Now we’re all in the stew, for an impulsive act, for a selfish act, under my roof!

Green Room

(2015)

(SPOILERS – also for Bone Tomahawk) Jeremy Saulnier’s follow-up to the keenly studied Blue Ruin (what next, Red Rum?) lacks that picture’s depth of character and thematic epistle on the pitfalls of revenge, instead positioning itself as a very straightforward siege movie. Assault on Precinct 13, but with an Oregon bar as the police station, a punk band as the besieged, and a posse of rabid neo-Nazis as the remorseless menace. Saulnier imbues the proceedings with the tension-ratchetting precision of a master of the genre.

Although, some have speculated over just what genre that is. Horror or thriller? It’s a bit semantic, really. Substitute zombies or unstoppable, undead mariners for the neo-Nazis and, with all the stabbing, gouging and mutilation going on, it would happily fit into the horror genre (to be fair to Saulnier, he isn’t one to linger on the violence, but there’s no shortage of it). Saulnier also plays with the rules of survival like one who knows the horror genre backwards, picking off the protagonists in such an atypical manner that it’s unclear who is going to survive and how.

Macon Blair was the unlikely “hero” of Blue Ruin (returning here as a neo-Nazi lieutenant) and Saulnier shows a similar willingness to shrug off expectations in Green Room. When Anton Yelchin’s guitarist Pat has his hand nearly hacked off at the wrist as the standoff escalates, we suspect the writer-director may be pulling a Hitchcock number and dooming the presumed lead in the first (well, second) reel. That Pat turns out to be something of a survivor may conform to lead-actor type, but it’s very much along the lines of the also-incapacitated Patrick Wilson in horror-western Bone Tomahawk, where against the odds – straining credulity, if you want to be picky, although Green Room is a movie where there’s a discussion on paintballing not reflecting reality, with real guns, so Saulnier is at least embracing his fictions – the least likely protagonist pulls through.

Certainly, I had little doubt Joe Cole’s Reece, as the only band member who can take care of himself with any degree of proficiency, would end up dead, but the escalation of events, and even the flip markers defy definites; I was sure Saulnier put in the line about letting Reece bleed out because he expected us to expect him, unattended, to not be nearly as dead after all. He also brings in Brent Werzner’s Werm as a saviour, only to summarily dispatch him five minutes later. And, against the odds – since its incredibly stupid, like baiting an angry, skinhead badger – it isn’t the anti-Nazi song (The Dead Kennedys’ Nazi Punks Fuck Off) they open their set with that leads to the subsequent deadly events.

And, if it’s become something of a cliché in recent years that the most survival-friendly character turns out to be female, Saulnier is less than reverent with dispatching band member Sam (Alie Shawkat, who is just as good here as in Arrested Development, such a sure, confident performer she really ought to be headlining movies). It’s left to Pat and Amber (Imogen Poots, too often marginalised in thankless roles, gives a wonderfully unsentimental, matter-of-fact performance) to make the best of dire straits. Saulnier repeats devices from Blue Ruin – characters are terrible shots, there’s surprising stoicism in the face of death – but in tone this is much more stripped-down and streamlined. While he indulges in occasional fancies – the mosh of Ain’t Rights’ performance becomes a slow-motion ballet set to classical strains, early interludes of montage between the band mates providing tonal build up for what is to come – there’s no side steps once he gets going.

Patrick Stewart, meanwhile, prevents the Nazis from becoming a mindless horde. If Blair’s Gabe is out of his depth, Stewart’s Darcy’s failing is over-confidence in his clean-up operation. To that extent, he strays into the Bond villain territory of leaving the scene while his victims get a chance to escape, but Stewart has rarely gotten his teeth into a baddie (Conspiracy Theory was a fairly standard type) and clearly relishes the opportunity; he’s actually not soporific for a change!

I don’t think Green Room represents Saulnier’s growth as a filmmaker, however, except maybe technically. One might argue he’s chosen the easiest of real-life subjects, ones who have it coming, and combined with the embrace of cathartic bloodshed at the climax, it’s something of a step down after the anti-revenge realisation that concludes Blue Ruin. That said, it’s easy to see why this has been a feature of many a year-end best of list, and it underlines once again what a too-soon departure Yelchin’s was.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

You’re never the same man twice.

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)
(SPOILERS) Roger Moore playing dual roles? It sounds like an unintentionally amusing prospect for audiences accustomed to the actor’s “Raise an eyebrow” method of acting. Consequently, this post-Saint pre-Bond role (in which he does offer some notable eyebrow acting) is more of a curiosity for the quality of Sir Rog’s performance than the out-there premise that can’t quite sustain the picture’s running time. It is telling that the same story was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents 15 years earlier, since the uncanny idea at its core feels like a much better fit for a trim 50 minute anthology series.

Basil Dearden directs, and co-adapted the screenplay from Anthony Armstrong’s novel The Strange Case of Mr Pelham. Dearden started out with Ealing, helming several Will Hay pictures and a segment of Dead of Night (one might imagine a shortened version of this tale ending up there, or in any of the portmanteau horrors that arrived in the year…

Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

Split (2016)
(SPOILERS) M Night Shyamalan went from the toast of twist-based filmmaking to a one-trick pony to the object of abject ridicule in the space of only a couple of pictures: quite a feat. Along the way, I’ve managed to miss several of his pictures, including his last, The Visit, regarded as something of a re-locating of his footing in the low budget horror arena. Split continues that genre readjustment, another Blumhouse production, one that also manages to bridge the gap with the fare that made him famous. But it’s a thematically uneasy film, marrying shlock and serious subject matter in ways that don’t always quite gel.

Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

‘Cos I’m the gringo who always delivers.

American Made (2017)
(SPOILERS) This is definitely more the sort of thing Tom Cruise should be doing, a movie that relies both on his boyish™ charm and at least has pretensions of ever so slightly pushing the envelope of standard multiplex fare, rather than desperately attaching himself to an impersonal franchise (The Mummy) or flailingly attempting to kick start one (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back); remember when Cruise wouldn’t even go near sequels (for about 20 years, The Color of Money aside, and then only the one series)? American Made is still victim to the tendency of his movies to feel superstar-fitted rather than remaining as punchy as they might be on paper (Made’s never quite as satirically sharp as it wants to be), but it at least doesn’t lead its audience by the nose.

Two hundred thousand pounds, for this outstanding example of British pulchritude and learning.

The Avengers 4.18: The Girl From Auntie
I’ve mentioned that a few of these episodes have changed in my appreciation since I last watched the series, and The Girl from Auntie constitutes a very pronounced uptick. Indeed, I don’t know how I failed to rate highly the estimable Liz Fraser filling in for Diana Rigg – mostly absent, on holiday –for the proceedings (taking a not dissimilar amateur impostor-cum-sidekick role to Fenella Fielding in the earlier The Charmers). I could watch Fraser all day, and it’s only a shame this was her single appearance in the show.

By Jove, the natives are restless tonight.

The Avengers 4.17: Small Game for Big Hunters
I wonder if Death at Bargain Prices’ camping scene, suggestive of an exotic clime but based in a department store, was an inspiration for Small Game For Big Hunters’ more protracted excursion to the African country of Kalaya… in Hertfordshire. Gerry O’Hara, in his second of two episodes for the show again delivers on the atmosphere, making the most of Philip Levene’s teleplay.

Old Boggy walks on Lammas Eve.

Jeeves and Wooster 2.5: Kidnapped (aka The Mysterious Stranger)
Kidnapped continues the saga of Chuffnell Hall. Having said of 2.4 that the best Wodehouse adaptations tend to stick closely to the text, this one is an exception that proves the rule, diverging significantly yet still scoring with its highly preposterous additions.

Jeeves: Tis old boggy. He be abroad tonight. He be heading for the railway station.
Gone are many of the imbroglios involving Stoker and Glossop (the estimable Roger Brierley), including the contesting of the former’s uncle’s will. Also gone, sadly, is the inebriated Brinkley throwing potatoes at Stoker, which surely would have been enormous fun. Instead, we concentrate on Bertie being locked aboard Stoker’s yacht in order to secure his marriage to Pauline (as per the novel), Chuffy tailing Pauline in disguise (so there’s a different/additional reason for Stoker to believe Bertie and she spent the night together, this time at a pub en route to Chufnell Hall) and …

I think we’ve returned to Eden. Surely this is how the World once was in the beginning of time.

1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
Ridley Scott’s first historical epic (The Duellists was his first historical, and his first feature, but hardly an epic) is also one of his least remembered films. It bombed at the box office (as did the year’s other attempted cash-ins on the discovery of America, including Superman: The Movie producers the Salkinds’ Christopher Columbus: The Discovery) and met with a less than rapturous response from critics. Such shunning is undeserved, as 1492: Conquest of Paradise is a richer and more thought-provoking experience than both the avowedly lowbrow Gladiator and the re-evaluated-but-still-so-so director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven. It may stand guilty of presenting an overly sympathetic portrait of Columbus, but it isn’t shy about pressing a critical stance on his legacy.

Sanchez: The truth is, that he now presides over a state of chaos, of degradation, and of madness. From the beginning, Columbus proved himself completely incapable of ruling these islands…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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