Movie Review The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

Directed by Scott Derrickson 

Written by Scott Derrickson, Paul Harris Boardman 

Starring Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Campbell Scott, Colm Feore, Jennifer Carpenter

Release Date September 9th, 2005 

Published September 10th, 2005

The saying 'based on a true story' is an oft abused term in Hollywood. Case in point the new horror film/courtroom drama The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. The film is based on a true story however the story told in the film is not the true story. The film's creators, however, include a title card that claims the story is true. But the story told in the movie only vaguely resembles the true story that was its inspiration. Make sense?

Not much of this cross breed of TV's "Law & Order '' and the horror classic The Exorcist makes sense anyway so it's fitting that its origins should be so muddled. A shame though because with such a terrific cast The Exorcism of Emily Rose had the potential to be very good.

Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson stars in Exorcism as Father Thomas Moore. Father Moore is on trial for the negligent homicide of a nineteen year old college student Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), one of his parishioners. The story of how Emily came to be in Father Moore's care is part of an elaborate series of events that leads to one extraordinary trial.

Laura Linney is Erin Bruner, Father Moore's lawyer. An agnostic, Erin is on the lookout for a promotion at her big money law firm and takes on Father Moore's case with the hopes of a partnership. Erin is coming off another high profile case where she got a guy everyone thought was guilty off on a charge of murder. Now struggling with her conscience she finds herself defending Father Moore from charges that he allowed Emily Rose to die while he was in charge of her well being.

So how did Emily Rose die? There are two competing theories in the film. The first and most logical and rational is that Emily developed epilepsy that led to psychosis that caused her to have nightmarish visions and episodes of extreme behavior that included self-mutilation and violence towards her family and friends. Emily stopped eating and eventually starved to death.

However, according to Father Moore, Emily was not sick. Rather Emily was suffering from demonic possession. Satan and various other demons entered Emily's body, fought off the Father's attempt to exercise them and prevented Emily from eating. Campbell Scott plays the prosecuting attorney, Ethan Thomas who quickly makes a farce of the defense's case with simple logical questions and scientific medical testimony.

The trial aspect of Emily Rose is the film's biggest problem. The script saddles the beleaguered Laura Linney with a defense that is so patently ridiculous that she never had a chance of winning any audience member with an ounce of critical thinking ability. I don't want to give away what the defense is, one of the joys of the film is the derisive laugh one has at the expense of the poor lawyer who might think it could work. I will say that it would not have lasted two minutes on an episode of "Perry Mason" or even the light headed "L.A Law".

Campbell Scott as the prosecutor is terrific at presenting his side not merely with a dismissive cast of his eyes skyward while the defense presents its case, though that might have been all it would take to win over the audience. No, Scott also brings eloquence and cold hard reason to the role and looks very much like a real prosecutor. There is a moment during one of the defense witness testimonies where the prosecutor objects to a question and when asked what his objection is he replies "Oh I don't know, silliness", as if he were speaking for the audience.

For her part Laura Linney, one of my all time favorite actresses, can do very little with a role so poorly conceived. Given the defense as it is written in the script has absolutely no hope of convincing anyone and Linney is left to present it with as much dignity as possible and in that respect she made it work. She never allows herself to look as foolish as the script might make her seem.

The script is written by Paul Harris Boardman and director Scott Derrickson and is fascinating for how inept the courtroom scenes are and for how effective the flashbacks to the exorcism are. In the execution of the horror part of the film, Derrickson's direction is very strong as are the characters of Father Moore and Emily.

It's like watching two different movies at once.

The flashbacks to Emily in college where her strange visions and behavior begins are surprisingly strong. Never merely imitating The Exorcist, Director Scott Derrickson shows a great flair and style and brings some old school scares to this otherwise dreary flick. A scene late in the film set inside a barn in a heavy rainstorm is very effective in building tension, and is followed by another effective scene, a dream sequence, in which Emily is visited by the Virgin Mary.

Scenes of faces melting into demonic menace, black cloaked demons and  blood dripping walls are all used to very cool effect and show that Derrickson knows how to direct a good horror movie. But when the scene shifts to the courtroom the film becomes laughable. The worst part is that there were many feasible opportunities to fix this aspect of the film with some simple courtroom logic. Any first year law student could have made a very strong case in Father Moore's favor. Instead the script opts for a defense that no one in their right mind would buy.

The courtroom drama is farce as are the non-flashback scenes outside the court as when Father Moore advises Erin to 'beware of the dark forces surrounding the case'.  Oooh scary. There is also a supremely lame bit where Erin, like Emily and like Father Moore, continuously wakes up at 3:00 AM. This same clock bit was lame when it was used in the remake of Amityville Horror this past spring and in the Bob De Niro flick Hide and Seek back in January.

The film is based on a true story. In Germany in the late sixties a teenage girl became violently, mentally ill. Rather than treat her medically, which would have meant commitment to a mental hospital, the girl's family turned her over to the church which received permission from the Vatican to perform an exorcism. The girl died from starvation and the priests involved and the girl's parents were all tried for manslaughter.

That is a great basis for drama and horror and a logical examination of faith and the limits of science, something I'm sure The Exorcism Of Emily Rose was striving to convey. However, in executing this idea something was lost in the translation. We have half of a good movie and half of a ludicrous episode of Ally McBeal, only with fewer intentional laughs.

Movie Review Greta

Greta (2019) 

Directed by Neil Jordan 

Written by Ray Wright, Neil Jordan

Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Isabelle Huppert, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, Stephen Rea

Release Date March 1st, 2019

Published March 1st, 2019

Greta has the makings of a very good movie. The film was directed by Neil Jordan, the Irish auteur known for The Crying Game among a varied and daring nearly 30 year career. Greta stars 16 time Cesar nominee (Cesar=French Oscars) Isabelle Huppert and perennial rising star Chloe Grace Moretz, an actress seemingly always on the verge of a breakout role. So how did Greta go so very, very wrong? 

Greta is the name of the character played by Isabelle Huppert as a lonely, French widow living in New York City. One day, Greta leaves her purse on the subway and it is found by Frances (Moretz) who kindly returns the bag and its contents. Frances is treated as some small town hick in New York despite being from the small town of Boston which is like any homey backwater I guess. Is Neil Jordan so up on the New York-Boston rivalry that this portrayal is intentional satire? 

Anyway, my digression aside, Frances returns the bag and finds herself taken by Greta’s sadness and loneliness. She takes pity on the old woman and offers to go dog shopping with her. This turns into repeated dinners at Greta’s home and lengthy, intimate confessions about Greta’s failed relationship with her real life daughter and Frances’ pain over losing her mother and her strained relationship with her father, played by Colm Feore. 

One night, as Frances is helping set up for yet another dinner at Greta’s house, she finds a cabinet filled with purses, each with names and phone numbers attached and the same forms of identification inside. This is a quick indicator that Greta doesn’t just happen to meet people, she leaves these bags places with the intent of having a kind hearted person return them so that she makes a new friend. 

It’s really sad and pathetic but Frances, as if she has read the script ahead of time, reacts as if what Greta did was sinister. Of course, we know that it indeed was sinister but when you look at it just from the information Frances has, it’s merely a pathetic cry for help. Frances acts as if the bags are evidence that Greta is a serial killer. Instead of confronting Greta about what she found she sets about faking an illness and then sets about ghosting the old lady and not returning her calls. 

Greta doesn’t take this well and the thriller plot begins to kick in with Greta as the motherly version of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and that dog that she and Frances bought together playing the role of the rabbit. Greta begins showing up at Frances’ work and at her apartment and even after Frances calls the cop, Greta keeps upping the crazy by following Frances’s best friend Erica (Maika Monroe) while sending creeper photos to Frances. 

These scenes aren’t entirely ineffective but Isabelle Huppert isn’t exactly Max Cady from Cape Fear. Greta is strange and creepy but not menacing. You feel like she could be mollified with the promise of an occasional phone call and a casual lunch. Again, that’s as portrayed in the movie, only the marketing has given us any indication that Greta is crazier than what is portrayed in the movie. Only the film score attempts to push us toward genuinely fearing Greta but Isabelle Huppert doesn’t do much helping with that with her docile performance. 

Docile until she gets her big “I will not be ignored” moment late in the movie but even that moment isn’t notably energetic. The third act of Greta embraces the crazy a little but not in very convincing fashion. Greta goes predictably where you think it was going from the trailer and abuses the kinds of cliches that movies like this always abuse. There is even a dead meat private detective character played by Stephen Rea who may as well have been named Max Plot Device. 

My biggest issue however, with Greta and Neil Jordan is not so much the thriller cliches of good characters making bad decisions or even annoying plot conveniences. The biggest problem is tone. More than once Greta leans a little toward the high level camp that could make the movie work and then pulls back. If Isabelle Huppert is going to play evil in such a mundane fashion the movie needs to find another way to be entertaining and the movie never finds that. The only believable thing about Greta would be embracing just how silly this all is and leaning into it in a darkly comic fashion and it never quite gets there. 

I’ve made allusions to Fatal Attraction in this review and while I am not a fan of that movie either, that film at least appeared to drift into camp with some intent. Glenn Close was believably batty but she was also unconcerned about how people would take her. There is something close to John Waters’ Divine from Female Troubles in the high level, over the top, that Close plays in that movie. Isabelle Huppert lacks the energy or nerve to really go for the campy, sleazy, silly that Greta needs to be more than cliche riddled, base, thriller. 

Sadly, what we get in Greta is a regrettably straight forward series of overly familiar cliches from similar thrillers about obsessive psychopaths. The only seeming innovation is the lack of a sexual component to the main relationship. Greta is not sexually interested in Frances and the film goes a long way to make sure we get that this is about being a mom and not about a psycho-sexual obsession. The crazy lesbian is the one cliche Greta thankfully avoids. 

Strangely, rather than a movie like Fatal Attraction, Neil Jordan’s own Interview with the Vampire is the movie that best presages Greta in presenting something that should be high camp but is played dreadfully and regrettably straight. That film, quite oddly, also features a strangely bloodless and mannerly approach to a parental psycho-obsession as Tom Cruise, rather than being sexually obsessed with Brad Pitt’s effete and pretty fellow vamp, is more mad that Pitt won’t play along with being his scion. 

Mannerly is a good way to describe Greta. Yes, this is a movie about a psycho stalker but it is going to be decent and respectable about that plot in a way that deflates the movie. Bloodless, for the most part, and with a lead performance with the restraint of a Nun, Greta is a bizarre watch. The score appears to be the only part of the movie that embraces what this movie should be. The film score is filled with moody stabs and atmosphere that is lacking from the performances.  

Movie Review The Chronicles of Riddick

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) 

Directed by David Twohey

Written by David Twohey

Starring Vin Diesel, Karl Urban, Dame Judi Dench, Keith David, Thandie Newton, Colm Feore 

Release Date June 11th, 2004 

Published June 16th, 2004 

2000's Pitch Black was a surprise hit thanks to the combination of hardcore sci-fi fans and a low budget. The biggest thing to come from Pitch Black was not its grosses but it's star, the bald-headed muscleman Vin Diesel. Four years later, up the budget and the star power and the sequel The Chronicles Of Riddick has the look and feel of a blockbuster. In other words, the antithesis of it's origins. More proof that a bigger budget doesn't make a better movie.

Vin Diesel returns as the anti-hero Riddick. With his glowing eyes and muscled physique, Riddick is supposedly the most dangerous man in the universe. Since escaping from the last uninhabitable planet, Riddick has been leaping from one planet to the next, narrowly avoiding the Mercs, a group whose gig is like bounty hunters but with a different title.

A group of bounty hunters, err Mercs, led by Toombs (Nick Chinlund) have been hard on Riddick's trail for a while but with little success. After finally getting their hands on him, Riddick finds a way to escape and take over their ship. Crash landing on another planet, Riddick comes face to face with a rare man from his past who doesn't want to kill or capture him, Imam (Keith David). He’s a man whom Riddick saved four years ago, one of three holdovers from Pitch Black.

As luck would have it, Riddick has crashed right in the middle of an invasion by a “convert or die” warlord clan called Necromongers, led by a man called Lord Marshall (Colm Feore). Imam asks Riddick if he will help fight the Necromongers, who kill anyone who refuse to join them. Riddick isn't interested in fighting for a cause other than himself. It's only when the Necromongers threaten him that he fights back.

Honestly, most of the plot is rather lost on me. Somehow, Riddick is the only man who can fight the Necromongers, something about his nearly destroyed race called the Furions. Anyway before Riddick can get down to pounding Necromongers he is recaptured by the Mercs and taken to yet another ridiculously, uninhabitable planet. It's a prison camp where he finds Kyra, or Jack or both. She was Jack in Pitch Black but played by a younger actress, now she's Kyra and played by Alexa Davalos. (See the original to make more sense of that)

Where to begin with this film’s problems? How about Dame Judi Dench who while radiant and always credible as an actress, can't make the film’s idiotic, nonsensical dialogue sound plausible. Poor Thandie Newton has an even harder time with her sub-Lady Macbeth role as Lady Vaako, the wife of the Necromongers’ second in command Lord Vaako played far more credibly by Karl Urban.

Worst of all though is Colm Feore who is so badly miscast. Colm Feore is a believable actor playing a conniving lawyer or maybe an Enron executive but as a bad guy tough enough to beat up Vin Diesel, I wasn't buying it. If this guy could take Riddick then why are we watching this movie? Give me an actor of some bulk or at least a Rutger Hauer type who could bellow Riddick to death. That I could believe.

Look, Riddick is entirely, stupidly contrived sci-fi, low on the sci, high on the fi. This is a big dumb loud action movie that claims the title sci-fi only for its space setting. Regardless of that, the big dumb loud action is well staged, well shot and a whole heck of a lot of fun.

Vin Diesel does what Vin Diesel does, kicks ass with an occasional bit of dark humor. The fight scenes are badass and the effects are pretty good, especially the burning hot sun on the prison planet that melts people, very cool gory effect.

Did I like Chronicles Of Riddick? Kind of. Take it for what is and don't expect much else and you can be viscerally entertained. I prefer my sci-fi with a little more intellect but occasionally a big dumb loud action adventure, if it's technically proficient, can work on me. Some of Chronicles of Riddick work. What doesn't, really doesn't.

Movie Review Paycheck

Paycheck (2003) 

Directed by John Woo 

Written by Dean Georgaris 

Starring Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhardt, Uma Thurman, Paul Giamatti, Colm Feore, Joe Morton 

Release Date December 25th, 2003 

Published December 24th, 2003 

In the just over 10 years that John Woo has been working in the Hollywood system of filmmaking, we have yet to see the potential that was promised in his earlier Hong Kong work. It's interesting then that he would work on a film based on a story by Philip K. Dick, the legendary science fiction writer whose work has also been difficult to capture in a Hollywood film. An element of both Woo’s best works and Dick’s best writing have been seen in flashes but neither are fully realized. Paycheck goes no further toward capturing the best of either Woo or Dick, and in fact may be a huge step back for both.

Paycheck stars Ben Affleck as Michael Jennings, a reverse engineer who copies a work of technology and changes it just enough to step around copyright laws and delivers a similar product to a different company. For liability purposes, Jennings' works alone, often secluded for months at a time cut off from the outside world. At the end of his work, his memories are wiped clean through a disturbing, dangerous process that literally cooks his brain, burning away the portions of his memory that relate to his work.

Jennings is well paid for his work, often with six-figure paycheck. His next job however is for more money than he could have imagined. Michael's friend Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart) offers him an eight-figure paycheck for a job that will take up to three years of his life. At that price, three years is worth it and Michael takes what should be his last job.

Three years later, Michael wakes up in Rethrick's office with his memory wiped clean. With no memory of the job or anything of the past three years, Michael's only concern is picking up his sizable check. However, when he arrives at the bank he is shocked to find that he has signed away his money, stocks and has only a bag of 19 personal items which he doesn't even think are his. Through a series of odd encounters, each of the 19 personal items comes in real handy in saving Michael's life as he pursues the reason why he refused his paycheck. There is also a minor romance with a biologist named Rachel played by Uma Thurman, which is merely functional and unnecessary to any description of the plot.

Where to begin with the disappointments of this film?

It's big dumb and loud. The film doesn't even have John Woo's usual stylistic virtuosity to fall back on, assuaging style in favor of a more bland action movie mode, save for Woo's trademark doves. There isn't even a scene where Affleck carries Woo's trademark double handguns, one gun in each hand. There is the usual standoff this time with two characters standing in a subway with a train coming. Sadly, it's not as cool as it sounds.

The most egregious problem, as I see it, is the shoving aside of Philip K. Dick's sci-fi story in favor of a generic Hollywood action movie. The story of Paycheck is a man who builds a machine that can see the future. He then forgets the future he saw, and only through a Sherlock Holmes set of clues can he reconstruct his memory to save the future. The implications of seeing the future, of seeing your own future and changing your fate, these are high minded ideas that are hinted at in the film but quickly shoved aside for gunfire and car chases.

Ben Affleck is my boy but Paycheck is a second consecutive misstep after the god-awful Gigli. There is still hope for Ben with Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl coming in March but he needs to begin choosing his material a little better.

Only Spielberg's excellent Minority Report has come close to showing the potential of Philip K. Dick's material on screen. More often than not, Dick's idea-driven stories are like Paycheck. A clothesline from which to hang huge special effects and stunt sequences that may or may not be technical marvels but are definitely less interesting than the ideas that are the core of the stories.

As for John Woo, it's becoming increasingly apparent that it was hype as much as talent that brought him worldwide attention. Woo has turned out a few exciting action pictures since coming to Hollywood but for the most part he has become a cog in the Hollywood money machine, pumping out easy to market, demo-driven, action trash. Special effects films that have posters before they have scripts that he brings a modicum of style but little else. What a shame.

Movie Review National Security

National Security (2003) 

Directed by Dennis Dugan 

Written by Jay Scherick

Starring Martin Lawrence, Steve Zahn, Colm Feore, Bill Duke, Eric Roberts, Timothy Busfield

Release Date January 17th, 2002

Published January 16th, 2002 

Oh boy. Another mismatched buddy cop movie!

National Security, starring Martin Lawrence and Steve Zahn is yet another formula action-comedy, but, for once, the comedy part of the action-comedy is actually funny.

Zahn is an LAPD officer named Hank. One night, he and his partner (Timothy Busfield in an effective cameo) happen upon a break in at a storage facility and, in their attempt to capture the criminals, Hank's partner is shot and killed. Martin Lawrence is Earl, an LAPD trainee who flunks out of the academy for being a little too aggressive. Hank and Earl meet for the first time as Hank comes upon Earl trying to retrieve his keys from his locked car. 

Thinking that Earl may be trying to steal the car, Hank asks for identification and proof of ownership of the car. Earl sees Hank's questions as racist and refuses, leading to a confrontation that is a parody of the Rodney King incident. A guy with a video recorder catches Hank trying to swat a bee that is flying around Earl's head. From the cameraman's perspective, it does look like Hank is beating Earl and, when the incident goes to trial, Earl does nothing to change that perception. Hank is convicted of assault, fired from his job, and is sentenced to six months in jail.

Once released from jail, Hank takes a job working as a security guard while searching for the group of bad guys who killed his partner. As fate would have it, Hank's search leads him to a warehouse where Earl works as a security guard and the two team up in a gunfight against the bad guys. The bad guys, lead by--of all people--Eric Roberts, get away and Earl and Hank are now forced to team up and take them down. Unsurprisingly, they become friends in the process.

Director Dennis Dugan, a master of formula trash (Happy Gilmore, Saving Silverman), is the perfect choice to direct this collection of action clichés and one liners. All you need is a director who can make a certain scene reasonably in frame and you're done.

What makes National Security a little better than most films of its formula is its humor, which deals frankly with race and violence and is funny. Lawrence is particularly sharp with the racial humor and Zahn is a surprisingly good foil. If it weren't for Zahn's ridiculously distracting facial hair I would have loved his performance, but I missed some of it watching his mustache come loose or fall off.

National Security has the feel of Lawrence's other slickly produced action comedies--Blue Streak and Bad Boys--except not as stylish. National Security is technically well produced but is all surface and no depth. In case you were wondering the answer is yes, there is a scene where the heroes outrun a giant fireball. You can't make a formula action movie without a slow motion fireball.

Movie Review: The Prodigy

The Prodigy (2019) 

Directed by Nicholas McCarthy

Written by Jeff Buhler

Starring Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Peter Mooney, Colm Feore 

The Prodigy is the latest in a long line of uninspired horror movies with an okay premise that falters in overly familiar execution. It is not merely that The Prodigy is predictable this horror movie from cult horror director Nicholas McCarthy (At the Devil’s Door) is insultingly predictable. The Prodigy is directed as if the film was made specifically for audiences so bereft of common sense that they need every last detail spelled out for them. 

The Prodigy stars Taylor Schilling of the Netflix hit Orange is the New Black as Sarah. As we meet her, Sarah is pregnant and on her way to giving birth to her first child. Crosscut with Sarah’s trip to the birthing center is the escape of Margaret (Brittany Allen) from the lair of a serial killer named Edward Scarka. Edward is known for cutting off women’s hands before murdering them and hiding their bodies. 

Scarka isn’t aware that his latest victim has escaped until he happens to see police approaching his door. At that moment, Edward’s strips nude walks out of his cabin in the woods to confront the cops and essentially commits suicide by cop. This happens just as Sarah welcomes her son Miles into the world and by some crazy movie magic, the soul of the serial killer leaps into the body of baby Miles without anyone noticing. 

At an early age, Miles (Jackson Robert Scott) demonstrates traits well beyond his years, but it is not until he turns 8 years old that his parents notice that he is not the loving young boy he once was. The serial killer has begun to come forward in Miles subconscious leading to him trying to kill his babysitter and eventually turning his evil eye to his extended family. Colm Feore then pops up as a doctor whose existence is predicated on delivering exposition for those in the audience who may nod off for part of The Prodigy and need a character to spell out and reiterate the plot. 

The imagery in The Prodigy is as insultingly simple minded as the script. Early on director McCarthy uses the image of Edward’s face split by makeup or mirrors to underline his dual nature. In case you need cliffs notes in the middle of the movie, Miles has one blue eye and one brown eye as further film school underlining of the kid’s dueling personalities, killer and kid. Perhaps this won’t be perceptible to those that don’t see many movies but if you see movies regularly it may be hard to stifle your groaning and simultaneous eye roll. 

I am struggling to find positive things to say here. I know people complain when I am just negative but there really isn’t much good to say about The Prodigy. It’s clean looking, it has solid if unspectacular cinematography. That’s something. When director McCarthy isn’t overdoing images of duality, he does cut a professional looking scene throughout The Prodigy. I have no qualms about praising The Prodigy for its crisp visuals. That however, is, sadly, not remotely enough for me to recommend the movie. 

Taylor Schilling is perhaps the other element of The Prodigy that is passable. Schilling is good at looking haunted and terrified. I guess it is fair to say that she doesn’t let the script insult her character’s intelligence. Sure, she makes mistakes but nothing a good rewrite of a couple of scenes could not have fixed. Had the film perhaps relied more on her abilities and less on telling instead of showing, she might have elevated the material. 

The Prodigy is not the kind of abomination that makes me hate going to the movies. Is that me saying something nice? The Prodigy is more harmlessly forgettable than it is offensive. Again, I can’t tell if I am being condescending or kind here. 

Movie Review: Mean Dreams

Mean Dreams (2016) 

Directed by Nathan Morlando

Written by Kevin Coughlan, Ryan Grassby

Starring Bill Paxton, Josh Wiggins, Sophie Nelisse, Colm Feore

Release Date May 15th, 2016

Published May 15th, 2016

The passing of actor Bill Paxton naturally led to a great deal of praise and reflection as the universally beloved actor was remembered across the media landscape. He may not have looked like it but Paxton was 61 years old when he died of complications related to surgery. His youthfulness is something that many of his friends have talked about in tribute and his youthful energy was reflected by his work rate. At the time of his passing Paxton was working on the CBS television series “Training Day” and had one film in post-production, “The Circle,” and another that he was about to hit the promotional trail for and the reason for this writing, “Mean Dreams.”

In “Mean Dreams” Bill Paxton portrays a righteous bastard and invests him with the kind of menace that he doesn’t seem capable of from the remembrance of his friends. It's a high estimation of his talent that he was so incredible at making you afraid of him and yet he’s remembered for such incredible kindness and generosity in his everyday life.

“Mean Dreams” is the story of Jonas (Josh Wiggins) and Casey (Sophie Nelisse), teenagers who fall in love when Casey becomes Jonas’ neighbor, living just a field of weeds away. The two meet in the forest and though Casey’s father Wayne (Paxton) isn’t very welcoming, the two begin spending time together and building the kind of short term romantic intensity only teenagers can create. The romantic montage is beautifully shot by cinematographer Steve Cosens and director Nathan Morlando. The montage does its job of establishing the relationship and moving us along to the thriller plot that is the film’s center.

Jonas and Casey’s budding romance is altered forever when Jonas witnesses Casey being beaten by her father and attempts to intervene. Later, Jonas once again tries to help Casey but finds himself trapped amid Wayne pulling off a drug deal and then a multiple murder. When he escapes this situation, Jonas decides to take the ill-gotten drug money from Wayne’s truck, gathers up Casey and her dog and goes on the run to escape from Wayne and his equally corrupt cop partner played by Colm Feore.

There is a very Terence Malick like vibe to “Mean Dreams” with “Badlands” unquestionably influential in the film. The very first scene of “Mean Dreams” shows Jonas seemingly wearing the uniform of Martin Sheen’s young bad boy from “Badlands” while crossing the dewy, overgrown Midwestern weeds that Malick made so beautiful. The look is the only similarity however, as the character of Jonas is certainly nothing like Sheen’s thoughtless murderer. Josh Wiggins gives Jonas toughness and vulnerability in equal measure with his determination and caring a bittersweet counterpoint to Bill Paxton's villainous Wayne. 

Bill Paxton is terrifyingly real in “Mean Dreams.” Playing a drunken, corrupt, small town cop, Paxton is all seething menace underlined with a depth of sadness that only makes him more frighteningly unpredictable. The specter of Wayne hangs over the whole film, especially in scenes he is not in because his menace permeates the whole film and while he is frighteningly realistic it’s hard not to fear him popping up like a horror film villain. He’s portrayed as clever and resourceful on top of being a desperate bastard and Paxton infuses the character with chilling life.

In his second feature, following the 2011 Canadian crime flick “Citizen Gangster,” director Nathan Morlando acquits himself well. The look of the “Mean Dreams” is often quite lovely, with a touch of influence from “Badlands” and a little of the grayish grit of “The Road,” Morlando shows that he has a distinctive eye. If “Mean Dreams” is lacking in any way, it’s in the thin characterization of his female characters as either absent or present victims.

“Mean Dreams” is an intense sit with a quick pace and a good look. The film also ranks as one of the best performances in Bill Paxton’s long and varied career. I am not the one to offer Paxton a proper tribute as I have often taken issue with his performances, especially his most well-known turns for friend and director James Cameron. That said, I can say that his talent is well displayed in “Mean Dreams” where even as a supporting villain he carries the film with his menacing presence pushing the plot forward regardless of whether he’s onscreen or not.

This won’t go down as Paxton’s final performance but it is certainly a memorable one and one that is more than worthy of being part of a retrospective of the man’s career. Gone too soon at 61.