Week Ending 8/9/24
Short memories
I haven’t seen Eli Roth’s BORDERLANDS adaptation (nor do I care to beyond finding out if there’s a PG-13 f-bomb to add to my archive), but it’s getting trashed on Rotten Tomatoes right now (6% out of 47 critic reviews) by those who have. That result is not surprising. No one anticipated differently—not even fans of the games.
What is surprising, however, is that I saw someone on Twitter demanding they see Craig Mazin’s original screenplay that Roth scrapped for his own (co-written with Joe Crombie). They augmented Mazin’s name with his most recent successes on HBO: CHERNOBYL and THE LAST OF US. I too loved both. I also would be interested to see what Mazin might have done with this material and compare it to what Roth did instead. But I won’t forget who Mazin is.
Because neither CHERNOBYL nor THE LAST OF US is a comedy. That’s not to say BORDERLANDS strictly is or that Mazin’s script for it was, but the tone Roth chose is very far from the tone Mazin uses in his prestige TV work. It’s much closer to his earlier work. His earlier bad work.
The dour drama of THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR aside, we’re talking two SCARY MOVIE sequels, SUPERHERO MOVIE, two HANGOVER sequels, and IDENTITY THIEF. I enjoyed one of them (HANGOVER PART II) and all but hated the rest. So did most everyone else.
But I guess we all have short memories now. That’s not necessarily a bad thing when you can achieve a career turnaround such as Mazin orchestrated. I merely find it funny when context and a quick Google search is ignored for cherry-picked, revisionist history.
What I Watched:
THE BIKERIDERS
(streaming on Peacock)
People weren’t joking about Jodie Comer’s midwestern accent in Jeff Nichols’ THE BIKERIDERS. It’s a real slap in the face after watching a violent opening scene that ends with Austin Butler’s Benny getting a shovel to the back of the head. You get used to it, though—you must considering the entire film is dictated from her words. Yes, it leads to a few funny line readings and its “aw shucks” nature lends an offbeat juxtaposition to the horrors that unfold, but that’s kind of the point. Because this isn’t SONS OF ANARCHY. Not at first. This is a story of outcasts coming together to drink beer and commiserate. The rest comes later.
And yet it’s no mistake that Kathy’s (Comer) introduction to the Vandals begins with a feeling of unease as Wahoo (Beau Knapp) and Corky (Karl Glusman) make her increasingly uncomfortable before club president Johnny (Tom Hardy) makes things worse with a promise to protect her that sounds more like a threat. We’re supposed to think these guys are hardened criminals. Killers. Rapists. We’re supposed to because that’s the stereotype society has placed upon them. But while the Vandals might eventually succumb to those generalizations, they’re initially just harmless idiots having fun, Men who wouldn’t hurt a fly unless provoked (or, in the case of Emory Cohen’s Cockroach, hungry).
The script is balanced upon two interviews inspired by Danny Lyon’s book. Lyon (played by Mike Faist) is both recording these bikers’ anecdotes while entrenched in their club during the 60s and a sort of debrief with Kathy to discover what happened to everyone after he left in the 70s. She’s our narrator talking about the ways in which she let herself be taken in by this ragtag family via her love and eventual marriage to Benny. She tells us about her husband’s insane loyalty, Johnny’s stoic leadership, and the good times hanging with the likes of Zipco (Michael Shannon), Brucie (Damon Herriman), Cal (Boyd Holbrook), and Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus). And she remembers how it all fell apart.
Is there a traditional story in play? No. (Surely a reason why 20th Century Studios dropped it right before its originally planned release.) One could say it’s a “love story” as far as Kathy and Benny are concerned, but Butler isn’t on-screen nearly as long as you’d think. It’s more of a historical fiction about motorcycle clubs and how the public’s misunderstood perception inevitably warped them into becoming the gangs we know them to be today. Sure, there’s fighting and drinking in those early days, but there’s also a level of respect and brotherhood that trumps the noise. Then Vietnam ends, soldiers return home, and the “guidelines” to which members are bound become “rules” that cannot be broken. Soon guys like Johnny become dinosaurs to kids (Toby Wallace) that don’t respect anything.
There’s an honesty to that evolution that only a filmmaker like Nichols can capture. He’s breathing life into Lyon’s photos by giving three-dimensional form to the smiling characters captured within. And by letting someone like Kathy be their mouthpiece—someone who loved them—we can see a side of this life that pop culture rarely allows these days. It’s messy and often brutal, but also filled with hope until the world shifts to take it away. It’s about loyalty and fraternity being destroyed by entitlement and power. Because when Big Jack (Happy Anderson) challenges Johnny, it’s to settle a dispute with honor. When Johnny gets challenged again, it’s solely about fear and control. All good things must die.
- 8/10
THE INSTIGATORS
(streaming on AppleTV+)
Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Richie Dechico (Alfred Molina) are pissed because their guy Scalvo (Jack Harlow) screwed up. What did he screw up? I honestly don’t know. It may have been explained, but it doesn’t matter either way since most of Doug Liman’s THE INSTIGATORS, written by Chuck MacLean and Casey Affleck, glosses over details to propel us to the next plot point. All we must know is that Scalvo needs to make things right. He needs to find two guys willing to help him finish what Besegai started—an apparently fifteen-minute behind-the-scenes robbery of the incumbent mayor’s (Ron Perlman) latest slush fund.
The guys he recruits? A suicidal ex-Marine (Matt Damon’s Rory) and a loquacious ex-con drunk (Affleck’s Cobby). Are they capable of doing the work? Sure. As long as they can ask a few questions first. Unfortunately, many of the questions they do ask (namely dealing with contingency plans) go unanswered. So, when their lack of preparation turns deadly (since nothing goes as planned), the only option Besegai and Mayor Miccelli have is pulling the ripcord. Suddenly Rory and Cobby are on the run being chased by the former’s hitman (Paul Walter Hauser’s Booch) and the Special Ops head in the latter’s pocket (Ving Rhames’ Frank Toomey).
Because THE INSTIGATORS is a comedy, their solution isn’t to simply escape. Yes, their survival instincts eventually kick in, but the incestuous nature of Boston makes it so their biggest problems come in the form of morons or disinterested civil servants doing their jobs. It allows them to therefore take some detours, collect Rory’s psychiatrist (Hong Chau’s Dr. Donna Rivera), and blow-up a couple buildings in order to keep their heads on their shoulders. And when things start to really get crazy, a little luck puts them right where they need to be to stumble into a way out … if they don’t accidentally get themselves killed first.
The progression is less about twists and turns are more about convenient green lights ushering them into new scenarios ripe for Cobby’s inability to shut-up and Rory’s one-track mind to pay his debts and check out. Why do they stick together? Because the script demands they must. You could say it’s because they saved each other’s lives, but that too is a convenience. The only real answer I’d accept is that they are both good compassionate people who have always been known to put others before themselves. As Cobby laments throughout, “Why are there so many heroes in Boston?” Well, they fit that bill too.
We’re watching two “nice guys” hanging by the skin of their teeth while an entire city bares down. And we’re in their corner because Besegai and Miccelli are irredeemable villains who deserve comeuppance. The thing about the film, though, is that one doesn’t affect the other. Not intentionally. Rory and Cobby aren’t motivated to stop either man. They merely hope to remain free by the end. It’s the script that keeps them connected—if it also keeps them in our consciousness at all considering Hauser is forgotten after five minutes and both Stuhlbarg and Molina disappear for an entire hour before closure comes via a mid-credit scene.
This is the type of film that will have plenty of people saying “it’s horrible” and plenty saying it was “forgettable entertainment.” No one will be saying it’s good, but THE INSTIGATORS is fun if you think what it delivers is fun. I do. Damon and Affleck have an infectious rapport (they always do). Chau is a great contrast for them and Rhames looks to add some stakes to an otherwise hollow thriller that shows us very early on that Rory and Cobby will remain intact for the climax. The pieces are better than the whole, but you could still do a lot worse. Would I watch it again? Probably not. But I don’t regret watching it the first time.
- 6/10
KNEECAP
(in theaters)
After pitching the idea to create a movie based on their lives and music in 2019, writer/director Rich Peppiatt says the trio of Naoise Ó Cairealláin (Móglaí Bap), Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh (Mo Chara), and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (DJ Próvai) didn’t take their first acting lesson until six months before production began. “It didn’t go well.” But they were already committed. The project was built for them to play themselves and, honestly, the energy of their music could only ever be recreated by them regardless of acting prowess. All they have to do is be themselves, right? Turn on the lights, lay down a beat, and get out of the way.
The surprising thing, however, is that they are good anyway. At least I think they are. That energy that they bring is a huge factor in their appeal and maybe it does smooth out some of the edges, but you must be looking to rip them apart to truly notice it. Because anyone caught up in the fun of KNEECAP (and the politics) isn’t going to call them out for not being “authentic.” Whether on-stage, in bed, or mixing-up cocaine for ketamine, these three unlikely stars are doing their thing. How much of that thing is true and how much is fiction? I don’t know. But a bit of mythologizing doesn’t hurt.
Their story: while Móglaí Bap is tripping after a party gets busted up by the peelers (police), Mo Chara is stuck in holding and refusing to speak English to Detective Ellis (Josie Walker). Is it a political statement due to the ongoing attempt to legalize Irish as a legitimate language in “the north of” Ireland? No. He’s merely a punk kid trying to put the screws to authority. It’s only when his unwitting translator arrives that the idea that this disobedience might mean something beyond a laugh that the tide starts to change. DJ Próvai, a local music teacher, is filling in for his girlfriend (Fionnuala Flaherty’s Caitlin) in this task. One look at Mo Chara’s lyric book and he’s ready to help these “hoods” normalize Irish through hip hop.
The rest is an invigorating ride through drug-addled goggles as they deal with overnight fame and its consequences. Because these aren’t three kids forming a band. It’s two drug dealers teaming up with a respectable teacher unwilling to show his face at concerts stirring up anti-British and pro-Irish sentiment in a city still mired beneath the rubble of the Troubles. Not only that, but you have Detective Ellis searching for Móglaí Bap’s father (a might-be-dead terrorist in Michael Fassbender’s Arlo), a new Republican militia threatening violence towards the boys, and a people divided on whether these raps are helping or hurting the Irish language cause.
Comedy fills all aspects of its sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll moniker too. You have Jessica Reynolds’ Georgia’s kink of roll playing the “colonizer” while Mo Chara declares freedom for Ireland upon climax. There’s the always off-kilter highs of drug mix-ups leading to claymation. And the music (or, I should say, the antics that come along with it) leading senior citizens to marijuana, newscasters to broadcasting messages written on buttocks, and teens to finally thinking Irish might be “cool” after all. Despite those laughs, though, there’s still the looming, violent conflict between police and IRA. So, don’t think there won’t be somber drama, sacrifice, and rebirth along the way.
It’s a story of rebellion. A tale of identity and the courage to fight for its existence against a force that will stop at nothing to prevent its proliferation. This is a match being lit and the reality that some flames burn brighter the more outsiders try to snuff them out. Yes, the history of KNEECAP is entertaining, but it’s also important in the context of its power—intentional or not—to give voice to the voiceless. It’s a reminder too that some bullets are more effective as metaphor.
- 8/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This week saw THREE FUGITIVES (1989) added to the archive—a film that my sister and I watched a lot when we were younger and yet I did not remember this f-bomb. Just goes to show that kids don’t pick out what they don’t already know they “shouldn’t” pick out. (cinematicfbombs.com)
Nick Nolte dropping an f-bomb in THREE FUGITIVES.
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 8/9/24 -
BORDERLANDS at Dipson McKinley, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
CUCKOO at Dipson Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
IT ENDS WITH US at Dipson Amherst, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
THE LAST FRONT at Regal Transit & Quaker
WIDOW CLICQUOT at Dipson Amherst
“So, while the film is still a love story and biography, it's also a process-driven historical document. And Bennett is wonderful as always. Her ability to show strength through vulnerability is unparalleled.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
Streaming from 8/9/24 -
THE BIKERIDERS – Peacock on 8/9
Thoughts are above.
INSIDE THE MIND OF A DOG – Netflix on 8/9
MISSION CROSS – Netflix on 8/9
PHIR AAYI HASSEEN DILLRUBA – Netflix on 8/9
DAUGHTERS – Netflix on 8/14
JACKPOT! – Prime on 8/15
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
BANEL & ADAMA (8/6)
DESPICABLE ME 4 (8/6)
THE MOUSE TRAP (8/6)
MURDER MOTEL (8/6)
WIDOW CLIQUOT (8/6)
“So, while the film is still a love story and biography, it's also a process-driven historical document. And Bennett is wonderful as always. Her ability to show strength through vulnerability is unparalleled.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
DANDELION (8/8)
“Layne is fantastic. This is a journey of self-discovery and artistic craft as Dandelion's sound, power, and compositions grow with each step forward.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
THE BEAUTIFUL SUMMER (8/9)
DUCHESS (8/9)
GIRL YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE (8/9)
ISRAEL SWINGS FOR GOLD (8/9)