Tag Archives: Daniel Baldwin

New In Theaters

Nightmares in a Damaged Subgenre

Leave a comment

Megalomaniac

by Daniel Baldwin

Martha (Eline Schumacher) and Felix (Benjamin Ramon) are the children of the legendary uncaught serial killer The Butcher of Mons. Each of these siblings contends with their family legacy in different ways. Martha works as a janitor amongst coworkers who treat her with contempt. Meanwhile, Felix has taken up his deceased patriarch’s monstrous profession: kidnapping, torturing, killing, and dismembering women.

Their home life is not great. Neither talks to the other much, with Felix insisting on living in near total seclusion from his sister, despite residing in the same home. Both have frequent hallucinations tailored to their individual fractured psyches as they live out their own private hells. That is, until things go south at Martha’s job. A violent encounter forces Martha and Felix together, sending them down an even more vicious and crazed path.

If any of that sounds cliched, it’s because it very much is. What we have here in Megalomaniac is a film homaging both violent ‘70s exploitation and ‘00s New French Extremity cinema. The latter in particular. The fingerprints of modern classics such Martyrs, Frontier(s), and High Tension are on full display here, as well as doses of older influences like Lustig’s Maniac and Scavolini’s Nightmares. Brutal, broken killers take out their rage on unsuspecting women. We’ve seen it countless times before and we have seen it done better.

From a filmmaking standpoint, the craft on display here is sound. There are some striking images to be found, particularly during the film’s more hallucinatory sequences. Unfortunately, the tone and color palette are both so grim and dour that any enticement within those images is immediately sapped away. What we are left with is yet another in a long line of torture & kill flicks. If there’s any solace to be had here, it is in Eline Schumacher’s performance in the first two acts. While the writing for her character ultimately becomes a lump of cliches in the final stretch, Schumacher gives a nuanced take on the degradation of a tortured psyche for the first two thirds of the film.

If this is a subgenre that you’re fond of, you might find some engagement within. All others would be better off seeking out one of the other films I mentioned above. This is a fans-only affair.

New In Theaters

The Theatre of the Mind

Leave a comment

Caverna

by Daniel Baldwin

Hannah Swayze and Daniel Contaldo’s Caverna is a surrealist work about an experimental theater workshop in Florence, Italy. We follow two particular students, Giorgia (Giorgia Tomasi) and Lorenzo (Lorenzo Passaniti), who are pushed by a daring teacher named Alba to unleash their inner thoughts and fears through acting exercises in front of the group. If that sounds like a movie about a bunch of theater kids wandering about a stage as they talk about their feelings, don’t worry. It’s not that kind of movie.

Instead, Caverna hovers between reality and fantasy as dreams, desires, and nightmares are portrayed in a rather trippy fashion as the film flips back and forth between the actors and their “scenes”. What is real and what is acting blurs as both feed into one another. Is there really a rad-looking cyclops stomping about the wooded areas of Florence, chasing a princess? Probably not, but if it looks, sounds, and feels real, who’s to say that it isn’t? The same holds true for the rest of the mythology-infused moments of fantasy that are weaved throughout.

Caverna is about how the deepest parts of one’s psyche often fuel the art that they unleash upon the world. It is not the first film to do this. Nor will it be the last. It then becomes a question of whether or not its somewhat-psychedelic arthouse notions are enticing enough to draw you into its web. This is very much a niche piece of filmmaking, with a heavily disjointed nature that can and will push many a viewer away. If you’re inclined to welcome such filmmaking, however, then there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Complementing its wilder storytelling tactics is a lot of striking imagery. The cinematography – both in the fantasy and “real world” sequences – is sumptuous throughout, often giving the film a lush and vibrant look. In terms of pacing, it never overstays its welcome, which has ultimately resulted in a runtime that barely exceeds an hour. That might be a turn-off to those looking for something grander, but it also means that it avoids the bloat that plagues a lot of modern arthouse fare. Swayze & Contaldo clearly know that not everything needs to be 2 ½ hours long. Caverna might not knock your socks off, but if you’re open to its imagination, you’ll be in for an interesting ride.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Meg 2, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, Shortcomings, Final Cut, Night of the 12th & More

Leave a comment
TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, Meg 2 The Trench, Shortcomings, Final Cut, The Night of the 12th, Rub, Mob Land, Bad City

New In Theaters

Brawl of the Kaiko Empire

Leave a comment

Bad City

by Daniel Baldwin

A modern celebration of classic Japanese V-cinema (their version of DTV genre fare), director Kensuke Sonomura’s Bad City unleashes a furious, fist-flying tale of crime, corruption, and righteous retribution. The story is a tale as old as time: a diabolical businessman (Lily Franky) is in league with the Korean mafia and local politicians. His goal? To bring “prosperity” to Kaiko City by bringing in casinos that no one but the rich wants. His methods? Bribery, blackmail, and murder. All that stand in his way are a handful of good cops and some honorable Yakuza with aligned interests.

At the center of it is 60-year-old genre stalwart Hitoshi Ozawa (Dead or Alive, Gozu), who also wrote the screenplay. His knowledge of and experience in Yakuza cinema comes in mighty handy here, as does his charisma and still-formidable physical prowess. He’s an absolute powerhouse as the unflappable Captain Torada and he’s surrounded by equally great supporting castmates including Tak Sakaguchi, Masanori Mimoto, Katsuya, Mitsu Dan, Akane Sakanoue, Masaya Kato, and the aforementioned Franky.

There’s nothing wholly original on display in terms of narrative, but that matters not, as Sonomura and Ozawa are aiming for grandiosity over complexity, even amidst their low budget. The plot is still filled with twists, turns, and double-crosses, but the pace moves with breakneck speed. It plows through subplots and arcs like it’s tearing through an entire season of television, ultimately offering up a narrative that is as dense as it is straightforward.

Any danger of monotony in terms of pulp crime storytelling and exposition is wiped away by the action itself. While there is the occasional moment of gun violence, the bulk of the fighting is brutal hand-to-hand combat. Fists, knives, baseball bats, pipes, and even a loudspeaker are utilized as criminals and cops wail on each other to the point of exhaustion. The fights constantly swing back and forth between martial arts, vicious groundwork, and barroom-style brawls. Said action is further punctuated by some absolutely stellar foley work, making each punch, kick, and stab sound even more painful than it looks. Throw in the fact that many of the characters are wearing sneakers – one has to be comfortable on the brawling move after all – and the bouts often sound like a massacre playing out on a basketball court. 

Simply put, this is a killer slice of low budget action cinema.

New In Theaters

Rolling Thunder, Raging Vengeance

Leave a comment

Shrapnel

by Daniel Baldwin

DTV action maven William Kaufman (Sinners and Saints) returns for the third time this summer with a south-of-the-border extraction/revenger combo, Shrapnel. This time around, Kaufman is playing in another insanely tropey sandbox: “Dad has a special set of skills”.

Jason Patric plays military veteran Sean Beckwith, who lives on a Texas ranch with his wife and two daughters. The oldest of which, as per a frantic voicemail overheard at the start of the film, made the mistake of sneaking across the border into Mexico with a friend to party. Anyone who watches action flicks or TV shows already knows where this is going: she’s been kidnapped.

Beckwith attempts to go through proper legal channels to retrieve his firstborn, but there’s no help to be found. When pleas for mercy on TV just piss off the cartel responsible and result in them sending a hit squad to silence the family, Sean realizes that the only hope he has is to take the fight to them. Luckily, in true Rolling Thunder fashion, he has a former soldier buddy named Vohden (Cam Gigandet) who simply needs to be told to get his gear and tagalong for an assault on the cartel boss’s (Mauricio Mendoza) compound in Juarez.

What we have here is a pretty meat and potatoes modern Mexico-set action thriller. For better or worse, this is an inherently problematic subgenre that often centers around white vengeance (i.e. Rambo: Last Blood, Sicario, etc.). If you are willing to overlook that, Shrapnel does have some things to offer.

Patric is compelling as the ever-troubled Beckwith, who has doubts from the outset that his daughter is still alive and knows that even if she is, she’ll never be the same. Nor will his wife and other kid, after the ranch assault. Nor will he, for that matter. All of this plays on his face throughout.

Gigandet carries himself well as our Tommy Lee Jones but isn’t required to do much more than that. Other performance highlights include Kesia Elwin as Sean’s wife Susan, Guillermo Ivan as the main henchman, and the aforementioned Mendoza as the big bad.

It’s not the most original low budget actioner and it’s a step down from Kaufman’s own The Channel earlier this month, but if you’re in the mood for a solid little “Dad movie”, it’ll get the job done. While no Sicario, it’s certainly better than Rambo: Last Blood.

Uncategorized

The Texas Chainsaw Leftovers Have Eyes

Leave a comment

What the Waters Left Behind: Scars

by Daniel Baldwin

In 1974, master of horror Tobe Hooper unleashed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre upon the world, giving it one of the most influential films in the annals of cinema history. It wasn’t the first rural terror flick centered around folks poking their heads where they shouldn’t, but it set into place a permanent subgenre mold that much of what has come since has been cast from. This includes the Nicolas & Luciano Onetti’s 2017 slash and torture film, What the Waters Left Behind.

Five years later, Nicolas Onetti returns to the world of that film with a sequel, Scars. The first film followed a small documentary crew as they ventured into a remote, abandoned town in Argentina called Epecuen. This is a real town that was destroyed in a flash flood during 1985 and remained under water for decades, before the flood finally receded and left ruins in its wake. Both films were shot on location in Epecuen, with the resulting production value being their most striking aspect.

Scars trades in a film crew for a metal band, with our doomed musicians merely passing through their area as they finish their bar gig tour. Once they find themselves in Epecuen, they are quickly set upon by the same cannibal family that dispatched the documentarians in the previous entry. A couple cast members carry over on the villain front, with some fresh faces mixed in as well.

The Onettis’ initial claim to fame came in the form of a trio of neo-giallo films (Deep Sleep, Francesca, and Abrakadabra) that have delighted many fans of that subgenre. Unfortunately, their grasp on rural slashers isn’t as strong. The good news is that if you were a fan of the first film, you’re likely to find a lot to enjoy within Scars, as it is a step up in almost every way. The bad news is that it’s effectively the exact same movie over again, so if you weren’t buying what the first was selling, you’re unlikely to want to partake in seconds.

Their stalking setpieces, torture sequences, and excessive rape scenes repeat over and over with little variation or visual ingenuity, leaving us with an 85-minute film that still feels like it is a solid 15 minutes too long. Scars is for the curious only. All others should stick with the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre or either version of The Hills Have Eyes.

New In Theaters

Narco-Lepsy

Leave a comment

Confidential Informant

by Daniel Baldwin

Scenario: You’re an ex-soldier turned cop. You are drowning in debt. You have a terminal medical condition that your benefits won’t properly cover. You’re worried that once your sickness claims you, you’ll leave your family destitute. You know that your job pays out handsomely if you are killed in the line of duty. What do you do?

This is the central hook of Confidential Informant, a crime thriller that also happens to be the first Mel Gibson geezer teaser of 2023. Dominic Purcell and Nick Stahl star as two dirty narcotics officers who magically only use corruption to the “benefit” of society and not themselves. They’ll bust down doors without warrants and conjure up whatever they need to make their reports look clean on the surface in an effort to take down the “bad guys”, but never bend the rules to help themselves out. Their boss (Mel Gibson) willingly turns a blind eye to all of it, again with no personal kickback, all for the good of mankind. Yeah, sure.

Purcell’s narco cop is dying, and he needs a way out that will best help his family. He and Stahl concoct a plan with a close friend/confidential informant (Erik Valdez) of theirs to do just that. Things go haywire, and they end up with an internal affairs investigator (Russell Richardson) on their tail. Can the lie be maintained, or will he discover the truth?

We’ve seen more than a few action thrillers tackle benefits issues for soldiers over the past half dozen years. Films like Den of Thieves, Triple Frontier, Wrath of Man, etc. all showcase how poorly we take care of our troops, leading them – at least in these tales – to lives of crime just to pay the bills. To now do the same for corrupt cops is ballsy, especially in today’s political climate. That’s not to say that it cannot be done, as Joe Carnahan’s brilliant Narc accomplished it two decades ago. This is no Narc.

Confidential Informant wastes a good cast (particularly Kate Bosworth in a beyond thankless wife role) on a mess of a script that tries its hardest to be both a neo-noir and a message film but fails at both. The writing simply isn’t up to the task of juggling these two ideas, so the whole thing buckles under the weight of its own ambitions. Stahl does what he can as the lead and Gibson tries his best in what is actually a small supporting role, but it’s not enough to compensate for a weak script and stiff dialogue. This snooze is for die-hards – sorry, lethal weapons – only.