BEFORE: Good news, I got the Turner Classic Movies channel back - it was weird, I was only missing that channel and the IFC Channel (now with ads, so it got removed from my rotation). So I missed "Spartacus", but I got "All Quiet on the Western Front". Why couldn't the damn Lifetime channel be knocked out?
Wrapping up Michael Douglas chain tonight - my wife recommended this movie, so it's been on the list as long as there's BEEN a list.
THE PLOT: An unemployed defense worker frustrated with the various flaws he sees in society, begins to psychotically and violently lash out against them.
AFTER: This is a tough one, because I want to sympathize with a guy who's been beaten down by the system, having a tough go of things in his personal life, and annoyed by all sorts of life's little...um, annoyances. Certainly I've had my share of run-ins with people who cut in line at the deli, or are "loud-talkers", or who over-use the word "actually", to the point where I just want to strangle them.
But you know what? I don't strangle them. I leave most people alone, except for those who insist on shoveling snow from their sidewalk into the street - when the plow just finished getting it OUT of the street. But I digress. I got myself an iPhone and some headphones, so if people are talking stupid on the subway, or discussing the endings of movies I haven't seen, I plug in. I probably turn the volume up too loud, so I'm probably annoying other people in the process, which is somewhat ironic.
Sorry, we're here to talk about the film, not me. Michael Douglas's character ditches his car in the middle of a traffic jam, and heads for "home". Home, in this case, is his ex-wife's house and his daughter's birthday party. There's apparently trouble at the end of that road, since he's essentially stalking his ex - but he encounters even more trouble along the way, walking through L.A.'s gangland.
He loses it in a convenience store, he loses it in a burger joint (spot the pattern?) and acquires a duffel bag full of guns - nope, I don't see how this could possibly end well. These actions are intercut with scenes from a veteran cop's last day (oops, another movie cliché that usually doesn't end well) and from what we know about parallel editing, these two storylines are destined to collide with each other.
Part of us wants to root for the crazy guy, because he's been kicked around and downtrodden, and haven't we all? But we should be rooting for the cop, even though he's a bit of a screw-up (well, he MEANS well), he's got one last chance to end his career on a high note and do some respectable detective work.
It's tough (and a little questionable) to have a central character who's this much of an anti-hero - "Law Abiding Citizen" had to work around the same bugaboo - but let's call him what he is. He's a terrorist, as much as McVeigh or the Unabomber was - the scene where he shoots up the WhammyBurger pretty much settles the deal.
We've seen it happen in the news - and we wonder how it happens. Maybe the better question is, why doesn't it happen more often? I haven't heard of a postal worker losing it in quite a while, and we even named the process "going postal" in honor of them. What changed at the post office to make it a less hostile working environment?
What's the other thing you hear when people go off their nut like this? "He was a quiet guy, kept pretty much to himself, never caused any trouble..." Why don't you ever hear people interviewed after someone snaps, saying things like, "Yeah, that guy was wound way too tight, gave everybody grief. We always knew he'd explode, so we just tried to stay out of his way."?
"It's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for." You've heard that, right? It that because the loud, dangerous ones are already locked up? Or does it say more about the kind of person who bottles up everything inside and doesn't have some kind of strategic release for their emotions?
If so, I urge you, find a release - write letters to the editor, pop some bubble wrap, spend some time at the shooting range, whatever it takes.
My main issues with the film are the inherit racist and homophobic acts - I realize it's a fine line, how do you depict these biases without the film itself becoming racist or homophobic?
Also starring Robert Duvall (last seen in "John Q"), Barbara Hershey (last seen in "The Right Stuff"), Rachel Ticotin (last seen in "Turbulence"), Tuesday Weld (last seen in "Thief").
RATING: 4 out of 10 payphones
No comments:
Post a Comment