Can’t Buy Me Love (1987)

He sees her.  We think he wants her.  But what he’s really after is her social status.

In Can’t Buy Me Love, Patrick Dempsey plays Ronald, a bespectacled science nerd who’s been mowing everyone’s lawn so he can save up for a thousand dollar telescope.  The same day he goes to the mall to finally make his purchase he notices Cindy (Amanda Peterson), the head cheerleader at his high school.

She’s in a bit of a crisis.  She wore her mom’s lightly coloured suede jacket without her permission so she could impress her peers at a party.  Unsurprisingly, it gets accidentally stained by a clumsy jock.  While pleading with the cashier to let her exchange it (since I guess she figured a dry cleaner couldn’t help her), an opportunistic Ronald makes his move.

Even though we learn he’s been secretly crushing on her from afar for years he’s clearly much more interested in being popular.  This is his pitch to Cindy.  What if I pay you a thousand big ones to pretend to be my girlfriend for a month so your friends will stop treating me like horse manure?

Cindy is insulted.  Ronald plays hardball.  He knows if her mom finds out about the jacket she’s fucked.  He basically makes it impossible for her to say no.

Not exactly a healthy message to send out to horny teenage boys.

What follows is pure formula.  At first, Cindy tries to minimize the amount of times they’re seen in public together.  They negotiate lunches.  (She settles for four a week.)  There will be no hand holding, no kissing.  But she will drive him home at the end of the day.

Very quickly, though, Cindy starts to warm to Ronald, especially after he sneaks her into an airplane graveyard, shares his knowledge of the moon (yeah, he was wrong about colonization) and compliments her shitty poetry.

But a deal’s a deal.  On their final night together, he’s more eager for their public break-up the next day than carrying on for real this time.  No longer wearing glasses and dressing very differently (thanks to the fashion conscious Cindy), he’s too stupid to realize she’s actually fallen for him.

After loudly and cruelly dismissing her in between classes at school (and getting a deserved and very real smack in the face for it) he starts making it with her overly aggressive girlfriends who start fighting over him.  (In one pitiful scene, Cindy overhears him reciting her own crappy poem to one of them while in the midst of a bathroom slobberfest.)  And the moronic jocks who once mocked him relentlessly are now his co-conspirators.  All of this could’ve been avoided if Cindy had not kept her new feelings to herself or better yet, picked an actual nice guy to be with.

Deluding himself into thinking he’s happier now (well, to be fair, he did touch his first set of boobs), Ronald ditches his old group of friends, the people who genuinely like him, and their regular poker game for cool kid parties and asinine Devil’s Night pranks.  The irony about his “transformation” is that he was already a douche when he was unknown and lonely.

Can’t Buy Me Love is part of a long line of misguided teen comedies about the “importance” of being put over in high school at the expense of being genuine and kind.  These films position their underdog misfit heroes as misunderstood “good guys” who aren’t given a fair shake by the popular girls and therefore have to resort to unethical scams in order to attract their “interest”, therefore elevating their lowly standing in their insulated social world.  The result is a paradox.  The more positive attention they receive, the more unbearable they become, and once the truth is outed, they’re back to being ignored again.

At the start of the movie, shopaholic Cindy wants nothing to do with Ronald.  He’s just the geek who mows her family’s lawn.  Desperate to prevent her mom from seeing her ruined suede jacket, that’s the only reason she goes along with his proposed arrangement.  That said, aside from her physical appearance, it’s hard to find anything to like about her.  She’s quite snobby and facile, so are her charmless friends.  As he rapidly climbs the superficial social ladder at school, Ronald himself becomes even more manipulative, his continual dismissals of his fake ex increasingly vicious.

Cindy had been in a real relationship with a football star who has now basically blown her off.  Ronald throws that back in her face whenever she confronts him about his growing obnoxiousness.  All of this leads to the inevitable moment when a drunken Cindy blurts out his dirty little secret close to the stroke of Midnight during a fateful New Year’s Eve party.  The sudden, collective re-rejection of the future McDreamy indicts an entire student body for what they truly are:  a bunch of shameless followers, a point not lost on Cindy.  (“I’ve seen zombies with more individuality.”)

There’s a striking mean streak in Can’t Buy Me Love.  (Even Ronald’s nosey little brother Chuckie (a very young Seth Green) is a dick.)  Not only is Ronald cold towards Cindy, he’s brutal to his best friend Kenneth (Courtney Gains, Malachai from Children Of The Corn), an old childhood pal who wonders why he’s throwing away their friendship for artificial social advancement.  (Notice how he pushes a fellow nerd out of the way upon exiting science class in order to get a pissed off Kenneth’s attention after disappointing him too many times.)

Ronald’s new friends (one of whom is Rico Suave himself, Gerardo) have a tradition.  They like to vandalize Kenneth’s home the night before Halloween.  They’ve been doing this since they were freshmen.  By the time he recognizes his redheaded pal’s house, a horrified Ronald reaches the point of no return.  Instead of taking a strong moral stand against this stupidity (he’s only somewhat reluctant), there he is throwing a paper bag of shit on Kenneth’s front door.  No wonder he flips out at the arcade.  Look at the mess Ronald made.

Because this is an 80s movie, there’s also the uncomfortable spectacle of numerous characters using the word “retard” and its numerous variations while Cindy slut shames Ronald’s new paramours, her fellow cheerleaders.  Her jealousy is bizarre considering how poorly she’s treated by her fake ex, not to mention her inconsistent feelings towards him.

By the time a now ostracized and abandoned Ronald admirably sticks up for Kenneth at lunch and reveals a past connection with his tormentor, it’s far too late to erase all the previous bullying.  Although Ronald’s speech, which points out that everybody used to be close with everybody before breaking off into bullshit high school cliques, is sincere (and results in a hilarious Slow Clap of appreciation), we’re ultimately less forgiving than Cindy and his old poker buddies.  Ronald hasn’t truly earned their renewed support.

Undeservedly beginning and ending with The Beatles’ timeless song of the same name, Can’t Buy Me Love is a dishonest name for a dishonest movie.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, March 31, 2019
3:49 a.m.

The Social Network (2010)

The Social Network isn’t really about the creation of Facebook.  It’s about oneupmanship.  It’s about male pettiness.  It’s about glass egos and how easily they shatter.  It’s about deception as a business strategy.  It’s about sacrificing dignity and decency for global domination.  It’s about using paranoia as a guiding principle.  It’s about screwing your friends better than they screw you.  And if they fight you, buy their silence.  You’re so loaded you can afford the hit.

The very last on-screen graphic tells us that Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, is the youngest billionaire on the planet.  That didn’t happen because he tried too hard to be an asshole.

Jesse Eisenberg slips into his thin skin a little too easily to the point where the line between actor & character is completely blurred.  Not exactly well liked himself, his Zuckerberg is a rapid fire genius and a perpetually scowling malcontent.  He talks like a techie Scorsese, one thought quickly followed by another in rapid succession, all of them distinguishably insightful.  But he alienates many, most especially women.

In 2003, Zuckerberg is dating Erica (the excellent Rooney Mara).  In the opening scene, they trade fast burning thoughts like top-rated ping pong players.  Back and forth, back and forth, with nary a breath in between.  She might be the only person who can truly keep up with him.  But she’s reached her breaking point.  It’s over.  Zuckerberg is crushed.

He rushes home to vent his anger and frustration on his LiveJournal blog.  He says stupid things, sexist things, things he will later regret when he sobers up.  The rejection stings.  But he has an idea.  It goes viral.  A teary-eyed Erica will never forget.

The attention his new site attracts gets him in deep shit.  (Guess what?  Women don’t want to compete in unrequested online “who’s hotter?” contests, dickhead.)   He gets off easy, though.  Six months academic probation.  But his antics lead to an opportunity.

The terrific Armie Hammer plays the Winklevoss twins, very wealthy rowers who want to connect all of Harvard online.  Zuckerberg, the expert coder and hacker, humours them by pretending to go along with their plan and then proceeds to blow them off for weeks as he develops what will ultimately become the juggernaut known as Facebook, essentially the same idea, only bigger once the expansion to other ritzy colleges begins.  None of this is possible without the help of his only true friend Eduardo (a very sympathetic Andrew Garfield), who supplies the first twenty thousand dollars towards crucial equipment.

Despite being the complete opposite of a social butterfly, Zuckerberg understands the structural underpinning of college life:  permanent engagement.  Not necessarily a dating site, The Facebook, as it is first promoted, makes it easier to connect with classmates you don’t know and keep up with those you do.  The concept is so effective it even gets the awkward Zuckerberg laid.  The women come to you.

College life is about creating embarrassing memories and Facebook provides the unfortunate monument.  Dumb moments can be relived forever.  It gives new meaning to the word legacy.

Continually blindsided by The Facebook’s rapid growth, the Winklevoss brothers and their business partner Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) make several attempts to thwart Zuckerberg.  He ignores their toothless cease-and-desist letter.  He’s so unconcerned he doesn’t even tell Eduardo his CFO about it.  They seek legal advice.  They even secure a private meeting with the President of Harvard, a more indifferent man to their cause they could not find.

Meanwhile, Napster co-founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake in his element) becomes very interested in Zuckerberg’s progress.  He suggests losing the “The” and boldly asserts that the potential for the site’s growth is exponential.  Facebook could be ultimately worth a billion dollars.  (By 2010, we are told, it’s actual net worth is 25 billion, a staggering figure for a website.)

It’s only when the Winklevoss twins learn that British colleges have also signed up that they finally sue.

The Social Network dips back and forth between reimagined events and two civil litigations so smoothly you’re never lost in the narrative.  Eduardo is somewhat of a sympathetic witness for Zuckerberg in the Winklevoss case but also a resigned, disappointed opponent in his own.  Eisenberg really excels in these scenes.  His contempt for both proceedings is so palpable he doesn’t even have to be snide.  But he just can’t help himself.  He cuts promos on his new enemies and their legal team with zero hesitation and zero fucks to give.

He’s not the first super intelligent white man to be blinded by his own arrogance.  But he might be one of the few to be truly humbled, at least by the end of this movie.  As the facts in both cases are unspooled, Zuckerberg doesn’t realize he can’t win until it’s too late.  He clearly misled the Winklevoss boys.  They have the emails.  And he tried to shortchange Eduardo by significantly reducing his lucrative stock options and ownership stake (originally 30% to less than one).  Both would receive significant cash settlements, Eduardo’s indisputable contributions to the creation of Facebook no longer erased by a vengeful dweeb.

The movie belatedly tries to show that Zuckerberg isn’t a complete monster.  When Parker tries to suckerpunch Eduardo with a parting verbal shot (and cowardly flinches at the threat of a physical retaliation), Zuckerberg softly complains he went too far.  Despite reaching the big one million membership milestone, one of the key architects of that achievement looks deflated, far from deliriously happy, maybe even ashamed.

And then, perhaps the biggest humiliation of them all.  A friend request that goes unanswered.  The sad spectacle of a pompous jerk refreshing the screen every few seconds hoping to be invited back in.  The Beatles underscoring the bitter irony.

The Social Network is an exceptional movie.  The rightful winner of three Oscars, it understands the rarified world of collegiate misogyny and ruthless male ambition all too well.  David Fincher has assembled a tremendous cast (more Rooney Mara please) and Aaron Sorkin, for all his well documented flaws and white male liberal shortcomings, has penned a brilliant screenplay.  Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor’s score actually improves scenes with its often bouncy electronic urgency.  Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails recordings have always had a pointed cinematic quality about them so it’s a bit of a surprise it’s taken him so long to jump into this world beyond individual song contributions.  Never thought I would ever hear a modernized In The Hall Of The Mountain King work this well.

Nearly a decade after its triumphant release, The Social Network sharply showcases the rise of perhaps the most significant website in the history of the Internet, focusing far more on the creators than actual coding, thank God.  Since it moved beyond college campuses, Facebook has become the center of the online universe.  But in the last several years, it has also become a media punching bag, blamed for everything from undesired election results, the instantaneous global spread of fake news, needless censorship, privacy breaches, mass genocide and sexual harassment.

That story would make one hell of a sequel.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, March 22, 2019
4:11 a.m.

Creepers (1985)

For decades, Dario Argento has been called the Alfred Hitchcock of Italy.  For his entire career, Hitchcock himself was dubbed The Master Of Suspense.  Now, I’ve seen Psycho and I’ve just watched Creepers.  The comparison is completely unwarranted.

Creepers was originally released overseas as Phenomena.  The full version runs nearly two hours and only played in Italy.  Europeans saw a slightly shorter incarnation.

Creepers, the North American cut, lasts less than 85 minutes.  It still feels too long.

A very young Jennifer Connelly plays the daughter of a famous actor shipped off to an all-girls boarding school in Switzerland.  Her only friends are her starstruck, chain smoking French roommate and Donald Pleasance, a Scottish bug scientist confined to a wheelchair with a monkey named Inga as his sole companion and nurse.  Everybody else at her school treats her like crap.

Connelly has an unusual affection for and power over various types of insects.  She doesn’t fear them and they warm to her.  She also sleepwalks.  During one such sleepwalk, she somehow ends up on the roof of her school and witnesses a murder before falling off (or did she dream it?).  Still in a trance, she gets hit by a car.  The passengers, a couple of young men, basically kidnap her until she forces herself out of the moving vehicle.

A wandering Inga takes her by the hand and introduces her to the grandfatherly Pleasance who lives nearby.  He passes on his vast pest wisdom in the hopes that she’ll continue to visit him.

In the opening scene, a young Danish girl misses her bus in the mountains.  Lost and cold, she spots a nearby house.  Openly hoping for some assistance, she gets brutally attacked instead.  (Moments before, we see the killer chained to a wall.)  Despite managing to escape, he catches up with her.  Only her decapitated head is recovered from the scene.

Pleasance informs Connelly that certain bugs make great detectives, particularly the ones that feed off dead bodies.  (By the time he acquires the Danish girl’s head, it’s been eight months since her murder.)  He loans her a fly and requests she go back to the house where the killer was chained up to see if she can find anything.  The insect will be her guide.  By this point, Connelly has a personal reason for investigating and so does Pleasance.

If only I had a reason to care.  Creepers starts awful with the Danish girl’s murder (fake head in the water alert) and only slightly improves because of Pleasance and Connelly (who had charismatic star quality well before winning an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind).  The best scenes in the movie are their interactions.

But by God, this isn’t even remotely terrifying.  Unlike Hitchcock, Argento has no clue how to create tension.  He certainly doesn’t possess the ability to pay off a scene.

Consider the sequence where Connelly’s jerky classmates surround her in a circle of torment because of her sleepwalking and bug fascination.  There’s a moment where she telepathically summons a whole shitload of flies to start buzzing against the windows of the Richard Wagner Girls School.  But that’s it.  They just make a lot of noise against the glass. She simply passes out.

Or how about the end of the film when her dad’s lawyer is driving to rescue her and there’s a quick shot of him pawing at his gun.  By the time he arrives, though, it’s not even in his hand.  He turns out to be completely useless anyway.

There are similiar moments in more minor scenes.  When a poster of her dad is confiscated by the strict headmistress during her first night, Connelly tells her enamoured roommate not to worry, she has others she can put up.  They don’t get put up.

While in the abandoned house of the killer, Connelly spots a few rolled up posters on a high shelf and tries to reach them.  She manages to get one down but then she falls off a stool bringing that shelf down with her.  She doesn’t get a chance to look at it because she’s scared off by the sudden appearance of the real estate agent trying to sell this place.  (Why are those toys still there?)

And then there are the truly weird moments that don’t make any sense.  As Connelly gets settled into her room at her new school, she asks her French roommate about the food situation.  She’s starving.  All that’s available is fucking baby food.  (Her parents left them behind for some reason when she visited with her little brother.  Really?  Three jars worth?)  And yes, Connelly takes a sample using the end of her toothbrush.  “Tastes like cat food,” she asserts.  How would she know what cat food takes like?

When a major character gets killed off and wheeled out by the EMTs, a hard-driving Motorhead song plays on the soundtrack.  Good song but does it really suit this scene?  (A killer Iron Maiden cut is put to better use.  In the expanded Phenomena, it’s heard twice.  I liked some of the other music, as well (one repeated piece features wordless operatic vocalizing.))

Connelly accidentally kicks a toy into another toy and bizarrely thinks the second toy is a real boy she just injured.  And shortly thereafter, despite not actually having a fever, she agrees to take a pill at the insistence of her not-so-benign caregiver.  That leads to a very gross moment that is completely preventable.  Have you not heard of faking it, kid?

Let’s talk about the final act where we discover that there are in fact two killers, the one who has a predilection for teen girls and the one who takes out those getting too close to exposing him.  There is a scene where another character is chained to the wall.  He has to break his thumb in order to get out of them.  Meanwhile, the teen girl killer in that opening scene is strong enough to pull them right out of the wall.  He is half the size of the other guy.  He also has tinier hands so how the hell was he able to be chained up in the first place?

And why is the tiny killer being protected by someone he attacked?  They still have the goddamn scar!

Not only is Creepers nonsensical in a lot of ways, it’s also very routine, deriving its “inspiration” from Friday The 13th and It’s Alive.  Villains are seemingly vanquished only to magically reappear out of nowhere for one last hurrah before finally being killed off for good.  And one villain in particular laughs and talks too much.  By God, don’t tell someone you’re gonna finish them off, just fucking do it.

In a TV documentary about his career, Argento admitted having doubts about this project.  He should’ve abandoned it entirely.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, March 22, 2019
3:40 a.m.

Halloween (2018)

They had to do it.  They couldn’t leave well enough alone, could they?  Just when you thought you were all done with this bullshit, here comes another goddamn chapter.

When are the creators of Halloween going to learn that they can never top the original?  Why do they keep embarrassing themselves like this?  More than 40 years after the first Halloween radically changed the movies in more ways than one, we are still getting bad sequels.

But believe it or not, that’s not the most annoying thing about this franchise.  As continually disappointing as all the follow-ups (and remakes) have been, there’s something worse that needs to be addressed.

After Michael Myers was shot six times at point blank range at the end of the original, he disappeared, only to reemerge perfectly fine for more random murdering in number two until he was burnt to a crisp in the final scene.  Somehow, he returned again and again in sequel after sequel enduring more and more punishment.

In the seventh film, he got his head chopped off.  Or so we thought until the opening moments of number eight when it turned out he had ripped out some poor sap’s vocal cords and put his infamously blank mask on him.  After another flame tan, his eyes suddenly opened as he laid otherwise motionless in that body bag, awaiting another installment.

But he isn’t the only one who has repeatedly cheated death through revisionist screenwriting.  Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) survived his relentless pursuit in the first two installments, then died in an off-camera car accident as noted in number four.  But then it turned out, that was all a ruse to get her to move and change her identity in number seven.  Myers tracked her down anyway.  After he fooled her into decapitating an innocent person instead of him, he bumped her off at a mental institution in number eight.

This constant changing of the Halloween timeline is aggravating.  The filmmakers keep altering the backstory because they too are not proud of certain sequels, but doing this so much erodes credibility.

Which brings us to this Halloween, the eleventh entry.  If you hadn’t seen any of the follow-ups, you’re in luck.  This movie erases everything that has happened since Halloween II.  Laurie is no longer Michael’s brother.  Instead of chasing her in and around a nearby hospital in that sequel, we learn he was captured by the authorities shortly after being shot by Dr. Loomis in the original.  Sheriff Frank Hawkins (the always reliable Will Patton) made the arrest off-camera and had to talk ol’ Loomy out of popping his former patient right then and there.

40 years later, Myers is now 61 years old.  Still quiet and still incredibly patient, a towering statue of mystery.  In the opening scene, he’s visited by a couple of dopey English journalists (Rhian Rees & Jefferson Hall) who have a true crime podcast.  They’re greeted by his new caregiver, Dr. Ranbir Sartain (Haluk Bilginer), an obsessive protege of the long deceased Loomis who seems more interested in wanting to be Michael Myers than treating him.

In one of the dumbest moments ever seen in a horror film, the male journo pulls out the William Shatner mask in the hopes of provoking some kind of reaction out of an otherwise indifferent Myers.  He hasn’t said a word his entire time in custody.  Why would he start now?

Oh, and by the way, he’s being transferred to another facility shortly.  Gee, I wonder if there’ll be a bus crash.

Meanwhile, Laurie is a fucking mess.  Twice divorced with a distant daughter Karen (Judy Greer) who resents her paranoid upbringing, she’s cooped up in a house in the woods while suffering from PTSD acquired from her first encounter with The Shape.  Karen and her husband Ray (Toby Huss, The Wiz from Seinfeld) live not that far away with their teen daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) who resents her Mom’s efforts to keep Grandma at arm’s length.

All this time, Laurie has been preparing for a rematch with Michael.  She has weapons, flood lights, surveillance, and a secret plan.  She has been praying for his release “into the wild” ever since that night.  He will not disappoint her.

It takes nearly a third of the film’s running time before the inevitable moment when Myers finally, after so many years of waiting, makes his move (which we don’t actually witness).  Unlike the stellar original, the carnage he leaves behind is far bloodier, not to mention excessively brutal, but not terribly scary.  (He’s developed a harsh headbanging fetish.)  Also, was it really necessary to have him kill a child?

In the meantime, a frantic Laurie keeps trying to convince Karen and Ray to be ready for what’s coming.  There’s a weird scene where Karen hears a noise upstairs and suddenly out pops her mother warning her that it could’ve been Michael instead of her.  Karen predictably remains skeptical.  Has she ever seen a horror movie?

Halloween received mostly positive reviews during its release last autumn.  (I still love the classic theme, even in its not-as-perfect modernized form.  The rest of the score, co-composed by Carpenter, is uneven.  Nothing compares to what he came up with in 1978.)  Granted, this is one of the better sequels but by no means is it a good movie.  With the exception of one scene involving a hot blonde babysitter, a friend of Allyson’s, and the smart-assed kid she’s looking after, this Halloween lacks the clever, cheeky wit of its influential forefather.  John Carpenter’s original was fun, clever and genuinely terrifying, a beautifully crafted piece of popcorn cinema.  This slow moving alternative reality thriller is mostly dreary, uninspired and oh so tired.  Really, it’s time to end The False Alarm cliche once and for all.  It’s been abused way too much.  Also, you can anticipate lines and plot developments just before they happen.

There are too many slow burning sequences where characters walk around quietly in homes with extreme caution only to find dead bodies in closets and under blankets, or nothing at all, which we’ve seen countless times before.  As the silent tension builds and builds, you’re hoping for a big scare only to be deflated by a flat, conventional one.  Hiding behind a mannequin?  Really?

This eleventh Halloween is more proof that the franchise has run out of inventive ways to scare its audience.  A couple of victims get brutally murdered in a gas station bathroom.  Didn’t we see this in H20?  Myers walks right into a home where a woman is preparing dinner in the kitchen.  Isn’t this a reprise of a similar moment in number two?  That hot babysitter opens up the closet door and, well, you get the idea.

By the time Myers makes his way to Laurie’s isolated lair, you pretty much know where this is going.  And then, the biggest pet peeve of them all, an inconclusive ending.  Once again, more goddamn fire.

If only it hadn’t made so much fucking money.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, March 18, 2019
4:22 a.m.

The Equalizer (2014)

The Equalizer is a Frankenstein’s Monster of a thriller, a transparent patchwork of other movies and TV shows stitched together to form a generic hybrid.  It borrows a little from Death Wish, recycles less spectacular action elements from Jackie Chan films while stealing pages out of MacGyver’s DIY handbook and finally wrapping things up John McClane-style.  It’s so derivative it could’ve starred Stallone in the 80s.

Denzel Washington plays Robert McCall, the character first played by British actor Edward Woodward on the famous TV series.  Set in Boston instead of New York, McCall is still a mysterious loner with a secret.  He rarely sleeps.  He doesn’t entertain guests in his small apartment.  Every morning, he takes the subway to his job hauling product at a Home Depot-type warehouse and buses it back when his shift is over.  Obsessed with reading, he spends every late evening at an all-night diner drinking tea carefully wrapped from home.

He may keep to himself in private but he’s far from aloof in public places.  At work, he helps a young Hispanic kid (Johnnie Skourtis) lose weight for an upcoming security guard exam.  And at the diner, he befriends another regular customer, a troubled teenage sex worker (Chloe Grace Moritz).

McCall’s quiet life is pretty mundane and routine until he grows closer to the sex worker and witnesses her being assaulted by her angry Russian pimp.  (A john punched her, so she punched back, a no-no.  Off-camera, she gets pummeled some more by the pimp.)  When McCall finds out from the diner owner which hospital she’s staying in, he stops by but she’s out cold so he stays out of her room.  Before he leaves, he runs into one of her nervous co-workers (Jennifer Lawrence doppelganger Haley Bennett who was wonderful in The Girl On The Train), her only other visitor.

Instead of asking the Boston PD to look into the matter, McCall visits the pimp and his goons in his office above a restaurant.  He offers him close to 10 G’s for the sex worker’s freedom (shades of Mad Dog & Glory).  At first, the amused pimp agrees to give him custody of her but just for a month.  Then, feeling deeply insulted, he changes his mind and tells him to get lost.

You know what happens next.  It’s preposterous.  The odds are against him.  But when all is said and done, there are suddenly several new underworld job openings.  I’ll never look at a corkscrew bottle opener in quite the same way again.

In the meantime, McCall’s co-worker at the warehouse, the kid that wants to be a security guard, suddenly quits his job before taking his exam because of a small fire that happened at his mom’s takeout restaurant.  McCall learns they’ve been shaken down for protection money from a couple of crooked cops working for the Russian mob guys.  Again, instead of reporting them to their bosses (he has them on video threatening another family business if they don’t fork over the dough), he gives them the option of returning all the money or having the unedited footage leaked to the press.

Because the cops give back all the money, they don’t lose their jobs which quite frankly lets them off the hook.  In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter anyway because, well, they meet a grisly end.  How thankful I am this is only described, not shown, although maybe thankful isn’t quite the right word.

All of this aggravates “the head of the snake”, a Russian oligarch named Vladimir Pushkin (not so subtle with that name, I see) who’s in charge of all these crooked businesses.  When shit goes wrong, he sends a soft spoken Kevin Spacey lookalike named Teddy (Marton Csokas) to clean up the mess.

Teddy is not as smart as he thinks he is.  As he investigates what happened to the pimp squad, he takes another crooked cop with him to confront some Irish construction guys.  As it turns out, the visit has nothing to do with the murders despite the pretense.  Teddy knows they’ve not been so innocent when it comes to skimming off the top.  The cop takes out the Irish boss’ stooges with his gun but watches in disgust as Teddy repeatedly pounds away on the head of this shady operation until he keels over.  Not exactly the definition of a clean hit, guys.  Guess dumping bodies in the river fell out of fashion.

Eventually, Teddy realizes it wasn’t a rival gang responsible for his associates’ murders, it was McCall.  So, what does this criminal mastermind do?  He pays him a visit.  But what does he do when McCall opens the door?  Does he pop him?  Does he beat him up?  Does he choke him out?  Nope.  He pretends to be a homicide cop (way to disappear that accent, fella) investigating the murders.  McCall wonders why he doesn’t give him his card for future contacts.  His bullshit detector is smoking.

Teddy is a fool.  Here’s the perfect opportunity to eliminate the only guy who can threaten Pushkin’s entire business and he’d rather go through this ridiculous charade.  McCall has no idea who he is or that he’s even connected to the pimp squad murders.  He has to go see old CIA pals Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo to connect the dots.

But first, he has to survive an attempt on his life at the all-night diner.  Again, instead of popping him in the establishment, a hired goon would rather point and talk (he’s supposed to bring him to Teddy’s car) which gives the endlessly resourceful McCall plenty of time to take him out and cut the lights.  A wild goose chase ensues.

They break into McCall’s apartment and think he’s making a break for it.  In a rare moment of lucidity, Teddy realizes what’s really going on.  But that doesn’t prevent him from making more dumb mistakes.

The Equalizer was directed by Antoine Fuqua who directed Denzel Washington to his second Oscar in Training Day.  That film was much more cynical about police culture, correctly noting its systemic rot and brotherhood of reputation protection which extends to the media.  This movie lives in a fantasyland where the only bad cops are the ones bought by Pushkin.  It’s deeply ironic watching Washington talk about the nobility of wearing the badge after all the corruption he gleefully orchestrated in the earlier movie.

Washington remains as charismatic as ever.  But his character is so contradictory.  He wants to be a saviour to those he works with and talks to but he never has relationships with them outside of public places.  He wants to be Robin Hood at times but he’s also a vindictive killer.  There’s a coldness to him that makes his warmer moments unpersuasive.  He wants to be social but constantly keeps his distance.  He says he’s not proud of his darker impulses but that’s not believable since he can’t stop being a fascist.

For a formula action thriller, the movie takes too long to get rolling.  (It runs over two hours.)  The sex worker who dreams of being a singer (we never know if she’s any good or whether McCall even heard her demo) and the co-worker who wants to be a security guard (he eventually gets the job) just aren’t interesting or particularly well-developed as characters despite the extended running time.  (How did the teen end up being a victim of sex trafficking in the first place?)  McCall’s relationships with them are purely for the plot.  He constantly needs a reason to be psychotic.

Like the Taken trilogy, ex-CIA agent McCall engages in unnecessary torture.  The corrupt cop who helps Teddy take out those Irish construction guys has to choose between offering important information or dying in his car.  In the real world, there’s no way he would hold out that long before breaking.  Threatening to expose him to the media would’ve been just as effective and less illegal.

By the time we reach the final act, if it hasn’t been clear already, Teddy is seriously outmatched.  His ill-conceived plan to get McCall to play ball totally backfires as expected and The Equalizer suddenly becomes Die Hard In A Warehouse with MacGyver replacing Bruce Willis.  McCall makes a rare mistake but of course it’s not fatal.  He picked the right guy to mentor.

In this post-9/11 world, it’s unsettling to still see films like this glorify the worst excesses of the CIA.  Torture has long been normalized in pop culture (you even see it in cartoons aimed at kids) but it feels worse now because of its increasing politicization.  Torture has become patriotic, a welcome tool in the racist war on Muslims.  This is what happens when you don’t prosecute war criminals.

That all aside, The Equalizer’s other big problem is its lack of suspense.  At no time do we expect McCall to die.  He’s always the smartest guy in the room, three steps ahead of everybody else.  Because Teddy is so slow and clueless, McCall doesn’t have to do much to outfox him.

What’s truly puzzling is how he manages to achieve all of this on next to no sleep.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
3:54 a.m.

Vendetta

There are times I watch a bad movie and marvel that it ever got a theatrical release.  Vendetta is one of those movies.  It has “straight-to-video” written all over it and yet, somehow, it still managed a brief, limited run in select cinemas.  It made less than five figures.  The bottom line:  don’t expect a sequel.

The movie gets off to a hilariously awful start.  Dean Cain and Ben Hollingsworth play a couple of cops on the verge of nabbing two notorious brothers, one of whom is played by The Big Show.  As they noisily enter an abandoned warehouse, I openly wondered how long it would take before Hollingsworth gets popped.  Sure enough, it happens within a couple of minutes which made me laugh.  He survives but only because of the quick-thinking Cain.

Meanwhile, Cain and Big Show get into their own shooting contest as the big man badly delivers some forgettable dialogue.  (Why does he slow his roll so much?)  Then come the fisticuffs.  Is it even remotely believable that Cain could take The World’s Largest Athlete?  Yes, he was Superman at one time but come on, that was 20 years ago.  Good thing he preemptively calls for back-up.

With the brothers now in custody all seems well in Chicago.  Cain can get back to impregnating his wife which hasn’t happened yet.  But, of course, all his efforts to put away a couple of murderous drug lords is all for naught.  Three months later, they’re suddenly released because an important witness magically disappeared.  Uh huh.  Vowing revenge for being pinched in the first place, Big Show suddenly shows up at Cain’s house.  When the cop calls home, that isn’t his wife saying “Hey baby!”, another unintentional laugh.

Because Vendetta was directed by the Soska sisters, there is considerable restraint in what happens next.  A panicked Cain calls Hollingsworth but by the time he hurries home, it’s too late.  Not only does The Big Show beat his wife to death (not as brutal as you would expect, thankfully), her unborn baby expires, as well.  In view of other cops, Hollingsworth talks Cain out of shooting him.  Like that would ever happen in the real world.  Imagine if he was Black.

With the big man now a lifer, a depressed, infuriated Cain vows vengeance of his own and that’s when Vendetta stops being silly and becomes deeply irresponsible.  No more restraint or logic.  With absolutely nothing to live for, Cain deliberately targets Big Show’s drug dealing brother and two of his goons so he can be incarcerated in the same prison as his towering enemy.  Fascism gets you results!

We wait impatiently for the inevitable, an expected final confrontation.  But long before that, we have to endure Cain getting repeatedly beaten (he gets thrown at a sink at one point), a lame-ass warden in cahoots with Big Show who continues to run his boring criminal enterprise unfettered, and a grimacing Cain knocking off all his attackers one by one.

The warden is played by Michael Eklund who looks like a rejected Vaudevillain.  He’s not remotely scary (what’s with that lame voice?  Is he trying to sound like Robert Englund?) nor is he terribly bright.  The fact that he allows Cain to even be imprisoned here justifies his eventual comeuppance in the film’s finale.  Why does he keep Cain alive for so long?  Well, apparently, he’s waffling on continuing to support Big Show.  But why would you want to alienate a murderous giant?  Besides, Cain only wants retribution.

Cain himself isn’t so swift.  His only visitor is Hollingsworth.  Thanks to a former colleague who works as a prison guard, Cain learns about the warden’s corruption.  Unfortunately, a less sympathetic guard eavesdrops on their phone conversation and passes the message on.  Guess what happens to Hollingsworth.

Every so often, Cain gets thrown into tortuous solitary confinement, which is pointless because 1. it protects him from more violence, 2. it gives him much needed time to heal when he’s not otherwise hospitalized and 3. upon release, he can’t stop murdering people.  Meanwhile, Big Show demands the warden give him the go-ahead to finally terminate him, something that should’ve happened on his first day on the inside.

But of course, after they finally exchange punches in the prison yard riot in the finale, even after Big Show has him on the ground with a newly loaded pistol pointed directly at his head, Cain knows he’s not gonna pull the trigger.  Big Show would rather cut a promo on him.  Reluctant villains are the worst.

Vendetta is a stupid movie featuring cruel characters we don’t care about subjecting themselves to constant, mindless violence.  And why?  Because toxic masculinity is a helluva drug.  There’s never a moment of reflection, no intellectual pausing to question the wisdom of such actions.  Over time, Dean Cain’s sadistic cop becomes as much of an unrepentant degenerate as The Big Show’s gangster (who wants to be a cigar-smoking Suge Knight so badly).  He dehumanizes himself through the dehumanization of his enemies, a reality the film refuses to acknowledge.  Even before his old partner on the force Hollingsworth visits him in the hospital and reminds him that eliminating the big man won’t bring back his family, Cain has already stopped listening to reason.

This movie never had it to begin with.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
3:33 a.m.