STARRING: Austin Butler, Rgina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D'Onofrio, Benito Bartinez, Ocasio, Griffen Dunne. Movie score by Rob Simonsen and Idles. Screenplay by Charlie Huston. Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Budget $40 million. Running time 107 minutes.
Billed as a dark comedy crime thriller, this has all the hallmarks of a 1970's thriller but as envisioned by Darren Aronofsky and as such it's about as funny as a positive cancer diagnosis. Set in the 1990s and featuring a furious punk score and a magnificent soundtrack and featuring a truly impressive cast of actors this was an intense, vicious, nasty and deeply mean-spirited thriller.
Austin Butler is Henry 'Hank' Thompson a high school baseball star with a future as a professional in the majors, but a drunken car crash obliterates his right knee (not that you'd know it) and catapultes his best friend face-first into a telegraph pole. 11 years later and Henry's now a border-line alcoholic bartender working in New York bar and in good relationship with EMT nurse, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). However one day Hank's next door neighbour, Russ Binder (Matt Smith) - a British ex-pat punk rocker dumps his cat, and litter tray on him and jets back to London to look after his father who's had a stroke. The next day, the Russian mafia come calling looking for Russ and kick Hank almost to death, rupturing one of his kidneys in the process. Then the police in the guise of Det. Elise Roman (Regina King) come calling and disregard Hank's protestations he's an innocent man. Two days after having his kidney removed he's running for his life from two orthodox Jewish gangsters, Shmully Drucker and Lipa Drucker (Vincent D'Onofrio and Liev Schreiber), the Russian mafia AND an ultra corrupt police office who all believe Hank has something of great value, which is news to him. From there on things go from bad to much much worse, horrifically worse, almost to the point of ridiculousness for Hank, and that's probably enough for the plot.
I was fully engaged with this up until the killing started, the violence which is never anything less than full-on, builds and makes the whole film deeply uncomfortable, Hank's dilemma just keeps growing and to a degree which is frankly laughable (perhaps that's what 'they' meant by 'dark comedy'?) but which leaves you feeling there would be no way he'd ever be free, add to that the sense that if only he, at times would just try and explain what was going on then things wouldn't have gotten so bad. I also had some issues with the horrific knee injury that Hank sustains, which we witness repeatedly throughout the film. As some one who has suffered two major knee injuries that resulted in surgery the film lost me once Hank is seen doing a full-on Tom Cruise run, not once but twice and suffering not one single jolt of pain, and just days after he's had a kidney removed too!
I can't fault the acting, the direction and the look, but I just couldn't get behind the utter mean-spiritedness of this and the death of one of the main characters was just gratuitous and callous and not remotely warranted that the film totally lost me. This starts strongly, but starts to telegraph its ending and the keen-eyed of you should be able to work out the conclusion.
It's by no means a bad film, far from it, but its nihilistic, bleak, and relentless viciousness lost me as a fan, but boy is it well made.
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments, unless they're how to make money working from home, are gratefully received.