Movie Review: Beat

Beat (2000) 

Directed by Gary Walkow 

Written by Gary Walkow 

Starring Norman Reedus, Kiefer Sutherland, Courtney Love, Kyle Secor, Ron Livingston 

Release Date January 29th, 2000 

Published October 29th, 2002 

Knowing little more than the names of the Beat poets of the 1950's I was intrigued to see a film that I assumed would shed some light on the work and motivation of what has been called the golden age of American poetry. Instead, with the drama, Beat, we get a very short and at times quite dull love story involving bland secondary characters who rotate around the poets one would expect the film to focus on.

Beat stars Courtney Love as Joanie Burroughs, the wife of William S. Burroughs, whose death at his hands in 1951 is said to be what launched William S. Burroughs' best work. Burroughs is played by Kiefer Sutherland, in what amounts to an extended cameo. His Burroughs spends most of the film pursuing an off camera affair with another man. In 1951, the Burroughs are living in Mexico as William ducks a heroin conviction in New York. Here, they are visited by a pair of old friends, Allen Ginsburg (Ron Livingston) and Lucien Carr (Norman Reedus). Their aim for their trip is to convince Joan to come back to New York with or without William. Lucien is in love with Joan and sees William's cheating as his opportunity to steal her away.

While one might expect a film about poets to be very talky, not much more than talking happens in Beat, though not the kind of talking you would hope for. I was hoping to hear poetry, but, for a film that features William S. Burroughs, Allan Ginsburg and alludes to a character playing Jack Kerouac, there is surprisingly little poetry. Livingston is also the film's narrator and, at times, he does riff, but those riffs are abbreviated. Most of the film consists of discussions about Lucien having been released from jail after murdering a gay friend (Homicide's Kye Secor), who tried to get a little too close. Reedus's Lucien is often referred to as the catalyst of the New York poetry scene, though he does not seem to compose much (if any) poetry. His place in history is not well known.

The film's ending, also portrayed in the Burroughs adaptation Naked Lunch, is tragic but not unexpected. Anyone familiar with Burroughs' history knows this actually happened. Whether or not the incident portrayed followed so closely after a visit by Carr and Ginsburg is unclear. Most of the film is an allusion to events as they may have happened, implying the reason and motivations.

Clocking in at a slim 67 minutes, Beat begins with little narrative momentum and runs out of it quickly. The film has no story, and what's worse, it has some of the most fascinating people of the last half-century but doesn't portray them doing what they do best. A movie about poets with little or no poetry... whose idea was this? 

Movie Review: Trapped

Trapped (2002)

Directed by Luis Mandoki 

Written by Greg Iles

Starring Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Kevin Bacon, Courtney Love, Dakota Fanning 

Release Date September 20th, 2002 

Published September 20th, 2002 

One would hope that the recent spate of child kidnappings would preclude Hollywood hacks from using that situation as a screenwriting trick. The child in danger plot is the cheapest of the cheap manipulative tricks screenwriters use when they are creatively bankrupt. We, however should not be surprised that Hollywood doesn't care. These hacks have so little ingenuity that the child in danger is the only tool in their box. The god-awful action film, Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever employs this cliche, and the film Trapped does Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever one better by basing the entire film on the hackneyed plot device.

Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend star as a loving husband and wife with a cute as a button daughter. When Townsend leaves on a business trip, a sleazy con artist played by Kevin Bacon seizes the opportunity to kidnap Townsend's daughter and hold his wife hostage. As this is happening, Townsend himself is taken hostage by Bacon's partner, played by Courtney Love. Pruitt Taylor Vince rounds out the cast as the kidnapper with a soft spot for the kid and a softer head who is easily manipulated by the plot. Essentially the daughter will be held for 24 hours, after which ransom will be paid and the child will be returned to the parents.

Bacon is effectively creepy, while Love does a variation of her real life persona, as a drugged out nympho. Townsend and Theron are wooden and surprisingly dull. (Well, at least Townsend was surprisingly dull.) Earlier this year, Townsend starred in Queen Of The Damned, and though that film was very bad, Townsend had some effectively scary moments that, in a better film, could have been star-making moments. In Trapped, Townsend is woefully miscast as a rich yuppie doctor who still dresses as if he were an 18-year old skater with a gold card.

Trapped is undone by its premise and screenwriter Greg Iles, who also wrote the book on which the film is based. Iles and director Luis Mandoki apparently don't read the newspaper, though it doesn't take a genius to intuit how many people might be sensitive to the kidnapping of a child being used as a plot. Films that put children in danger are some of the lowest forms of film--right up there with white actors in blackface and Freddie Prinze Jr.

Trapped is the bastard stepchild of numerous child in danger films, and arguably the worst of the bunch.