Too Many Movies: Maybe You Should Walk In Pairs?

This week, Joe McCulloch watched Super and Hanna, Matthew J. Brady roared into action with Four Lions while Tucker put all his money down on the sure thing that is Michael Keaton by watching The Other Guys. That's not all though! Since the last time we checked in on the movies and what not, Joe's first essay--on Sucker Punch, Frank Miller's The Spirit and more--was published over at the esteemed MUBI website. If you haven't read it yet, do so now!

Hanna
The kind of thing where, should the heroine begin the film by remarking that her arrow just missed a reindeer’s heart, you just know that line will recur at a crucial moment to reinforce the lingering compassion at her center, 2011
Joe McCulloch

What we have here is an action movie firmly in quotes, a mightily arch, rather literary-minded thing eager to collapse boundaries between folk tale archetypes and conspiracy villains while coaxing out sublimated sexual impulses. Director Joe Wright, veteran of ‘prestige’ pictures like Atonement and The Soloist, insists that his primary influence here is David Lynch, but on the screen it’s a studied influence, capable of transferring Lynch’s scary/funny half-dream renditions of America to a globe-trotting scope -- at least in terms of visual style or as a means of characterization -- but avoiding any particular sense of the uncanny, anything potentially confusing or alienating that won’t stand up to tidy enough back-tracing through a history of aesthetic influence: the stuff of myths, genre mechanics and contemporary political images. It’s Lynch by way of his tweediest admirers, subscription to The Economist and all.

That’s not to say the approach doesn’t have its benefits as good decoration for efficient entertainment; Hanna has such a simple plot -- basic enough that the titular super-girl-raised-in-the-woods-and-on-the-run-from-villains-connected-to-her-very-birth at one point puzzles out her background via internet searches at a public library and it doesn’t seem unrealistic -- that it can function without a lot of fuss as merely a venue for style. Wright compartmentalizes his action, blocking it off by making the fight/chase scenes the primary venue for the Chemical Brothers’ score (otherwise, the soundtrack is dotted with jaunty preexisting tunes juxtaposed against scary or violent events); at one point an escape from an underground facility erupts into strobe lights and matching cuts, selling the rush of the title character’s freedom as a kind of hellish dance party, with actual combat moves kept quick and nearly bloodless, no doubt partially to accommodate a PG-13 rating and the audience’s suspension of disbelief re: 16-year old Saoirse Ronan (of the aforementioned Atonement and The Lovely Bones) taking down a modest slew of buff adult men. Still, the best of the action scenes is more traditional: a long tracking shot following Eric Bana (as Hanna’s rogue CIA woodland mentor) through a Berlin street, stalked by occasionally visible opponents, and then down into a subway station where he disposes of his foes with naught a gratuitous motion.

Indeed, if there’s anyone not associated with onscreen sleekness it can only be malevolent government handler/wicked stepmother/vain evil queen/general arch-foe Cate Blanchett, surely the most successfully Lynchian character, ‘sold’ via the plot as quick & deadly but actually depicted onscreen as moving in a bizarrely robotic, stifled manner, as if worried she might tear out of her skin at too quick a jerk. Brushing her teeth until her gums bleed and pondering a multitude of high-heeled shoes, Blanchett is a monstrously barren, plastic simulacrum of femininity by way of political authority, her down-home mama grizzly accent varying in intensity depending on whom she’s addressing/coercing. Her loyal huntsman is Tom Hollander as a riotously Eurotrashy assassin/pimp, promenading with a whistle through nasty business while clad in extra-short shorts or a variety of bright track suits; he is an absolute nightmare of decadent camp, positioned as hopelessly capital-driven and spiritually barren in comparison to Ronan’s polyandrous kickass woodland sprite, who enjoys a none-too-subtly homoerotic snap relationship with a British tourist girl. No actual fucking, mind you; Hanna beats the snot out of a boy with kissy designs on her, deigning only to snuggle with those her super-senses confirm as pure of heart: it’s soulful erotics above the mess of congress, the latter fallen state comically portrayed by the tourist girl’s indulgent ‘open-minded’ parents, who of course fold quickly under Blanchett’s cruel pressure.

Don’t ask me where the politics on this thing are supposed to be going; it’s mostly a wooly anti-authoritarianism, mocking ineffectual liberals while suggesting the fruits of abusers will eventually grow up to destroy them, which strikes me as idealism to the point of non-commitment. But then, the whole of this picture is less than the sum of its parts, as its mix of Snow White and Red Riding Hood archetypes (with a dab of Electra) culminates in a typical cat-and-mouse finale set in a Brothers Grimm theme park. Best stick with Wright’s sensory engagement, racing Ronan through her journey of maturity toward the realization that she’s less a fairy heroine than a perfectly big bad wolf in her own right.

Super
Directed by James Gunn, 2010
Joe McCulloch

It’d be easy to say this largely mediocre thing is exactly the same as the movie version of Kick-Ass and be done with it, since they’re both comically violent superhero pictures that play at being acid satires of genre tropes before eventually just becoming straightforward genre pieces, like ‘ha ha, just kidding, love ya, fans!’ Admittedly, Super waits for the last fifteen minutes or so as opposed to the halfway mark, and plays even harder at gory, indistinctly aimed set pieces, but that’s not the substantive difference.

No, while Kick-Ass seems merely content to pander, Gunn’s film (which he also wrote) is comics-savvy enough to evoke Fletcher Hanks early on as a patron saint of brutal justice, even using the dismissal of such naïve work by Ellen Page’s yay-for-violence comic book store clerk as foreshadowing her inability to distinguish bloodlust from a burning sense of justice. Even when Page and grim-voiced homegrown superhero Rainn Wilson -- who turned to the costumed life having received a heavenly vision after troubled wife Liv Tyler left him to relapse spectacularly with drug lord Kevin Bacon -- wonder why superhero comics don’t show characters being bored in between their duties, it feels less like a genuine question then a sop to less-experienced viewers who might not suspect the superhero genre of being explored so thoroughly there may not be much material between panels left to imagine.

Everything here has been done before, often decades ago in fantasy/sci-fi/action person comics by the likes of Pat Mills and John Wagner. It’s worth noting, though, that those comics came from a fairly specific political milieu, a genuine suspicion of the presentation of ‘heroics’ from positions of power and authority. From there -- and the more explicitly political pages of Crisis -- came the contemporary likes of Garth Ennis and Mark Millar. For much of its running time, Super follows in essentially that tradition, contextualizing Wilson’s turn to violence as the product of psychological damage and religious mania; when he tries to yank Tyler out of Bacon’s car he hurts her, and Gunn lingers on it in the same way a wheelchair-bound woman’s screams linger a bit too longer after she’s knocked over in Wilson’s pursuit of a thief. Page, meanwhile, is basically a nutcase, and sexually driven to the point of destroying Wilson’s fantasies of endless fidelity to his lost wastrel bride, which of course only spurs him to take on ever-more drastic action to destroy evil and obtain his personal goals through brute force.

The final turn firmly in Wilson’s favor then at least registers as a twist, though it’s hard to tell if Gunn has a specific point to make or if he’s just slinging some old Troma contrarianism (and yes, Lloyd Kaufman does cameo), perhaps the same impulse that prompted the critical turn of Tyler’s character away from sympathies with Bacon to hinge on her rape by a lecherous black drug-trafficking foreigner. What’s certain is that Wilson finally roars with the power of justice as he sees it -- albeit with the deeply ill-advised inclusion of onscreen sfx rendered in indie movie poster hand-drawn fonts -- and sneers via voiceover at our cynical presumption that he’s no better than Kevin Bacon. This is him fucking your expectation he was going to be fucking your ass, fuckface.

Defiantly, Gunn shows that all of this destruction never really hurt society all that much, and that indeed he ensured a little bit of joy for a few good people. The moral is plain: sometimes people do crazy, ugly, violent, immoral, irrational, illegal, religiously maniacal things, and that preserves motes of freedom and liberty so jesus christ shut the fuck up you ungrateful sack of stupid shit. The final shot alludes to About Schmidt, cementing the solace Wilson finds from his abhorrent altruism. Call it plain genre contrarianism, or a bona fide toast to authoritarian abuse to a justified end, or maybe just the mewling of a fanboy upset that nobody respects real violent badass heroes who save people -- or, y’know, super-double-secret critique by way of a straight-faced this-can’t-be-serious happy ending gambit -- but even as the lame comedy bits of Super drag on way too long and its plot eventually fails to stand up to any logical scrutiny whatsoever, even by its own internal rules, at least it leaves a visible and disquieting slick behind it, which is no great feat but unfortunately more than can be said of any of the proper contemporary movies struck from perverse comic heroes. 

Four Lions
Could have used subtitles for the English dialogue too, 2010
Matthew J. Brady

Man oh man, is it good to see a comedy with some bite. This thing is harrowing, but also hilarious, and even though it's about inept terrorists, it's one of the best humanizations of Muslims I've seen on film. Sure, its main characters are a group of dumbasses who plan to martyr themselves for no reason, but they're presented as people, not turbanned ciphers or crazed religious fanatics. They're the brown, British versions of those redneck idiots you know that think it's cool to shoot road signs, or the college kid who becomes an in-your-face vegetarian. They seem to want to act, but have no real direction, which might make them prime candidates for manipulation by those who use the easily-led to do evil if they weren't such complete fuckups. Maybe that makes it "safe" to laugh at their actions, but it's also a humanization of that faceless enemy, a demonstration of its stupid humanity.

If there's anything lacking in this portrayal, it's the reason behind this desire for martyrdom, at least on the part of Omar, the most relatable of this conspiracy of dunces. The others fall into understandable (stereotypical?) categories, from the belligerently misguided activist, to the rebellious young person, to the easily-led moron, but Omar seems like a nice, happy guy, married with a child and not especially radical in his beliefs. He (and his family!) just seem to accept that Jihad and martyrdom is the right thing for him to do, without questioning why he would feel this way. If there's anything controversial about the movie, it should be this, since it seems to indicate that regular Muslims are happily accepting of the desire to blow themselves up to get into heaven.

Of course, it's possible that I just missed something, since the heavily-accented dialogue in this movie is often impenetrable, and a large portion of the jokes seem to be cultural references that go completely over my head. The thing is still pretty fucking hilarious though, as when Omar convinces Barry, the aforementioned belligerent fellow, to punch himself in the face as a demonstration of his desire to blow up a mosque as a method of convincing moderate Muslims to "rise up", or when Faisal, the dumbest member of the group, demonstrates his avoidance of suspicion when buying ingredients for explosives from a drugstore by speaking in different voices and pretending to be a woman by covering up his beard with his hands. The most pointedly funny moment comes when the authorities stage a raid, but they end up busting Omar's conservatively religious brother's Muslim study group instead of the guys who are gigglingly testing their explosives in the street. Omar's disastrous trip to a training camp in Pakistan comes close though, and there are many, many other conversations, arguments, and scenes of pure idiocy that amuse and manage to make us forget that we're enjoying the antics of a bunch of wannabe suicide bombers. Not exactly heartwarming stuff, but holy shit does it stick.

The Other Guys
Probably Had A Director, 2010
Tucker Stone

While this was marketed as a Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg movie, it, like nearly every Will Ferrell or Mark Wahlberg movie ever made, is far funnier everytime it abandons Ferrell's ever-more-clumsy laugh-flailing or Wahlberg's always-end-sentences-like-they're-a-Question? voice and chooses instead to embrace the supporting cast...which, like every post-Anchorman Will Ferrell movie, is a bench deeper than the Mariana Trench. Rob Riggle, who had the second best line* in Childrens Hospital despite not ever appearing in Childrens Hospital, The Rock reminding his agent once again how much more interesting his career could be if his agent could get a real director on the phone, Steve Coogan in one of his embarrassingly rare non-horrible American roles, and Samuel L Jackson doing a decent variation on his Jules Winnfield shtick--that's just some of the people who use this film's cliche-ridden plot as excuse to fuck around. But while a decent amount of what those five minute wonders lands, there's no one operating on the same wavelength of Michael Keaton. Clearly enjoying the pinch hitter status that age has given him, Keaton serves as the glue that makes what's ultimately a terrible movie worth watching, delivering all but a couple of the movie's best lines in a curiously pitched style that never fails to remind one how much of a live wire he remains under the surface. Snapping his scenes to attention in active opposition with Ferrell's messy, improv-heavy performance, maintaining a character that--despite a unexplained movie-length obsession with TLC song lyrics--makes sense alongside the hammiest of modern comedy's pork loins. Eyes bugged out, his wiry frame leaning as far away from Mark Wahlberg as the camera allows, Keaton's choices here are a blistering rejoinder to the American comedian of today, a subtle warning to watch yourself, skit-boy. A real actor might just be able to do what you're doing way, way better.

*The best line in Childrens Hospital is "I'm a neat freak!", said by Ken Marino while being interrogated by Nick Offerman because he, amongst multiple crimes, left an infant in a dumpster. 

-Joe McCulloch, Matthew J. Brady, Tucker Stone, 2011

Comments

[JB]

Agreed. Michael Keaton was the best part of that movie.

[AComment]

Hey Joe, Tucker used to read the Economist. Just saying.

[Dave]

I don't know if I'm alone in this, but to me Hanna felt less Lynchian and more like Alejandro Jodorowsky was given a brief synopsis of Kick-Ass and asked to write a Hit Girl spinoff.

[Jog]

Ha, Jodorowsky would have made MUCH more of the psychosexual implications at play in the familial setup...

(I loved the Economist posts Tucker used to do...)

[John K(UK)]

I just watched FOUR LIONS last night. I speak the arcane English dialect of that region (Derbyshire) fluently and you didn't miss anything; Omar's (and his family's!?!) just seeing martyrdom as a reasonable life-choice is still the oddest thing in the film. A film which, as you, Matthew J Brady, point out, is well worth watching and enjoying despite this. It made me laugh like an idiot and then it made me think about some stuff I maybe should have thought about before now. Cracking film.

(Say, I have a question: How does the UK look to US citizens when you see something like this, DEAD MAN'S SHOES or RED RIDING (i.e. a portrayal that isn't totally a work of sterile fantasy like NOTTING HILL)? Does it look like a soulless sh*t-tip, endearingly rustic, Mars or what? Just wondering.)

Jog made HANNA sound interesting. I hope that was the idea.

Thanks to all.

[Jog]

Ugh, hopefully you weren't interested in Saoirse Ronan holding down multiple husbands, because I meant "polyamorous" instead of "polyandrous"...

[david brothers]

That totally gave me pause when reading your review (I saw it this past weekend), but I figured you were just smarter than I was.

[John K(UK)]

Alas, Jog, that was EXACTLY what I was interested in! Nah, I didn't catch your mis-type, I sure as heck ain't as smart as you, sir. HANNA just sounds a freaky mess is all. Like someone accidently made a throwback to that special kind of wrongness I associate with '70s Oz films(PATRICK or HARLEQUIN perhaps). Um, I'd just like to see what I make of it. I was intrigued. Yes, intrigued.