NJNM After Midnight: Jeff and Horace

Episode 5: Meet Jeff and Horace!

Ben and Tyler hit up the mythical Chinese restaurant of a smoky downtown city, and discuss an old pair of now infamous "radio" personalities we came up with called Jeff Worthington and Horace Smith.

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Kill List (AFI Film Fest 2011)

Ben Wheatley's Kill List is unquestionably the most deeply disturbing film I've seen in years. It's The Wicker Man - the original, not the godawful Nicolas Cage remake - meets Oldboy, and if you've seen either or both of those films, you know I'm talking about a special kind of effed up subject matter here.

Kill List
Director: Ben Wheatley
Starring: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley

Jay (Neil Maskell) and his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) are former military, living in suburbia with their son. They argue constantly about everything, feeling tension from Jay somehow blowing an important mission in Kiev eight months earlier. Their friend Gal (Michael Smiley) and his new girlfriend Fiona come for dinner, and the film gets off to a slow start. There are a couple of flareups, some fights and reconciliations, but ultimately Gal convinces Jay to partner up with him on a job to assassinate people. They get the titular kill list, and that's when things start to get weird. An unannounced blood pact and the discovery of a torture film ring pushes Jay over the edge into Korean revenge movie territory. You know how Ryan Gosling carries around that hammer near the end of Drive - minor spoilers for Drive in the remainder of this sentence - but he never really does anything with it? Kill List proudly says, "Screw that - we're USING that damn hammer." And that's not even mentioning the jaw-dropping finale, an insane display of ballsy storytelling that ramps up the tension so high that the movie transforms into a horror film.

Partnering hitmen is familiar ground in that subgenre, with everything from Pulp Fiction to In Bruges using variations on the formula. But the relationship between Jay and Gal feels somehow deeper than the ones in those other stories, as if these guys have known each other longer. We feel that friendly connection between them, and that loyalty, trust, and history plays an important part in the way they work together. That's why when Jay gets a little crazy, we feel the same sense of unease that Gal does as he watches his friend spiral out of control. 

I had no idea what I was in for when I sat down in the theater, but Ben Wheatley directed the hell out of this film. By giving it such a slow buildup, with tiny hints peppered in foreshadowing the bombastic finale, it gives the final act a shock value that no one could see coming. The last twenty minutes contain a scene in some underground tunnels that could go beat for beat with any horror movie; the claustrophobia of being trapped in that environment with no way out and terror creeping in is part of what made Ryan Reynolds' Buried so interesting to watch. The score, composed by Jim Williams (no relation to John, as far as I know), is dissonant and glaring, adding to the twisted dread of the tone.

I was disappointed with Miss Bala, and even though I wouldn't say that watching Kill List was an enjoyable experience, it had a visceral impact on me - it rattled me to my core. It's a slow swell, and when you least expect it, Kill List sucker punches you in the gut and leaves you staggering, trying to catch your breath. It is without question the most messed up movie of 2011 so far. Until next time...

Miss Bala (AFI Film Fest 2011)

Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman) dreams of winning a beauty pageant. The 23-year-old is from a poor family in Tijuana and is therefore mostly unprepared for her pageant audition when it finally arrives, but she has a striking quality about her that gets her through to the next round. When her friend Suzu (who also made the cut) goes out to celebrate, Laura tags along. But she's soon caught up in a vicious drug cartel and turned into a runner for the organization.

Miss Bala
Director: Gerardo Naranjo
Starring: Stephanie Sigman, Noe Hernandez

On the surface, the film is a warning against the escalating dangers of the Mexican drug trade and its effect on the citizens of that country. But writer/director Naranjo also seems to indicate that vanity is almost as dangerous as bullets and the cartels who wield them. Laura's goal of winning a pageant comes as an ironically bitter victory near the end of the film considering the horrors she experiences on her way there, and the movie poses an interesting question: is it better to be objectified/glorified by society as a whole, or by a single individual? The bleak tone, saturating the film all the way to the ending, suggests neither option comes with a pleasing outcome. Laura's encounters with the threatening leader of the gang (Hernandez) are unnerving, hearkening back to another movie this year that deals with similar psychology, Martha Marcy May Marlene.

The acting is impressive from everyone involved, but Miss Bala is a primarily showcase for lead actress Stephanie Sigman. This is a Noomi Rapace/Dragon Tattoo level performance, and it's easy to see the potential for Sigman to follow in Rapace's footsteps with that same crossover potential into bigger Hollywood features. Noe Hernandez is menacing and terrifying in his silences, providing a clear villain in a story that's sometimes hard to follow. A lot happens in this film, but it's still a slower moving picture than most of the major releases I've seen this year; Naranjo builds tension with shot selection, relying on a ton of following shots in which the camera lurks around corners, following Laura and adding a creepy voyeuristic element throughout.

Ultimately, Miss Bala couldn't sustain my interest because Laura's actions ceased making sense to me. At a certain major event in the film (it takes place in a truck, for those of you who may have seen it), the movie completely lost me regarding her motivation, and I disconnected so dramatically that there was nothing the movie could have done to pull me back in. I know the film is critically acclaimed, but I don't care - a few well-executed shootouts and extended long takes are not the only elements needed for a successful movie. Here's hoping the rest of the 2011 AFI Film Festival has a bit more to offer. Until next time...

Rampart (AFI Film Fest 2011)

Rampart isn't a sweeping epic about corruption in the LAPD; it's a confined, intense character study about one man who has to carry the weight of the department's struggles on his shoulders and the pressures that arise from that burden. Co-written by Los Angeles crime fiction master James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia), this modern noir has all the trademarks of an Ellroy tale: corruption, scandal, vice, murder, and moral ambiguity. But even paired with some fantastic performances, those token elements can't overcome the film's slogging pace and erratic direction.

Rampart
Co-writer/Director: Oren Moverman
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Robin Wright, Brie Larson

Dave Brown (Harrelson) is a cop on the edge. It's 1999, and he works L.A.'s Rampart Division, under fire in the media for possible scandal and corruption. He's hit by a car while on patrol, and the other driver takes off running; Brown doesn't take kindly to this, so he runs down the driver and viciously beats him with his night stick. Unfortunately for Brown and the already-in-trouble LAPD, the whole incident is caught on tape and becomes the newest story for the media. Thanks to an aging friend with connections on the force (Ned Beatty), Brown starts to suspect there's a conspiracy afoot to distract from the real issues in the department.

For me, Harrelson's towering performance is the only thing that keeps Rampart interesting. The veteran actor is quick on the delivery with Ellroy and Moverman's occasionally snappy dialogue, but he can also wind it back and allow the audience to see his performance manifest itself just behind his steely eyes. It's implied many times that his character is crazy, but I think we're given just enough to assume he knows exactly what he's doing at all times - which, considering some of his actions in this film, is an even scarier prospect than insanity.

His relationship with his bizarre family unit - he lives with his two ex-wives, who happen to be sisters, and his two daughters, one from each mother - is mostly communicated through exasperated sighs and sullen grunts from his eldest daughter (played by Scott Pilgrim's Brie Larson), and intermittent emotional outbursts with the matriarchs (played by Anne Heche and Cynthia Nixon). He spends his nights picking up random women like Linda (Robin Wright) in bars, and his days battling the talking heads of the police department and the district attorney (Sigourney Weaver and Steve Buscemi, respectively). No one else approaches Harrelson's level, so most of the movie is, sadly, pretty boring to watch.

Stylistically, Moverman is heavily influenced by modern depictions of Los Angeles police stories like Training Day and the FX series "The Shield." This isn't the slick downtown portrayed in Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive or Michael Mann's Collateral; it's the dirty in-between areas of Hollywood on display here, mirroring the collapsing professional and mental state of the film's protagonist. But Moverman's direction is all over the place: there's a distractingly trippy sex club sequence in the middle of the film, and even a Scorsese homage using a rotating camera during a large conversation (except Moverman's camera wildly spins while Scorsese's effortlessly glides). The director also employs some crazy sound design techniques, relying on distractingly loud background music that suddenly cuts out for dramatic effect during a scene change. There's very little consistency, and if this was done intentionally to mirror the character's struggles, it wasn't a particularly inspired tactic.

Harrelson's work was certainly praiseworthy (there are rumblings of an Oscar nomination in his future), but ultimately it wasn't enough to keep me fully connected to the story. There were multiple instances in which I nearly fell asleep, which, unfortunately, is a testament to the film's trudging pace and lack of compelling plot points. The last act is nearly unbearable as it drifts toward a conclusion that is only satisfying for one reason: the film is over. Rampart arrives in theaters in January of 2012. Until next time...