Movie Review: Dahmer

Dahmer (2002) 

Directed by David Jacobson

Written by David Jacobson 

Starring Jeremy Renner, Bruce Davison

Release Date June 21st, 2002 

Published July 28th, 2002

The mind of the killer is one that has fascinated filmmakers for decades. The question of what drives someone to kill is very conducive to drama. It involves conflict, emotion, action and intellect. Films like Silence of The Lambs or Henry: Portrait Of a Serial Killer attempt to make sense of psychotic behavior. In the new to video, Dahmer, writer director David Jacobsen looks into the mind of real life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, and like Silence and Henry it comes away without any real answers.

The story of Jeffrey Dahmer is well known; he was sentenced to 900+ years in jail for murdering and eating 19 men. What isn't well known is what drove Dahmer to be a killer. The film has two competing theories, first is his struggle with his homosexuality. Dahmer was openly gay but still ashamed of his sexuality.

The other theory involves the divorce of Dahmer's parents when he was 18. In flashbacks we meet Jeffrey's father well played by Bruce Davison as a cold but caring father completely at a loss when trying to understand his son’s odd moods.

In the present tense we meet one of Dahmer's victims, a 14-year old Asian boy who Dahmer offers to buy shoes for in exchange for letting him take his photograph back at his apartment. We see Dahmer's mind twisting and turning as he decides just what to do with his victim. We also meet the potential victim that would go on to be Dahmer's downfall, a young black hustler named Rodney (Artel Kayaru). Dahmer meets Rodney at a hunting shop where Dahmer purchases a hunting knife. They have an immediate attraction and are soon at Dahmer's apartment.

Jeremy Renner plays Dahmer and looks strikingly like the Dahmer I remember from TV. That greasy haired creepiness. Renner is very good at playing Dahmer's strange insecurity. It's one of the most unusual parts of Dahmer's story that many of his gay victims would have come to him willingly, but Dahmer still choose to drug them before having his way with them. Renner and Artel Kayaru as his last victim have a fantastic series of scenes where they challenge each other with intelligent dialogue and each scene has an undercurrent of twisted humor as Rodney trades irony-laced dialogue with Dahmer while not knowing how ironic it is.

Renner and writer director avid Jacobsen succeed in humanizing Dahmer, not so much that you identify with him, but enough that you understand why his neighbors were so shocked by his crimes. Dahmer was a quiet gay, a chocolate factory employee who kept to himself and never bothered anybody. Isn't that what they all say after they find out their neighbor was a serial killer? The film Dahmer gives you a sense of why they say that.

While the film isn't entertaining, it works on an intellectual level as a psychological profile of Jeffrey Dahmer. And while we will never really know what drove Dahmer to such sickness, we can at least learn a lesson from this film in perhaps how to spot the next Dahmer.

Movie Review Rendition

Rendition (2007)

Directed by Gavin Hood

Written by Kelly Sane 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgard, Alan Arkin

Release Date October 19th, 2007

Published October 18th, 2007 

Those who advocate intelligence gathering techniques that extend beyond our constitution have a compelling argument. They cite intelligence gathered by extraordinary measures that have saved lives and how men who are truly bad guys have received the treatment they deserve for the things they did. This argument holds sway until you hear from Arizona Senator John McCain, a real life torture victim.

Senator McCain, a right wing, pro-war hawk opposes any action that associates America and torture. McCain's point is that torture simply doesn't work. That a tortured man will tell you anything you want to hear. The movie Rendition makes McCain's point in dramatic fashion as it tells the interlocking story of how torture effects the lives of so many different people in so many different ways.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Rendition as Douglas Freeman a CIA pencil pusher who finds himself thrust into the job of case worker in northern Africa following a terrorist attack. His new job will be to observe the tactics of a man named Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor), tactics that are considered torture under American law. It will be Abasi who will attempt to glean information from the latest subject of what American law refers to as Extraordinary Rendition.

On his way home from a business trip in South Africa, Anwar Al Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is detained by police and then the CIA. It seems that he has received calls on numerous occasions from a terrorist named Rashid, calls he claims to be unaware of. Al Ibrahimi was returning home to Chicago where his very pregnant wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) and his six year old, American born son are waiting for him.

When he doesn't return and somehow disappears from the flight log, Isabella travels to Washington where an ex-boyfriend, Alan (Peter Sarsgard) works for a Senator (Alan Arkin). Using his connections, Alan finds out as much as he can about Anwar's disappearance. The trail leads all the way to the head of the CI, Corinne Whitman (Meryl Streep).

Those are the main players in Rendition and their relative positions. Where director Gavin Hood moves them from there is quite compelling and heart rending. Running parallel to this main story is the modest love story of Khalid (Moa Khouas) and Fatima (Zineb Oukach), the daughter of Abasi Fawal, the lead torture expert.

The melding of these two stories is where Rendition struggles and becomes sluggish and where director Gavin Hood employs a narrative trick that will irritate many in the audience as much as it did me. There is a moment, and I won't go into detail, late in the film where the timeline shifts and what we get is a scene that lets the air out of what was an electrically charged and tense series of scenes.

From this point on the films dueling stories become fractured and I was left struggling to connect these stories at all beyond the most tenuous of bonds.

A man, if tortured long enough, will tell you anything you want to hear. Whether what he says is true or not, doesn't matter to the torturers whose reward is for information. The truth is someone else's business. Rendition is extraordinarily powerful in bringing home the same message that Senator John McCain has always talked of, how torture simply doesn't work. Indeed, as the film states plainly, if you torture one man you create ten more who will rise up to fight back to protect them, or rescue them.

According to the Bush administration, Americans don't torture. No, we don't. By laws installed during the Clinton Administration, we hire less reputable countries to torture on our behalf. Ah, but Rendition doesn't let us off so easily that a liberal like myself can be satisfied with the answer that our policy of rendition is simply wrong. The lead torture expert in the film is portrayed as a good man who loves his family and believes he is doing the right thing.

Meryl Streep's CIA agent may be cold hearted and portrayed as something of a monster but her point about the lives she believes have been saved by information gathered through extraordinary rendition is powerful and logical. With the blinding certainty of a zealot, not unlike a certain President of the United States, she sees only the possibilities of this practice, not the collateral damage to our national conscience.

The love story between Khalid and Fatima is used to illustrate what some experts would call blowback. Militarized by the torture death of his brother, Khalid is enticed to become a suicide bomber. Fatima becomes his reason to live and there is a good deal of emotion invested in this subplot. It might have been more powerful without director Gavin Hood's narrative cheat late in the film that sucks all of the suspense out of the movie.

Yet another film in this early Oscar season, like The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, like Michael Clayton, Across The Universe or Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Rendition is a film with Oscar pretensions that falls just short of expectations. A grand cast of Oscar nominees and winners, compel us from beginning to end but narrative trickery and a strung together plot; let the air out of what should have been a potboiler of real emotion and suspense.

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: Crazy as Hell

Crazy as Hell (2002) 

Directed by Eriq LaSalle

Written by Jeremy Leven

Starring Michael Beach, Eriq LaSalle, Ronny Cox 

Release Date September 27th, 2002 

Published November 4th, 2002 

For eight years, Eriq LaSalle was best known for his sullen brooding performance as Dr. Peter Benton on NBC's ER. His rare big screen appearances are highlighted by a fascinating turn in the race drama The Drop Squad. In his directorial debut in Crazy As Hell LaSalle let's his hair down and delivers an over-the-top take on religion and race in a mental hospital.

Crazy As Hell tells the story of controversial psychiatrist Dr. Ty Adams (Another former ER actor, Michael Beach,). His non-medical approach to therapy has lead to the death of two patients but has seemingly helped more than it has hurt. Dr. Adams arrives at Sedah Psychiatric Hospital to an unwelcome glare from the facilities boss Dr. Delazo (Ronny Cox). Not only does Dr. Delazo disagree with Dr. Adams's form of therapy he is also unhappy about a documentary crew that has been installed in the hospital for thirty days to document Dr. Adams's unusual treatment. The documentary crew is headed up by the very engaging John C. McGinley.

A short time after Dr. Adams arrival, a new patient arrives. The patient is a large intimidating man who claims to be Satan himself (LaSalle). Having checked himself into the hospital voluntarily, Satan is not initially one of the doctor's patients.

Dr. Adams meanwhile is haunted by his past in which his wife and child were murdered and he believes it was his fault. Adams is plagued by visions of his late wife and has animated conversations with her that is picked up by the documentary cameras.

Dr. Adams's treatments from the start are aimed at one patient named Cheryl (Tracy Petit). Cheryl is a paranoid schizophrenic who doesn't speak to anyone. While on medication she is sedate and quiet. However under Dr. Adams's treatments, Cheryl is a screaming crying mess that refuses to leave her room. Despite Delazo's worries, she does begin to show some slow improvement. However, the little improvement that Dr. Adams makes with Cheryl is limited by the outbursts of Satan, who refuses to be ignored. He delights in interfering with Dr. Adams and teasing him with hints as to whether or not he really is who he says he is.

As a first time director, Eriq LaSalle shows a talent for atmospherics. His pacing could use some work as the film drags a little in the middle but the teasing aspects of the dialogue and performances are compelling enough to hold your interest.

One thing that LaSalle would benefit from is better casting. Michael Beach is a wooden performer of little charisma. He sells the dramatic aspects of the film as his character reveals a mental illness of his own induced by his wife's death. However, the interaction between Beach and LaSalle and Beach and Ronny Cox is stilted and unbelievable as they act circles around Beach. Beach's poor interaction with LaSalle and Cox seem like they are chewing scenery but in reality they are simply eating a scene around Beach because somebody had to make the scenes interesting.

If anything, Crazy As Hell shows the potential of a great filmmaker in Eriq LaSalle and I look forward to his next turn behind the camera.

Movie Review: The Boys from Brazil

The Boys from Brazil (1978) 

Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner

Written by Heywood Gould

Starring Gregory Peck, Sir Laurence Olivier, Steve Guttenberg

Release Date October 4th, 1978 

Published December 2nd, 2002 

Recently I discovered my new favorite cable channel is The History Channel. For some reason I find myself fascinated by bible history, mysteries of the unknown and the History channels specialty; World War 2. There doesn't seem to be any angle of WW2 that the History Channel hasn't covered, even movies about World War 2. A recent special detailed the numerous films with links to WW2 and one caught my eye, a strange 1978 teaming of acting legends Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier called The Boys From Brazil.

Mixing a strange bit of actual history with the limitless potential of genetic science and a whole lot of lame melodrama and you have one odd, unbelievable film.

It is an actual historic fact that the legendary monster Dr. Joseph Mengele, one of the authors of Hitler’s Final Solution, escaped Germany some time before the end of the war. Mengele was captured in South America years later by a pair Nazi hunters. The Boys From Brazil imagines Mengele (Gregory Peck) living well in South America and teaming with a small group of Nazi officers who, like Mengele, escaped Germany before the end of the war. For this group of Nazis the war is not over and Mengele has a rather far out plan that needs to be put into place immediately in order to work. The plan is an elaborate experiment that began before Hitler's death and continued with Mengele while living in exile in Paraguay. The details of the plan are uncovered by an eager young Jewish “Nazi hunter” played by Steve Guttenberg. 

Yes, THAT Steve Guttenberg.

The young Nazi hunter is murdered for spying on this historic meeting but not before he relays a good portion of the plan to the world’s leading Nazi hunter, Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier). The plan calls for the assassinations of 94 seemingly random men all age 65 and all civil servants. Lieberman is at first highly skeptical of the story but after learning of some unusual deaths of men across the world fitting similar circumstances, Lieberman begins looking for a pattern and finds it in the men's children.

History tells us that Hitler wasn't just psychotic, he was nuts too. He and Mengele conducted horrible experiments on both Jews and non-Jews, including genetic testing and attempts at cloning. There is documented proof that Hitler looked into the potential of cloning himself and that he had Mengele take samples of his DNA for such purposes. The Boys From Brazil imagines that these experiments were successful. All of which leads to a dramatic confrontation between the evil doctor and the Nazi hunter in a farmhouse in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

No I'm not kidding!

The film is brazen in its ridiculous premise and awful scripting. One could even say that any dramatizing of Mengele especially one so broad and weird as this portrayal is highly offensive and tarnishes the memory of the people Mengele tortured. The film is so poorly staged and it's shocking revelations so stupid your left wondering how a film like this could ever get made.

Even more puzzling is how two amazing actors like Peck and Sir Laurence Olivier could look at a script so ridiculous and actually see something worth filming. Olivier actually does a scene opposite Steve Guttenberg, the man who made Lawrence of Arabia playing opposite the guy from Police Academy!

Maybe Peck and Olivier thought they were making a comedy. That might explain there loud over-the-top performances that were so hammy they would make Jeremy Irons blush. The Boys From Brazil is a movie only Mystery Science Theater could appreciate. It’s laughably over the top, poorly staged and ridiculously scripted. And to think, I could have been watching The History Channel. 

Movie Review The Alamo

The Alamo (2004) 

Directed by John Lee Hancock

Written by John Lee Hancock, Stephen Gaghan, Leslie Bohem

Starring Patrick Wilson, Billy Bob Thornton, Dennis Quaid, Jason Patric 

Release Date April 9th, 2004 

Published April 8th, 2004 

With the patriotic fervor of the war in Iraq having died down, the time for a rousing patriotic war film may have passed. Indeed the producers of The Alamo had to be considering that fervor when they went into production in early 2003. Unfortunately, they lost the opportunity to capitalize on it when the film was deemed not ready for its original December release. Now dumped with little fanfare into the month of April, The Alamo arrives as a professionally made but unmemorable history lesson.

Directed by John Lee Hancock (The Rookie), The Alamo tells the story of how legendary figures Jim Bowie (Jason Patric), William Travis (Patrick Wilson) and Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) came to a tiny church in San Antonio to fight for the idea that would become the state of Texas.

For Bowie, San Antonio was the home of his late wife where he had spent many happy nights. His return to San Antonio and to the Alamo was a favor to his friend General Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid). Houston was to retrieve the Texas army's largest canon and return it to Gonzales, Texas where the leaders are debating their future. By taking the canon, they are essentially ceding San Antonio to the Mexicans.

William Travis on the other hand, has been charged with holding the Alamo until a decision can be made as to how Texas will declare and defend itself from Mexico's dictator Santa Ana. Will the Texans declare their independence or negotiate a settlement with Santa Anna to hold onto their land under Mexican rule? Under the assumption that Santa Anna will not attack in the winter, the Alamo is thought to be fairly secure, allowing time for the leaders to debate their options.

For David Crockett, as he prefers to be called, Texas is a place to reclaim his legend after losing his congressional seat in Tennessee. Crockett has spoken to Sam Houston and been assured a good deal of land and power if Texas is declared independent. Crockett arrives at the Alamo unaware that the fighting has not stopped, only slowed due to the weather and the Texans' indecision over how to declare independence.

The setup for the climactic battle is slow and drawn out, probably because the actual battle of the Alamo didn't last long. Once Santa Anna decided on a full frontal attack with thousands of Mexican soldiers, there was little that the three hundred or so Texans could do to stop them. The setup for the battle has its moments, such as when Davy Crockett grabs his fiddle and plays along with Santa Anna's army marching band. Still, for the most part it's all rather dull.

We learn little about the historical figures of Bowie, Travis or Crockett other than both Bowie and Travis were slave owners and that Crockett never actually jumped a raging river or took on 20 men at once. Credit Billy Bob Thornton with the film’s best performance. Davy Crockett is a poetic pragmatist who struggles with his legendary status that was assured well before he became a martyr for Texas independence at the Alamo.

The film’s best moments are the battle scenes, the siege at the Alamo, which is quick and brutal, and the battle of Houston where Sam Houston avenged the Alamo by routing Santa Anna's army in 18 minutes. Director John Lee Hancock manages one great moment of emotion with Houston's "Remember The Alamo" rallying cry but other than that the film is rather staid and emotionless. Well made, but soulless.

The film is very professionally crafted with solid acting and a well remembered story. However, it plays like a history lesson from a very dull high school class. None of the characters, aside from Davy Crockett, have much of a personality and none of the supporting performances makes any impression whatsoever.

There was a controversial rumor about Davy Crockett's death but it's only a misunderstanding. The Crockett legend is very much intact at the end of the film. Without the controversy there is very little that is memorable about this Alamo.

Movie Review After April

After April (2001) 

Directed by Brian Evans 

Written by Ryan Farley 

Starring Michael McKiddy, Angela Duffy 

Release Date December 2nd, 2002 

Published December 2nd, 2002 

AIDS is an issue that has disappeared from mainstream consciousness. That doesn't mean that it isn't still killing people and destroying lives because it certainly is, especially in urban communities. What that means is that AIDS is no longer the cause celebre it once was. Hollywood stars still wear their fashionable AIDS ribbons and show up for the occasional benefit. Still, AIDS statistics that were once front page news are now buried in the back and research into a cure for AIDS languishes even as great strides continue to be made.

In the movie universe you would think AIDS has been cured, because few of us can recall the last time we saw a movie with an AIDS afflicted character. The film After April does not come out with an agenda aimed at bringing AIDS to the forefront once again. Moreover it deals with the disease in an intelligent and emotional way one hopes will make people remember this most horrible of killers and the lives it destroys.

After April is the brainchild of director Brian Evans and writer Ryan Farley. The film stars Michael McKiddy as Patrick, an inner city white kid whose parents are non existent and whose drug habit was an all consuming problem until he met Eve, played by Angela Duffy. While Eve is also a junkie they both would like to get clean and leave their inner city home. Just one week from starting a new life with the help of Eve's Aunt, Patrick gets some very bad news. 

A letter informs Patrick that the local blood bank could not use his blood for unspecified reasons. Determined to know why his blood was rejected Patrick and Eve go to the blood bank and Patrick intimidates a bureaucratic nurse into telling him what happened,. Patrick's blood was rejected because he has HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Angry and depressed Patrick begins to search for the girl he is certain infected him, April, played by Stephanie Slongo. A fellow junkie, April has become a prostitute since she met Patrick. In flashback, we see Patrick meet April in a bar where she entices him into an alley where they have unprotected sex.

Knowing that Patrick brought this onto himself makes him difficult to sympathize with but McKiddy's sad desperate performance makes Patrick a frighteningly real character. McKiddy's Patrick is like someone we know, anyone who sees this film will see traits that they recognize in people who are close to them. Much like Brad Renfro's performance in Bully, McKiddy's raw realism gives After April more affect than you’re expecting.

Angela Duffy as Eve is far more than your average movie girlfriend. Not merely a plot device Eve is a fully fleshed out character who allows the audience to care about Patrick because she cares about him. Even in Patrick's most extreme moments Eve stays with him not because she is weak or needy but because she truly cares about him.

The cast is rounded out by Ethan Jordan as Carney, Patrick and Eve's dealer until they decided to clean up. Carney is also April's dealer so when Patrick goes looking for her Carney is the first person he goes to. Surprisingly philosophical for a dope dealer, Carney combines an unusual social conscience with his antisocial dealings. Carney doesn't like what has happened to his neighborhood, but openly admits that he is part of the problem. He honestly respects Patrick's attempt to clean up and when he sees Patrick slipping as he searches for April, Carney offers wise council. Though his rap about how having inner city kids killing each other is what the government wants makes the character look ridiculous, Jordan's honest well delivered performance keeps the character grounded and real.

The unique combination of revenge thriller and an issue as serious as HIV makes After April one of the most fascinating films I've seen in a long time. The film’s direction and production values could stand for improvement but as it is, After April is a raw and thought-provoking film. A film with more than just an idea, more than just a gimmick, April brings the tragedy of AIDS to the streets in a way that is shocking and attention grabbing without being sensationalistic or preachy. This is a very good movie.