{"id":6252,"date":"2011-02-26T00:57:08","date_gmt":"2011-02-26T04:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=6252"},"modified":"2012-04-01T23:57:18","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T03:57:18","slug":"drive-angryfastermy-soul-to-takei-spit-on-your-grave-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=6252","title":{"rendered":"Drive Angry\/Faster\/My Soul to Take\/I Spit on Your Grave (2010)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When will disreputable nihilism become boring? Hopefully never. But there comes a point where self-satisfied nastiness taken to an extreme needs a little bit of flavor to distinguish itself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Patrick Lussier\u2019s Drive Angry<\/em> tries to spice things up with its effective use of 3D and by cobbling together as many exploitation clich\u00e9s as possible: the Daisy Duke-wearing hot girl who can kick ass; the badass who grizzles, shoots and drinks; the overqualified character actor providing exposition (David Morse); and, finally, the smooth villain (Billy Burke) with better hair than the hero, if only to compensate for a lack of manhood and, as Rutger Hauer put it in Split Second<\/em>, \u201cbigger fucking guns.\u201d The d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu is no doubt intentional on Lussier\u2019s part; his 3D My Bloody Valentine<\/em> remake from a few years ago brought together similar elements, but did nothing with them, other than featuring the world\u2019s longest and most gratuitous 3D nude scene. Lussier\u2019s fascination with inordinately lengthy nude scenes make an appearance in Drive Angry, <\/em>as Amber Heard, as said ass-kicking hot girl, beats up her ex\u2019s new beau. (A beau who happens to be standing in the middle of the street totally nude.) My Bloody Valentine <\/em>had a slasher chase scene where a woman ran naked from her hotel room to a truckstop parking lot, and on and on for several minutes before her status of living was eliminated.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>However, while you can find a thread between Lussier\u2019s most recent films, the most unmistakable comparison to Drive Angry* <\/em>seems to be last year\u2019s vehicle for Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson, George Tillman Jr\u2019s Faster<\/em>. Both Drive Angry <\/em>and Faster<\/em> prefer expressing their stories in almost artlessly minimalist ways. The characters don\u2019t even have names in Faster<\/em>; they\u2019re just known as Driver (Johnson), Cop (Billy Bob Thornton), and Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). In Drive Angry<\/em>, the most interesting character, immaculately dressed and amusingly deadpanned by William Fichtner, is known only as The Accountant.\u00a0 Sure, Nic Cage\u2018s character has a name, John Milton<\/span><\/a>. But that sort of not-too-subtle joke was used up nearly 15 years ago in the similarly devil-themed The Devil\u2019s Advocate<\/em>. [Drive Angry <\/em>unfortunately features not one reference to Paradise Lost<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Did you not know that Drive Angry <\/em>had a supernatural theme? Certainly the advertising is trying to hide that fact, which is a shame because the fact that Cage\u2019s character** has escaped from hell to try to rescue his granddaughter from being sacrificed by a devil-worshipping cult leader should have been laid out in the first five minutes. Hiding this backstory is a mistake. It\u2019s obvious to us for the first hour, and we\u2019re just impatient while the movie pretends it\u2019s just about Milton being a seemingly indestructible loner with lightning quick reflexes and a wide array of unique weaponry. The carnage piles up long before we learn most of it was meaningless. And while it\u2019s all over the top and well-executed, it appears they should have just started the movie at the first reveal and continued developing from there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Faster<\/em> throws away any nonsense about convincing backstory by having The Driver get out of prison. (Milton claims that he escaped \u201cprison\u201d until the plot reveal.) He finds out where his targets are, walks up to them and shoots them in the head. No aftermath. He just leaves and moves on to the next guy who he holds responsible for his incarceration and his brother\u2019s death. As with Drive Angry, <\/em>a name actor shows up to solely provide exposition (Carla Gugino in Faster<\/em>) and then hang back from the action until it\u2019s over and the name actor can take over for the \u201chero.\u201d Faster <\/em>also has the same bleached, sun-drenched photography as Drive Angry<\/em>, with a large number of scenes involving The Driver\/John Milton squinting through the afternoon sun behind the wheel of their 1970s muscle cars.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And the casting choices cannot be a coincidence; as if Billy Bob Thornton was supposed to play the villain in Drive Angry<\/em>, but backed out to do Faster<\/em>, so Lussier dressed the replacement in one of Billy Bob\u2019s wigs, clothes, and accent, and made sure one of his minions was a dead ringer for Thornton\u2019s ex-wife Angelina Jolie. Was Lussier the one who was really<\/em> angry, and that\u2019s why the Billy Bob part is turned into a eunuch?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If there\u2019s a difference between the films it\u2019s that, before its ill-conceived biblically themed finale, Faster<\/em> is thoroughly simplistic. Only the addition of a prosperous and bored contract killer (Jackson-Cohen) worrying about whether or not he can bring a woman into his life is extraneous. In between killings, The Driver stops to talk to someone who can fill in the backstory for the rest of us, whether it\u2019s Mike Epps as a bail bondsman, Jennifer Carpenter as an ex***, and on and on. The rhythm is so predictable it almost mimics the way the races and the sex scenes were divided in Death Race 2000. <\/em>[Pit stop. Time for sex.] The monotony helps Faster<\/em> in the same way it hurts Drive Angry<\/em>, especially considering Cage\u2019s absolutely flat, monotone performance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At least Drive Angry <\/em>can cut away to Fichtner, who practically functions as Satan\u2019s PR man. Lussier handles some of the film with some wit (\u201cdoes that fire make you homesick?\u201d) especially in the truly creative manipulation of 3D. There\u2019s one shot that seems to be a double exposure, a deep focus, and mid-dissolve shot that actually achieves the surreal otherworldly effect that 3D optimally would all the time, if it weren\u2019t so reliant on being gimmicky.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Faster\u2019<\/em>s gimmick is that it\u2019s so serious about its nonsense. How do we know that The Driver is a bad motherfucker? Why, when he is given a speech by the prison warden (played by Tom Berenger, whose meaningless part, like with Cillian Murphy in Tron: Legacy<\/span><\/a>,<\/em> suggests that elaboration was coming in a now never-to-be-made sequel) and Berenger hands him his business card in case he needs someone to talk to, the first thing The Driver does once he\u2019s beyond the prison doors is to dramatically throw the card away. What is the essence of a man\u2026 who can throw away up cardboard with such vigor?<\/p>\n

Such a lack of irony can be an advantage. That’s because then self-awareness can\u2019t take over — like it did for Patrick Lussier\u2019s longtime editing and producing partner Wes Craven and his just released to DVD My Soul to Take (<\/em>post-converted 3D<\/span><\/a> in the theater, 2D at home) and Steven R. Monroe\u2019s remake of I Spit on Your Grave <\/em>that, after a protracted theatrical run, was released on the same day as My Soul to Take. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Perhaps too conscious of the Scream <\/em>association, Craven worries so much about artifice throughout My Soul to Take <\/em>that there ends up being nothing else to grab onto. Shot in a woozy, overlit dream-sequence texture and stuffed with at least 10 too many characters, My Soul to Take <\/em>is a high school drama that occasionally has a cameo by a slasher movie trying to rudely intrude upon the proceedings. Clunky bird metaphors, blind kids grabbing for dangling ropes, a Horshack-ian best friend with an abusive stepfather, and a story that would be eliminated had any of these high school kids actually driven cars (they live in the middle of nowhere, Wes, why are they walking everywhere?), sum up most of the more obvious problems with the film.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But really, the issue is more organizational, as Craven pulls a Brian De Palma by putting all his energy into the illogical but generally thrilling opening, and then taking a lengthy nap during the remainder of the production (Femme Fatale<\/em> being the best example). Craven did something similar with Scream<\/em>, the first sequence with Drew Barrymore is far better than anything else in the film, but the rest of the movie is still competent and funny, not the lazy mess that My Soul to Take <\/em>turns into once it moves on from the intro-murders and ambulance crashes. It\u2019s not that Craven had to lay out the pieces carefully in order to satisfy the audience, but he doesn\u2019t even make it past the first minute of teenage hijinks before the incompetence plants its flag.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Yes, you do have to introduce the effect a deranged serial killer has had on a small suburban town. But you ought to try to have the costume that the kids have come up with to indulge the legend not<\/em> look exactly like the Predator. Yes, there are teenagers who are into gory movies, even some of yours, but pretending that a teenager in this <\/em>century who would watch Alfred Hitchock‘s The Birds <\/em>for gory pleasure is ridiculous. The artificiality of The Birds<\/em> is very much part of the design, but it\u2019s not going to scare or satisfy any gorehounds. Yes, suburban houses can look all the same, but that\u2019s no excuse for your interior sets to be so distractingly phony-looking and cheap. Yes, it\u2019s good to keep things mysterious for later surprises. But it\u2019s of no use to hide the fact — for an hour — that two of the characters are brother and sister when hiding that fact has no effect on the story one way or the other and it just ends up being confusing. Yes, mothers sometimes have nicknames for their children, often derivations of their original name as a term of affection. Bug is not a term of affection. Yes, red herrings and talking killers (in this case, the talking killer runs away <\/em>after explaining everything) are the norm for the slasher horror genre, and the identity of the villain should remain mysterious for as long as possible. But that doesn\u2019t mean that the eventual reveal is impossible, as there\u2019s no way this particular person could have even been at half the places he supposedly was. Yes, we get that filmmakers often have characters stand in as their surrogates. And, in this case, Harris Yulin dresses up as almost a mirror image of Craven. But in his scenes, Yulin looks like he\u2019d rather be doing anything <\/em>else, perhaps polishing his shoes, or maybe\u00a0 canvassing the neighborhood for discarded furniture to ensure bed bugs. But certainly not to be in My Soul to Take<\/em>. And maybe that\u2019s the message that Craven wanted to send to us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m pretty sure that Steven Monroe wanted<\/em> to be on set to remake Meir Zarchi<\/span><\/a>\u2019s accidentally impactful rape-revenge \u201cclassic\u201d I Spit on Your Grave<\/em>. I\u2019m pretty sure the 2010 version is exactly the movie Monroe wanted to make. When I interviewed Daniel Franzese<\/span><\/a> while he was on the set making the film (Franzese plays one of the four rapists), considering the overt ineptitude of the original, I asked him what exactly a \u201cgood\u201d version of this movie would look like. It\u2019s hard to think of a rape\/revenge movie that doesn\u2019t wallow in unpleasant exploitation and misogyny, but Daniel tried his best to sell me on it, stating that the movie was tasteful, but explicit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Funny that my reaction after seeing it was that it was neither tasteful nor explicit. Retaining the basic elements of the original, Monroe gives us the pretty waifish writer up in the hills for some privacy (hasn\u2019t she heard of a writer\u2019s colony?) who runs into some horny, pasty rednecks in search of some rapin\u2019. When the inevitable happens, including the forced inclusion of a mentally challenged fellow, they leave her for dead and she plans her elaborate revenge. There\u2019s nothing else to the movie, either in the original or remake, which, for something so slight, is awfully long for a film. (The remake is 107 minutes long.) It’s long for a film that has no character development, dialogue and mostly consists of the male leads waiting around to be killed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What does Monroe fill the time with then? Glibness, mostly. This supposedly successful writer can do no better than spit back \u201cclever\u201d versions of her attackers own invective. \u201cIs that any way to talk to a lady?\u201d It\u2019s a shame because there was an opportunity to explore certain underlying issues in rapists. In this case, the girl played by Sarah Butler, who looks an awful lot like Kristen Stewart, is a woman with a little girl\u2019s body, skinny, almost nothing in the way of breasts. Why not look at the seemingly sourceless anger that the male offenders are filled with, and how they take it out on someone who is physically so much like a young boy? When the lead rapist**** (a low-rent version of Michael Shannon played by Jeff Branson) blurts out, \u201cI want to see your titties,\u201d my first thought was, \u201cbut she doesn\u2019t have any.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The rapes themselves are relatively chaste and Monroe\u2019s comes up with one striking image that probably went through some digital manipulation. Naked, moving slowly, covered in dirt and leaves, Butler sways from side to side like her limbs have all been broken, rubbery and otherworldly, as the rapists come back for more. The interest level wanes right after that, and Monroe\u2019s mistake in not detailing the rape (so it has a real impact on the audience) is exacerbated by how ridiculous and elaborate the revenge is. It\u2019s not that they don\u2019t deserve punishment. But the scale here is so out-of-whack with what we\u2019re shown, with one battered, tiny girl devising and executing tortures that would have required several construction crews and a team of black ops agents. All that we\u2019ve seen of her options were that of a tool-shed (ham-fistedly foreshadowed) on her rental property\u2019s premises and some rusty tools held within.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The slapped together feel of the film is hammered home by the inclusion of a sheriff who takes part in the abuse. Why he does is unclear, other than that when Butler finds him in the woods and tries to tell him what happened, the movie would have been over. The sheriff (think Elias Koteas) has a wife who is physically out of his league and several kids (who are of course used against him). He\u2019s not a bored 20-something alcoholic living with his parents, unlikely to have a way to properly express his misogyny. Clearly his wife is attractive and isn\u2019t leaving him hard up considering she\u2019s pregnant at the time. Which of course means her breasts have gotten bigger. Wait a minute. Now I get it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>* Another Avi Lerner\/Millenium Films movie<\/span><\/a> that takes place in and takes advantage of Louisiana tax breaks.<\/p>\n

** As usual, Cage\u2019s hair is fantastically ridiculous looking. Since the title Drive Angry<\/em> obviously sounded cooler than it was actually relevant to the film at hand, they might have thought about changing it to: Frightwigs and Fairytales<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>*** The movie, considering its purely visceral barrage of graphic violence, makes a misstep in Carpenter\u2019s scene, as it makes a moral judgment about her having had an abortion. There is also an unwillingness to present anything as shades of grey, as one of Johnson\u2019s victims is an elderly man, who conveniently happens to also like to rape young girls. He can\u2019t just be a guy who happens to have wronged Johnson, they have to pile on so there\u2019s no question that the right guy is being punished.<\/p>\n

**** One of the rapists has a moment worthy of David Caruso\u2019s campy hall of fame line delivery in Session 9<\/em>. In that case the camera swung towards Caruso and he screamed out, in his unique intensity, \u201cFuck You!\u201d You can find the clip<\/span><\/a> on Youtube. In I Spit on Your Grave <\/em>has a similar scene where he offers, \u201cI shit you not!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When will disreputable nihilism become boring? Hopefully never. But there comes a point where self-satisfied nastiness taken to an extreme needs a little bit of flavor to distinguish itself. Patrick Lussier\u2019s Drive Angry tries to spice things up with its effective use of 3D and by cobbling together as many exploitation clich\u00e9s as possible: the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18,14],"tags":[324,7375,2137,5188,584,402,1082,489,7543,1636,5397,389,1482,130,153,6006,1797,1230,1014,1337,7547,4109,7533,1104,5375,1254,7534,1017,7538,2545,7544,33,7542,6430,7552,7537,7536,7550,5996,4333,4599,4600,7540,7539,91,7546,309,7545,2581,1302,310,1900,1321,246,6809,7551,334,575,276,3275,1642,43,6818,7548,7549,7541,7535,441,7372,4190,1371,118,5827],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}