Dredd opens this week, and with that in mind here’s a look back at my review of the unapologetically brawny, full-frontal assault on the senses.
Daily Archives: September 19, 2012
The Victim
Extra helpings of off-kilter and off-key melodrama sink Michael Biehn’s bewildering directorial debut The Victim, a nasty little down-and-dirty thriller about a murder, a panicked stripper on the lam and a trio of guys trying to sort out the truth and protect their own skins. Beset with many of the problems of low-budget indie flicks but none of the narrative cleverness, stylistic fleetness of foot or other mechanisms of coping with them, this grindhouse-type offering may find a certain cult-ish reception amongst longtime fans of the veteran genre actor, but otherwise disappear fairly deservingly without a trace.
Against the backdrop of several reports of missing women, rugged loner Kyle Limato (Biehn) retreats to a cabin in the woods, only to have his solitude interrupted by the hysterical Annie (Jennifer Blanc, Biehn’s real-life wife), a stripper who claims to have seen her friend Mary (Danielle Harris) murdered. She and Mary were in the woods partying with cops James Harrison (Ryan Honey) and Jonathan Cooger (Denny Kirkwood) when rough but consensual sex between James and Mary went wrong. Kyle takes Annie in, and rebuffs queries from the suspicious police officers when they come knocking at his door. When James comes back, however, kidnapping and various stand-offs ensue, as Kyle and Annie try to discover what’s happened to Mary’s body.
Shot chiefly in and around one location, and frequently in day-for-night swap fashion, The Victim gives off a grungy, DIY vibe. Its production was reportedly a difficult one, and obviously resources weren’t abundant, but the film’s lack of stylistic flourish and connection isn’t its main problem — that lies in the execution of the story itself. Biehn picks an awkward point of entry for his tale, and then constructs things in a way that remove secrets from the narrative. Its leading dialogue (repeated variations of “Do you believe me now?”) basically telegraphs that there will be a “twist,” but the movie doesn’t have any deep-seated intrigue, really; it’s just a matter of which one of two characters is lying, and to what degree.
Its characterizations are a bit deranged — Harrison is a puffed-chest guy who, when the tables are turned back in his favor, barks “I’ve been a winner my whole life!” — but The Victim doesn’t really play those elements up for blackly comedic effect, as Quentin Tarantino or Eli Roth might. Leaps in logic and motivation are terrible throughout — in Biehn’s world, apparently a crime has only been committed if a body can be found, and that in and of itself then establishes the veracity of someone’s story, regardless of other facts or conflicting eyewitness accounts. The movie’s acting is additionally problematic; histrionic seems to be a baseline setting. On the plus side, the movie’s special effects work, while not extensive, is quite solid, and composer Jeehun Hwang’s contributions are superb — slightly offbeat little numbers that pull viewers forward in their seats a little bit. Unfortunately, The Victim otherwise just doesn’t have much going for it.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, The Victim comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional Spanish subtitles. Its bonus features consist of a hearty, 25-minute making-of featurette which spotlights the many friends, family and pulled favors that went into production (sit-down interview chats are balanced with on-set footage), as well as a feature-length audio commentary track with Biehn and Blanc, in which the latter more than hints several times her skill with fellatio and the fact that she and Biehn have something of a turbulent, “fight-and-fuck” relationship. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; if brick-and-mortar Best Buy is your thing, though, then by all means have at it. D+ (Movie) B- (Disc)
Starry Starry Night
An imaginative, emotionally resonant coming-of-age story about two young kindred spirits who seek solace in one another, writer-director Tom Shu-Yu Lin’s Starry Starry Night, an adaptation of Taiwanese author Jimmy Liao’s bestselling illustrated book, is swollen with genuine feeling. Showcasing the commingled frailty and toughness of adolescents, and the rich inner landscapes that exist apart from whatever tethering relationships they have with adults, Lin’s sophomore effort represents a solid blend of technical achievement and kindhearted portraiture.
The narrative beats are sometimes familiar, and its metaphorical underpinnings rather highlighted, but the movie’s superlative inducement of whimsy ensures that its grip on one’s attention and heart never significantly loosens. While not nearly as overtly comedic as something like Stephen Chow’s CJ7, Starry Starry Night taps into the same sense of fantastical wonderment as that film, as well as the more melancholic tones of movies like Hirokazu Kore-eda’s compassionate I Wish and Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (China Lion, unrated, 98 minutes)
Hollow
A world premiere at last year’s Fantasia Film Festival, British import Hollow cashes in on the found footage revival kicked off at least in part by 2009’s Paranormal Activity, telling the story of a quartet of friends who suffer a dark turn of events in a remote village in Suffolk, England that’s been haunted for centuries by a local legend. Solid, largely naturalistic performances and a nice technical package help offset a story whose bump-in-the-night eeriness reaches a certain level of diminishing return long before the end of its 95-minute running time, rendering Hollow a marginal recommendation only for hardcore genre enthusiasts. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Tribeca Film, unrated, 95 minutes)