When the trailer for God Bless America was released, I read some discussion about it. This movie came up as a comparison. While I haven't seen God Bless America, I somehow feel like this one is pretty similar, just not as nice about it.
So I added this movie to my queue. And it's directed by Uwe Boll. Not just directed, written by him too. And I can honestly say that this is the best Uwe Boll movie I've seen.
The direction is so-so. It's entirely competent, I didn't find myself needlessly confused by the way shots were put together, and most of the time, I didn't notice the camera at all. That's a pretty good sign. However, it also didn't stand out as being noteworthy.
The story itself is more interesting that the description implies. We get the character, and his life, summarized in a pleasant, compact way. He gets along with his parents, although they are pressuring him to move out, or go to college. He doesn't tolerate poor service, or rudeness, very well. He has a friend, who seems to be prone to longwinded rants. He isn't appreciated at his job as a mechanic.
What's interesting is that none of these things seems to be the source for setting him off. His rampage isn't passionate in the way that we would expect. It's more calculated, and less bloodthirsty than most spree killers seem to be.
To start with, he uses a remote-controlled van, packed with explosives, to blow up the police station. Starting off this way spells out that he isn't looking on this as a suicide mission. From there, he goes around location to location, killing people indiscriminately in the streets. He kills a barista that slighted him. He eventually stops into a bank, robbing it.
The whole thing winds down to him killing his friend, and framing him for the rampage. This endgame changes the perspective on most of what he's done. It implies that he valued his own life enough to not die for his idea, but it was the prospect of being able to get away with the rampage that made him want to do it.
There are some weaknesses. I felt like most of the family scenes didn't ring true to me. Something about the dialogue for the mother especially felt very off. Almost like she was a parody of herself. The dialogue for the first 20 minutes feels a bit forced. There's a lot of crosstalk, which was supposed to make things feel more realistic. That might work, except that people were uncharacteristically jerks.
There's also a problem with the ending. I was impressed with how well the script dealt with all of the tracks being covered. Except for one thing that I thought of; the money he stole from the bank. I was reminded of D. B. Cooper, and how the money he had acquired was recorded.
There's an odd documentary-like detachment in the movie. I think we're actually supposed to like the lead, but it's very hard to tell. We are clearly supposed to find a sense of humor to his revenge on the barista, but it hardly feels justified.
Then it occurred to me that this movie would feel much more "right" to the version of me watching it between high school and college. And that's probably where Uwe Boll is. The philosophy that the lead and his friend talk about is an overly simplistic thought process. It's the sort of thing most people realize when they're in high school, and they talk about a lot, as if they have insights that no one has thought of before.
I didn't feel like this was nearly as powerful a movie as it could have been, but it was a big step up from Boll's other work.
No comments:
Post a Comment