BEFORE: Last night (OK, this morning) I had a dream about a college-age girl with dark skin who was wearing a school uniform and she was stealing vehicles and causing mayhem. When I first saw her she was driving a Zamboni, and I guess I had just passed the guy who should have been driving it as he went off-shift, so I guess the moral is to never leave your keys in a Zamboni. Then later in the same dream I was standing on top of a building and I saw a delivery truck that was jumping from one building to another, only it didn't make it and it crashed to the ground, on top of a police car I think. I think I knew who was driving the truck, so if this young woman turns up in anyone else's dream, please let me know ASAP.
Marnie McPhail carries over from "Dream Scenario". I worked a guild screening the other day for the new Springsteen biopic, and no, I didn't get to watch it, and no, Jeremy Allen White was not there. But the director, Scott Cooper, was there, and I checked the IMDB and it turns out I've accidentally seen all of his movies, from "Crazy Heart" to "Hostiles" to "Black Mass", "Antlers" and "The Pale Blue Eye". I can't say the same for tonight's director, M. Night Shyamalan, but I think I've seen MOST of his. I have "Old" but it's been very difficult to work that one in to a horror chain - I'm working on it, though, maybe next year.
THE PLOT: A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize that they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event.
AFTER: Serial killers, they're just like us, right? Wait, what? Should they be, is that the question? Can they live among us, have a family, look and sound like regular people, until for some reason we don't understand, they just want to / need to kill? Do we all have this capacity within us, as seen in "Mom and Dad", it just needs to be released by some chemical or impulse or improper provocation and, just like that, you've become a killer? Well, yes and also no, because this film shows an FBI profiler trying to pick this guy out of a large crowd of 20,000 people at a pop music concert. (Estimated capacity of the TD Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, where they filmed this as a substitute for the fictional "Tanaka Arena")
But the real question I have is - would the police in Philadelphia, or any city, put such a major event on any kind of lockdown, just to catch a serial killer? It seems to me, like, even if they KNEW for sure, 100% that "The Butcher" would be at this event, is that enough justification to flood the place with cops, set up check-in points, have snipers standing by, and increase event security to such a degree that it would be inconvenient to all of the guests? I kind of doubt it, from what I've seen from working events over the last few years, I would figure there might be a better way to do this - for example, just take a photo of everyone entering or leaving the concert, how many dads could that be? Then they'd have information and photos of maybe 5,000 men (tops) and then they could check them all against the profile and narrow it down to 10 really solid candidates to check out.
The next question is - can a serial killer compartmentalize his life, so that he's that thing on one day, and a devoted husband and/or father the next? Or maybe even be both things on the same day, is that possible? Most of us have work and then we go home, and maybe we act differently in those places, but come on, this seems a bit extreme, to think that this guy wouldn't take his work home with him, or spend so much of his life pretending to be someone or something other than who he really is. I'm kind of skirting around a few things here because I don't want to spoil the reveals.
You just know with an M. Night Shymalan film that there will be reveals, and then a big twist at the end, it's what he's known for. "The Sixth Sense", "Lady in the Water", "The Village" "Signs", they all had that big narrative turn near the conclusion, something that will make you question everything you've learned up to that point, or maybe one BIG reveal to put all the little reveals to shame. We've come to expect that from him, to the point where the biggest twist he could put into one of his movies now would be to have NO twist at all. You feel me?
I will say this all feels very contrived during the first half, which is all spent at the concert. Once the action leaves that location, really, it's a whole different story. The actress/singer playing the part of Lady Raven, the headliner, is the director's daughter, and that feels extremely self-serving in addition to being a bit too convenient. Sure, while you're making a horror movie (of sorts) about a serial killer by all means, use that as an horror-tunity to pimp your daughter's album. Really, it takes a lot of nerve to be a film director, so we probably shouldn't be too surprised by all of this. If you can promote yourself, you can also promote your daughter, but still it feels very very wrong. Wouldn't any success in her musical career mean more without daddy's help?
Also, what's the goal here, to humanize serial killers? To suggest that they deserve a steady job and a happy family life, that they might have the same goals and hopes and dreams as everyone else? That's a really slippery slope, I wouldn't even touch it because that whole concept is so, so dangerous. Do we talk about Ted Bundy in terms of how attractive he was, or how well-dressed he occasionally was? Do we credit John Wayne Gacy for how well he put on his clown make-up? Do we give credit to the Unabomber for how good at hiding he was? All of these things are simply beyond the point, like saying Hitler was a good dancer, who cares? It doesn't matter because mass murder is WAY more important.
Like, don't even START making a movie if you're going to try to make me root for the serial killer over the cops, it's a terrible idea. You can try to get me to like him, but why would you even DO that? It makes no sense. Sure, "Dexter" was a big hit on - I want to say Showtime? - but he was a serial killer who killed serial killers, so that's kind of a different thing. The other killers should NOT be made the central focus of a movie, and that goes for "The Butcher", too. Bad idea, scrap it and start over, please. I think I'm probably better off as NOT thinking about serial killers as people who are also capable of having happy families and taking their daughters out to pop concerts when they get good grades.
This is still a guy who will cause a kitchen fire and burn a concession stand employee if it will distract the police for a few minutes. This is still a guy who will threaten a pop star if she tries to call for help or turn him in. And this is still a guy who will LIE and say his daughter had a fatal illness if that means she'll be asked up on stage during a special song. So this is not a good guy, not somebody we should be rooting for in any way, and yeah, also a serial killer, so there's that.
The inspiration for this movie came from Operation Flagship, which was a sting operation conducted in 1985, where law enforcement officials invited known fugitives to a fake event at a convention center, offering them free NFL tickets and a chance to win a trip to Super Bowl XX, however there was no real event, and 101 fugitives were arrested instead. Well, sure, that may have been a great success, but that's a completely different thing than locking down a REAL concert with thousands of innocent fans, just to catch one criminal that MIGHT be there.
A lot of times I just questioned how the operations of a concert venue were depicted here, like would they really store t-shirts for this ONE singer down in the storeroom, when she's probably at this venue for just one or two nights? The boxes of her merch were probably shipped in, or came in with the tour buses, so why wouldn't they just take them straight from the buses to the t-shirt kiosks? No need to put anything in storage. Also NITPICK POINT, the pop star is made to walk outside a long distance, from the tour bus to a stairway that would presumably take her to her dressing room, but all along the way, the public can see her from a high vantage point. This would never be allowed in case some fan decided to shoot her along the way. Most likely her bus would be directed to park inside the arena's garage to prevent exposure to the public and keep the star safe.
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan (director of "Knock at the Cabin" and "Glass")
Also starring Josh Hartnett (last seen in "Die Hart"), Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Alison Pill (last seen in "Pieces of April"), Hayley Mills, Jonathan Langdon (last seen in "Special Correspondents"), Mark Bacolcol, Kid Cudi (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Russell "Russ" Vitale, Marci Bennett (last seen in "Godsend"), Vanessa Smythe, M. Night Shyamalan (last seen in "Knock at the Cabin"), Lochlan Miller (last seen in "Women Talking"), Steve Boyle, David D'Lancy Wilson, Nadine Hyatt, Michael Brown, Hailey Summer, Olivia Barrett (last seen in "Priscilla"), Allison Ference, Harley Ruznisky, Joseph Daly, Mateo Arias, Milan Deng, Ajanae Stephenson, Khiyla Aynne, Bobby Manning, Maya Lee O'Connor, Lauren Brady, Valentina Theresa, Erica Wilson, Dominique Brownes, Lara Zaluski, Timilehin Olusoga, Joshua Peace (last seen in "The Big Hit"), Evan Stern (last seen in "Robocop" (2014)).
RATING: 5 out of 10 police walkie-talkies
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