By James Guill

Hitting The Nuts, USA, 2011

Directed by Joe Boyd

Since the poker boom in 2003, film makers have tried to create a movie that resounds with the poker community much in the way that Rounders has.  Unfortunately, many of those movies have either fell well short of the mark, or had no clue what the game really was all about.

Last April, independent film producer and director Joe Boyd released a film entitled Hitting the Nuts: The True Story of the Scott County Series of Poker. At first glance, this films looked to be a low budget attempt to cash in on poker’s popular.  However, after watching the film, many discovered that this cast of unknowns had actually properly captured the spirit of the game.

The story centers around the players who play in Scott County’s annual poker tournament and about half of the film is spent giving you backstory on the characters.  One of the main characters, Ezekiel Yoder, is an Amish farmer who had lost everything and was trying to play in the town’s annual poker tournament to save his farm.  Carol Marshall is a middle-aged waitress who is flirty, spunky, and a helluva poker player.  Dean Livy is the film’s “Phil Hellmuth.”  He is the “defending” champion by default when the previous champion died.

Without spoiling too much about what happens in the movie, suffice it to say that things do not go as expected in the poker tournaments and hijinks ensue.  Characters grow and develop and many of the players learn that the best part about the game of poker are the bonds and friendships you develop during the game.

As far as the actual poker is concerned, it would be best described as what you would expect to see from a low stakes, hometown poker game, which works perfectly for this film.  The filmmakers take care to even throw in things that you would expect at a hometown game, such as the “crazy cat lady” who has no clue how to play but still manages to luckbox her way into some money.

Many have compared Hitting the Nuts to the poker flick “The Grand” but in honesty, this film is much better.  It tells a story about poker on a level that almost every person who has ever played the game can relate to.  You won’t see big name pros or huge amounts of cash splashed around.  What you will see is a hilarious film that shows what the game really is for most of us and not what you see on television.

Transformers, USA, 2007

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, USA, 2009

Directed by Michael Bay

With the latest Michael Bay monstrosity, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, taking more than a billion dollars at the box office and potentially remaining the top-grossing movie of this year (please, please, prove me wrong, awards season), now would be a good time to revisit the first two, which might help explain why I have sworn off the third one, or any future editions. I hope no one thinks I’m a snob just for occasionally displaying some standard of good taste. Remember, I love The Toxic Avenger (1984) and The Lost Boys (1987), not to mention much lower quality films like The Room (2003) and Birdemic: Shock and Terror, so I’m not always too pretentious for a good time with a bad movie. 

Transformers (2007) is the somewhat enjoyable but wildly overlong story of a high school kid unfortunately named Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his love affair with his car … I mean, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), a sultry, sexy cheerleader who is considered out of his league until he acquires a sleek, sexy ’70s Camaro named Bumblebee (voiced by Mark Ryan). Yeah, sure, it’s the girl Sam – and most of this film’s target audience – wants to have sex with, not the car. Whatever. Anyway, despite what audiences might expect or want, and what they may have been led to believe by the film’s trailer, the first Transformers movie spends an inordinate amount of time on Sam and his “beard,” Mikaela, leaving most of the actual Transformers to be little more than comic relief in their own movie, at least until the last twenty minutes or so, when they finally get around to engaging in the patented Michael Bay orgy-of-loud-shiny-excess-action-sequence, as seen in even worse movies like Bad Boys II (2003).

Making the Autobots (they’re the good guys) comic relief might have been a good idea if they were actually funny. Instead, they are a collection of lowest common denominator cliches, with Bay and his two screenwriters, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, proving they are not too proud to mine cheap yuks from the bodily functions of chihuahuas. One of the few bright points of the film is John Turturro’s performance as Agent Simmons, an eccentric government man who gets the best moment of the film when he says, referring to Mikaela, “She’s a criminal, and criminals are hot!” Turturro delivers this line with the kind of manic intensity that made him famous in early work like Tony Bill’s Five Corners (1987), and he seems to be one of the few actors having a good time and not taking anything too seriously. By the time we reach the climactic, twenty minute battle scene, it’s hard not to be too bored and numb to care about the spectacle, which is technically impressive, to be sure.

As basically crappy as Transformers is, it is a true masterpiece of cinema compared to its sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This one just might be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely the loudest, dumbest and most boring. Just painful to watch. By the end, I felt suicidal, but I was too numb to do anything about that feeling. Much has been said, quite accurately, of this film’s sexism and racism, but beyond that, I just can’t help but wonder: how can a movie this stupid be this long? How can a movie about giant alien robots fighting each other take itself so seriously? Why waste an epic length on something without a shred of decent character development or even a coherent story?

I won’t waste your time or mine trying to recount the so-called plot of this movie, especially since its three screenwriters (apparently two cooks were not enough to spoil the broth last time) can’t seem to be bothered making any of it coherent anyway. Suffice to say, there are robots, stuff blows up, and I can’t waste any more time with this franchise, even if they did add Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Alan Tudyk to the latest installment. At eighty minutes, this would still be a terrible movie, but at 150 it is like having your psyche relentlessly bludgeoned by an exceptionally stupid sledgehammer. For some reason, Rainn Wilson also appears briefly; I love him as Dwight Schrute on The Office but he seems to only make cameos in terrible but highly successful movies (see also, Juno). This is, sadly, one of the top hundred highest-grossing films of all time; therefore, I will die in poverty.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

My Week with Marilyn, UK / USA, 2011

Directed by Simon Curtis

Marilyn Monroe was my first real crush, even before I really knew what a crush was. I grew up on old movies, which is probably the reason I still find the image of a woman smoking with a cocktail in the other hand extremely sexy, and no woman on the silver screen from that golden era long before I was born held the mysterious, seductive allure of Marilyn. Three of her films in particular were my childhood obsessions: Otto Preminger’s River of No Return (1954), Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) and John Huston’s The Misfits (1961), which turned out to be her final feature. Of course, there were other favorites, especially Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business (1952) and Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch (1955), but those three really captured her sweet vulnerability, her almost oblivious sensuality, and the soft sadness behind her alluring smile, an indication of the hard life she had lived and, as my young mind and these films dared to hope, had now left behind. In reality, of course, poor Marilyn’s life only got harder, until it was snuffed out all too soon.

One of Marilyn’s films I still have yet to see is Laurence Olivier’s The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), a light romantic comedy made at the peak of Marilyn’s career, and around the middle of Olivier’s. Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn centers around the tumultuous production of this film, and the brief, unforgettable time Marilyn (Michelle Williams) spent with third assistant director Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) while her husband, the great playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), was away from the production. Kenneth Branagh delivers a lovably overstated performance (as usual) as Olivier, an actor to whom he was favorably compared in his early days, especially with the release of his breakthrough Shakespeare adaptation Henry V (1989), and it is difficult to imagine anyone else in the role. Physically, the amazing Michael Fassbender would seem an apt choice, but Branagh chews scenery and spout Shakespeare like no other, and anyway, Fassbender has been way too busy lately.

Obviously, the draw of this film is Williams’ performance as Marilyn, which is an uncanny achievement. Like Branagh as Olivier, it is not so much a striking physical resemblance (Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks would clearly be a better choice for that) as it is a profound immersion in the character. Though she doesn’t really look like Marilyn, Williams has the voice and mannerisms down so perfectly that at times I literally forgot that I was watching what could unkindly be called an impersonation and felt as if I were actually seeing long-lost, impossibly candid footage of the great woman herself, the highest compliment that could be paid to a performance like this. It is similar to Cate Blanchett’s brilliant turn as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (2005), though Blanchett looks even less like her subject, and of course Katharine Hepburn never broke a nation’s heart with her untimely death (since she lived to the ripe old age of 748).

As is said of Marilyn herself by her co-star, Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench) in the film, when Williams is onscreen, nothing else matters. It is impossible not to identify with Colin as he falls hopelessly in love with Marilyn because, well, how could he not? At the same time, it is a doomed, tragic love, not only because Marilyn is already married to Miller, but because she could never seem to truly love herself. She voraciously sought and received the adoration of the world, but the constant attention only made her unhappier. Her career and life were a vicious cycle of dependence not unlike the relationship of an addict to their drug of choice; Marilyn needed fame like a junkie needs heroin, and it destroyed her in the same seductive way. The film manages to capture this without resorting to blatant melodrama, and Williams’ performance sells it more than anything else.

I don’t mean to sell the rest of the film short; everything else about the film is solid as well, particularly its fine supporting performances by Dench, Dominic Cooper and Emma “Hermione Granger” Watson, as well as a superb cameo by British national treasure Derek Jacobi. Curtis does a good job of capturing the daily travails of studio filmmaking, and the era feels authentic. Credit should also be given to the makeup and lighting departments for their assistance in creating the central illusion of Marilyn, but ultimately, as with any kind of biopic, this film belongs to its star, and Williams carries the show. It is a remarkable, devastating performance that will undoubtedly be remembered when we get to Oscar time, and though she may not win this year (she’s already been nominated twice before, for her excellent work in 2005′s Brokeback Mountain and last year’s Blue Valentine), it is to be fervently hoped that, unlike poor Marilyn, she will have decades more to amaze us all with her skill and talent.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

Melancholia, Denmark / Sweden / France / Germany, 2011

Written and Directed by Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier’s latest is by no means my favorite of his films, but I do feel much more charitable about than he apparently does. Here is what the great Danish artist / provocateur has to say, excerpted from his statement on the film’s official website: “This is cream on cream. A woman’s film! I feel ready to reject the film like a transplanted organ … I am confused now and feel guilty. What have I done? Is it ‘exit Trier?’ I cling to the hope that there may be a bone splinter amid all the cream that may, after all, crack a fragile tooth … I close my eyes and hope!”

As gifted a filmmaker as von Trier certainly is, he doesn’t seem to quite have the knack for self-promotion. Then again, this could be yet another example of the perverse, impish delight he seems to take in his own self-destruction, as most recently evidenced in his controversial “I am a Nazi” joke at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This is oddly appropriate to Melancholia, which, as the title suggests, is largely about the mysterious, fascinating pull of deep, all-encompassing depression, as well as the beauty and peace to be found in the complete destruction of absolutely everything. In fact, the latter – the incredibly gorgeous apocalyptic images that bookend the film – mainly functions as a metaphor for the former. The planet Melancholia, which has supposedly been “hiding behind the sun,” threatens to destroy all life on Earth as it draws near, yet it is also described as the most beautiful sight we will ever see. Depression may be always lurking just behind the nurturing light of life, but when it finally shows itself, we find that it is more absorbing and actually enjoyable, in a perverse way, than happiness.

After a slow-motion prologue that will undoubtedly stand alongside the Big Bang sequence in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life as the most unbelievably beautiful filmmaking of the year, we are introduced to Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and her new husband, Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), as they attempt to reach their wedding party, to be held at the lavish mansion of Justine’s sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), her exceedingly wealthy husband, John (Kiefer Sutherland), and their young son, Leo (Cameron Spurr). They are stymied in their efforts by their stretch limousine, which is too unwieldy to easily navigate the winding path to the house; this seems to bode ill for the party to come, and indeed the wedding it is meant to celebrate, but the tone so far is light and comical. The wedding party, once it begins, is actually the closest to comedy that von Trier has come since surprising all of his fans with his wonderfully absurd take on the screwball genre, The Boss of It All (2006), but there is an almost unbearable tension under the surface and the humor is dry and uncomfortable. This is not to say it isn’t very funny, though, particularly in performances by Charlotte Rampling as Gaby, Claire and Justine’s mother, and von Trier regulars John Hurt (Dogville, Manderlay) as Dexter, their father; Stellan Skarsgard (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville) as Jack, Justine’s overbearing boss; and Udo Kier, who has appeared in practically every von Trier film, as a wedding planner.

As the party continues, however, the mood grows darker, as Gaby verbally pisses all over everything for which the party stands, Jack unpleasantly badgers Justine about her work, and Justine gradually sinks into an apparently not unusual state of despair. The second half of the film begins some unspecified time later with Justine, now so depressed she can barely even move, returning to the mansion so that Claire can take care of her. John is clearly not at all pleased about this arrangement, but he is more optimistic about the impending arrival of the planet Melancholia, only briefly glimpsed and barely mentioned in the film’s first half. John believes the planet’s orbit around the earth will be merely a natural fireworks display akin to Halley’s Comet, while Claire is increasingly concerned about the possibility that it will crash into Earth, obliterating all existence. John’s scientific rationalism and his attempts to blind Claire, as well as himself, to nature’s truth draws one of many interesting parallels between this and von Trier’s last film, Antichrist (2009), which was also made as a sort of therapeutic art project to treat his own clinical depression. As the planet moves ever closer and it becomes clear that it will crash into Earth, the personalities of the two sisters almost seem to reverse, with Claire becoming increasingly frantic and undone while Justine gains strength and autonomy, finding a sense of calm as she embraces the end of all things. In one scene, Claire finds her basking nude in the light of the planet’s blue glow, an elegant visual metaphor for the vicious cycle of wallowing in the tragic beauty of one’s own melancholy.

This is a very difficult and challenging film, and I can’t honestly say I enjoyed every moment of it, but enjoyment is hardly the point when dealing with such a deep and intelligent examination of despair. The cataclysmic final sequence sent chills rippling through my entire body and is a far more effective representation of total destruction than anything in the mega-budget guilty pleasure films of Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012), another Teutonic filmmaker who delights in depictions of apocalypse on a grand scale. However, von Trier’s take on this subject is a much more personal apocalypse of the sort endured by the female leads in his previous films – Emily Watson’s Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves (1996), Bjork’s Selma Jezkova in Dancer in the Dark (2000), Nicole Kidman’s Grace Margaret Mulligan in Dogville (2003). Yes, the entire world is coming to an end with a ferocious bang, but what is clearly more important to von Trier and Melancholia is the whimper with which the worlds of Justine and Claire are snuffed out.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

Martha Marcy May Marlene, USA, 2011

Written and Directed by Sean Durkin

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a wonderfully disquieting and haunting film, disturbing as much for what it doesn’t show us as for what it does. First-time director Sean Durkin gives us the story in disjointed bits and pieces, moving seamlessly back and forth in time in a way that puts the viewer fully into the confused head-space of its protagonist, Martha (Elizabeth Olsen, who handily proves with this one performance that she is by far the most talented of her sisters, who include the famous twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley). The film’s style gives it an almost documentary-like immediacy similar to recent films like Antonio Campos’s Afterschool or Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married (both 2008). The similarity to Afterschool is no coincidence, as Durkin was a producer on that film, and Campos is credited as producer on this one; together, they are proving to be a formidable filmmaking team, and certainly one to watch in the coming years.

The film begins as Martha runs away from a sort of “back to nature” cult somewhere in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. She is followed and confronted in a diner by one of the principle cult members, Watts (Brady Corbet), who is menacing but ultimately leaves her to her own devices. Martha calls her estranged sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who picks her up and brings her back to stay with she and her husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy), in their posh lake house. As she struggles to readjust to normal society, Martha drifts in and out of memories in a strange, dreamlike state that is carefully emulated by the filmmaking technique. At one point, she asks Lucy if she has ever had trouble distinguishing a dream from a memory; it is a telling moment that hints at the possibility that some of the flashbacks we see are partially or even wholly imagined.

The subject of these flashbacks is the cult experience itself, in which clothing is optional but strict faithfulness to the leader, Patrick (John Hawkes), is not. Patrick remains a mysterious figure throughout, though we see enough to know that he is a creepy and dangerous man, but also possesses the strange sort of charisma that allows him to manipulate weak-minded and vulnerable people like Martha into following him. Much of this is due to Hawkes’s stellar performance, which very nearly equals his outstanding turn in last year’s Winter’s Bone; here he channels his inner Charles Manson, and even when he smiles, which is often, there is a highly unsettling intensity in his eyes, which never waver once their target is chosen. “Marcy May” is the name he gives Martha while she is with the cult, a subtle and seemingly endearing way of stripping her identity and making her even more vulnerable. As for the “Marlene” of the title, well, it’s best if you find that part out for yourself.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that more successfully captured the inner workings of a “voluntary” cult experience; the subtle indoctrination, the strange rituals, the methodical breaking of individual wills. Even Stanley Nelson’s very good documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006), simply by the limitation of being an actual documentary, could only delve so deeply, with archival footage and interviews with survivors filmed after the fact. The closest antecedent in recent memory is, once again, my beloved Dogtooth, which I still consider to be last year’s very best film, but even that had a more satirical, surreal style to it, while Martha Marcy May Marlene feels uncomfortably real at all times.

The interesting thing to consider, though, is just how real it all is, or isn’t. As mentioned above, there is a very subtle hint that perhaps Martha’s damaged mind is misremembering or fabricating some of her past experiences. She tells Lucy, who knows nothing of the cult from which Martha is hiding, that she has merely left a boyfriend with whom things didn’t work out. All we the audience ever see in distinct, objective reality (as opposed to Martha’s flashbacks) of the cult is Watts chasing her through the woods, followed by that strange, terse confrontation in the diner. Is Watts the boyfriend of whom she speaks to Lucy, or is that at least how Martha saw him at first? We see, in her flashbacks, him leading new female recruits into the fold, which is probably how Martha came to be there as well. The question is, how much of Martha’s disjointed memories actually occurred in that slippery space of objective reality? To its credit (and the consternation of some of the rest of the audience at the screening I attended when the film’s brilliantly ambiguous ending comes), the film is less interested in providing answers than it is in leaving its fascinating questions lingering in the mind of its audience long after it cuts to black.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

The Change-Up, USA, 2011

Directed by David Dobkin

At seems that at least a few times a year, movies are released that test the attention span – and maturity – of their audience. I’ll be the first to spoil the big surprise here: there’s a projectile poop scene. The review almost writes itself. Take Jason Bateman, who seems to be one of the busier actors this year, and put him with Ryan Reynolds, who seems to be one of the busiest actors in general, and put them in a Freaky Friday rehash, and you might expect some comic gold, right? Well, your head is in the right place, but your expectations might be too darn high. What we’re given instead is one of the raunchiest (for the mere sake of being raunchy) comedies I’ve seen in a long time. This makes Reynolds’ work in Van Wilder (2002) seem like The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999). And that’s being kind.

As I mentioned before, yet feel the need to point out again, there’s a projectile poop scene. With no build-up. That’s how we’re told what kind of movie this is; all the intelligence of subtle comedy is thrown out the window for the chance to have a kid drop a deuce on Jason Bateman’s face from across the room. The Exorcist (1973) never seemed more watchable, right? And I’ve never longed for a Lindsay Lohan movie more than when I was watching this. Sure, the R-rating for “everything under the sun” should have given the crudeness away, but not the lack of intelligence, nor the lack of faith in its audience.

Our story begins with Dave Lockwood (Bateman) being a good guy; he’s a father of three, a dutiful husband, and an excellent lawyer on the brink of the biggest corporate merger of his career. Inexplicably, his best friend is Mitch Planko (Reynolds), a pot-smoking, lecherous, struggling actor living the life of his dreams – no life at all. Our story really only begins when Dave and Mitch go to a bar to watch a game, as they haven’t hung out in a while, which makes sense because they’re busy. Well, Dave is busy; but never mind. They go to the bar and get far more drunk then men of their age should, and Dave falls in love with Mitch’s lifestyle while he listens to Mitch go on and on about the random women he’s sleeping with, including the enigmatic Tatiana (Mircea Monroe). Sounds great, right? I’m not a saint, and I certainly understand the struggle of monogamous relationships, but Dave seems a bit more unhappy than he should. He avoids couples therapy with his wife, Jamie (Leslie Mann) and wishes instead for Mitch’s life. Mitch, for his part, wishes for Dave’s life. As they pee together. In a fountain. Drunk. In public.

This is our movie. There’s a rolling blackout, and by the time they wake up the next morning, they have gotten their wish. Dave wakes up in his home next to Jamie and has to take care of their three children while Mitch’s personality drives him, and Mitch wakes up and has to go to his first big movie role as Dave. This is the only actually funny thing in the film, as it’s a “lorno movie,” or a “light porno,” for those of us not in the business. Now, I’m only a writer, but I make a decent living doing the things I do, and as bad as I want to work in film (it’s the dream, yeah), even I wouldn’t take a “lorno.” Still, the scene is damn funny, mainly because Reynolds is a talented actor and mimic.

One more thing that drives my distaste in the story and film is that this is one of those films whose trailer contains all the funny moments. Unfortunately, the funny moments in the trailer aren’t actually in the film, so in this case, the film is not nearly as funny as its trailer. The story reaches its obvious outcome, in which everything is set right and all is well again, as Dave and Mitch each learn to appreciate the lives they have. And they pee together in a fountain, drunk in public.

Contact the author: ScottMartin@MoviesIDidntGet.com

The Rum Diary, USA, 2011

Written and Directed by Bruce Robinson

Based on the Novel The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson

To begin with, let me just say that this is a rather difficult review to write. I don’t think I saw this film under ideal circumstances. There was something missing, you see – I had not a drop of alcohol in my system. This was not accidental; with the exception of midnight movies I’ve seen many times before, I generally hate to be drunk in a movie theater, in large part due to the uncomfortable necessities of an overly full bladder. I hate to miss a moment of a film I’ve never seen due to such petty inconveniences. However, in the case of Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of the great Hunter S. Thompson’s “long lost novel” The Rum Diary (written in the early 1960s but not published until 1998), I think bringing in a flask would have been appropriate. Not to get drunk, mind you, but just a nip now and then, to take the edge off.

Of course, the characters in The Rum Diary are, by and large, not to the types of people to take the edge off of anything, and certainly not the types of drinkers to take a polite nip from a flask now and then. As in Thompson’s 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (brilliantly filmed by Terry Gilliam in 1998), the standard modus operandi of everyone here is excess. For Thompson surrogate Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) and his fellow reporters at the rundown Puerto Rican newspaper The San Juan Star, the excess mostly takes the form of severe alcoholism. For Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), the ostensible subject of Kemp’s assignment at the paper, it comes in the form of overarching greed, as he plots to continue destroying the home and livelihoods of the native Puerto Ricans in order to build more luxury hotels for wealthy tourists.

As far as actual, conventional plot goes, that’s about it. Kemp becomes embroiled in Sanderson’s shady dealings once Sanderson decides it would be a good idea to have a friendly liaison at the local newspaper and attempts to buy Kemp’s favor with expensive liquor and lavish niceties, most hilariously represented by a jewel-encrusted live turtle that wanders around his beachfront mansion. Kemp, despite his generally booze-addled state, has a sort of vague sense of integrity that won’t allow him to just cuddle up in Sanderson’s pocket; he also has a tremendous infatuation for Sanderson’s girlfriend, Chenault (Amber Heard), a strange change of pace from the apparent asexuality of Raoul Duke, the Thompson surrogate in Fear and Loathing (an older Thompson played by a much younger Depp in the film), especially compared to his attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro in the film), who had at least three demented courtships in that one (with no less than Cameron Diaz, Christina Ricci and Ellen Barkin in the film), all of which would potentially involve various criminal charges against Gonzo.

It is equally unfair and nearly impossible for me to write about this film without comparing it to Fear and Loathing, a film that was initially maligned by most critics but went on to achieve great and well-deserved cult status. Gilliam, as always, made a masterful but highly challenging film, and the entire 120 minutes of it is one long, epic hallucination. By contrast, Robinson (who already sort of made the first, unofficial British adaptation of Fear and Loathing with his 1987 directorial debut, Withnail & I) has made a much more palatable film for a mass audience, though that is still relative. Limiting its flamboyant visual flourishes to some very nice slow-motion photography and one hallucinatory sequence involving the tongue of Kemp’s cockfighting, alcoholic compatriot Sala (Michael Rispoli) that feels more like an out-of-place nod to the much better Gilliam film than anything else, the film is still a wild, incoherent ride through the depths of hooch-induced madness that will be unlikely to appeal to a mainstream audience.

There are certainly things to like about the film. The performances are solid all around, particularly Rispoli as Sala, perhaps the most genuinely likable character in the film (and a good surrogate for Del Toro’s Dr. Gonzo, who was not exactly likable, though it was an amazing performance) and the always reliable Richard Jenkins as Lotterman, the cranky editor of the Star. The flashiest performance, of course, is Giovanni Ribisi as Moburg, a shambling wreck of a drunk who is constantly being fired from the paper and occasionally lives with Sala and Kemp in a squalid apartment, but while he seems to be giving it his all, there is something inorganic and phony about the performance. He does a good job of remaining dirty and repugnant, but for me at least, he seems to be trying too hard. As for the film overall, I admit to being underwhelmed, whereas my first viewing of Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing back in ’98 was nothing if not overwhelming. To be fair, I certainly didn’t love that film right away, at least not as much as I later came to appreciate it after seeing it multiple times and reading the book a few times as well (I was only fifteen when the film came out and hadn’t yet actually read any Thompson). In both cases, perhaps a working knowledge of the original text is essential, and I have yet to read The Rum Diary, but on a single, unassisted first viewing, I must confess to some disappointment. There are many enjoyable moments, to be sure, but the rather subdued tone and utterly uninteresting romantic subplot between Kemp and Chenault add up to a lot less than the wild, chaotic abandon of Gilliam’s previous, superior Thompson adaptation.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.