"The Boondock Saints" is an extremely over-hyped vigilante thriller that contains no depth beyond its initial macho revenge fantasy, but, despite moments of painful camp, doesn't have the sense to go all the way as a comedy. It would better serve as a satire on America's obsession with Machismo posturing and the view that violence is the best way to solve problems than the self-important bloodbath it becomes.
I'm not adverse to revenge movies, even extreme ones. "Taxi Driver" featured Travis Bickle blowing away pimps and thugs, but it was more of a character study than a vigilante movie. "God Bless America" trivialized violence, but it was a satire, and a good one at that. "Dead Man's Shoes" was a powerful statement on the consequences of violence.
I don't have any problem with violence in the media at all, except when it is portrayed as an easy way to solve real-life problems. People, I cannot stress this hard enough -- there are consequences to violent retaliation and vigilante justice.
When my dad tried to get me to watch this movie, my response was "A
western? I hate westerns! Blech-arg!" But considering the psychological
mind-fuck films he had watched at my request, I figured I owed him
recommendation-wise. So begrudgingly, I watched "Open Range" with him.
I didn't expect to like it. Heck, maybe I didn't WANT to like it,
just so I could look at him all squinty-eyed, sigh and say "See?
Westerns suck. Now I don't have to watch one ever again!"
But, to my surpise, I found myself engrossed in the plot and the
characters, not to mention the unconventional casting choices (Annette
Bening playing a character who ISN'T a stuck-up bitch? Michael Gambon
playing a stone-cold killer?) If you, like me, claim to hate westerns,
"Open Range" might be a good place to start.
Mine is a simple truth -- clowns are scary. The Last Circus takes full advantage of that, combining clownsploitation with surrealism, graphic violence, and scenes so bizarre they approach dark comedy. Then it falls apart. Halfway through the depraved goodness and spectacle of oddity, it takes a nosedive and lands directly in the loo. And flushes itself.
The setting is Madrid, 1973. Javier (the pot-bellied, goggle-eyed, and grim Carlos Areces) becomes a clown, but not the kind you might expect. Rather than making his living on gleeful gags and slapstick, he is sad in life and on stage.
When Javier arrives at the broken-down circus with which he seeks employment, he meets a group of oddballs: a stuntsman, two quarreling animal owners, and a man enamored with his highly aggressive elephant.
And Natalia. Against his own best interests, Javier falls for Natalia (Carolina Bang), despite the fact that her boyfriend Sergio (Antonio de la Torres) is a woman-beating drinker ... and his boss. And he doesn't stop at women. A foolish decision, yes. But Javier isn't the first man to get stupid over a woman.
Sergio is the worst kind of useless so-and-so, thoroughly convinced of his own love for Natalia. Natalia seems to like being hurt, which is true of some women, but the film seems to approach misogyny as Natalia continually lays herself down at Sergio's feet and puts Javier in danger.
It could have been good. the violence, the relentless strangeness, the depiction of Javier's degradation at the hands of Sergio and others and his resulting inhumanity, but as the film releases a bombastic onslaught of clown fights, machine gun fire and explosions, it increases in both pretentiousness and implausibility. By the time Javier becomes the vengeful clown, there is no character to root for and no reason to care.
Although lead actor Carlos Areces is decent and Antonio de la Torres (Sergio) is plausibly repugnant, Carolina Bang, as the love interest, seems to be taking overacting lessons from the Daniel Radcliffe and Megan Fox school of acting. Her scream is grating enough to make you want to smack her, and the fact that I made that statement about a victim of dating violence is saying something. I'm not ruthless; she's just that annoying.
Pair the beginning of The Last Circus with just about any other conceivable ending and it becomes a winner. Give it this ending, and it fails. The ending is ludicrous, incomprehensible, and quite simply, a bore. You have been warned.
Nowadays Christopher Nolan is known and highly respected for the overrated Inception and highly popular Batman re-imaginings. Back in 2000 he made a lesser-known film called Memento, which actually outshines some of his recent work.
Memento, which was his second full-length feature, was based on a short story called "Memento Mori" by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is revealed as an unreliable narrator, and you have to take what he says a face value.
Hit on the head during an attack on him and his wife, Leonard has no short term memory.
It's not amnesia, he explains, but he probably won't remember their conversation in a few minute's time. Actually, it's a specific kind of amnesia, called anterograde amnesia.
Although it can be implausible at times, Memento is no cheap soap opera, nor a cheap exploitation of it's subject matter. Leonard cannot remember anything that occurs after the accident. In order to create "new" memories, he writes notes or tattoos details on his skin.
On his hand is printed "remember Sammy Jankis," and a sideplot reveals the sad story of an older man with his condition.
Leonard's mission is to find and kill the men who raped his wife and caused his head injury. He is helped by a suspicious, flippant cop named Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), a manipulative she-bitch whose drug dealer boyfriend is recently missing.
He finds neither of them totally trustworthy and must rely on himself to find the perpetrators. But can he?
The film is cleverly structured and told in reverse, so that you gradually move on to the earlier events in the story. Guy Pearce, a slightly more inconspicuous actor, was picked by Nolan over superstars like Brad Pitt. He does a good job, showing Leonard's confusion and resolve, although he is not as compelling as Ralph Fiennes in David Cronenberg's similarly mind-bending thriller Spider.
Memento, in it's darkness and ambiguity, can easily pass as film noir. Another noir-ish element is the dark developments of its characters. Even Leonard's beloved wife is revealed to not be all she seems. Although one of Nolan's earlier works and not a cinema-packer like The Dark Knight, Memento deserves a wide viewership and stands as a capable thriller with an outstanding twist.
