignore that possibility. Here, you don’t need to. Early on, when she wants to break the loop, but her every attempt is frustrated by a later version of her. This tells us that the option of breaking the loop just isn’t available to her because the other hers will make it happen.

Then she decides she must complete the loop when she pieces together why all the other versions of her want to kill the other survivors. They are doing this because it’s the only way to get home and save her son. This means she actively wants to complete the loop, just as she wants to restart the loop after her son is killed. This is a fascinating twist that the looped character actually wants to complete the loop, and this eliminates the usual questions of why the loop character isn’t smarter.

The one complaint I have with the film is that her knowledge of her son’s death seems to leave her after she gets some sleep on the sailing boat. It’s possible she suddenly thinks this whole thing is a dream, or it’s possible the loop works that way and she needs to re-learn events once she’s in it. Either way I’m not sure and that’s one area where this film could have been stronger -- if she had simply bought into the need to finish the loop at all times. But in any event, this is truly thought-provoking, creepy, and exciting film. I highly recommend this one.

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Film Friday: Unknown (2011)

I like Taken a good deal and Unknown feels similar to Taken in many ways. It has some interesting facets too, some good, some bad. On the good side, Unknown handles the “stolen identity” concept better than any other film that comes to mind, and Liam Neeson is excellent as always. On the downside, the film ultimately feels flat and its politics are to blame.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

As the film open, Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) arrives in Berlin to participate in a biotechnology conference. But he mistakenly leaves his briefcase at the airport, and on his way back to the airport to pick it up, his taxi accidentally plunges into a river. He’s saved by his taxi driver (Diane Kruger). When he wakes up in the hospital, he learns another man has taken his place. This man has identification cards in his name, family photos showing him with Neeson’s wife, and everyone accepts him as Dr. Martin Harris. Even Neeson’s own wife Liz (January Jones, who is awful here) seems to treat this man as the real Martin Harris. Is Neeson insane or is something else going on here? And why are people trying to kill him?

The Stolen Identity Issue

Generally, stolen identity thrillers face an uphill battle. While it’s certainly believable one person would impersonate another, it’s just not believable that they could fool the people close to the person being impersonated. Indeed, how could your family and friends not know the difference? What about co-workers? Even if you’ve only dealt with people over the phone, it still seems unlikely that an imposter could fake the voice, the speech patterns, and the level of knowledge needed to pull that off. Also, once you flash your ID to the cops, the imposter’s web starts to unravel.

So when I hear the words “stolen identity,” I cringe because I know I’ll be subjected to unbelievable setups, inexplicable behaviors, and a host of moments where characters need to act stupidly to make the concept work. This is problematic at best because any scheme that relies on everyone on the planet getting movie-stupid is not a great premise for a film.

But that wasn’t the case here. In fact, I was really impressed. I hate to give too much away and there are several twists, so I will proceed cautiously. The issue starts with the question of whether or not Neeson might actually be insane. Indeed for some period of time, you do genuinely wonder if the other guy isn’t the real Dr. Martin Harris and Neeson isn’t just suffering from head trauma. Soon, all the pieces start being explained bit by bit, and in the process a political intrigue is revealed.

Where this film truly deserves recognition is in the execution of that explanation. For one thing, the entire explanation makes sense. Indeed, every last aspect of it is perfectly logical once you understand what happened. Moreover, it is highly unexpected. This is not a solution you’ll see coming, but at the same time, it’s not so far beyond the bounds of common sense or so impractical that you can’t believe it. Further, it’s woven tightly into the political intrigue, meaning it never feels like a gimmick added to the film just to liven it up.

But most importantly, it’s executed perfectly in that the characters never act stupidly to make this work. The authorities don’t inexplicably ignore Neeson’s claims or become blind to obvious clues or throw up their hands in plot-driven helplessness. And all the pitfalls identified above are overcome. For example, it’s Thanksgiving, thus there’s no way to check with the American consulate to look for passport photos. Neeson can’t produce an ID because his wallet was in his briefcase. His wife’s behavior, the presence of his friend (Frank Langella) in Europe, and other similar issues are all reasonably explained. And Neeson isn’t a fool. That makes this a solid, enjoyable story.

Bland Liberalism Masquerading As Depth

All that said, however, there is a problem with this film. Specifically, the film lacks depth, both in the political intrigue and in the characters Neeson meets.

Drama comes from hard decisions, but there are no hard decisions here because the political intrigue is so one-sided. The film takes place in Berlin and it involves a conference where an Arab prince will giving the world for free an environmentalist-fantasy grain which would feed the world’s poor without the usual beefs environmentalists have with farming. Essentially, the greatest guy on earth is about to offer utopia. Yawn. This film would have been much stronger if there was some doubt as to who the good guys and bad guys really are. Yet, as Neeson discovers what’s going on, his choice becomes patently obvious. There’s some irony in what he’s doing, which I won’t go into, but there’s never a single moment where he needs to ask himself if he’s doing the right thing. That robs the film of a ton of drama which would have made the film so much stronger.

Moreover, outside of Neeson, the characters are flat. The bad guys belong to some generic conspiracy that kills people on behalf of rich companies. Yawn. There is never a sense of why they are actually doing this other than bland profit. As we’ve said many times, it’s hard to care about a villain who doesn’t even care about his own schemes.

And the good guys are even more pointless. By and large, they are nothing more than idealized liberal tropes. For example, there is an illegal alien from Africa who tells Neeson where he can find Diane Kruger, an illegal alien from Russia who becomes Neeson’s sidekick. This character adds nothing else to the plot, yet we’re supposed to care about him because the film tells us that Germans mistreat African immigrants and force them to live in slums (a total falsehood). And when he gets killed we’re supposed to care that his poor family in Africa will never know what happened to him or why the money he sends each month suddenly stops. Boo frick’n hoo. This has nothing to do with the story. And the fact the writer hopes to use this to humanize the story is a prime example that the writer had no idea how to connect the characters to the plot or the plot to the audience. This is what happens when you use an indifferent, generic villain.

Similarly, we are introduced to an ex-Stasi officer. He really does nothing to further the plot except explain the nature of the political conspiracy to the audience -- which actually detracts from the film, as it would have been better to have Neeson learn it himself. But again we’re supposed to care about him and again the reason we’re supposed to care is his liberal beliefs. He is presented as a kindly old former military officer who laments that, “We Germans are good at forgetting things. We forgot we were Nazis and then we forgot we were communists.” Oh gee, what a wonderful guy. Only, it’s crap.

For one thing, the Germans have spent the past 60+ years trying to atone for being Nazis. They’ve made themselves pacifists, built museums to war crimes, outlawed denial of Nazi crimes, made it illegal to sell Nazi paraphernalia, and given money all over the world to try to make good. No one in Germany has forgotten they were Nazis. But they did forget they were communists, and this film is a great example of that. It is a total whitewash to present the Stasi as just another military institution. They were in fact one of the more brutal organizations in history, and that gets whitewashed here, especially when this Stasi character describes how peacefully he questioned “suspects” without ever mentioning the torture, the killing and the spying.

But the bigger issue, again, is that he doesn’t fit into the story. He’s a plot convenience. The information he provides could have been found by Neeson in a newspaper. Yet, the writer mistakenly thinks he can humanize the story by giving us another liberal lament through this character. This is poor writing. It’s like the writer spent all his energy solving the stolen-identity puzzle and he didn’t have any energy left to put into the conspiracy and the supporting characters, so he just grabbed some liberal tropes out of the liberal-idiocy bag and jammed them into the story.

This is a good film, but it’s flawed, and that’s rather sad. Indeed, for a film that takes the horrid concept of a stolen identity and handles it exceedingly well -- a rare accomplishment -- the rest of this film doesn’t do it justice.

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Film Friday: The Tourist (2010)

The Tourist can’t decide if it wants to be an unfunny comedy, a romance without chemistry, or a dull action film. In the end it splits the difference. It also adds an awful twist which makes everything so much worse. But its biggest flaw is rampant unbelievably.

** spoiler alert -- I will talk about the twist/ending **

The Plot

Angelina Jolie’s boyfriend is a financier who absconded with billions in mob money. He owes ₤744 million in taxes on this money. But he’s disappeared and got plastic surgery so no one can recognize him. Scotland Yard wants their money. They follow Jolie hoping she will lead them to him. And as the film begins, she gets a message from her boyfriend to board a train, find a man with his same build and features and make the cops think he is the boyfriend. She picks Johnny Depp, an American high school teacher who happens to be on vacation. Jolie takes him to Venice, where they get a mansion-like hotel room. Once there, mobsters try to kill him because they think he’s the boyfriend. Some stuff happens, there’s a twist, and everyone leaves the theater disappointed.

The Problems

This film stinks because there’s a total lack of chemistry between the stars. Indeed, Jolie and Depp have all the chemistry of an accountant and a construction worker sitting across from each other on a bus. But it isn’t all their fault. Before any relationship can work in film, be it a romance, a friendship or even absolute hatred between two enemies, the audience must believe the characters’ feelings are genuine. That’s impossible here.

For one thing, Jolie isn't believable in her role. She’s plastic and her acting is stiff. It’s like the director told her apathy is her motivation. She’s way overdressed for day-to-day life. And while she’s clearly rich, she has nowhere to live and owns nothing personal. In effect, she’s the kind of blank character who doesn’t exist off screen.

Moreover, her premise stinks. She’s supposed to be so in love with the boyfriend that she continues to pine for him every waking moment of her life even after he’s been gone a year, yet she never displays any passion about him. Even when she’s asked directly, she muddles something about not being sure she really loves him. Huh?! Then why live her life waiting for his call?! Nor is it ever explained why she didn’t go with him when he left in the first place. Why the Rube Goldberg plot contrivance of “hey, let’s separate for a year and then you see if you can spot me!”? Also, despite being so deeply in love, she immediately falls in love with Johnny Depp. This again contradicts her entire character which is premised on waiting for her true love’s return.

Depp is no better. The film tries to establish Depp and Jolie as a sort of “opposites attract” scenario with her being sophisticated Euro trash and Depp being an American bumpkin. But he isn’t. Depp is supposed to be a simple high school teacher on vacation, but nothing about him fits that description. He’s got traces of an English accent. He dresses unorthodoxly like an actor at a publicity function. He spouts views you would find in European political journals, and there’s nothing about him to suggest a real life outside the plot.

Further, his character is incredibly unappealing. He’s smug and effete. He’s also entirely reactive in the film. Not once does he take the lead in any scene. Instead, he allows himself to be pushed around by Jolie, by waiters, by hotel clerks and by the cops. And since these other characters are ridiculous, it gets tiring.

What do I mean by ridiculous? Simple. Their actions are not credible -- they act purely in ways to drive the plot. For example, a police officer watches the mobsters chase Depp across rooftops and shoot at him. But when Depp hits the ground and knocks the cop over, the cop magically forgets everything he just saw and arrests Depp for assaulting him. Why? So Depp can get arrested, betrayed by the cops to the mob, and then Jolie can save him.

The Scotland Yard officers are incompetent buffoons like the Keystone Cops, only without the sense they are meant to be funny. The head agent is obsessed and keeps the investigation going even after his boss cancels it. . . why the other agents go along with this is never explained. He also acts incredibly recklessly just to further the plot, like when he tells his snipers not to fire as the mobsters are about to kill Depp and Jolie just because he wants to see if the boyfriend will somehow show up to save them. At one point, in the climax of a stakeout just as the mobsters put a gun in Jolie’s face, he decides that he and the other officers should “have some fun” with Depp by pretending to think Depp is really the boyfriend. This. . . makes. . . no. . . sense! Cops do not play pointless practical jokes when someone they are watching is being threatened with a gun. Then, inexplicably, Depp escapes from the van unnoticed as the cops turn their backs.

It get worse. The agent waits too long to call the snipers, so Depp and Jolie die, right? Nope. The agent’s boss has come from Britain to Venice in the middle of the night, found the stakeout van, and arrives just in time to give the order to shoot. Huh?! How did he find them? They didn’t even know where they were going. And why did he find them at all? Why not call when he learns about the illegal operation and have the agent arrested? And how did he even know to give the order to fire? He literally just burst into the van a second before giving the order. For all he knows, they just realized they were aiming at the wrong targets. This. . . is. . . nonsense!

And it doesn’t stop there because there’s still the twist. Actually, there are two twists. First, Jolie is an Interpol agent. Surprise! Of course, this means nothing you’ve seen up to this point makes sense anymore. Why is a deep cover agent sent after a man who owes taxes? Just seize his bank accounts (he actually draws a check for the amount owed at the end). Heck, why did they even assign a deep cover agent in the first place? It’s not like he owed the taxes until he skipped out, so Interpol assigned a deep cover agent to seduce him before he even committed the crime. Why? And why the cat and mouse game between her and Interpol? Oh, because she went rogue somewhere along the way. Then arrest her. No, let’s leave her as bait and have twenty men incompetently follow her 24/7 for over a year. Yeah, good use of resources. Also, to make the plot move, she inexplicable decides to rejoin Interpol (and they even more inexplicably agree) only for this to turn out to be a trick with no discernable purpose whatsoever. Seriously. This decision does not affect the plot in any way. It is merely something the writer thought would be cool.

Then the second twist is revealed. Guess who the boyfriend is? Yeah, that’s right. It’s Depp. This is just awful. Now we’ve added an impossible coincidence to the story. She supposedly “randomly” picks Depp out of an entire train packed with people, yet somehow she just happens to pick the guy who is really her boyfriend? Bullship! And then, despite being in close proximity to him for a day and a half while she falls deeply in movie-love, she never recognizes him? This is incredible, even if he did have plastic surgery. And do you know how they “explain” this to us? Jolie makes a particular point of mentioning that she was fooled by him having his teeth whitened and straightened. Seriously. Would that keep you from recognizing someone you love?

This film is a clinic on sloppy writing at its worst. I am being kind when I say the writer is an idiot and should have his fingers broken. This was written by someone who stole a bunch of scenes from other movies and didn’t know how to tie them together, so he just rammed them into each other. When it came time to explain the parts that made no sense, he just plopped down a line of dialog with the first explanation that came to mind. There isn’t a moment of cleverness or beauty or competence in the entire script.

I honestly don’t know what could have made this film worse? Maybe Jar Jar Binks.

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Film Friday: Screamers (1995)

I like Screamers. It’s a decent science fiction film about machines turning on man. The story is unique and inspired and the plot handles the story well. There really isn’t anything about this film I would change. Yet, I can’t call it a great film. In fact, if I were to rate it, I’d give it a solid B. I find that fascinating.

** spoiler alert**

Based on Philip K. Dick's short story “Second Variety,” Screamers involves a group of soldiers stuck in a genocidal war on a formerly rich mining colony. The year is 2078. A dispute over the profits from mining a rare mineral on Sirius 6B has caused Earth to split into two warring economic groups: the Alliance and the New Economic Block. War begins on Sirius. But the Alliance is outnumbered, so they invent a new weapon: the mobile autonomous sword (a screamer). These are power-saw- like robots that travel beneath the ground and kill anything living -- Alliance soldiers are protected by wrist bands which mask their heartbeats. The war devastated the planet and few soldiers remain on either side.

As the story opens, a N.E.B. soldier is killed outside the Alliance bunker. He’s carrying a proposal directed to Alliance commander Joe Hendricksson (Peter Weller) to negotiate a peace treaty. The mineral has been discovered on another planet and, thus, their war has become irrelevant. So Weller and a newly-arrived soldier (Private Jefferson) set out to negotiate with the N.E.B. commander, Marshall Richard Cooper. Only, they don’t find Cooper. When they get to the Alliance bunker, they find only three survivors. It turns out the screamers have been busy evolving and now there are several varieties. . . and some of them look human.

Here’s what fascinates me. I typically judge the quality of a film by asking how I would improve the film. The less I would do differently, the better the film. On the surface, Screamers is a film with little to change. The actors are good, the sets and effects are good, the plot works well and moves quickly. The characters are interesting and the twists are solid and unexpected. So I should rate this film very highly. But I can’t.

At first, this had me wondering if my test doesn’t really work. Could it be that some stories simply have a ceiling of how good they can be no matter how much you tinker with them? I’ve always worked on the assumption that you can take any story and keep adjusting it until you reach a point that it becomes a great story. But maybe that’s not true? Maybe a story like Screamers simply can’t ever become more than an average story no matter what you do differently or what you add to it?

What about another director? Could Steven Spielberg make this a better film? Based on his adventures in the world of Dick with Minority Report, I doubt it. Minority Report left me deeply underwhelmed. Christopher Nolan handled complex questions of who you can trust well in Inception and Memento, but I also doubt he could help Screamers. And the reason I doubt Nolan can help is because I know what’s wrong with Screamers and it’s the same thing that’s wrong with Inception and with Minority Report: they lack humanity.

The film we should be looking at is Blade Runner. What makes Blade Runner so special isn’t the film noir feel brought to science fiction or even the new take on dystopia, it’s the humanity of Blade Runner. Blade Runner hooks us by asking us to find out what lays behind Harrison Ford’s tough guy veneer, to find out how Rachel deals with discovering she’s not human, and to learn what causes Roy’s epiphany at the end of the film. Blade Runner asks us what makes us human and then lets us peer deeply into the souls of three people to find out.

This is where Screamers and Minority Report went wrong. Minority Report is a shallow Tom Cruise film at heart. Despite the attempt to cram Spielberg-style emotional ploys into the film, there is no moment where we can really look into Tom’s soul. Watch the film a thousand times and you still won’t know anything more about him than you did staring at the poster before the movie began. But go back and watch Roy’s split-second change of heart or the shock on Rachel’s face as Ford lays bare the lie of her childhood or the anguish in Ford as he realizes he’s been taking genuine lives, and you’ll peer right into their souls.

Screamers fails this test. I like Peter Weller and his character. Jefferson is a fun guy to watch. The N.E.B.s are interesting too. Becker is a twisted psycho on the edge and Ross is a man whose nerves are so shot he’s visibly falling apart. But there isn’t a single moment in this film where you ever look into their souls or where you are shown the difference between a human and a machine pretending to be human.

To fix Screamers, it must be refocused on what makes Hendricksson human in the first place. Don’t just give us two minutes of dialog telling us about some old girlfriend or telling us what he drinks or what kind of music he likes. Show us what makes him tick. Show us how he resolved some emotional struggle so we understand him. Show us he has a soul, so we can peer into it at the key moment of crisis.

In fact, I am thinking this may be the key to all science fiction. Too often science fiction feels flat. And when I think of the films that did work, I realize that what worked was not the plot, it was the moments the characters became real. It was watching Sean Connery admit on a racquetball court that he needed to prove his own worth to himself in Outland. It was the brief moments mentioned above in Blade Runner. It was learning who Jim Kirk really was week after week in Star Trek and seeing each week’s main character deal with their own humanity in very inhuman circumstances on The Twilight Zone. It was watching the crew come together after bickering and picking on each other in Alien or the moments of bravery rather than bravado in Aliens. It was the flirting moments in Empire Strikes Back. Etc. These are the moments we remember.

So the lesson here is if you want to write enduring, quality science fiction, don’t write a story about a thing or place or event, write a story about people who happen to encounter a thing or place or endure an event.

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