“Nightcrawler” (Film Review)

Tags

2014, Bill Paxton, Crime, Drama, Film, Jake Gyllenhaal, Los Angeles, Movie, Rene Russo, Review, Rick Garcia, thriller

By Shane M. Dallmann

Yes, you CAN call a movie NIGHTCRAWLER without it being either a horror film or an X-MEN spinoff.

Jake Gyllenhaal is Louis Bloom, introduced as an unemployed thief who’s always looking to improve his situation and stands ready with a litany of self-promoting come-on pitches he learned through obsessive Internet study. Of course, since Lou has no genuine interest in human interaction, his loquacious auto-pilot performances have no effect on his target audience (the fact that he’s a thief also tends to work against him). People are only interested in listening to Lou when he actually HAS something that they want… and once he gains that advantage, he holds on to it relentlessly and remorselessly. As you probably already know from the trailers, fate leads Lou to the potentially lucrative world of crime-scene video commerce…

NIGHTCRAWLER makes no pretense of offering us a character forced to question his morals as his newly profitable enterprise inspires deeper and deeper levels of line-crossing and (soon enough) out-and-out lawbreaking. Lou was NEVER a good guy–he’s an unapologetic misanthrope whose contemptuous smirk almost never leaves his face (he loses composure exactly once and only because someone else beat him to the jackpot). The late Roger Ebert may well have opined that since the movie gives us such an unlikable protagonist, we couldn’t possibly care what happens to him. But that doesn’t mean you won’t want to see what happens next in every situation. Gyllenhaal is quite simply riveting throughout, and we watch with appalled fascination as he deals variously with the TV news director (Rene Russo) who potentially holds the keys to Lou’s dream kingdom; the homeless “production assistant” (Rick Garcia) he snags off the streets; and Bill Paxton as a far more experienced “nightcrawler” who has all the technical advantages that Lou himself lacks. (The TV exec who keeps shouting “This is wrong! This is wrong!” into the wind is ignored without consequence by pretty much everybody else, if you’re looking for that one spoken nod to human morality–the movie itself screams that message with or without him.)

As a result, the climactic suspense sequence (as Lou arranges his biggest “coup” yet–you’ll notice that I’ve gone out of my way to tell you as little about the actual plot as possible) is every bit as excruciating as it would be if you actually feared for Lou’s life.

For once, the frantic critical blurbs are quite accurate–NIGHTCRAWLER does, indeed, rank as one of the year’s standout films. It was a pity to see it take a back seat to the second week of OUIJA when it opened, but what do you expect on Halloween weekend? And now INTERSTELLAR’s going to push EVERYTHING out of its path.

Do yourself a favor and see this one before it crawls away…

“Deliver Us From Evil” (Film Review)

Tags

Crime, Eric Bana, Film, Horror, Lulu Wilson, Movie, Olivia Munn, Review, Scott Derrickson, thriller

By Shane M. Dallmann

Director Scott Derrickson arrived on the scene with the compromised HELLRAISER: INFERNO, which needed Pinhead about as much as it needed a… er… pin in the head. The actual film was one of the very few pseudo-HELLRAISER sequels to prove actually worth watching on its own and established Derrickson as a specialist in “true crime” flavored horror.

His theatrical debut, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, was heavily criticized by those familiar with the actual details of the true-life case that inspired it–some went so far as to brand it a travesty. Point taken, so be it. As a fictionalized motion picture (which, of course, is exactly what it was), it was a powerful horror/courtroom thriller which treated both sides of the supernatural debate with equal weight.

And SINISTER sealed the deal as Ethan Hawke attempted to prove that the supernatural, of course, had nothing to do with the ghastly crimes he was eager to exploit in a book…

Now comes DELIVER US FROM EVIL, which first made itself known with a much-too-familiar title and a teaser trailer that made it look like the latest variant on PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (though, of course, “inspired by a true story”)–in fact, it was only the name “Scott Derrickson” that made me want to see it at first.

Well, P.A. it ain’t, and it’s not a “found footage” movie in the slightest, either. What the trailer did NOT tell you is that this “true story” (from the memoirs of NYPD officer Ralph Sarchie) is, on the surface, merely the latest re-take on that granddaddy known as THE EXORCIST, starting as it does with the uncovering of an evil force in Iraq and climaxing as it does with… an exorcism. However, DELIVER US FROM EVIL does NOT tell us the same story in between…

Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) has been enduring the worst of what humanity has to offer in his Bronx graveyard shift; but he presses on, getting what little enjoyment he can out of his banter with his partner Butler (Joel McHale), putting “the job” ahead of his wife and young daughter (Olivia Munn and Lulu Wilson), and employing his mysterious “radar” to direct him to the calls he knows he has to handle personally.

As our story opens, Sarchie encounters a string of violent acts which involve such linking elements as the frantic scratching of the floor, mysterious losses of power (including holy candlelight) and nastiness involving animals and children alike. The narrative quickly takes us to a terrific set piece in the Bronx Zoo, with only emergency lighting and night-vision goggles available to they officers when they try to track down a dangerous suspect…

…but let’s dispense with the details as much as possible. On paper, they’re either going to lead to spoilers or they’re simply going to sound much too familiar and do the film a disservice. Yes, Sarchie is a lapsed Catholic. And of course a Jesuit priest (Edgar Ramirez as Father Mendoza) is going to persist in dragging Sarchie’s latent faith to the surface even as the evil he’s uncovered threatens to reach out to Sarchie and his unwitting family. But the characters (never mind how true they are to either “real life” or Sarchie’s book–we are watching a MOVIE no matter what they tell us) remain engaging and share good chemistry throughout the film (“I’m N.A., not A.A.!”); the standard manifestations of possession are very cleverly blended with a generous sampling of songs by The Doors (not to mention the old classic “Pop Goes The Weasel”) in one of the best touches; and Derrickson maintains his knack for setting up disturbing, violent and frightening scenes and imagery without ever letting the pace slacken (remarkable for a film of this length in this day and age). So by the time we actually GET to the teaser scene with the ridiculously creepy stuffed owl… well, it’s pretty damn scary at that!

Who needs yet another exorcism movie? Well, substitute any horror trope you like for the word “exorcism” in that question. We keep coming back to this material because there’s a rich AND current history behind it, and because it works. DELIVER US FROM EVIL is a solid, effective shocker no matter what you think of from whence it sprang.

Oh, and opening it on the Fourth of July weekend was pretty much its death knell, so you’d better hurry. But really… REALLY? More people wanted to see TAMMY? Well… maybe it IS scarier… but I’ll never know.

“The Raid 2” (Film Review)

Tags

Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Film, Gareth Evans, Iko Uwais, Movie, Review, Sequel

By Shane M. Dallmann

Let’s get a little potential wire-crossing resolved first: the RAID films come to us from director Gareth EVANS, who is not to be confused with Gareth EDWARDS of the upcoming GODZILLA redux!

Apparently, the title THE RAID: REDEMPTION sounded like a sequel itself, so the sequel comes to us with a mere clarifying “2” as it picks up directly where REDEMPTION leaves off. Officer Rama (Iko Uwais) thought it would be time to go home to his family after dropping the bad guy off for justice through the system, but… no. He’s eagerly recruited by an ultra-secret police faction that resorts to vigilante tactics to make sure that once a bad guy is down, he STAYS down. The honorable Rama wants no part of this and says so, but soon realizes that he really has no choice if he wants to keep his family safe. So he says goodbye to his wife and son for a deep undercover mission he’s told will only last “a couple of months.” Two years later…

While THE RAID 2 initially looks like it’s going to reprise its predecessor by confining its action to a single building (a prison hellhole), Evans’ horizons are much broader here. The situation into which Rama walks is, at its heart, boilerplate GODFATHER (the local Indonesian mob wants to keep the peace with the encroaching Chinese and Japanese factions; young hotshot doesn’t think the “old man” has what it takes anymore and will do anything to get ahead), but there’s nothing wrong with that! Previous reviews have suggested that this film is non-stop, wall-to-wall violence and gore, which really isn’t the case. But these two-and-a-half hours absolutely fly by even though the myriad characters (not a single one of whom is wasted, including the homeless hit man and the unforgettable combo of “Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man”) frequently DO sit down to talk.

But yes, it’s the astonishingly brutal mayhem that people are talking about… it’s so interesting that this is the second consecutive sequel I’ve seen (qf: WINTER SOLDIER) in which I’ve complimented the action choreography… but nobody could possibly confuse one with the other… the sanitized, PG-13 warfare of the CAP sequel maintains its existence in its own fantasy environment and makes effective use of the most up-to-date special effects technology just as people expect; but THE RAID 2? Well… I no longer see the point of the “R” rating. Actually, I lost sight of it a LONG time ago, but if THIS is an “R” for violence, then I can’t even IMAGINE what an NC-17 version would be like. No special effects, no CGI (and by the way, that extends to one of the most impressive vehicle-meets-structure stunts I’ve seen in quite a while)… but I must confess that the “shaky-cam” effect was SO extreme here that even your high-threshold reviewer nearly got seasick this time.

That’s not a good enough reason to skip THE RAID 2, which climaxes with a most satisfying traditional mano-a-mano after many an impressively surreal set piece… Uwais is as intense as martial-arts superstars have ever come (and of course they’ve ALREADY announced a third entry) and the movie will leave you reeling… but I’m still going to have to reserve final judgement until I see this title on Blu-Ray. Sacrilege, perhaps, but the digital copy I saw (the SECOND one received by the local arthouse after the first one malfunctioned) was dark and dingy even when prisoners WEREN’T battling in the mud… surely some of these sequences were meant to be bright and colorful (I’m looking forward to revisiting the amazing nightclub scene in its full glory, for instance) and I’m not convinced that I really saw the film I was meant to see. Could anyone who’s seen this title outside of Monterey County give me a visual report?

Grazi.

How Not to Cover a Live Red Carpet Event

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Aaron Paul, Action, AMC Movie Talk, AMC Theatres, Amirose Eisenbach, Awkward, Cameron Cloutier, Car, CGI, Commentary, Crime, Dakota Johnson, Dennis Tzeng, Disney, Drama, Dreamworks, Erin Darling, Fifty Shades of Grey, Film, Funny, Hype, Imogen Poots, Interview, Jessica Szohr, John Campea, Michael Keaton, Movie, Need for Speed, Practical Effects, Racing, Rami Malek, Ramon Rodriguez, Scott Waugh, World Premiere