Post by ronnierocketago on Jul 7, 2009 4:30:45 GMT
"I was born to murder this world."[/i][/size]
LORD OF ILLUSIONS (1995) - ***1/2
Goddammit. Weeks back, I got my DVD for NIGHTBREED through Netflix because HELLRAISER impressed me, and wanted to watch the rest of author/director Clive Barker's filmography. But the DVD was cracked. No that's not the right word. It was sliced, as if someone took a blade and purposely committed an offensive mutilation, and then had the fucking nerve to mail it back. Hey buddy, I hope you get cancer. And this was Clive Barker's NETFLIX.
So after cooling my jets and watching other shit, or "shit" films as my self-lauded FCM colleague Capo calls them. Granted some of them like Peter Hyams' STAY TUNED and that TAKING OF PELHAM remake did suck, but I'll proudly stick up my (tattered) critical reputation on the line for the fun-as-hell bikersploitation STONE COLD and the thrilling creature feature THE RELIC. See Capo, that is what is terrific about my constructive method of critiquing. You're a character in your own review. There is room for humility where movies are magical and inevitably one's horizons widen...or lower according to those who still administer the strict deconstructive school. Don't be afraid to feel.
And I loved WEEK END. Though I'll cite this classic quote by the late Ingmar Bergman on Jean-Luc Godard: "They have felt constructed, faux intellectual and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a fucking bore. He’s made his films for the critics."[/i] Hey I dig them, but we both know who is better: Bergman>Godard by a mother fucking 1984 Reagan landslide. Though Godard himself has a potent quote too that RNL supplied: "All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun." Which is why Godard is worth defending....and that he shot several good movies. That's a plus. Also it describes today's movie. Of sorts.
Gee, I got distracted again. Let's start over. Sometime after that NIGHTBREED fiasco, Netflix sent me Clive Barker's third and (so far) last directorial effort LORD OF ILLUSIONS. Apparently after his fight with the studio and rating Nazis, Barker now only scripts and produces. What a pity. Now I know most folks don't seem to care much for this, but I actually might have enjoyed this more than HELLRAISER. Sure LORD lacks the rather intelligent theological implications of HELLRAISER, but LORD makes up by having a slightly more engaging story and Barker's more polished and stark filmatics. Consider the best scene in LORD where we see some postal worker whistling as he packs his suitcase and he walks towards the camera, revealing that we were watching him through a mirror closet's reflection...and behind it lays his wife's stuffed corpse.
We have a terrific enigmatic opening, no time to explain, at an isolated dump in the middle of the desert surrounded by the decomposing sand-filled remains of livestock. Apparently here resides a hair-shaved lunatic sado-masochistic religion led by their magical messiah Daniel von Bargen, who've kidnapped a kid that they plan to sacrifice in a ritual that somehow involves a baboon and a knife. I rather not figure that one out. Sorcerer Kevin J. O'Connor and his pals armed to the teeth in guns storm the joint, free the girl, destroy the church, and kill Nix.
We jump years later to private eye Scott Bakula, your classical cliche divorced P.I. wearing a wife beater and living in his dump apartment, who dabbles with occult affairs. You know, Bakula's character as executed here is perhaps what Keanu Reeves should have been in CONSTANTINE. Bakula comes back from doing an unseen exorcism, a kid possessed by as he described to his boss "the usual"[/i] and so what? No big deal, just another day on the job...and I fucking dig that. Sure Bakula gets the occassional nightmare from devils(?) with darkly temptations, but he never moans or bitches about such acceptable occupational hazards. You know, like CONSTANTINE does. The film never elaborates on that incident, nor explain his background or even that bizarre tattoo on his back. Unlike most recent films (like CONSTANTINE), Barker resist the temptation to overplot.
The lovely touch is that despite getting involved in such crazy voodoo shit all the time, Bakula still does very mundane (and more realistic) gigs like shadowing fat adulterers and petty insurance frauds to pay the bills. It's on such a boring case in L.A. when he comes upon a fortune teller tortured to death...who happens to be one of O'Connor's buddies from the beginning. Bakula is hired to solve the slaying by Famke Janssen who's married to O'Connor, now a wealthy celebrity David Copperfield-esque illusionist (except not lame) living in a mansion full of Harry Houdini memorabilia, alot of which belongs to Barker I believe. Though if everyone found out that his employs real magic in his show, I'm sure he would quickly get sued into poverty. Luckily before that happens, O'Connor gets mutilated and killed by his new sabotaged falling swords act. Yeah let's see Copperfield pull that trick off.
How all this ties together is the greatest charm of LORD OF ILLUSIONS, like all good detective stories tend to be. If HELLRAISER was a rare gruesome sideshow mixed with some smarts, then LORD OF ILLUSIONS is a solid economical murder mystery, an organic supernatural film noir that's not as gimmicky as it sounds, and surprisingly respects the intelligence and attention span of it's audience enough without punishing them with bullshit exposition. This doesn't shake the heavens, but you won't be sorry for watching it. This definately aint CONSTANTINE.
The acting here is pretty good too. Bakula has always been a decent and maybe even underrated actor who has the gift of being easily sympathetic (like QUANTUM LEAP), even if at times he can overdo it (like ENTERPRISE.) So it's nice that he isn't out of place here, in spite of my expectations. I only knew O'Connor previously for his backstabbing sidekick part in Stephen Sommers' THE MUMMY, and he shocked me nicely here with a brooding performance of a would-be savior who basically pissed away his powers for the sake of fame and fortune. Von Bargen is appropriately menacing without chewing the scenery like John Travolta recently in that PELHAM remake. Not playing evil, he is evil, and he sure knows how to fuck with your head. The guy playing his henchman is competent too, if because in spite of a name like Butterfield, he's still a legitimate threat. That can't be easy.
Hell this is even Janssen's best performance, though compared to GOLDENEYE and the X-MEN flicks, that aint exactly saying much. But still, this is a decent if not spectacular rebuttal to that reported incident on the MEN IN BLACK sequel where as the villainess she got fired because, to quote the trade: "She couldn't act her way out of a paper bag." What exactly couldn't she nail in that lame blockbuster? That stuff aint exactly rocket science. Then again, neither is LORD OF ILLUSIONS, but at least that one was entertaining and she was serviceable.
LORD also features a fascinating homosexual subtext, not surprising with the gay Barker. Sure von Bargen is pissed at his former protegee O'Connor, but not for killing his ass or ruining his doomsday plans like you would expect. Well he is, but mostly he felt betrayed because after they wipe the planet clean as a plate, they these magic ubermensch were supposed to live together in eternity together. But O'Connor changed his mind, and von Bargen is a moody bitch. Perez Hilton wouldn't last long if he insulted him on his blog. Unlike dead Michael Jackson, von Bargen will fight back. Also, you gotta appreciate how with studio dime and time, Barker hires many buff male dances in thongs to dance in mass as part of O'Connor's stage show. Why not?
In fact, LORD and HELLRAISER do share a similar theme of old testament morality, or such around long before in the faiths of the ancient world. I'm talking about those gods you read about who are quite frankly, complete assholes to their own tribute-giving worshippers, usually for the hell of it. Just because you do everything that your God demands of you, doesn't mean you'll be rewarded in kind. This is no merit system.
I must admit, before HELLRAISER the name Clive Barker meant absolutely nothing to me. Then after my HELLRAISER review, I bought one one of his legendary BOOKS OF BLOOD, the basis for several of Barker's pictures including last year's porno-sounding THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN. I realize now why he's such a big deal. He's what Stephen King would be if King had the balls to march towards a theme's artistic conclusion. In LORD, when you see a housewife cleaning a knife, then pulling back to reveal that she stabbed her husband and grade school daughter to death at the kitchen table. If that aint bad enough, she leaves the room and on the floor is a little boy that apparently tried to run away. Tried.
In fact I assumed that HELLRAISER and LORD OF ILLUSIONS were seperate stories, but turns out that in an upcoming Barker novel, Bakula's character faces off against Pinhead from HELLRAISER. Oh hell yes. Though I also learned that "Pinhead" wasn't actually Pinhead's name, but a fan nickname that's stuck and Barker will reveal his real name.
Whatever he comes up with, people will inevitably be disapointed. Besides, it tells you how awesome a horror icon like Pinhead is with a name like Pinhead.
Yet just like King, Barker cops out here and there with storytelling cheats. I guess all writers have to sometimes. Consider this sequence in LORD where Bakula is shown this all-important door to a vault, the ultimate library in magic, and only three keys in the world can open it. Since a vital plot device is locked inside, Bakula breaks in with another magician. How do they do this? By opening a clear-glass ceiling window. Oh for fuck's sake.
Also, I know I said that Barker improved as a director, and he greatly does, but once again he ends with a "action" special effects finale that ditches whatever thoughtful motifs in favor of stupid decisions committed by the heroes and villains. Just like HELLRAISER. Alot of viewers might abandon LORD and all its positive attributes because of this underwhelming section, even in spite of the sly implications which if you think about it, certainly put a damper on that supposed "happy" ending. So keep that in mind.
In short Capo, this was a good shitty movie that you'll probably never bother to watch but if you do, don't hold anything against it because of me. I'm sure you would concur in a reverse situation.