New Reviews: Ask the Dust, Battle in Heaven, Hard Candy & The Zodiac

Hey, folks, I'm back with some new film reviews. In this installment are write-ups for four new films: Ask the Dust, Battle in Heaven, Hard Candy and The Zodiac. Read on, and don't forget to post your comments.

ASK THE DUST
(Paramount Classics, rated R, # min.)

Colin Farrell is one of those talented actors that inevitably becomes more famous for their off-screen actions than for their performances in movies. No matter how good they are on the big screen, they simply cannot overcome the prejudice of audience perception. Witness the recent public shaming of the once-adored Russell Crowe, who, in addition to being unfairly overlooked by the Oscars for his riveting turn in Cinderella Man, now seems to have become the whipping boy for a media and viewing public hell-bent on tearing down the very idols we create. The difference between Crowe and Farrell, however, is that, while movie-going audiences may be distracted by Farrell’s “bad boy” antics off-screen, his non-Hollywood life is forgiven as being simply par for the course for young actors. So what if he likes to booze it up, swear like a fookin’ sailor and film himself while having sex with porn starlets? At least he’s not punching anyone out or throwing telephones at motel clerks. In his first post-X-rated performance following the release of that naughty videotape, Farrell again gets naked for the cameras (although audiences hoping for another full-frontal shot will have to settle for a well-lit close-up of his bottom) while playing very much to type as “bad boy” Italian-American writer Arturo Bandini in the film adaptation of John Fante’s semi-autobiographical novel Ask the Dust. It’s a studied performance, notably absent of Farrell’s trademark Irish accent, and one that reveals that he knows how to tone it down when the time calls for it. Unfortunately, this was not that time. The film, gently directed by Chinatowne screenwriter Robert Towne, tracks the often volatile relationship between Bandini, a scrappy young writer who dreams of becoming a writer and marrying a beautiful blonde, and Camilla (Selma Hayek), a fiery young Mexican who hopes to snag herself a WASP. Set in the racially-divided Los Angeles of the 1930s, the film is beautifully art directed and photographed (the city becomes its own character), but ultimately suffers from an overly grandiose script (characters frequently talk as if they are lifting dialogue directly from one of Fante’s novels) and Farrell’s surprisingly stiff performance. As Bandini, Farrell often speaks in such laboriously studied speech that his words come off as expressionless. And that’s too bad. Having seen his most recent, er, “indie work,” we all know he’s capable of a much more rowdy performance than this. GRADE: C+--Originally published in IN Los Angeles Magazine

BATTLE IN HEAVEN
(Tartan Films, not rated, # min.)

Upon leaving the screening room where we had just watched Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas’ latest film, Battle in Heaven, my friend Mike turned to me and said, “Wow, that was disturbing on so many levels.” Indeed, Reygadas’ film is like a nightmare of sorts, dragging you through a series of horrific events that lead up to a dreadfully depressing conclusion. The movie tells the story of Marcos (Marcos Hernandez), a driver for the Mexican general, whose morality is tested after he and his wife (Bertha Ruiz) kidnap a baby that dies in their custody. As he struggles with the ramifications of his actions, Marcos wanders through the next few days in a sort of daze, coming out of his shell only to confess to (and have sex with) the general’s disaffected daughter Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz, a lovely and talented young newcomer), who also has a secret of her own. A good bit of unnecessarily gratuitous fornication (complete with close-ups of erections, vaginas and breasts—-oh my!), violence, apathetic dialogue, and seemingly eternal silences follow, until Marcos finally decides to seek redemption from a higher power. If it sounds depressing, it’s because it is. Reygadas, for his part, does little to combat this, choosing instead to let his camera linger on images of mountains, sweat dripping from a T-shirt, or crowds walking in a pacing that could only be described as frustratingly slooooooow. Like many indie films, the film is gratingly self-conscious, wearing its (supposed) naturalism on its sleeve like a badge of honor. The irony is that, for all the film’s emphasis on minimalist emotion and lack of narrative (one of Reygadas’ staples), it feels laboriously forced. You get the sense that Reygadas is, frankly, trying to be natural, and the movie just feels too arty for its own good. I suppose there will be those who applaud such minimalism, but I, for one, am not one of them. I just kept praying for a big Hollywood car chase to come and lift me out of all the misery. GRADE: D-—-Originally published in IN Los Angeles Magazine

HARD CANDY
(Lion’s Gate, rated R, 103 min.)

If there’s one thing that can be said about former music video director David Slade’s sadistic revenge thriller Hard Candy, it’s that it certainly accomplishes what it sets out to do. Slade’s second feature (following 2004’s relatively obscure Do Geese See God?) is a profoundly disturbing story that frequently pushes its situations (including pedophilia, murder and, um, castration) to the extreme and explores the dark abscesses of desire. Jeff (Angels in America’s Patrick Wilson, nicely redeeming himself after The Phantom of the Opera) is a seemingly mild-mannered photographer who agrees via the Internet to meet up with a wise-beyond-her-years schoolgirl (newcomer Ellen Page, in a mesmerizing debut), who says she likes to read Zadie Smith, talks like a professional hooker, and wants to model for Jeff. What ensues after they get back to his house is a thrill-ride of suspense and comeuppance that plunges its audience straight-on into the depths of the twisted human psyche. The teenager turns out to be a modern-day Lolita, “seducing” Jeff into giving her the upper hand before she reveals her shocking hidden motives. It’s a somewhat far-fetched scenario (for a 14-year-old, Page’s Hayley is a little too wise beyond her years), and there are times when watching the film becomes a test of one’s endurance for sadomasochism. But it is to Slade’s credit that throughout the extremely talky, mostly two-character encounter, the suspense never lets up, while audience allegiance continually shifts back and forth between the two leads as the drama unfolds. Just be prepared to squirm and plan on not getting much sleep that night. GRADE: B+--Originally published in Frontiers Newsmagazine.

THE ZODIAK
(Blackwater Films, not yet rated, 98 min.)

Suspense yarns built around serial killers are a dime a dozen these days. Ever since The Silence of the Lambs set the bar extremely high for tales about mentally deranged psychopaths with a knack for creative killing, the crime thriller genre has become the hot market to over-saturate. What sets Alexander Bulkley’s The Zodiac apart, however, is not only its modestly indie production values and budget, but its emphasis on the characters’ reactions to the evil that invades their sleepy Northern California town. Would that all the effort paid off. Based on the infamously unsolved murders that occurred in and around the town of Vallejo during the late 60s, the movie depicts with vivid brutality the killing themselves (often to the point of—I’ll say it—overkill), then shifts the focus to the young detective (Grey’s Anatomy’s hunky Justin Chambers) assigned to the case. Under pressure from an insistent police chief (Philip Baker Hall) intent on saving face and his increasingly paranoid wife (Robin Tunney), Chambers' Lt. Matt Parish slowly begins to crumble, eventually taking his anger out on his loved ones as he realizes that things are beyond his control. It’s mostly good stuff, yet even when it works, the movie falls just short of compelling. Perhaps because director Bulkley himself grew up in the Napa Valley area where the film is shot (and where the murders took place), he took it for granted that viewers will immediately connect to the movie's characters. Yet, for all the film’s focus on a more “intimate” narrative, The Zodiac feels surprisingly cold and detached. An effectively sinister tone pervades the script (penned by Bulkley and his older brother/producing partner Kelly), but it is often marred by Bulkley’s insistence on turning the story into a steamy “potboiler” populated by too many cinematic clichés (a reporter bangs away on his typewriter while a lighted cigarette dangles from his mouth, the killer prepares his weapons while playing--groan!--opera music) and an abruptly anticlimactic ending. Though Bulkley deserves credit for attempting something different with a tired genre, the horoscope for this Zodiac is, unfortunately, pretty grim. GRADE: B-—-Originally published in IN Los Angeles Magazine