Where is it playing?: Sunset Drive-In, Fremont, Park, Stadium 10
What's it rated?: R
What's it worth?: $5.00
(Steve)
What's it worth?: $6.00
(Glen)
Boston homicide detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) loves his activist daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic), so when she’s killed near his front door, he’s wracked with guilt, assuming he was the target. Soon he begins to unravel a plot that suggests she was the target after all, and with nothing more to lose, Craven goes on a quest to find and punish those responsible. It also stars Ray Winstone and Danny Huston. (117 min.)
Glen After his alcohol-fueled anti-Semitic rant when he was pulled over for drunk driving, I would have guessed Mel Gibson’s first Hollywood film afterward would have gone for a more warm and fuzzy character, but oh no. He’s hardnosed Boston detective Thomas Craven, and after his daughter Emma is murdered on his doorstep, he starts dropping bad guys like he drops his Rs. Of course, before we’re treated to Mel Unleashed, we need to establish Mel the Good Father, so as he prepares for her visit home, we get flashbacks of Emma at the beach, and when she arrives, we get little moments like her fingering a small bronze sculpture of a majestic buck with a huge rack of antlers standing guard over a fawn lying at his feet. Director Martin Campbell may as well have taken that bronze and hit us over the head with it! Tough daddy wants to protect his baby! After Emma’s shot-gunned and the police have cleared out, Craven washes the blood off his face with a washcloth, and looking down and seeing his daughter’s blood, he neatly folds the bloody towel and secures it in a water glass—a reminder of her. And as the camera lingers on the bloody water circling the sink drain, we’re meant to understand that her life has gone right down the drain as well. These attempts at foreshadowing and symbolism come across as heavy-handed, but such niceties are abandoned completely when Craven sets his wrecking ball in motion. What follows is a serviceable revenge flick that despite its moments of violence manages to drag in spots by being overly talkie as it delineates a convoluted plot of governmental and corporate corruption.
Steve Well, this flick starts off with a blast of nonsense immediately. I’m no firearms expert, but from what I know, if one uses a short-barreled shotgun to shoot someone from 10 feet away or so, Mr. Craven should have died along with his daughter, yet he had nary a scratch. What’s up with all the revenge movies centered around a single father and his daughter? Seems like some brainiac down in Hollydumb should see the potential in the power of a mother’s wrath over the kidnapping or killing of her son, Terminator series aside. This film was definitely set up against the much superior Taken, and with all Edge’s niceties and interesting bits—especially the clean-up guy played by Ray Winstone, whose accent was at times difficult to understand—it just doesn’t compare tothat film.
Glen The vibe it seemed to be going for is ‘70s-era grittiness, à la Lee Marvin’s Point Blank, the remake of which Gibson starred in a decade ago (Payback). Gibson’s once again channeling Marvin. Rain or shine, Craven’s sporting his frumpy trench coat, a grim deadpan expression on his face broken only for the increased menace of a verbalized threat thrown at a bad guy. Even great character actors can’t quite elevate this film beyond mediocrity. Winstone, as the government fixer, straddles the fine line between menace and nobility, keeping us guessing which side he’s on but never letting us forget he’s done—and is still capable of doing—terrible things. And Danny Huston offers an effective turn as smarmy Jack Bennett, who runs the corrupt corporation (or is that redundant?) Northmoor, which is at the heart of the mystery. Give this story credit, by the way, for tapping into the public’s distrust of Big Business and Big Government, both of which are on display here. Denis O’Hare, as Moore, does a rehash of his remorseless and pragmatic mid-management hack (See Michael Clayton). And Damian Young turns in a nice performance as Senator Jim Pine, who’s more interested in serving his own needs than the needs of his constituents. It’s easy to take glee in watching these vile excuses for human beings get theirs at the hands of an angry father, but ultimately, the film is forgettable.
Steve As you can tell by Glen’s point-by-point description of the characters, there is not much to say about this film that would really make one run out to see it. Sure, it was a competent revenge thriller with a few interesting twists, but in the end this is the type of film that probably is best watched at home. I will admit there was one scene that made me jump out of my seat a little, and that is a major rarity for me. Glen said he was expecting it, but we all know his propensity for prevarications. I think the thing that was most dragging for me was Craven’s flashback, ghost images of his daughter Emma—ham-fisted to be sure. We can all try to imagine how horrible it would be to lose a child, especially in the fashion shown in this movie, so it doesn’t need to be shoved down our throats again and again. These scenes were probably created to get women to want to watch it. Fortunately, Gibson’s moments as a vengeful father were not too over-the-top; he was hurt numerous times in the film, making him out to be more human than superhuman, and that’s one major point that makes the film at least watchable. Good? Yeah. Great? No, but I do hope it enables Gibson to come back and work in Hollywood again because I did enjoy many of the films in his earlier career.
Glen Starkey is a New Times staff writer and Steve Miller is New Times’ staff photographer. Comment at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com and semiller@newtimesslo.com.
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