On the Quality of Things, #14
Vengeance in Spring!

by Wade Stuckwisch
illustration by Jacob Chabot

Revenge. Justice. Punishment. Cruelty. Giant Cthulhu monsters. And the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. What do they have in common? They all graced this great nation's movie screens at some point this April. Read on!

Since I already did a review of The Punisher, I don't feel like there's much more to say about that picture. The Rock-headed Walking Tall had a pretty typical Western plot - man comes home, finds town run by bandits (in this case, a former mill owner and his cronies who have managed to open an Indian casino under dubious circumstances), man becomes new sheriff in town, takes down bandits, blood-drenched town is better off without them. The only problem with doing a plot like this in a modern setting is that today we have this thing in America called "civilization," which has brought us wonderful inventions like "telephones" and "mass media" and "federal law enforcement." Has no one in this logging town in Washington State ever heard of the FBI, the DEA, the Washington State Gaming Commission, or the Bureau of Indian Affairs? You're trying to tell me that a casino owner could be surreptitiously running a major crystal meth ring, and no state or federal authorities would take notice? Or that thugs could turn the local police station into Swiss cheese with automatic weapons, and no one would think to phone the Feds? The addition of the most ridiculous "I'm going to fire my lawyer and defend myself" courtroom scene in the history of cinema only serves to emphasize the absurdity of Walking Tall's one-man-wrecking-crew story. Add to that a ham-fisted plot and a completely ludicrous buddy-comedy sidekick (played with good-natured disinterest by Johnny Knoxville) and you've got a movie that makes The Rock's wrestling career look like the Muhammad Ali story. It doesn't take a lot to make a shallow action movie credible, but Walking Tall stretches suspense of disbelief so far past the breaking point that is ceases to be enjoyable.

Man on Fire was a movie that was also wounded by its occasional absurdity, but it retained enough substance to bravely fight on to a satisfying conclusion. For one, Man On Fire added some welcome depth to the archetypical avenger story. Denzel Washington, playing an alcoholic ex-government agent named Creasy, and Christopher Walken, as a security advisor for businessmen traveling between the US and Mexico, make it clear from the beginning that both feel their past transgressions (which are left up the imagination of the audience) have left them looking forward to damnation. Yet, when Creasey's charge Pita (Dakota Fanning, who, while unfailingly cute and innocent, is remarkably unprecocious in this role) is kidnapped and apparently killed, Creasy makes it his mission to hunt down and kill everyone involved in the kidnapping, whether they deserve it or not. The disproportionate violence of Creasy's response makes it clear that Creasy is not a man seeking redemption or justice - his only goal seems to be to exact the same unwarranted violence on the kidnappers that they have unfairly dealt to Pita. Man on Fire ultimately seems to be the story of a man seeking justice in an unjust world, a mission that by definition is doomed to fail but succeeds in creating fascinating, gruesome cinema. Unfortunately, when the killing begins Man on Fire loses track of its ultimate theme and falls easy prey to action movie clichés and spectacular mayhem, taking more interest in juvenile pleasures, like shoving an explosive charge up a man's ass and taunting him to death with clever quips, than pursuing the film's plot. In all, the effort to make Man on Fire a clever action film only serves to make it about twenty minutes too long. I also personally object to the fact that Creasy vows to kill everyone involved, yet spares several women and children - but I'm guessing I'm the only one in the audience amoral enough to support that position. (Hey, I'm not the one who made the movie about killing people in the first place…) Director Tony Scott and cinematographer Paul Cameron indulge in large amounts of MTV-style camera trickery, but use it justifiably and consistently enough to prevent it from becoming distracting. Man on Fire may be flawed, but with a solid story and an inventive premise it's a step ahead of many pictures in the genre.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold-perhaps that's part of what made Kill Bill Vol. 2 the most satisfying course of April's feast of revenge films. Volume 1 of Kill Bill was wall-to-wall action; Volume 2 steps aside and lets the characters finally talk. This may leave some audience members looking for action, such as the muscle-headed dickless jerk that sat behind me continuously interjecting his disbelief when I saw the movie. However, you people suck and shouldn't be allowed the opportunity to see good movies. Hey, I think there's a screening of Armageddon somewhere, asshole. For the patient, however, the fight sequences in Kill Bill Vol. 2 are absolutely spectacular, perhaps even intensified by their brevity and lightning pace. As it pertains to the theme of revenge, Tarantino's script delves a little deeper into the Nietzschean implications of the avenger/assassin archetype, and even hearkens back to a few themes that Tarantino seems to have saved from the cutting room floor of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Plus there's a twist in the last half hour (alluded to at the end of Volume 1) that turns everything completely on its ass. Personally I can't wait until both volumes are available on DVD so I can watch "Kill Bill" as intended, in gargantuan four-hour form, preferably with a bottle of tequila añejo and a samurai sword. (I am still grateful, however, that Tarantino and Miramax released Kill Bill to theaters in two halves, since theatrical viewing doesn't offer the luxury of a pause button).

Kevin Smith fans, of whom I proudly number myself as one, will doubtless have web pages upon web pages to say about this movie for some time to come. Everyone else, on the other hand, will probably either dismiss this film as an extremely sappy family comedy, or enjoy this film as a pleasantly light family comedy. I suppose I should confess, before I pass final judgment on Jersey Girl, that due to a mix-up at the theater where I saw the film, I did not see the first twenty minutes. Whether this was a mistake by the projectionist or the management for the 5:20 PM Thursday shift at Lowe's Kips Bay is irrelevant to me, since the manager issued me a courtesy pass to make up for the mistake. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the version of the movie I saw was the one-hour, entirely Jennifer Lopez free version. Ironic, really, since I felt like a lot of material in Jersey Girl may have never made the final cut if the producers hadn't been trying to hard to lessen Lopez's role in the film. Smith's patented brand of brash, uncouth comedy presented itself proudly in gags like the one detailing what a single dad needs to go through to rent pornography while he has his daughter with him. While some audience members might find such humor inappropriate for a family-themed film (albeit an R-rated one), I found it refreshingly real that a director was willing to represent a family willing to curse in front of a eight-year-old, and that he wasn't afraid to follow his characters into the bathroom or show the inside of a baby's poopy diaper. (It's a sad comment on our times that I had to wonder if there was some pervert out there who got a charge out of seeing an eight year old girl on the toilet, or a naked baby.) The end result is akin to what happens in a scene towards the end of the film, where Gertie (played by the nauseatingly cute Raquel Castro) and Ollie (played by the unflappable Ben Affleck) present a scene from Sweeney Todd for a family musical night at Gertie's Catholic school. (Everyone else does "Memory" from Cats.) There's nothing especially wrong with the end result, but it seems to be presented for an audience that's bound not to appreciate it.

Recently I was browsing some IMDB message boards, which I do occasionally to remind myself of the depths of the stupidity of mankind. Never have I seen a more exhaustive archive of postulates based entirely on speculation, and vehement defenses of entirely baseless opinions. Some people must spend half their lives deriding or defending unreleased movies based entirely on the director, the acting talent, the trailer, or even simply the theme. Worse yet, for everyone who thinks he or she is the world's greatest film critic, there are two or three other yahoos that are convinced they are the world's greatest producer. ("That idea will never make any money! How can everyone but me be so STUPID! If I had the money to put where my mouth is, I could produce a WAY better movie based on 'Who's The Boss?'") But returning to my original point, I found one post on the Jersey Girl boards, in between several that had been deleted by administrators, which simply asked, "Why do all you people think Kevin Smith is so great?" I've been thinking about that a lot since the release of Jersey Girl, and not just because I felt Jersey Girl was somewhat disappointing. I'm tempted to go back to when I saw Kevin's first film, Clerks, back around '94 or so, but that story would be tediously long. So maybe I'll just sum it up this way: among all the crass, crude and just plain juvenile humor that anchors Smith's work is a genuine urge to discover the truths of the world around us, whether it's the toils of the work place; the confusing relationship between sex, love and sexuality; the nature of God; or just the pratfalls of a trip to the mall. Smith is a director who consistently eschews being smart for being a smart-ass - and I don't think it's due to a lack of maturity or a desire to pander to his established audience, but because he strives to show the deeper significance in a world that so often is just as asinine and absurd as Jay's obscene blathering and Silent Bob's silence. IMDB critics, feel free to rip that assertion apart, but remember: you may know a thing or two about cinema, but Kevin Smith lives in a much bigger house than yours. And I'm starting my MFA in fall, so I must know something too. -May 18, 2004