REVIEW: “Arkansas” (2020)

May 4, 2020 by Keith Garlington

Originally set to debut at the South By Southwest film festival, Clark Duke’s feature film directorial debut “Arkansas” was forced to change course and now it drops on VOD this week. Duke (a Glenwood, Arkansas native) is probably best known for his roles in a string of irritating raunchy comedies. But “Arkansas” is a labor of love for the 34-year-old who not only directs and co-stars, but spent several years co-writing the script and even longer pitching his film and getting it financed.

“Arkansas” is based on John Brandon’s 2009 novel about two bottom-rung drug runners working for a mysterious country kingpin they’ve never met named Frog (played in the film by Vince Vaughn). Duke’s version plays like a Tarantino, Coen brothers, and Jeff Nichols collaboration. It isn’t as clean or as together as their films, but its messiness is part of its charm. And Duke’s home-grown perspective adds a layer of Deep South authenticity that is crucial to the movie’s success.

“What a lot of people don’t know about organized crime in the South is that it’s not that organized.” This early line of narration comes from Liam Hemsworth’s Kyle to describe what some have called the “Dixie Mafia”. In this rural underworld drug pushers use glorified gofers to move their powdery product between states. Kyle works near the bottom of Frog’s organization, but finally gets a promotion and is sent to Little Rock where he meets with fellow newbie Swin. The two are given their first job – driving a flatbed of Frog’s dope to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Photo Courtesy of Lionsgate

The pair make quite the odd couple. Kyle is a rugged, no-nonsense straight-shooter while Swin is an eccentric charmer wrapped in a Hawaiian shirt and a man bun. Before the two can make it out of Arkansas they’re intercepted by a park ranger named Bright (John Malkovich) who actually works for Frog. He informs the boys they are now a part of his crew and gives them covers as park peons – mowing, emptying trash, directing campers. But Bright warns them: follow his instructions, don’t try to run away, and most importantly keep low profiles.

Remember that early line about organized crime in the South, specifically the “it’s not that organized” part? Things get a little complicated after a local girl named Johnna (Eden Brolin) catches Swin’s eye. But things work into a full-on lather after the boys botch a seemingly simple drug/money exchange in Louisiana. Violence, some iffy choices, and one agitated drug lord sets up the movie’s central conflict and propels the story into some pretty unexpected directions.

Duke breaks his movie down into chapters although only one actually feels unique within the story structure. It’s a leap back in time to show Frog’s rise from a West Memphis pawn shop owner pushing bootleg cassette tapes to the boss of his own drug trafficking outfit. Along the way we see Frog learning the ropes from his mentor in the dope trade (Michael K. Williams) and eventually taking off to form his own crew. Of course the entire flashback chapter sets the table for Frog’s inevitable impact on the main storyline.

Photo Courtesy of Lionsgate

“Arkansas” is a film full of intriguing characters and great faces. Hemsworth is great giving what’s arguably the best performance of his career. Duke is the perfect foil, bringing levity and a surprising amount of heart. Brolin offers a sweet naïveté. Malkovich is a wily veteran actor who chews scenes in the best of ways. Vaughn is fun, imposing, and looks right at home in western shirts and bolo ties. And I haven’t even mentioned Vivica A. Fox playing the ambiguously named ‘Her’. All of the characters benefit from the hint of playfulness Duke and his co-writer Andrew Boonkrong bring to the script. But as the age-old phrase “violence begets violence” informs us, there is an unavoidable dark edge to this kind of story.

That balance between a Southern black comedy and a gritty crime thriller is one of the most impressive things about Clark Duke’s entertaining debut. Combine that with vibrant characters, great performances (especially from Hemsworth), and the rich flavor of its setting. Oddly, it’s both helped and hurt by its lack of polish and some of the dialogue is a little hard to chew. But it’s still a fantastic first feature effort that both respects and has fun with rural America.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

REVIEW: “The Assistant” (2020)

May 1, 2020 by Keith Garlington

I had heard nothing but good things about Kitty Green’s feature film debut “The Assistant”. Unfortunately the COVID-19 outbreak cut short its theater run well before it made its way to many of the smaller markets. So I’ve been anxiously waiting for my chance to finally check out this #Me Too era drama that attempts to tackle head-on the long unchecked problem of workplace harassment.

Kitty Green had a couple of documentaries under her belt but was inspired to venture into feature films following the 1997 Harvey Weinstein revelations. After much study on workplace harassment she began writing the script for “The Assistant”. Unlike last year’s “Bombshell”, a movie smitten with its bomb-throwing at the expense of its characters, “The Assistant” feels far more rooted in truth and calibrated to a real-world setting that leaves you both unsettled and infuriated.

Photo Courtesy of Bleeker Street

The film follows a young woman named Jane played by the remarkably restrained Julia Garner. She’s only five weeks into her new job at a movie production company working as an assistant for a big-time Weinstein-ish film mogul. We learn all we need to know about him through her observations, from secondhand grumblings in the office, and his verbally abusive and patently unfair scoldings over the phone. In one of Green’s many interesting touches, Jane’s boss is never seen or named. The allusion is obvious but by not showing him Green allows us to put a face on the man. Also, it keeps the story’s focus where it belongs – on Jane.

But nothing is more informative for the audience than the workplace environment Green shrewdly creates. The story takes place over the course of one work day starting with Jane’s early morning commute from her home in Astoria to the offices in Manhattan. She is the one responsible for getting to work early, turning on the lights, booting the computers, and starting the coffee pot. Interestingly she’s one of three assistants but hardly on equal ground with the other two, both smarmy males. She’s the one expected to wash dishes in the break room, empty the trash, and pick up lunch – chores often unfairly relegated to women.

Photo Courtesy of Bleeker Street

Green takes us through the day nearly free of dialogue. What we get comes mostly in the form of office chatter surrounded by the ambient sounds of clacking keyboards, copy machines, and telephones. But it’s far from weightless. So much can be gleaned from Green’s sharp focus and purposely icy point of view. The indignities, disrespect, and condescension start subtle but add up and take full form as the movie goes on.

The one dialogue-rich exception comes when Jane goes to see the company’s Human Resource officer played by Matthew Macfadyen. What follows is a scene dripping with discomfort and anxiety as his disarming sincerity quickly gives way to a slyly manipulative and coldly calculated shift of blame. It’s one of the best written scenes of the year and both Garner and Macfadyen come at it with just the right balance. Neither overplay or underserve the material, conveying the scene’s meaning with masterful restraint.

Photo Courtesy of Bleeker Street

More on Julia Garner – she’s a revelation here and the movie doesn’t work without her precise and measured performance. Critically acclaimed for her role in the Netflix series “Ozark”, Garner is tasked here with being our eyes and ears while also defining her character, not through the usual dramatic storytelling, but through what she experiences onscreen. It’s a tricky part but from the very beginning Garner puts us in Jane’s shoes and maintains a sense of empathy throughout.

“The Assistant” may be low-key but its message is loud, clear and profoundly relevant. Kitty Green has created a timely, hard-hitting drama free of Hollywood gloss and anchored in the real-world experiences too many women are forced to endure. Don’t misconstrue the film’s observational perspective with slowness. Green takes a very calculated approach to her subject and the results are candid, insightful, and eye-opening.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

REVIEW: “The Wretched” (2020)

April 30, 2020 by Keith Garlington

In “The Wretched” teenager Ben (John-Paul Howard) is still adjusting to his parents’ recent divorce. It hasn’t gone well. After getting into some legal trouble while living with his mother (resulting in a broken arm), Ben is sent to spend the summer with his father who lives in a lakeside tourist town. While there he will work for his dad (played by Jamison Jones) at the local marina and hopefully get a fresh start.

But this is a supernatural horror movie so there are no easy paths to happiness and contentment. Aside from the evil terror brewing in a nearby forest, things get off to a rough start for Ben. For starters, his father already has a new girlfriend, Sara (Azie Tesfai). And it doesn’t help that all of the local teens are rich, obnoxious brats. The lone exception is his co-worker Mallory (Piper Curda), a free-wheeling breath of fresh air who instantly takes a liking to Ben.

Photo Courtesy IFC Films

Now about that malevolent presence in the woods. Ben begins to suspect something sinister is going on in the two-story rent house next door. After a hipster couple and their two children move in, Ben notices some bizarre behavior. The wife (Zarah Mahler) disappears into the forest with her infant baby. The husband suddenly denies they even have children. The couple makes constant trips into their padlocked basement. In this angle plucked straight out of 1985’s “Fright Night”, Ben spies on his neighbors, pokes around their house at night, even calls the police but to no avail. Of course Ben is right. A wicked entity has been let lose, preying on children and using their parents as hosts.

The film is written and directed by Brett and Drew T. Pierce who employ several well-worn horror movie tropes. But their movie doesn’t rely on them, instead working more in suspense than abject terror. And they aren’t afraid to let their influences show. There are little hints of everything from “Jaws” to “Close Encounters” and the Pierce Brothers’ keen mixture of score and cinematography would make Spielberg smile.

The creature/demon/witch thing is pretty frightening with its pale veiny skin, jagged claws, and wicked body contortions. It’s not terrible original, but it gets the job done. The brothers smartly embrace the idea that less is more, only giving us a few glimpses of the full being. Instead we mostly see it through the person it is possessing along with the sometimes grotesque effects it has on them. Overall the entity manages to be effectively chilling even though keeping up with its host-hopping became a chore especially in the final act.

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films

From the very start “The Wretched” commits a surprising amount of time to its characters. They come across as authentic and fleshed-out even though their stories are nothing especially new. Yet their stories are important especially once the movie positions itself as a metaphor for forgotten children in the wake of divorce. And generally speaking the performances are okay, shaky at times, but serviceable. You won’t find a big name anywhere in the cast, but for the most part the fresh faces manage (some better than others).

What ends up standing out most is the movie’s crisp pacing and tone management. The Pierce brothers keep things moving at just the right speed, deftly balancing character and tension-building while working within a familiar genre space. Yet “The Wretched” is a movie that can’t fully hide its limitations despite its ability to rise above them. It’s still very much worth a watch, and if you’re looking for a horror movie you could do a lot worse.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

RETRO REVIEW: “Darkman” (1990)

April 29, 2020 by Keith Garlington

I don’t remember if I felt it at the time, but “Darkman” is very much a superhero movie. Even more, it’s a superhero movie much in the same vein as those we regularly get today. Yet this was a whole decade before “X-Men” broke through; 18 years before the first MCU film. There had been the Superman movies of the 80’s and Tim Burton had just released “Batman”. But “Darkman” is uniquely its own thing despite fully embracing key elements of the genre.

One of the joys of rewatching “Darkman” was remembering all the things I had forgotten. First on the list – Sam Raimi. I had forgotten that Raimi directed and conceived the story. It was his first film following the success of his “Evil Dead” pictures and it was a completely original project. There was no adaptation to follow, no franchise obligations, no interconnected cinematic universe to fit into. Raimi had creative freedom to tinker with archetypes and create characters befitting of the world he was creating.

Photo Courtesy of Universal Pictures

The film stars Liam Neeson and who would’ve thought he would make a great avenging angel? He plays Peyton Westlake, an ambitious and seemingly self-employed scientist on the verge of a major breakthrough. His life’s work has been creating a viable cellular-based synthetic skin. But his inability to stabilize the cells results in the skin melting after 99 minutes. Still he presses on knowing that success would reverberate throughout the medical and science communities.

The only thing Peyton loves more than his work is his attorney girlfriend Julie (Frances McDormand). While doing some legal work she discovers a memo linking a corrupt real estate developer named Louis Strack (Colin Friels) to payoffs to zoning commission officials. Strack sends his strong-arm, the dastardly Robert Durant (played by seasoned movie bad guy Larry Drake), to retrieve the memo which is in Julie’s possession. Peyton ends up caught in the middle, dumped in a vat burning chemicals and left for dead in his ransacked lab as it is blown up by Durant and his goons. What a way to go!

Believed to be dead but miraculously alive, a severely disfigured Peyton sets up shop in an old condemned factory. He rekindles his experiments, this time with personal motivations – to be with Julie once again. But he’s not the same man. Besides the charred skin, he has elevated strength, heightened emotions, and the inability to feel physical pain. This leads to episodes of uncontrollable sorrow but also burning rage against those who took his life from him. His new thirst for vengeance gives birth to Darkman.

While this plays out much like a superhero origin story, Raimi has other things on his mind. For example, he has fun playing with the idea of secret identities and coexistence. Can Peyton and Darkman co-exist within the same person? Is Peyton still there or did that side of him die in the blast? Is Darkman his new true identity?

Photo Courtesy of Universal Pictures

And Darkman doesn’t fit you standard superhero mold. He’s a tortured soul driven by fury rather than some upright moral code. The black trench coat, bandaged face and fedora look cool but they tell more about the person underneath than you may think. He’s smart and highly intelligent. But he’s also a pained, violent man as evident from the R-rated revenge he doles out on the thugs who wronged him. Again, it’s Raimi developing a character, not strictly from a comic book blueprint, but with his own identity and demons.

You could consider “Darkman” to be a lot of things: an action flick, a love story, a horror film, even a tragedy but with a sense of humor. It all fits. And to think Sam Raimi concocted this subversive and thrilling superhero movie thirty years ago. After all that time I still find myself loving it for its fresh storytelling, big action, even bigger Danny Elfman score, and characters so in tune with the world they exist in. Oh, and that’s not even counting one terrific cameo near the end. But I’ll leave it for you to discover yourself.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

First Glance: “Valley Girl”

April 28, 2020 by Keith Garlington

First announced in 2016, set for release in 2018, pulled due to the Logan Paul controversies, rescheduled for a theatrical release in 2020, changed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Needless to say it has been a pretty bumpy ride for “Valley Girl”, the upcoming comedy-musical remake of the 1983 original (a movie best known as being Nicolas Cage’s first significant big screen role).

But now its almost here and the first trailer came out last week. The film stars the versatile and talented Jessica Rothe. You may remember her from her small roll in “La La Land”, but most probably know her best as the lead in the two “Happy Death Day” films. She seems to be the perfect fit for something like “Valley Girl”. She has some legit singing chops but also a good eye for comedy. In this film she plays a preppy girl who falls for a punk rocker in the heart of the 1980’s. The movie looks to be energetic, colorful, and (hopefully) fun.

“Valley Girl” is set to drop on VOD May 8th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

REVIEW: “The Other Lamb” (2020)

April 28, 2020 by Keith Garlington

Is it just me or does there seem to be a resurgence of cult-related movies? Last year alone we got Ari Aster’s sophomore effort “Midsommar”, the so-so Netflix thriller “The Silence”, and even “Doctor Sleep”, the much-anticipated sequel to “The Shining”. Obviously some of these deal more directly with cults than others, but the timing of this rekindled interest is kinda fascinating.

The latest cult movie entry is “The Other Lamb” and it’s pretty easy to find its modern day inspiration. Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska and screenwriter Catherine S. McMullen have made what is essentially a feminist parable set against patriarchal repression. It’s an moody mix of “Midsommar” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” built around arresting visuals and a persistent, slow-boiling sense of unease.

As the movie begins the unnamed sect is well established and its rituals fully ingrained within its membership. We get little in terms of background, either personal or religious. We see they live in the forest, isolated from modern society – twenty or so women with the same braided hair style wearing ankle-length dresses that only differ in color, red for the “wives” and blue for the “daughters”. They’re led by a suave, charismatic charlatan who they call the Shepherd (Michiel Huisman). His “flock” soaks up his every word with starry-eyed awe while constantly seeking to win his favor.

Like a snake oil salesman with fresh new tonic, the Shepherd peddles his vision of a “new Eden” to his adoring followers. But one lamb in his flock begins to question her blind obedience. At first Selah (played by Raffey Cassidy) is a dedicated disciple looking forward to the day when the Shepherd will extend to her his self-satisfying “grace”. But when he’s forced to lead the flock on a long, arduous journey to find a new home, Selah begins noticing the cracks in his infallibility.

“The Other Lamb” quickly evolves into a young woman’s coming-of-age awakening. Selah’s disenchantment intensifies as she grows closer to Sarah (Denise Gough), a “wife” ostracized within the community. Sarah’s wise to the Shepherd’s shenanigans which has put her on the outs with the group. “His attention is like the sun” she explains. “Bright and glorious at first, but then it just burns.” When Selah inquires about the lack of males among them, Sarah chillingly states “Only one ram in the flock child.”

There really isn’t much else to it. The lack of depth in the characters is mirrored in the story. But what the movie lacks in narrative it makes up for in tone and in its ability to build a steady sense of dread. Szumowska’s mood is immediately unsettling and for the rest of the way we’re never given a reason to believe things will turn out well. From the outset we know something’s not right. Whether it’s the Shepherd’s pharisaical fervor that always leads to his own gratification. Or the “broken” women clearly exploited and brainwashed into subservience.

“The Other Lamb” certainly isn’t subtle with its message. You can’t mistake it for anything other than a metaphor for abusive relationships and their punishing effects. But while it might be obvious, that doesn’t mean it’s ineffective. There is a potency especially in the visual language used by Szumowska and her DP Michał Englert. All that’s lacking is the character depth to help us know these people better. It’s the one missing ingredient that could have enriched the movie as well as our experience with it. Still, there is more than enough creative grit to make it worth your time and Raffey Cassidy is a young actress to keep your eye on.