I just finished viewing the 1949 feature TOO LATE FOR TEARS on TCM. The title may sound like a weepy tearjerker, but this is film noir dynamite. Once incomplete due to falling into public domain, the UCLA Film & Television Archive have restored it to its black & white glory. I’d never seen this one before, and it was time well spent. It’s based on a Saturday Evening Post serial by screenwriter Roy Huggins, who later went on to produce television classics like MAVERICK, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, and BARETTA. TOO LATE FOR TEARS can hold it’s own with the better known noirs of the era.
Alan and Jane Palmer are driving down a lonely LA highway when a satchel is tossed in their car by another driver. They discover the bag’s loaded with cold, hard cash. They’re chased by the intended party, but manage to elude them. When the couple opens the bag at their apartment, Jane’s money lust is palpable. See, she was married once before to a man who committed suicide when he lost his fortune. Jane yearns to return to the easy life and sees this cash as a way out. Sensible Alan argues they should turn it over to the cops, but greedy Jane persuades him to stash it in a train station locker for a week, until cooler heads can prevail.
While Alan’s at work, Jane gets a visit from slimeball Danny who says he’s a cop. After nosing around a bit, he tells her he’s the guy the bag was intended for and threatens her. Not willing to give up her claim on the dough, Jane entices the bum into helping get the money in exchange for half. Danny goes along and agrees to meet her at the lake. Alan and Jane go on a fateful boat ride, where she shoots her husband and has Danny switch clothes with the corpse. Then they tie an anchor to him and drop the poor sap at the bottom of the lake. Jane creates an elaborate ruse to convince everyone that Alan’s run off. But Alan’s little sister Cathy has her doubts, and grows suspicious. An old Army buddy of Alan’s named Don drops by to visit his pal. But Don’s not what he seems to be (no one is in this movie!). Jane plots with Danny to poison little sister and get her out of the way. Instead, Danny ends up poisoned by duplicitous Jane. She ends up hightailing it with the loot to Mexico. Jane’s really living it up on her ill-gotten gains, until Don shows up and the truth is revealed…..
The ending’s a doozy, and Jane gets her final comeuppance in the film’s climax. TOO LATE FOR TEARS is all about crosses and double-crosses, greed, lust, and murder. The cast is full of dependable actors. Lizabeth Scott stars as Jane, the ultimate femme fatale. Scott got her big break in DEAD RECKONING (with Humphrey Bogart), and went on to film noir stardom in I WALK ALONE, DARK CITY, and THE RACKET. She even played opposite Elvis in LOVING YOU. Dan Duryea (Danny) has long been one of my favorite actors. His sleazy touch can be seen in SCARLET STEET (a real gem), LARCENY, CRISS CROSS, and WINCHESTER ’73. Don Defoe (Don), usually cast as the lead’s sidekick, is more recognizable for the sitcoms OZZIE & HARRIET and HAZEL. Always dependable Arthur Kennedy doesn’t make it through the first third of the movie, but is fine as straight laced Alan. If you don’t blink, you’ll spot Denver Pyle, Billy Halop of the Dead End Kids, and MICKEY MOUSE CLUB host Jimmy Dodd in small uncredited roles.
Byron Haskin was a top cinematographer and headed Warner Brothers’ special effects department before turning to directing in the late 40s. He keeps a tight reign on this one, but is best known for his work in science-fiction films like WAR OF THE WORLDS, CONQUEST OF SPACE, ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, and the 60s TV anthology THE OUTER LIMITS. TOO LATE FOR TEARS, despite the sappy title, is a great little piece of filmmaking. Independently produced by Hunt Stromberg (RED DUST, THE THIN MAN) and originally released through United Artists, this is a movie that will satisfy any film noir buff. Thank you UCLA for your continued work in saving these lesser known pieces of Hollywood history. And as always, thanks to TCM for giving us all the privilege of watching them again and again.
It was a dark and stormy night, the scent of blood in the rain, and I found myself huddled in front of my XBox.
In the gaming world, bringing out a new IP can be tricky. If you have a great design team and a fantastic story, sometimes players will gravitate to it. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed and Rocksteady/Eidos/WB’s Batman: Arkham Asylum are great examples of a new IP that actually managed to stand on it’s own. EA’s Mirror’s Edge, though one of my favorite games, didn’t garner enough interest to keep EA/Dice from shelving any possible sequels. I believe the problem with Mirror’s Edge was that it was a niche game. If you loved parkour/freerunning and dealing with puzzles, it was a fantastic game. If you were nauseated by first person movement, you never touched it.
And this is the danger that Rockstar’s L.A. Noire faces. It’s a detective story, and it’s going to be hard pressed to pull the Halo and Call of Duty shooter crowd (myself included) into its web. Unlike other Rockstar Games, you don’t spend too much time trying to cause mayhem to the city or roaming around. You can play in the sandbox, sure, but you also have a purpose in trying to stop crime. In a sense, you could compare it to the Spider Man games, sans web shooters and sticky fingers/feet. Know this, if you don’t at least watch someone play this game or try it yourself, you are seriously missing out on something grand.
Let me repeat: “You are seriously missing out on something grand, if you don’t at least try it.”
In L.A. Noire, you play Cole Phelps, fresh out of WW II with a Silver Star and logically moving to a role of a officer in the L.A.P.D. Quick to make a name for himself, Cole takes the initiative to further his career by solving the crimes he comes across. This moves him through the ranks and brings him to some of the more high profile cases in LA during the 1940’s. You can move through five different styles of investigations, ranging from Homicide to Vice to Arson. The case system in L.A. Noire is very cool, and requires you to walk the perimeter of a crime scene to examine the clues that are around. The music in the game helps to let you know if you’re moving too far away from the crime scene (the music will stop playing), if you’ve stumbled onto a clue (a chime), or if you’ve managed to collect all of the clues in an area (an uplifting melody). What’s important to note is that gathering evidence isn’t as easy as picking up an object and adding it to your inventory. You have to sometimes turn the object around in Cole’s hands to make sure that he sees (he sees, not that you see) something of particular about it. It takes the Detective Mode of Batman: Arkham Asylum up a notch in that even you may find clues and info in both games, L.A. Noire lets you choose how to incorporate it in your interrogations. It would be interesting to see if Arkham City has a similar approach along the line. The Interrogation features of L.A. Noire introduces a new technology to Rockstar’s arsenal called MotionScan. This tech, similar to what was used in The Social Network allowed them to map the actors facial movements. This becomes a key part of the interrogations in that you can effectively ‘read’ a witness and tell if they are lying to you or possibly have some doubts to what they’re telling you. I haven’t seen anything like this since Intrigue! For the Commodore 64, so it’s pretty refreshing to encounter the system here.
The one problem I do have with L.A. Noire so far is that the Interrogation System (at least in one of the first 3 cases I handled) seemed to run in a loop. When I fouled up an Interrogation, I was forced to redo it until I got it right. I believe it was because of the case I was working on (it was literally the introduction to Interrogating), and that other cases may not do this. If all of the interrogations have that style, that could become a problem. The whole “do it until you get it right” is great in a game like Mirror’s Edge, but it would be nice to see a case slip from your fingers because you botched something.
You’ll also find a number of cameos from various actors in L.A. Noire. Keith Szarabajka (The Dark Knight) is the narrator of the story, and you’ll also run into Courtney Gains (Memphis Belle, The Burbs) and many others (including Fringe’s John Noble), which adds to this.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Rockstar Game without the Sandbox to play in. The Sandbox here is Los Angeles, 1947. I can’t comment on how realistic it looks, as I’ve never been to L.A., but for the purposes of this game, it makes sense. From what I’ve played so far, it’s not as rich and picturesque as Red Dead Redemption, but it does definitely fit the atmosphere of a noir story. Shadowy corners, dark alleys, it’s done quite well. Add to that the music of the story, a mixture of Jazz and action paced tunes, and you’re pretty much in a detective story all your own. Overall, L.A. Noire breaks a lot of new ground in what it achieves. You won’t get the Grand Theft Auto experience in that you’ll go crazy shooting and crashing through the city, and it might not be for every audience out there, but for those who love detective stories or crime dramas, it’s a definite gem.
Michael Mann has always been in the forefront of experimenting and trying out new film techniques and styles to tell his stories. 2003’s Collateral was a veritable masterpiece of directing of a modern, urban noir. He even made Tom Cruise very believable as a sociopathic character. In 2006, Michael Mann followed up Collateral with another trip down the darkside of the law and crime. Taking a concept he made into a cultural phenomenon during the mid 80’s, Mann reinvents the show Miami Vice from the pastel colors, hedonistic and over-the-top drug-culture Miami of the 1980’s to a more down, dirty and shadowy world of the new millenium where extremes by both the cops and the criminals rule the seedy, forgotten side of the city.
Michael Mann’s films have always dealt with the extremes in its characters. Whether its James Caan’s thief character Frank in Thief, the dueling detective and thief of Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in Heat, up to Foxx and Cruise’s taxi driver and assassin in the aforementioned Collateral. They all have had one thing in common. They’re individuals dedicated to their chosen craft. Professional in all respect and so focused to doing their job right that they’ve crossed the line to obsession. It is this obsession and how it governs everything they do which almost makes it into their own personal form of drug.
This theme continues in Mann’s film reboot of his TV series Miami Vice. The characters remain the same. There’s still the two main characters of Vice Detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs. This time around these titular characters were played by Colin Farrell (in a look that echoes Gregg Allman more than Don Johnson) and Jamie Foxx. From the first moment the first scene suddenly appears all the way through to the final fade to black in the end of the film, the audience was thrust immediately into the meat of the action. Mann dispenses with the need for any sort of opening credits. In fact, the title of the film doesn’t appear until the end of the film and the same goes for the names of all involved. I thought this was a nice touch. It gave the film a stronger realism throughout.
The film’s story was a mixture of past classic episodes rolled into one two-hour long film with the episode “Smuggler’s Blues” being the main influence on the story. The glamour and glitz that were so prevalent in the original series does show up in the film, but it’s not used too much that it turned the characters of Crockett, Tubbs and the rest of the cast into caricatures. The glamour seems more of a thin veneer to hide the danger inherent in all the parties involved. These people were all dangerous from the cops to the criminals. There’s a lot of the so-called “gray areas” between what makes a cop and what makes a criminal. Mann’s always been great in blurring those lines and in showing that people on either side of the line have much more in common than they realize.
Miami Vice‘s story doesn’t leave much for back story exposition for the main leads. Michael Mann takes the minimalist approach and just introduces the characters right from the beginning with nothing to explain who they were outside of the roles they played — whether they were law-enforcement or drug dealers. The script allows for little personal backstory and instead lets the actors’ performance show just what moves, motivates and inspires these characters. Again, Jamie Foxx steals the film from his more glamorous co-star in Colin Farrell. Farrell did a fine job in making Crockett the high-risk taking and intense half of the partnership, but Foxx’s no-nonsense, focused intensity as Tubbs was the highlight performance throughout the film.
The rest of the cast do a fine job in the their roles. From Gong Li as Isabella, the drug-lord’s moll who also double’s as his organization’s brains behind the finances to Luis Tosar as the mastermind drug kingping Arcángel de Jesús Montoya. Tosar as Montoya also does a standout performance, but was in the screen for too less a time. Two other players in the film I have to make mention of were John Ortiz as Jose Yero who was Montoya’s machiavellian spymaster and Tom Towles in a small, but scary role as the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood gang hired by Yero to be his Miami enforcers. Both actors were great in their supporting role and more than held their own against their more celebrated cast mates.
This film wouldn’t be much of a police crime drama if it was all talk and no action. The action in Miami Vice comes fast and tight. Each scene was played out with a tightness and intensity which prepped the audience to the point that the violence that suddenly arrives was almost a release. Everyone knew what was coming and when the violence and action do arrive it goes in hard and fast with no use of quick edits, slow-motion sequences or fancy camera angles and tricks like most action films. Instead Michael Mann continues his theme of going for realism even in these pivotal moments in the film.
The shootouts doesn’t have the feel of artificiality. The gunshots inflicted on the people in the film were brutal, violent and quick. The camera doesn’t linger on the dead and wounded. These scenes must’ve taken only a few minutes of the film’s running time, but they were minutes that were executed with Swiss-like precision. The final showdown at an empty lot near the Miami docks was organized chaos with the scene easy to follow yet still keeping a sense of anarchy to give the whole sequence a real sense of “in the now”.
The look of the film was where Mann’s signature could be seen from beginning to end. He started using digital cameras heavily in Collateral. His decision to use digital cameras for that film also was due to a story mostly set at night. The use of digital allowed him to capture the deepest black to off-set the grays and blues of Los Angeles at night. Mann does the same for Miami Vice, but he does Collateral one better by using digital cameras from beginning to end. Digital lent abit of graininess to some scenes, but it really wasn’t as distracting as some reviewers would have you believe. In fact, it made Miami Vice seem like a tale straight out of COPS or one of those reality police shows.
Michael Mann stretches the limits of what his mind and technology could accomplish when working in concert. Mann’s direction and overall work in Miami Vice could only be described as being as focused and obsessive over the smallest detail as the characters in his films. This is a filmmaker who seem to want nothing but perfection in each scene shot.
With Miami Vice, Michael Mann has done the unthinkable and actually made a film adaptation of a TV show look like an art-film posing as a tight police drama. Everyone who have given the film a less than stellar review seem to have done so because Mann didn’t use the 80’s imagery and sensibilities from the original show. There were no pastel designer clothes and homes. There was no pet alligator and little friendly banter and joking around. Mann goes the other way and keeps the mood deadly serious. This was very apropo since the two leads led mortally dangerous lives as undercover agents who could die at the slightest mistake. The fun and jokes of the original series would’ve broken the mood and feel of this film. I, for one, am glad Mann went this route and not paid homage to the original series. This some saw as a major flaw, but I saw it as the main advantage in keeping Miami Vice from becoming a self-referential film bordering on camp.
Miami Vice was a finished product thats smart, stylish, and innovative crime drama. This was a film that people would either love despite some of the flaws, or one people would hate due to not being like the original TV series. Those who decide to skip watching Miami Vice because of the latter would miss a great film from one of this generation’s best directors. Those who do give this version of Miami Vice a chance would be rewarded with a great tale of cops and criminals and the obsession they have in their set roles.
Before I get to my review, you should understand that I nearly didn’t see The Town last night. Earlier, on Friday morning, I had to leave work early because I was so sick and nauseous that I was on the verge of passing out. Once I got home, I had to 1) convince my aunt that I wasn’t pregnant (“Are you sure?” she said after I reassured her) and 2) had to convince myself that my appendix wasn’t about to burst (and it’s not so don’t worry). After all that, there was a part of me that said, “The Town can wait. I’ll go on Saturday or maybe even later in the week.”
But I ignored that part of me and I went and saw the movie anyway. Why? Well, I wanted to review it for this site. (That’s dedication for you!) Plus, I knew my friend Jeff wanted to see it with me and I wanted to see it with him and since when has a little thing like a ruptured appendix ever been an excuse not to have a good time? Last but not least, The Town is Ben Affleck’s second movie as a director. His first was 2007’s Gone, Baby, Gone. Personally, I think Gone, Baby, Gone is one of the best crime films ever made. It’s certainly one of my favorite. I was curious to see if The Town would be a worthy follow-up or would it just prove Gone, Baby, Gone to have been a fluke.
The Town takes place in the Charlestown section of Boston. At the opening of the film, we’re told that Charlestown apparently produces more professional armed robbers than any other place in the entire world. It’s a practice that is handed down from father-to-son. (Or, in the case of this movie, from Chris Cooper to Ben Affleck.)
Affleck plays Doug, a former hockey player who is now the head of a gang of Charlestown bank robbers. His second-in-command is Jem (played by Jeremy Renner). Over the course of the film, we learn Doug’s father (Chris Cooper) is a career criminal who is currently serving a life sentence in prison. When his father went to prison, Doug was taken in by Jem’s family. Doug even ended up dating Jem’s sister (Blake Lively) and might be the father of Lively’s daughter. For this reason, Doug and Jem are fiercely loyal to each other despite the fact that Doug is essentially a nice guy and Jem is not.
(As a sidenote, why is it in the crime films that people are always shocked when the psychotic supporting character ends up doing psychotic? I mean, have these people never gone to the movies before? Have they never checked out Goodfellas from Netflix? Did they miss the whole Joe Pesci “How am I funny?” thing?)
At the start of the film, Doug, Jem, and the gang rob a bank. Doug is a model of professionalism. Jem goes a little bit crazy and beats one bank employee nearly to death. This gives the bank manager, Clare (Rebecca Hall), just enough time to set off a silent alarm. Realizing that the police are on the way, Jem responds by taking Clare hostage as the gang flees. Clare is later released on a desolate beach.
However, there’s a problem. Before releasing her, Jem stole Clare’s ID. Looking at it after the robbery, he discovers that Clare lives in Charlestown and, as a result, there’s now a risk that she might simply see one of the gang on the street and identify him. Jem wants to kill her but Doug says that he’ll take care of her himself.
By “taking care of,” Doug means that he’ll follow her around town, eventually strike up a conversation with her, and then end up pursuing a romance with her (while declining, of course, to mention that he already knows her). Jem, however, was under the impression that “taking care of” meant to kill. So, needless to say, he’s a little bit miffed when he stumbles across Doug and Clare having a lunch date.
Soon, Doug finds himself trapped in the life he’s created for himself. In love with Clare but torn by his loyalty to the increasingly unstable Jem, Doug agrees to one more big job. All the while, he is pursued by two relentless FBI agents (Jon Hamm and Titus Welliver) and he has to deal with an Irish mob boss (Pete Postlewaite) who has an agenda of his own.
The Town works largely because Ben Affleck has, unexpectedly, turned out to be an intelligent, no-nonsense director. The movie features three robbery scenes and, in each one of them, Affleck creates genuine tension and excitement without ever once resorting to outlandish stunts or random slow motion. Unlike a lot of (bad) actors turned director, Affleck never seems to feel the need to toss in any showy (but ultimately empty) tricks to try to convince us that he’s a director. This is a confident movie that shows that Gone, Baby, Gone wasn’t a fluke. (That said, Gone, Baby, Gone remains the superior film for reasons that I’m getting to.)
Also, as with Gone, Baby, Gone, The Town benefits from Affleck’s obvious love for the city and people of Boston. Shot on location and featuring a number of local actors, The Town has a wonderful sense of place to it. By the end of it, you feel as if you know Charlestown even if, like me, you’re just a country girl from Texas.
Ben Affleck the director also manages to do something truly surprising — he gets a good performance out of Ben Affleck the actor. In the past, I’ve always enjoyed looking at Ben Affleck on-screen but I never really wanted to hear him talk. Because as soon as he would open his mouth, whatever appeal that Affleck possessed would immediately dissolve. In the past, as an actor, Affleck often epitomized that whole concept of “there’s no there there.” However, in this film, he gives a low-key, subtle performance that really helps to hold the entire film together. I still wouldn’t call Affleck a good actor. Instead, he’s one of those rare directors who (like fellow bad actor Quentin Tarantino) knows how to get good performances even from the most unlikely of performers.
Affleck is well-supported by Hall, Lively, and Renner. Hall has a difficult job because she’s not so much playing an actual human being as much as she’s playing an idealized concept. Her character really doesn’t have any purpose beyond offering Doug a chance at redemption and (this is obvious more in retrospect than during the actual film) really doesn’t have much of an identity beyond how her life touches Doug’s. Hall, however, is so vulnerable in the role that, while you’re watching the film, that none of this really becomes obvious until a few hours after the movie ends. Lively (better known for her role on Gossip Girl) is only in a few scenes and, in many ways, her character is even less developed than Hall’s. If Hall has to represent the Madonna part of the Whore/Madonna complex, guess what Lively represents. Still, Lively brings some much needed humor to the role and to the film. She’s having fun playing her drunken, drug-addled character and she steals almost every scene that she’s in.
However, the film is ultimately dominated by Jeremy Renner. With his angelic voice and deceptively soft voice, Renner is the psychopath that you can’t help but love. Movie psychos are a dime-a-dozen so when an actor comes along and actually finds something new to do with the role, it’s impossible not to be impressed.
So much works in The Town that I almost feel guilty talking about what doesn’t. For all its strengths, it also has three rather glaring flaws. As with all things, the final verdict on this film depends on just how willing the viewer is to overlook these flaws.
First off, Ben Affleck proves himself to be a better director than writer. The Town’s story is well told but the majority of it will still be awfully familiar to anyone who has ever seen a heist film. Unlike Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, or Michael Mann, Affleck doesn’t embrace the conventions in order to deconstruct them. Instead, he uses the conventional storyline as an excuse to explore the Charlestown culture. As a result, this flaw arguably works to the film’s advantage. Still, those viewers who are expecting to be surprised by the film’s plot should consider themselves warned.
As well acted as the movie is, there is one big exception in the cast and that is Mad Men’s Jon Hamm. Hamm plays the FBI agent who is determined to capture Affleck. He’s the Javert to Affleck’s Valjean. Unfortunately, as played by Jon Hamm, he’s also a cinematic black hole. Hamm may be an excellent television actor but, playing a key supporting role and surrounded by actual film actors, it’s obvious that Hamm has no idea how to act for the big screen. As a result, he never comes across as a worthy or even dangerous adversary and his pursuit of Affleck never becomes compelling nor do we ever worry that Affleck might not be able to outsmart him. There’s a scene, towards the end of the film, where Hamm yells something like, “Drop your weapon, asshole!” I have to admit that I stunned just about everyone in the theater when I burst into laughter at the sound of Hamm shouting “asshole” and sounding, more or less, like an overgrown kid on a playground.
(Hamm’s sidekick, by the way, is played by another tv actor, Titus Welliver. Welliver is probably best known for playing the Man In Black on the final season of Lost. Though he gets next to nothing to do, Welliver dominates every scene that he’s in. Unlike Hamm, he knows how to act on a big screen.)
The most glaring flaw with The Town, however, is that the entire plot pretty much depends on the viewer accepting that Hall’s character, just days after being traumatized by being held hostage and seeing one of her co-workers nearly beaten to death because he attempted to protect her, would so easily trust and open up her life to a stranger (even if that stranger is Ben Affleck). Never mind the fact that we are then expected to believe that she would stay loyal to Affleck even after learning the truth. Realistically, this would seem to indicate that the character’s something of a sadomasochist but the film really doesn’t explore that (or really anything else that might make Hall’s character anything more than just an idealized Madonna figure).
I mean, I’m always open to experimentation in a relationship. Different people enjoy different things and I’ve never been one to judge anyone else’s particular fetish. However, just speaking for myself, the day that you stick a gun in my face, put a blindfold over my eyes, and then abandon me out on the beach is the same day that I decide that there’s probably not going to be a long-term relationship there.
So, once again, it’s all a question of whether or not you can accept these flaws. I have to admit that, as I watched the film, I occasionally had a hard time doing so. If you can agree to overlook the flaws, however, then The Town is an entertaining, well-acted crime thriller with an authentic sense of place. And if you can’t overlook those flaws, than The Town is a good but imperfect movie that still indicates that Ben Affleck has got quite a future as a director.
Recently, I decided to try to track down and watch every single movie featured in Synapse’s 42nd Street ForeverDVD collection. Some of these movies have been unexpectedly brilliant and quite a few have been the exact opposite. But none have been quite as wonderfully odd as a low-budget blaxploitation film entitled Welcome Home, Brother Charles. If ever I have to explain who I am, I’ll do so by stating that I hated Avatar but I loved Welcome Home, Brother Charles.
The plot of Welcome Home, Brother Charles is almost simplicity itself. Charles (played by Marlo Monte) is a small-time criminal who is struggling to get by in the Los Angeles ghetto. At the start of the movie, Charles is arrested by two, white policemen. While making the arrest, the more racist of the two cops attempts to castrate Charles (or as Charles later puts it, “damn near cuts off my manhood”). Unfortunately, this is America in the 1970s and that can only mean that Charles is destined to go to prison while the racist cop is proclaimed a hero.
After doing the “man’s time,” Charles is released from prison and finds himself back out on the mean streets of L.A. However, things have changed. His former best friend has now set himself up as the local godfather and is none too happy to see Charles wandering around. Even worse, Charles discovers that the man who “damn near cut off (his) manhood” is still being proclaimed a hero. Charles responds the way anyone would. He seeks revenge against his enemies by 1) seducing their wives and 2) strangling those who have betrayed him with his penis.
Yes, that’s right. Charles goes into prison as a small-time criminal but he comes out as some sort of X-rated super hero. Not only can he seduce women simply by kissing them but he can now mentally turn his penis into a boa constrictor. Add to this, director Jaama Fanaka doesn’t shy away from showing us Charles’ penis stretching across the screen and strangling his enemies. When you consider that this feat was accomplished without CGI, you can only conclude that either Fanaka is a very talented director or that Marlo Monte was a very lucky man.
Whether it’s Charles constantly lamenting the fact that he nearly lost his “manhood” or then using that manhood to kill his enemies, Welcome Home Brother Charles is a penis-obsessed film.
(Strangely enough, that word is never actually uttered in the film. Nor do we hear any other of the common terms for the male organ. Instead, we just hear the term “manhood” a few hundred times.)
What was especially odd was that the film took an almost nonchalant attitude towards the scenes involving Charles and his magic penis. At no point are we offered any explanation of just how exactly Charles acquired this power. Nobody seems to be all that shocked by it. You would think at least one of his victims would, at some point, say, “Oh, c’mon, you’re not seriously going to strangle me with your penis, are you?”
I found myself wondering if perhaps this was actually a common thing, maybe one of those guy things that I, as a result of gender, simply do not know about. After I watched the movie, I called up my friend Jeff and I asked him, “If you concentrate really hard, can you use your penis to pick things up and maybe strangle people?”
He was quiet for a few minutes before saying, “Uhmm…sure.”
What’s even stranger than the sight of grown men being strangled by a gigantic penis is that director Fanaka appears to be taking this story very seriously. There’s little deliberate humor in the movie and the actors all play their roles with an admirable seriousness. In the lead role, Monte is probably as a convincing as anyone could be while using their penis to strangle another human being.
The thing about this movie is that when Welcome Home, Brother Charles works, it truly does work. Charles’ time in prison is represented by a series of grim, black-and-white stills that roll over a soundtrack composed of horrific screams. This montage is surprisingly disturbing and, in a manner of minutes, let’s us know the Hell that Charles goes through as a convict. When, after being released from prison, Charles visits his old neighborhood, Fanaka gives us a much more joyful montage of Monte interacting with the people living there. Directed in a cinema verite style, there’s a lively energy to these scenes that actually adds a rather tragic dimension to the rest of Charles’ story.
These are the type of scenes (along, of course, with the sight of Charles strangling people with his penis) that would never appear in a mainstream film. The prison scenes would have been filled with stereotypical predatory homosexuals and shanks-in-the-shower scenes that would have served as traditional crowd pleasers but would have carried absolutely no emotional impact. As for the montage of Charles in his old neighborhood, forget about it. That sequence would have hit the cutting room floor, sentenced to maybe show up as a DVD extra if that. If nothing else, this movie shows why the grindhouses were necessary and how much we’ve lost with their decline.
Like many grindhouse films, Welcome Home, Brother Charles was released under several different titles. It’s been released on DVD under the title Soul Vengeance. If you’re the type of DVD snob who likes to show off by talking about “transfers,” the transfer here is a bit grainy but quite honestly, this is a movie that needs to be grainy. For best viewing experience, invite several homeless drug addicts over to hang out as you watch the movie and turn your living room into your own private grindhouse.
In 2005 Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg brought to the silver screen a film that was both a taut, smart crime-thriller and also a well-done film treatise on the nature of violence and how it changes not just witness’ perception of an individual but about themselves as well. The film also introduced what might be the newest creative pairing that could be on par as other pairings like Scorsese-DeNiro and Burton-Depp. The pairing I speak of is that of Cronenberg and his growing repertoire with actor Viggo Mortensen. They scored a critical hit with A History of Violence and in 2007 they collaborate in another crime-drama that more than lives up to their initial collaboration. Eastern Promises is a taut and meticulous drama which brings new eyes and a different approach to the mob film genre made famous by Coppola and Scorsese.
The film begins innocently enough with a very pregnant teenage Russian girl named Tatiana entering a neighborhood store. While Cronenberg chose to open up A History of Violence nary any musical cues and backgrounds to create a sense of naturalism and plant a seed of unease in the audience of what’s to come, he does the opposite with Eastern Promises by allowing long-time collaborator Howard Shore to score this opening scene with a haunting violin solo. Even right from the start Cronenberg’s propensity to use a sudden image of violence to shock the audience works well to set the tone for the film. It is not the usual filmgoing experience to see a young girl, looking lost and afraid of her surroundings, suddenly and bloodily starts to give birth in the middle of a store. It is from the diary entries of this young girl where we get glimpses of the true meaning of the film’s title and sets up the clues and tidbits that Cronenberg gradually fills in as the film progresses and the main characters investigate the girl’s death and the full contents of her diary.
We’re quickly introduced to Anna Khitrova (played with touching compassion and a certain naivete by Naomi Watts), midwife at the London hospital where Tatiana dies from bloodloss due to childbirth. Having had experienced her own personal tragedy regarding a past pregnancy Anna takes it upon herself to find the next of kin or, at the very least, close friends who might know Tatiana and thus claim the child and care for her. It was finding Tatiana’s diary and the business card tucked within amongst the young girl’s meager possessions which gives Anna a starting point for her investigation and search. It is during this search into Tatiana’s life that Anna encounters Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen at his most chameleonic), the personal driver of one Semyon (as played by Armin Mueller-Stahl). Semyon charms Anna with his old world grandfatherly persona yet both the audience and Anna feels something off, even sinister beneath the charm and twinkling eyes. Semyon is not just the owner of the Trans-Siberian, a Russian restaurant, but a boss in the vory v zakone also known as the Russian Mafia. It is through Nikolai that we see the underbelly of Tatiana’s life before her death.
It is during the second half of the film that the film takes a clear turn into Cronenberg territory. With all the players in play Eastern Promises starts to peel the layers on all the characters. Just like in A History of Violence every character in this unofficial follow-up to that film go on through the film living dual-lives. Even Anna’s seeming naivete, in regards to the danger she faces in Semyon and his unstable son Kirill, shows a modicum of world-weariness born out of personal tragedy and those she sees on a daily basis when working as a midwife in the hospital.
Cronenberg doesn’t just try to tell a crime drama about the mob and the subculture they live and die in but he adds his own personal stylistic and metaphorical touches on the mob film conventions. While in the past he has taken on the immutability of the body and the physical nature of man in his later years he has moved on to the amorphous nature of man’s very nature as both a civilized and reasoned animal to the primal being which lurks within each. Eastern Promises delves into this metaphysical topic by showing the natures of both Nikolai and Semyon. Both of whom, at first glance, inhabiting a particular stereotype but soon showing the opposite as the audience gets to know them. Even the twists in the story in the middle section and close to the end doesn’t seem like cheap plot tricks but a logical and almost mathematical conclusion to the very themes Cronenberg has been exploring right from the beginning.
The performances by the cast was top-notch from top to bottom. David Cronenberg’s always has had a reputation for being an actor’s director. His willingness to allow his actors to not just play the part but find ways to become their characters makes his films some of the more well-acted one’s of the last quarter-century. From Watts’ own touching performance as the moral center of the film in Anna to Cassel’s unstable and coward of a bully in Kirill the work put on by the actors adds a level of gravitas to a story that has it’s roots in pulp crime stories and not the high-brow tales prestige films like Eastern Promises has been compared to. But the two stand-out work comes from Viggo Mortensen as the enigmatic Nikolai and Armin Mueller-Stahl as Russian mob boss Semyon. Where Watt’s performance was subtle and Cassel’s literally scene-chewing both Mortensen and Mueller-Stahl bring forth nuanced performances full of life and complexities that makes both characters stand out above a cast already doing great work.
Mortensen’s work as Nikolai actually surpasses his previous Cronenberg-directed role in Tom Stalls of A History of Violence. Viggo has always been quite the Method actor and really loses himself in every role he takes on, but it took him being paired up with Cronenberg for critics and cineastes to finally realize how great an actor he really has become in the last decade. His Nikolai oozes a charisma from the moment he enters the film. He makes Nikolai not just a thug with a brain and a semblance of compassion beneath the rough surface. Mortensen literally becomes Nikolai right down to the very tattoos which tells his character’s criminal past in ink. One could not help but be mesmerized by Mortensen’s work in this film that it was easy to forget that he was playing a part and not actually living that life. To say that Mortensen may have found his creative soulmate in Cronenberg would be quite the understatement and with more projects in the future linking the two together it wouldn’t be a surprise if the two in conjuction finally get the critical awards that has eluded both.
While A History of Violence showed that Cronenberg could work beyond the genre and esoteric genres of his part works, it is with Eastern Promises that we see him move towards a more mainstream type of work. Yet despite a work more accessible than before he still was able to add his own style of storytelling and explore themes usually not seen in crime dramas and mob films. It is this ability to marry the violent pulp with the intellectual high-brow which makes Eastern Promises a delight for both the general filmgoer and the arthouse cineaste. Time will only tell if the successful streak by the duo of Cronenberg-Mortensen continues as the two continue to work together in the years to come.
Through the Shattered Lens 