Chike Chan | Through the Shattered Lens

In the Pacific Northwest, animals are being killed and their blood is being drained. Some of the locals theorize that it’s the work of the Red Coat, a legendary creature that demands constant sacrifices to keep it at bay.

Reynolds (Guy Pearce, with a wild preacherman beard) doesn’t care about the Red Coat. He’s more upset about the fact that he and his buddies are feeling displaced in America. He’s been driven to rage by the fact that there’s a family named Loi living in his community. He hates immigrants. He blames minorities for every problem that America is facing. He says “ain’t” instead of “is not” because that’s the way this film lets us know that its characters are supposed to be blue collar.

Reynolds has murdered Mr. Loi (Chike Chin) and he’s targeting Yan Loi (Crystal Yu) and her teenage son, Edward (William Gao). Fortunately, the Loi Family has a protector. Fallon (Alex Pettyfer) wanders through the misty countryside with a grim look on his face and a darkly-colored wardrobe that is designed to let us know that he’s seeking vengeance. Along with defending the Loi Family, Fallon has a personal reason for seeking vengeance on Reynolds. Fallon also has an insatiable need for blood….

Sunrise is a somber, slowly-paced, and rather shallow-minded film. It takes itself very seriously and it definitely wants you to know that it has important stuff on its mind, unlike those other vampire films that just seek to be entertaining. Of course, as any student of the grindhouse knows, an entertaining film can often be the most effective form of propaganda around. People aren’t going to think about your message is they’re bored out of their mind.

At times, Sunrise seems to think that it’s the first film to ever use vampirism as a way to comment on current events, which I’m sure would be news to Bram Stoker, Jean Rollin, Anne Rice, Stephen King, Kim Newman, John Carpenter, Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, Abel Ferrara, Guillermo del Toro, Kathyrn Bigelow, David Conenberg, Bill Gunn, Dan Curtis, and just about anyone else who has ever written or directed anything that involved a vampire. Reynolds rants and rave about his hated of immigrants in speeches that are so overwritten and so florid that they verge on parody. (At one point, he saps at a deputy for not drinking an American beer.) His character is a fever dream of what Leftists think blue collar workers sound like when they’re not cheering their favorite football team or laughing about climate change. I suppose the filmmakers deserve some credit for having enough discipline to realize that having Reynolds shout, “This is MAGA country!” would be a bit too heavy-handed for even this film but one can tell that the temptation was definitely there.

At first, I thought that the film’s cinematography would be its saving grace but eventually, I got bored with all of the artfully composed shots of the misty northwest. There’s really not much difference between Sunrise‘s visuals and the visuals of the Twilight films. Then I thought that Guy Pearce’s intensity might elevate the film but then I realized that Pearce has played this same character several times and he’s been more interesting in other films. As for Alex Pettyfer, he’s just as boring here as he was in Magic Mike. In Magic Mike, he at least danced.

Interestingly, this film — with its portrayal of rampant racism in the American northwest — is an Irish production that was shot not in Washington or Oregon but instead in Belfast. That perhaps explains why the characters often sound like they learned how to speak by watching American cop shows on television. Personally, I am not amongst those who feels that people should only be allowed to make movies about their own countries. I don’t believe in limiting the imagination in that style. As an American of Irish (and Italian and Spanish) descent, I think that an American filmmaker would be totally justified in directing a film about Ian Paisley’s followers terrorizing the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. (They could even shoot it around Austin, Texas.) Or maybe someone could make a movie about that Irish basketball team who refused to shake hands with an opposing team because the team was from Israel. All’s fair.

If I wasn’t already scared of heights, I definitely would be after seeing Everest.

Based on a true story, Everest tells the story of two expeditions attempting to climb to the top of Mt. Everest. One expedition is led by a New Zealander named Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), an experienced climber who, we’re told, pretty much invented the entire industry of taking commercial expeditions up to the top of Mt. Everest. Criticized by some for being a “hand holder” who gets too emotionally involved with his clients and, as a result, cheapens the Everest “experience” by helping weaker clients make it to the top of the summit, Rob is married to a fellow climber, Jan Arnold (Keira Knightley). While Rob tries to lead his clients to the highest place on Earth, the pregnant Jan stays home and waits for his return.

The other expedition is led by Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal). Scott and Rob are friendly rivals, with Scott taking a much more hands off approach to his clients. (It’s not a coincidence that Rob’s company is called Adventure Consultants while Scott works for Mountain Madness.)

Everest details what happens when the two expeditions are both caught in a sudden blizzard and find themselves trapped at the top of Everest. The rest of the film is about the attempts of a stranded few to make it back to civilization. A few make it, though not without suffering a good deal of pain and, in one particularly case, sacrificing a few body parts as a result. Tragically, several others fall victim to the whims of nature, some dying of hypothermia while others, hallucinating from the lack of oxygen, literally walk off the side of the mountain.

Everest is one of those films where men die tragically but we’re supposed to find some sort of comfort from the fact that they died doing what they loved. To be honest, I usually have a hard time buying into these type of narratives. For instance, I love shopping but I wouldn’t expect anyone to be happy for me if I died while looking for a new purse. (In fact, that’d probably upset me if not for the fact that I’d be too dead to know about it.) At the same time, guys seems to love movies like this and I think, in the future, Everest will probably be remembered for being the epitome of a guy movie.

And that’s not meant to be a criticism on my part! Everest does what it does with a lot of skill and confidence. It’s an exciting film that, once the disaster hits, will leave you breathless. And yes, at the end of the film, I did shed a tear or two. Narratively, there’s really not a surprising moment to be found in the entire film. I went into Everest not even knowing it was a true story and I was still able to guess who would survive and who would not. But Everest‘s amazing visuals make up for the predictable narrative. The term “visually stunning” is probably overused (especially by me!) but Everest is truly a visually stunning film. For someone like me — who has asthma, a huge fear of heights, and who lives in North Texas (where, regardless of what you may see in the movies, the land is remarkably flat) — Everest is probably as close as I’ll ever get to climbing a mountain.

I should also mention that it never ceases to amaze me that Josh Brolin was born in Santa Monica, California because, on the basis of this film and No Country For Old Men, he is one of the most convincing Texans to appear in the movies. In this film, he plays Beck Weathers, a Dallas doctor who is a member of Rob’s expedition team. Usually, of course, if a Texan (especially one who is specifically identified as being a Republican, as Beck is at the beginning of a film) shows up in a movie, you know he’s going to end up being the villain. Fortunately, Everest was based on a true story and, as a result, Beck turned out to be one of the most compelling characters in the film. (If you know the story behind the film, you already knew that. However, I went into Everest blind.) Josh Brolin brings a lot of strength to his role and to the film overall.

Everest may predictable but it’s still an exciting film. Make sure that you have someone beside you to whom you can hold on and that you see it in 3D!