Seven Psychopaths

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (Martin McDonagh, 2012)

In SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS screenwriter Marty Faranan (Colin Farrell) is struggling to come up with a script for a film of the same name.  His creative block might be related to the alcoholism that his friend Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell) suggests he has.  Then again, Billy can’t exactly be trusted completely.  The temperamental aspiring actor is hellbent on finding some way to collaborate with Marty on the screenplay.  While Billy is a good friend, he doesn’t make the wisest choices.

For instance, Billy is involved in a dog abduction scheme with Hans (Christopher Walken).  Billy takes the adored pets, and Hans returns them to the grateful owners for the reward money.  It looks to be an easy and risk-free method of lining their pockets until they take the beloved Shih Tzu of organized crime boss Charlie (Woody Harrelson). He doesn’t take kindly to news of his dog’s disappearance.  Charlie and his men don’t have to search long before they are chasing Billy, Hans, and a guilty-by-association Marty.
 
As a mash-up of ADAPTATION and ‘90s Tarantino-inspired films, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS is either too clever by half or not clever enough to fulfill all of its ambitions.  Like Charlie Kaufman, writer-director Martin McDonagh loads the film over capacity with ideas and structural complexities.  McDonagh zigzags plenty, sometimes to the film’s detriment, but he provides plenty to chew on among the ample laughs and bloodshed.  

On one level the existential comedy is about the process of filmmaking.  On another it’s concerned with what makes a man a man and the social expectations of how machismo is expressed.  Ultimately SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS is most interested in exploring the need for dreams, be they reflected in the movies or offered through religious promises about an afterlife.  Is what we do in our lives meaningless or the basis for the potential earning of some greater reward?  Are we even in control of writing our own life scripts, or is another screenwriter--the Almighty Creator, in fact--determining how the narrative develops?

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS doesn’t knuckle down and decide how to answer everything tossed out for consideration--how could it?--but even when it feels like little more than intellectual, postmodern spitballing, it satisfies as an exercise in storytelling.  It helps that McDonagh employs a who’s who of character actors to flesh out a rogue’s gallery worthy of living up to the film’s title.  As a foil to Farrell’s straight man, Rockwell is amusingly unhinged as a wild card of a friend.  Walken brings gravitas and soul to an eccentric man who knows all too well the tension between faith and despair in the face of the seemingly random.  Harrelson is a fearsome and humorous study in the film’s clash between violent and loving impulses.  Tom Waits and Harry Dean Stanton are plugged into the lineup for good measure.  SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS doesn’t reach the high bar McDonagh sets for it, yet he distributes a good number of pleasures with the film’s wit, contemplative offerings, and unpredictable nature.  

Grade: B

Total Recall

TOTAL RECALL (Len Wiseman, 2012)

In TOTAL RECALL factory worker Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) has a vivid dream in which he and a woman are being pursued by synthetic soldiers.  He wakes up to remember that he doesn’t live the thrilling life of a spy and that the beautiful woman beside him in bed is not the one which he fantasizes spending adventures with.

Quaid lives in The Colony, which used to be called Australia and is essentially the rundown home for the blue collar laborers in the United Federation of Britain.   A global chemical war has left much of the planet uninhabitable at the end of the 21st century, so working stiffs like Quaid must take an elevator-like transport--a sub-subway, if you will--that passes through the Earth’s core to the more affluent territory.  Times are tough in The Colony as the UFB’s Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) seeks to crack down on terrorists fighting back on the downtrodden’s behalf.

Feeling as though his life is missing something, Quaid eventually decides to visit Rekall, a company that can implant memories as if one actually experienced them. The only caveat is that customers cannot select memories that overlap with their real lives.  Quaid chooses the spy package, but things go wrong almost immediately.  The Rekall employee (John Cho) accuses Quaid of lying about his past, and next thing he knows the room is surrounded by law enforcement.  Through an exceptional display of physical skill and mental calculation, Quaid escapes and returns home to his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale).

Are Quaid’s experiences part of what he purchased, or is he really a secret agent?  The appearance of Melina (Jessica Biel), the woman from his dreams, further confuses Quaid as to what is real. Director Len Wiseman’s remake doesn’t have much interest in the thematic questions the premise raises.  This TOTAL RECALL is less humorous and contemplative than Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story that is the basis for both films.  Nevertheless, it succeeds on the modest aims of a self-contained action/science fiction film.  The action scenes mostly work, particularly some chase sequences, although Wiseman thoroughly botches the spatial element of a fight in an elevator.

While clearly inspired by other films--BLADE RUNNER is liberally borrowed from--the production and art design are quite beautiful.  Considering that Wiseman utilized an almost monochrome palette for the two UNDERWORLD films he directed, it’s nice to see him utilizing more color in the noir-like gloom of TOTAL RECALL’s dystopia.  

Wiseman is better off when he frees himself from the strictures of replicating Verhoeven’s version.  The obvious nods to the other film are more distracting than anything.  The hat tips feel less like homage and more like dutiful item box checking. While Wiseman’s slick update probably has no good reason for existing other than a rights owner wanting to cash in a chip that takes advantage of today’s special effects, this TOTAL RECALL is a solidly entertaining blast of summer movie spectacle.

Grade: B

Cassandra's Dream

CASSANDRA'S DREAM (Woody Allen, 2007)

Again using London as a backdrop, Woody Allen continues his exploration of the evil that people do with CASSANDRA'S DREAM. Working class brothers Terry (Colin Farrell) and Ian (Ewan McGregor) manage to get by, but like most people, both want just a little bit more. First it's a small sailboat they can't afford until Terry wins a sizable bet at the dog track. They name the boat Cassandra's Dream after the dog that brought them the unexpected windfall.

Terry's hot streak continues at the poker tables. While he vows to stop before getting in over his head, Terry is seduced to continue so he can rake in enough to buy a home for himself and his girlfriend Kate (Sally Hawkins). Inevitably his luck ends with disastrous consequences.

Ian, though, is in no position to bail out his brother. He also needs money. He fantasizes about investing in California hotels that could give him the financial freedom to ditch the drudgery of working in his father's struggling restaurant. Ian speaks as though this dream is the reality he is living. Such big talk, along with the luxury cars he borrows from the auto shop where Terry works, allows Ian to impress and begin dating Angela (Hayley Atwell), an actress with expensive tastes. To hold onto her, he must become the bigtime investor he claims to be.

Terry and Ian cling to the hope that their wealthy Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), always so supportive of his less fortunate sister and her family, will give them the cash they want. Howard is happy to help as long as the boys will do him one favor. He is under investigation and faces the possibility of losing everything and going to prison. If Terry and Ian will kill the the man ready to testify against Howard, all will be well for everyone.

As in MATCH POINT, Allen is fascinated with the wickedness humans are capable of justifying in the name of self-preservation. Terry relies too much on alcohol, pills, and gambling, and Ian's ambition outstrips his ability; however, neither are bad guys, just flawed individuals, until they accept the terms of Howard's proposal. CASSANDRA'S DREAM slowly ups the ante and provides the means for escape, but no matter how reluctantly they entered into the agreement, Terry and Ian make a choice that cannot be reversed.

CASSANDRA'S DREAM is fraught with uneasy tension as the brothers debate ethics and plot murder. The decision the characters ultimately choose seems as predestined as any in Greek tragedies, yet the film is chilling in depicting how Terry and Ian convince themselves that they have no other recourse. Divine supervision and reproach is absent in the universe Allen constructs, which is precisely why he theorizes people are capable of committing terrible acts.

McGregor shows Ian effortlessly slipping into amorality when tempted with the promise of a comfortable life. He's like the cat that eats the canary after a cost-benefit analysis. Terry, a car mechanic accustomed to dirty hands, doesn't have the compartmentalizing ability of his brother. Farrell's tortured performance is the film's guilty conscience. Seeing the insides of this rough-and-tumble actor gnaw at him brings the torment into sharp focus.

CASSANDRA'S DREAM is not a top-notch Woody Allen film, but this dark drama is a worthy addition to the director's career-long search for meaning in a world where randomness and cruelty often reign.

Grade: B