The Girl Cut in Two

The Girl Cut in Two asks us to empathize with Ludivine Sagnier, an attractive and capable young woman torn between the adulterous lecher who whores her out to his buddies and the murdering child molester who wants her for his very own.

How very French.

Thing is, I’m not French.  The lecher creeped me out.  The murderer scared me.  The woman, well, I didn’t understand her.  These two men aren’t the only two men in the world.  I couldn’t understand why she didn’t tell both of them to hoof it and go find herself a nice young man who was neither an emotional nor physical threat to herself or others.

So there I sat, watching characters I didn’t care about behave in ways I didn’t understand.  Oh, and looking at my watch.  The Girl Cut in Two gave me no “in,” no one to root for, and nothing to care about.  It looked professional, Ludivine Sagnier is a great beauty, and I enjoyed see The Transporter’s François Berléand play the lecher.  In the end, however, these people behaved in ways that made no sense to me and that I couldn’t imagine.

Then again, I’m not French.

13 Assassins

13 Assassins is as good as movies get.

The picture, a “men on a mission” story set in pre-Meiji Japan, opens with a samurai committing seppuku, a ritualized form of suicide in which the individual disembowels himself.  It’s incredibly difficult and painful, and 13 Assassins presents it in all its horror by not showing it to us at all.  We see the samurai prepare, then we see his face in closeup as he goes through agonizing pain and exertion.  Understand that seppuku was normally committed with a “second” standing by, sword raised to decapitate the samurai after he makes the first cut, to spare the man the agony of disembowelment.  This man has no “second.”  Music plays, sound effects suggest what’s happening below the frame, and our stomachs curl and our hands clench and our hearts break for this man.  We’re only two minutes into this movie, and we feel moved and involved and completely engaged in the world of the samurai and the repercussions of this act.  Later, another samurai commits the same act under different circumstances.  He has a “second,” and this suicide takes on an entirely different aspect of nobility and technical excellence in its portrayal.

I’m not arguing that suicide is cool.  I’m saying that seppuku was a part of feudal Japanese culture, and that 13 Assassins approaches this subject dramatically, artfully, and with perfect technical execution.  I use the film’s portrayal of seppuku to illustrate what the film does throughout its 2 hour and 21 minute run time: it nails feudal Japan, from its social structure to its mythology to its code of honor and even to its view of suicide.  It does so with class when appropriate and with horror when appropriate, and it does so with the absolute surety.

13 Assassins is not some kind of Merchant-Ivory historical fetishization.  That first seppuku propels a “mission” film that rocks every beat, from the gathering of the team to the cohesion on the road to the laying of the traps to a final battle that compares with the absolutely fundamental Seven Samurai.  Its characters are interesting.  Its jokes are funny.  Its action set pieces, including the aforementioned (45-minute long) final battle, are both cool and comprehensible.  This is a good time at the movies.

Credit director Takashi Miike, whose Ichi the Killer and the short film “Box” from Three Extremes suggested talent, but not on this level.  Kôji Yakusho, aging very well since 1996’s Shall We Dance?, is suitably wise and commanding in the Takashi Shimura ‘Samurai Leader’ role.  Gorô Inagaki, new to me, does petulant villainy as well as I’ve ever seen it done and gives us a character we can really love to hate. 

Y’know, I could go right down the credits list, telling you how great everything and everyone is.  I could probably figure out a way to compliment the Key Grip.  But here’s the bottom line: 13 Assassins is a flat-out classic, successful in every way.  If you care about movies, you need to see this as soon as you can.

Dave

While DAVE may, technically, be a romantic comedy in that it's romantic and everything turns out right in the end, it isn't particularly funny. It's, well, it's congenial and comfortable, like a golden retreiver that puts its head on your knee, looking for a scratch behind the ears.

DAVE stars the eminently likeable Kevin Kline as the titular character, a regular guy who doubles for the President on the fateful night when the Chief Executive goes down with a brain anyeurism. Before he really knows what's happening, he's been pressed into service as a stand-in President by marvelously evil Chief of Staff Frank Langella (in a career-resurrecting performance). Wouldn't you know it, Dave's a better president than the President. Add in some domestic conflict with an estranged first lady (Sigourney Weaver, excellent as usual), some fuzzy politics about full employment, and some wonderful character moments with Charles Grodin as a small-time accountant who advises his friend to "Get out of here as fast as you can," and you have a congenial, comfortable romantic comedy that's as warm as as pair of good slippers.

DAVE works for many reasons, not the least of which being the balance between Kline's charm and Langella's menace. Kline's one of the most likeable actors working today, and he uses that likeablility to make us buy speeches and moments that we'd reject from a lesser actor. Langella strikes just the right chord of menace for a romantic comedy - scary enough to create dramatic tension, yet not so evil as to blow the film's mood. It's great work, well directed by Ivan Reitman, and the whole thing is a pleasure to watch.

As far as romantic comedies go, it's a classic.

L'Eclisse

I hated L'ECLISSE.

The film begins in the drawing room of Monica Vitti and Francisco Rabal. They're exhausted, both emotionally and physically. She's leaving him, things could get ugly, but they never do. That would be too dramatic. Instead, they end up simply going their separate ways, and the film follows Vitti over the next several days.

Unfortunately, Vitti is neither particularly interesting nor particularly pleasant to look at. She feels disaffected, she walks here and there, she falls into an unengaging relationship with Alain Delon; none of which happen with much passion (I know a film romance is in trouble when a doorbell rings and I think, "Maybe somebody will come in and shoot them. That'd add some drama."). Finally, the film ends with something I interpreted as a big "f you" to the audience: minutes and minutes of dull, empty cityscape. No drama. No story. Just images. F you, Antonioni. If I want images, I'll go to an art museum. Tell me a story.

I do respect that Antonioni is trying to do something here. Mine is not ire at poor craftsmanship or lazy filmmaking. L'ECLISSE certainly does not aspire to the mediocrity of, say, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE remake, which I'm having trouble mustering the energy to write about. My problem is that Antonioni disregards the first law of narrative film: engage and entertain your audience. L'ECLISSE is two hours of people I don't care about doing things I don't care about for reasons I don't care about. I'm glad it's over.

Cops

My kid has been on a SpongeBob kick lately. I can take the cartoon in small doses, but I burn out after an episode or two. That's why I put my foot down the other night: "No SpongeBob. There's gotta be something better on the TiVo."

And there it was on the list, a Buster Keaton picture by the name of COPS which had aired on the station that has become the only reason I continue to pay for TV: TCM. COPS begins with a rejection: a wealthy young lady tells the hopeful Buster that she won't marry him until he makes it in business. Well, Keaton's no slouch. Before he knows it, he's the proud owner of a cart full of household goods that may or may not technically be his, but that's not really a problem until he, well, the title does imply that cops get involved, so I'm not giving away too much, am I?

This is a terrific chase movie, loaded with stunts both funny and dazzling. We rewound bits and pieces several times over, both for guffaws and wows, and the aforementioned kid chuckled, giggled, and outright laughed far more than I've ever seen him do while watching SpongeBob. Thanks, TCM, for providing a home for so many wonderful silents. You make my satellite subscription worth every penny.

Alphaville

I fired up ALPHAVILLE feeling neutral. I'm not a Godard fetishist, but neither do I repudiate the man. I was ready to take what this movie had to give and give it, in return, a fair shot. ALPHAVILLE began by puzzling me. Who was this supposed reporter from "LeMonde / Pravda"? Who were these people he was interested in? Why did some guy burst into his hotel room and try to kill him, and why did our supposed hero proceed to unwind by playing a little William Tell with his handgun and a hotel prostitute?

After a while, ALPHAVILLE went from puzzler to fascinator, as it rolled into a water ballet from Busby Berkeley's most depraved fantasies. In the process, it evoked the constant, all-pervasive fear that comes of living under a totalitarian regime and drew me into its world and its hero, one Ivan Johnson (or, as we would later come to call him, Lemmy Caution). As Lemmy came to understand Alphaville, its government, and its people, so I came to understand what was going on, who was targeting whom, and what the heck Anna Karina had to do with anything. As Lemmy took action, the scenario grew simpler still, 'til I was cheering him on and hoping he'd find both what he'd been sent for and what he needed.

I may have come into ALPHAVILLE feeling neutral, but I came out of it feeling energized and excited. Here's a movie that's willing to take risks with the conventions of filmed narrative, and here' s a movie that wraps its thoughtfulness in pulp and never takes its eye off the ball of any sound film's first priority: entertaining its audience.

ALPHAVILLE is a winner.

Zodiac

ZODIAC is a terrific film, once you get past the fact that it isn't about Zodiac.

Director David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, Panic Room) gives the movie a completely absorbing feel, beginning with '60s -era Paramount and Warner Brothers production logos. He casts it with a veritable all-star roster of character actors (Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Phillip Baker Hall - hey, where's Jim Beaver?) and stars with the hearts of character actors (Jake Gyllenhall, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr.). He shocks us early with the violence of the Zodiac murders, and then pulls back into one of the most interesting takes on the procedural I've ever seen.

I walked into this movie thinking it would be, essentially, Jake Gyllenhaal and the Quest for the Zodiac. Fincher fools us into
believing that would be the case; but he takes long detours into the life of Inspector David Toschi (Ruffalo), a then-famous member of the SFPD who served as the models for both Bullitt and Dirty Harry; and shorter ones into the life of Paul Avery (Downey, turning in another in a long list of memorable performances). Gyllenhall's the obsessive, the guy who's fascinated by the Zodiac killings and just can't let it go, at the expense of his relationship with his wife and children. Toschi's the professional, the guy who does this for a living and, for all his notoriety, comes across as the most balanced individual in the entire enterprise. Downey, well, he's a shipwreck waiting for a shoal, and Zodiac provides that shoal as he lets his own
fascination with the case drag him down.

Most procedurals are about the details of hunting down a given criminal, normally culminating in a car chase or a shootout. This procedural is about those same details, but it's also about the nature of obsession. The main characters deal with it in different ways, and the film itself does a wonderful job letting us dip a vicarious toe into that whirlpool, ourselves. It works - by the third act, I was so thoroughly hooked that I lost track of my surroundings and nearly missed my Metro stop.

After seeing a string of kids' movies and foreign pictures, I was ready for a modern American drama. ZODIAC delivered.

Duel

I'd been meaning to see DUEL pretty much forever. I knew it was
Spielberg's first picture, and that was enough to get me to queue it
up. Had I known that Richard Matheson had written it, however, I'd've
queued it up much sooner than now. Matheson, of course, wrote some of
the best episodes of The Twilight Zone. How could I have missed his
involvement in DUEL?

DUEL plays like a long-form Twilight Zone episode. A man is cast into
a stressful and eerie situation and the drama goes from there. It's
successful, in that it takes a premise that makes one think, "How are
they going to spin this out for an hour and a half" and manages to
work that premise to great effect. Dennis Weaver, as the hapless
everyman, does fine work, and the movie grabbed me from the opening
shots.

DUEL is a winner.

Grizzly Man

I'm trying to decide whether GRIZZLY MAN is a very good movie or a downright brilliant one.

The photography alone is very good; Herzog's calling our attention to the photography is brilliant. The insights into Timothy Treadwell are very good; Herzog's editing of Treadwell's soliloquoys is brilliant. The film's balancing on the thin line between fascination and morbid voyeurism is very good; Herzog's occasional steps across the line are brilliant.

GRIZZLY MAN is a collaboration between Herzog and a dead man, a dead man who left hundreds of hours of (mostly self-shot) footage behind. Timothy Treadwell, Herzog's collaborator and the titular Grizzly Man, is disturbed, sympathetic, angry, profoundly innocent, and absolutely in love with Nature. Treadwell's the kind of guy who would've loved MARCH OF THE PENGUINS. He anthropomorphizes bears, foxes, even Alaska, seeming to believe that if he just loves them enough, they'll love him back. But bears are bears and nature doesn't love him back. It's a lesson Herzog understands but Treadwell may never have learned.

GRIZZLY MAN'S power comes from the juxtaposition of Treadwell's innocence, Herzog's wisdom, and the stupendous beauty of Alaska and the grizzlies Treadwell was foolish enough to try to befriend. Because Treadwell was a fool, he shot footage of these bears unlike anything I've ever seen. He got right up next to them. He talked to them, scolded them, even swam with them. He seemed to make something of a pet of a local fox. He lived his dream, right up until he (and his apprehensive girlfriend) died in a grizzly's hungry maw. Amazingly, Treadwell's camera was running (lens cap on) at the time of his death, and Herzog shot some oblique footage of himself listening to the couple's final minutes. In the end, Herzog doesn't share those minutes with us. Instead, he advises the keeper of the tape to destroy it, as it's simply to horrible to own. It's better to remember Treadwell as he was: innocent, foolish, and enveloped in beauty.

And it's that beauty I'll remember long after I've forgotten Treadwell's name. Thank you for a brilliant movie, gentlemen.

Shadow of a Doubt

Uncle Charlie's coming for a visit. He's been away for a while, engaged in "business," and now here he is, flush with cash. Charlie's happy to see her namesake uncle, whom she adores in ways both appropriate and inappropriate. Things are about to go very wrong.

And there's the setup for a thriller that's disturbing, engaging, and, yes, thrilling. Joseph Cotton plays Uncle Charlie as a classic sociopath: charismatic, evil, and utterly remorseless. Teresa Wright, as the younger Charlie, does a wonderful job of showing the scales falling from her character's eyes. The film itself winds us tighter and tighter, and the last fifteen minutes had me thoroughly on edge.

Simply put, I enjoyed every frame of SHADOW OF A DOUBT. What a delight.

PS There's a scene in the movie in which Cotton takes Wright to a seedy bar to tell her what's what. As I watched this movie on the Metro last night, someone sat behind me at that very moment. My fellow passenger smelled just like that bar: before I knew it, I was enveloped in the smells of cigarette smoke and alcohol. Talk about an immersive viewing experience!

Crank

Last fall, I was faced with a dilemma. I had one night at an airbase in Rota, Spain, and CRANK was showing at the base theater. I generally like Jason Statham movies, and I wanted to see this one. I’d been to Rota many times before and felt that the city had little new to offer. Nevertheless, it was Spain and I did know that CRANK would show up on Netflix after a while. Ultimately, I chose to go out. Even if Rota was a familiar city, after all, it was Spain.

I chose well, for, as it turns out, I am not CRANK’s target demographic. In fact, this film was made with such laserlike focus that anyone who is not a male between the ages of fifteen and seventeen is not CRANK’s target demographic. CRANK is pure adolescent male fantasy with a Nietszchian disregard for anything like the bounds of societal restraint. In the world of CRANK, every car goes fast, every gun makes a big loud bang, every normal person is either a target or an obstacle, and every woman is merely a vagina transportation system. This movie scorns everyone and everything, except for men with power, and it gets tiresome quite quickly.

I have no problem with Crank’s premise: a hit man has been injected with a compound that will kill him if his heartbeat gets too low, so he needs to keep the adrenalin flowing just to stay alive – now he’s got to keep his heart racing long enough to exact revenge. It’s a great idea, and Jason Statham is a great choice for such a role in such a movie. It’s the execution that bothers me: the fight choreography is pedestrian and the editing indecipherable; the only noninterchangeable female character is an insufferable idiot whose only redeeming trait is her nonstop sexual availability; and the postproduction work is so intrusive that not only did it keep reminding me that I was watching a movie, it kept reminding me that I was watching a bad movie.

If CRANK had trusted its premise, had trusted its star, had trusted in the moviegoer’s recognition that women are, in fact, human beings, it could have been a fun action picture. But then, what do I know? I’m not a male between fifteen and seventeen. I am so glad I went out in Rota.

Speedy

Harold Lloyd's last silent picture, 1928's SPEEDY, is an enjoyable romp through a New York City that we'll never see again. From Penn Station to Yankee Stadium to Times Square to Coney Island, SPEEDY crafts an adventure both fascinating and funny.

In SPEEDY, Lloyd's a well-meaning chap who can't seem to hold a job for very long. That's ok, because he's a resourceful sort and he can be counted on to come through when the chips are down. The first half of the film has him bouncing from job to job but, once he finds himself in the second half, he enlists all his powers and all his friends in service to rescuing his father's business.

SPEEDY works because Lloyd is such an agreeable fellow, and because he makes full use of New York City in the film. It's practically a travelogue for another time, and it even features a brief role for the Babe himself, Babe Ruth as a man who absolutely has to get to Yankee Stadium on time.

SPEEDY didn't make me fall off the couch, but I found it funny, warm, and good use of time. Enjoy.

Narc

Joe Carnahan's NARC is a very well acted, rather overdirected, and ultimately satisfying procedural.

In NARC, Jason Patric returns to a character that seems right out of his criminally underappreciated RUSH. Det. Sgt. Nick Tellis is a cop in rough shape. He used to be an undercover narcotics officer, but he accidentally hit a pregnant woman in a gunfight and he's barely hanging on the paycheck from his administrative leave. Oh, and he may have been a drug addict, to boot. Tellis is given a chance to return to active duty to solve the murder of another undercover narc, and he's teamed with the always unpredictable (and possibly psychotic) Ray Liotta.

The story has its usual twists and turns, betrayals and redemptions. What makes it stand out are the subtle, finely tuned performances of Patric and Liotta. We come to believe in these guys and their journeys, and the actors bring a much needed reality to a film that might otherwise succumb to its love of blue filters, jump cuts, and dazzling feats of editing.

This movie has some strong positives and some mild negatives. Overall, I'd say it's worth the rental.

Nanny McPhee

I absolutely adored Emma Thompson's NANNY MCPHEE.

The film takes a reliable formula, a nanny shows up and squares away an intractable household, and works magic with it. Emma Thompson is marvelous as the titular nanny, Colin Firth turns in fine work as the hapless widowed father, Kelly MacDonald is utterly luminous as the scullery maid with a fairy-tale ending in store for her, and brilliant actors Angela Lansbury, Derek Jacobi, and the young Thomas Sangster prove that there's no such thing as a small role.

NANNY MCPHEE looks great, with a palette that reminds both that we're watching a fairy tale and that, in this world, everything will turn out fine. Its Thompson - penned dialogue sparkles, Patrick Doyle's score perfectly complements the action, and the film's ending is remarkably satisfying. This film does everything it sets out to do, and it does it with uninetrrupted excellence. Watch this one with the kids, or watch it alone - regardless, everyone in the room is guaranteed to have a good time.

While I'm writing about one of her works, allow me to take a moment to appreciate the remarkable career of Emma Thompson. When I first noticed her in HENRY V, she was just another beauty. From there, she went on to DEAD AGAIN, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, and HOWARD'S END, just to name a few. She took home a BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Oscar for Sense and Sensibility, and her career hasn't slowed down since. She effortlessly moves from small pieces like THE WINTER GUEST to blockbusters like the HARRY POTTER series without missing a beat, and she's consistently smart, affecting, and wonderful in everything she does.

What a marvelous talent.

Highlander: Endgame

I remember how we began, with HIGHLANDER. It was the days before the internet, and I walked into the theater solely on the strength of Sean Connery's name on the poster. You surprised me. You dazzled me. You found a special place in my heart.

But you changed. In HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING, I didn't even recognize you. Everything you had told me about yourself turned out to be a lie, and you treated me like the dirt under your shoes. So I walked away.

I was done with you. I didn't need you in my life. But then you came around, full of promise, with HIGHLANDER III: THE SORCERER. It wasn't like the first time, and our trust had been broken, but at least it seemed like you were making an effort. Finally, though, I realized you were an empty shell - all promise and no delivery. We were finished. Through. I had my own path to tread.

Why, oh why, did I allow myself to fall into the same trap when you came back around with HIGHLANDER IV: ENDGAME? I knew what I was getting into, but I couldn't resist. My heart kept going back to those wonderful early days, even as my mind told me that no good could come of you. I should have listened. Once you had me committed again, you didn't even try to act like a real movie. You were nothing more than an "extra special episode with special guest Christopher Lambert." Your production values were strictly cable tv - and one of the high-numbered channels, to boot. Your heroes were lame, and your villains even lamer. Your story was pointless, your fight choreography uninteresting, and your climax an invalidation of your own wobbly mythos. That's it. I'm done with you, and for good this time. Don't come around, because I respect myself now and I've got no time for you.

What? IMDB tells me that HIGHLANDER: THE SOURCE is in post-production? Well, maybe just this once. What's the harm?

Assault on Precinct 13

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 is aggressively mediocre.

The film hits every mark, goes through all the motions, like it's trying very hard. Hard as it may try, however, it simply cannot muster the tension it's trying to achieve. We know who the traitor is the minute we see him. We know who's going to die, and pretty much in what order. We know exactly how the hero's arc will play out, and we even know how the antihero's arc will play out.

As the hero, Ethan Hawke shows us nothing we haven't seen before. As the antihero, Lawrence Fishburne is convincingly portrays a one-note actor. As the various targets trapped inside the titular precinct house with our anti/heroic duo, Monica Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo, Brian Dennehy, and "I've seen that guy before" guy Matt Craven all show up, do their jobs, and go home.

While not a terrible film, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 has little to recommend it. It may be just thing to have on in the background while doing chores, but I wouldn't sit down for it again.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

There's a moment at the beginning of the endgame of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998) in which all the pieces are assembled on the board, but the interlocking stories and plots are jumbled together and everything appears to be headed for total chaos. Watching it, I thought, "How the hell is this guy (writer / director Guy Ritchie) going to pull this off?"

He pulls it off with dash, flair, humor, and not a little bit of gratuitous violence. The same could be said of the entire film. LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS is a fun, vibrant picture that isn't afraid to tell a raucous story raucously. Ritchie clearly enjoys writing dialogue that, if not entirely natural, is a pleasure to hear. Additionally, the guy knows how to craft a story that's inherently violent without giving it any real sense of danger. His characters and situations are so outlandish that they feel like characters and situations, not like real people, and that adds to the movie's sense of fun.

LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS could have gone wrong in any number of ways. Fortunately, Ritchie avoids them and delivers an energetic, amusing picture.

What a pleasant surprise.

PS There's a whole other side to this movie, the investigation of which was inconsistent with the upbeat tone of my remarks. LS&TSB does some interesting things with the nature of class, cleverly delineating various levels of "us-ness" and "them-ness." This is the kind of movie that could take you from a fun time at the theater to a fun time over coffee later, as you consider how calculated the film is, and how complicit you are, in its presentation of class and ethnicity.

The Descent

I'm not claustrophobic. I know this because at one point in my military training I was put in a situation designed to induce extreme claustrophobia. I was snug as could be and could have stayed there all night. At least, I thought I wasn't claustrophobic. THE DESCENT has made me reconsider.

THE DESCENT has a solid horror framework: a group of friends go somewhere and promptly start dying. In this particular case, the friends go spelunking, a pastime which never particularly appealed to me but never particularly repelled me, either. While watching the first third of THE DESCENT, the one in which the group penetrates more deeply into the cave network in which nasty things are sure to happen, I felt uncomfortable, then confined, then outright claustrophobic. The filmmakers do such a fine job of closing in more and more tightly on both their characters and audience that, by the time a member of the party gets stuck in a tiny passageway, it was all I could do to breathe. I could feel the oppressive weight of the earth above me, and I yearned for daylight. Later in the film, when the nasties show up, THE DESCENT becomes your basic bug-hunt movie, which is fine. Still later, when the protagonist goes Spacek, the movie takes some unexpected and creative turns which pay off well. But that first third - oh man - I've never seen anything like it.

Neil Marshall, who earlier directed personal favorite DOG SOLDIERS, again populates his film with characters we know and respect. He doesn't waste our time with too much exposition, and he doesn't go for all the easy character beats we expect. Instead, he gives us the chance to get to know these people based on what they do, not say. It's sound, economical film-making, and it works.

What a treat.

Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story

I hated every frame of BLACKBALLED: THE BOBBY DUKES STORY. In fact, I couldn't get through it. When the movie hit 45 minutes without eliciting even the faintest trace of the beginning of the uptick of a grin, I ejected the thing, put it in its envelope, and dropped it in the mail.

BLACKBALLED is the kind of movie that hates its characters, hates its subject matter, and hates you, the viewer. The movie's about a disgraced paintball champion who returns to his old stomping grounds a decade after his shaming event. His friends loathe him and his enemies loathe him. I find nothing funny in loathing and found nothing funny here.

BLACKBALLED looks and sounds cheap. Its characters don't work. Nothing about it is funny. Someone should have shot it through the heart.

Pusher

If LAYER CAKE is a movie about a genius trying to survive in a world of morons, then PUSHER (1996) is a movie about a moron trying to survive in a world of morons.

The movie follows Frank, a guy on one of the lower levels of the multi-level marketing scheme known as the Danish narcotics trade, through what may well be the last week of his life. PUSHER uses the industry-standard pattern of high life and decline, but it does so with two important deviations: it's shot with an improvisational style, using ambient light and (mostly, it seems) handheld cameras; and it doesn't give us anyone to root for. Frank is an idiotic scumbag surrounded by idiotic scumbags, and the succession of lousy decisions to which the movie bears witness does nothing to endear us to him or anyone else.

So, why bother with PUSHER? First, it puts us viewers right in Frank's increasingly uncomfortable shoes, and it takes us places where glamorous crime movies never go. Second, it manages to make us root for Frank, even as we despise him. It slowly ratchets up the tension until we find ourselves fully invested in his predicament, and its payoff is both unexpected and perfect.

That said, watching PUSHER was not a particularly pleasant experience. I respect this movie, but I don't necessarily like it. There's a PUSHER II and III out there, but I think I've spent about all the time with these people that I'm willing to spend.