The 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen (11 page)

This is a hatchet job. Literally.

Bill Paxton, in his feature film directorial debut, presents an eerie story involving would-be demons, religious fanaticism, fatherly love, and ax-wielding serial killers. “I really saw this as a neo-classical piece,” Paxton said, “and a lot of people in Hollywood recognized that it was a great piece of work, but they wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. I thought the way to do it was to imply it, not to show it, like Alfred Hitchcock or Robert Aldrich. We've become such a society of exploitation that we're desensitized to violence. But the mind's eye, and that which is implied, is so much more powerful than explicit gore.”

Paxton and screenwriter Brent Hanley crafted
Frailty
to disturb without the use of gore and keep you guessing right until the end. “I looked at a lot of Hitchcock films when I wrote
Frailty
,” says Hanley. “I watched
Night of the Hunter
and listened to music by Leonard Cohen.
Frailty
even references the Bible, offering a modern take on the story of Isaac and elements of the Old Testament.”

Here's the outline: Suffice to say life is turned upside down for a single parent family when Dad (Paxton) makes it known to his two sons (Matthew O'Leary and Jeremy Sumpter) that he's on a mission from God to kill demons. “Killing people is wrong,” Dad says. “Destroying demons is good.” It wouldn't be fair to give away any more plot details — thrillers rely on the element of surprise — but be assured, there are more twists and turns here than on any winding mountain road.

Texas native Matthew McConaughey turns in his strongest performance in years as the narrator. “I really enjoyed this story,” he said. “It is a classic Gothic horror picture and I enjoyed trying something a bit darker.
Frailty
is my brand of scary in that it is a very human story about someone taking something literally, and doing something for the sake of righteousness, and that's an interesting part of the human mind.” Both McConaughey and Powers Booth (as the fbi agent who listens to McConaughey's story) shine, but it is Paxton as the well meaning but insane father who really impresses. His “everyman” approach to the character is chilling, displaying the ordinariness of evil; the kind of evil that could live next door to you or me. “Today, if someone says ‘God spoke to me,' we think they're crazy,” says producer David Kirschner. “Yet, the Old Testament is based on God's conversations with Moses. We want to believe it happened then, but we can't accept that it might happen today. That's what is so fascinating about
Frailty
. It suggests that the impossible is possible.”

You probably went to school with some of them. Or maybe when you see them on the street, you cross to the other side. They are headbangers, also known affectionately as bangers. You know the type: long greasy hair with heavy metal t-shirts, who can usually be seen shot-gunning beer and yelling “Just give'r!” at the top of their lungs.

Fubar
is a fabulous über-low-budget mockumentary about two bangers, Dean (Paul Spence) and Terry (David Lawrence), who live in Calgary — think Bob and Doug McKenzie with electric guitars. To paraphrase kiss, these dudes want to rock and roll all night and party every day. “We're not making fun of bangers,” says director Michael Dowse. “I'm actually in awe of them. This is a celebration of the banger. I was never really a banger because I was a couple of years behind the big metal thing.”

“After high school I worked up on the pipeline for six months as a welder's helper. I really absorbed these guys from day to day,” adds Lawrence. Lawrence used his experiences to write some of the more colorful language in the film, including the classic banger term, “just give'r.” These guys are easy targets for ridicule, but Dowse doesn't go for the easy jokes. Instead he lets us get involved with the characters and get to like them before dropping a bombshell about one of them, one of the several unexpected turns that
Fubar
takes.

Fubar
blurs the line between fact and fiction by casting several real life non-actors playing themselves. For instance, Dr. S.C. Lim, who is actually Michael Dowse's physician, plays himself in the film. In addition many of the “extras” in the fight scene were actual bar patrons who thought they were taking part in a real documentary.

This film was a favorite at 2001's Sundance Film Festival, and it's not hard to see why.

Fun
is divided into two time lines — the present, filmed in bleak monochromatic 16 mm, and flashbacks to the afternoon of “fun,” shot in vibrant, clear color.

In the current day, two 15-year-old girls, the solemn Hillary (Renee Humphrey) and the raucous Bonnie (Alicia Witt), have been tried, convicted, and sentenced for the cold-blooded murder of a trusting old woman. The flashback scenes all take place on one hectic day when the two met, fell in love, and brutally stabbed the elderly woman. Why did they do it? “It was fun. Fun is number one!”

This is a chilling peek into the minds of disaffected youth, one that recalls cinematic thrillers like
Rope
,
Heavenly Creatures
, and
Butterfly Kiss
. It's not preachy, but the filmmakers subtly suggest that by allowing young people from dysfunctional families into an impersonal, violence-soaked society that doesn't care about them, their resulting behavior will be anti-social and possibly violent.

Anchoring the movie are the powerful performances of the two female leads. Alicia Witt, who got her start at age nine in the movie
Dune
(and whose mother holds the
Guinness Book of World Record
title for the having the longest hair), is particularly effective. Her mile-a-minute take on Bonnie is disturbingly real — she's a thrill seeker who killed someone just for the adrenaline rush, a drug-free high. Renee Humphrey is eclipsed by Witt, who has the showier role, but she delivers an effective portrait of a haunted, introspective soul. The two women believably display how opposites can attract, how in this case two damaged people became one whole — no longer individuals, but one lethal identity. The two actresses were awarded a special recognition from the Sundance Film Festival.

Directed by Rafal Zielinski — best known for helming teen sex comedies —
Fun
maintains a high emotional pitch for its 105 minutes and contains images that will not soon be forgotten.

This violent Austrian film isn't for everyone. In fact, one critic so reviled the movie he wrote, “After watching
Funny Games
the Jonestown suicides will appear to be a viable option.” I guess Frank Zappa's idea that it doesn't matter
what
kind of reaction you get, as long as you get a reaction, holds true in this case.

The darkly provocative
Funny Games
is an art-house film that explores the use of violence in the cinema. A well-heeled young family's summer vacation turns into a nightmare when Paul and Peter (Amos Frisch and Frank Giering), two seemingly well-mannered young boys who are friends of the neighbors, drop by to borrow some eggs. Soon the family is held hostage and subjected to a night of torture and degradation by the two psychopaths.

Director and screenwriter Michael Heneke keeps the audience off guard from minute one. To make the point that the young bullies have been influenced by violence in the media he has them call one another Beavis and Butthead and speak directly to the audience in several self-aware moments in the film. In one scene they note that they can't kill the family quickly because “we're not up to feature length yet.” In another extraordinary sequence the wife Anna (Susanne Lothar) gets her hands on a gun and shoots and kills Peter. Paul, the second sadist, decides he didn't like that scene, so he grabs a remote, rewinds the scene, and takes the gun from her before she can shoot.

Such touches add a sense of humor to the grim proceedings, but also make a comment on how we as an audience watch extremely violent material as entertainment. Heneke seems to be saying that by watching films like this we are complicit in creating a society that could create the two monsters we are watching on screen. It's an interesting thesis on film violence, one that seems at once to embrace and then reject its subject. A fine ensemble cast and skillful direction keep the themes in check, finding a balance between the humor and the violence, keeping the film on track and elevating it above the level of an average slasher flick. German with English subtitles.

Gangster No. 1
feels like a continuation of one of the most disturbing movies of the 1970s. Malcolm McDowell became a star playing the hoodlum Alex DeLarge in
A Clockwork Orange
, a study of ultra-violence that shocked audiences with graphic depictions of rape and brutal behavior. McDowell's Alex was a young scowling punk with a passion for savagery. Thirty years later McDowell revisits the twisted world of the London underground. Little Alex is all grown up now, and
Gangster No. 1
is the logical conclusion to his life of crime.

Set in London in 1968 and the present day,
Gangster No. 1
is a simple character-driven story about a power struggle played out between mob boss Freddie Mays (David Thewlis) and his protégé, a vicious punk simply known as Gangster. We first meet Gangster (Malcolm McDowell) at age 55 at a swank dinner with other shady characters in an upscale hotel. When he learns that his old mentor, Freddie Mays, is about to get out of prison after doing a 30-year stretch for murder, a flood of emotions envelops him, pushing him to a very dark place.

Turn the clock back 30 years to the end of the summer of love. Jacqueline Kennedy had just married Aristotle Onassis; Valerie Solanas tried to kill Andy Warhol; and Freddie Mays is the king of the London underground. Mays is reverentially known as the “Butcher of Mayfair,” a nickname he picked up after killing a corrupt policeman. He is feared and respected by all, especially the young Gangster (Paul Bettany). Gangster desperately wants in on the action and will do anything to earn his way into the mob's inner circle.

His ruthlessness impresses Mays, who makes Gangster his righthand man. Gangster is fiercely loyal to Mays and cold-bloodedly protects his boss's position of power within the organization. He develops a psychotic admiration for Mays born out of allegiance and envy. He wants what Mays has: the red E-type Jaguar, the kitted-out apartment with Italian leather chairs and gold fixtures, and the clothes —
especially
the clothes. Mays wears handmade suits from Jermyn Street, Italian shirts, silk socks, ruby cufflinks, a white-gold watch, and a beautiful tie pin. When he is near Mays, Gangster feels “arseholed on the smell of success.”

For a time they are unstoppable. Their unholy alliance propels them to the top of the underworld, but the good life starts to unravel. Gangster's insane jealousy gets the best of him when Mays falls for a local singer named Karen (Saffron Burrows). As Mays devotes more and more of his time to making wedding plans with his new girlfriend, Gangster feels left out. He feels his world is crumbling and must do something about it. When a plot is uncovered to assassinate Mays, Gangster keeps the news quiet and sets up his boss to take a fall.

Thirty years later the two meet again. Gangster wants to confront Mays to find out where it all went wrong, but first he must face up to his own demons as he grasps that his ascent to the top was ultimately a pyrrhic victory.

Gangster No. 1
is a taut, bloodthirsty genre picture that offers a well-constructed peek into a brilliant but warped and cruel personality. Both Bettany and McDowell as the young and senior Gangster respectively lend a palatable air of menace to the character. Like Alex DeLarge in
A Clockwork Orange
, Gangster seems capable of anything, a monomaniac who will do anything to hold all the aces.

McDowell's portrayal of the older Gangster bookends the film. We meet him in the twilight of his criminal career, looking back at his life, where we see that even now, Mays remains out of his league. Mays was a class act, stylish and charming, whereas Gangster is simply a barbarian. McDowell plays him as an animal, feral, a creature of pure instinct. “He's a monstrous person,” McDowell said of the character. “I've never met anyone remotely like Gangster, and I wouldn't want to.”

The real star turn in
Gangster No. 1
is Paul Bettany as the young thug. He's a modern day Richard iii, a soulless man who only understands rage. His feelings for Mays range from envy to hate and very possibly love. He reacts like a spurned lover when Mays falls for Karen, and responds the only way he knows how, with extreme fury and violence. “Gangster seeks some sort of fulfillment,” says Bettany, “but he has a hole inside him that gets bigger as the violence gets more pornographic.”

Bettany is a powerhouse, fleshing out Gangster's monstrous behavior with a mixture of wit and menace. He's at his most dangerous when he smiles, as he does when Karen spits in his face. It's a frightening scene because we learn that his reactions can never be counted on. He's a loose cannon and completely unpredictable. Director Paul McGuigan calls Bettany “a wild card, incredibly wired. He has the elegant menace of a young James Bond. Very manly, very watchable.”

McGuigan allows most of the violence to play off-screen, allowing the brutality to play itself out in the viewer's imagination, but in one of the most terrifying scenes in this film, or any gangster film, we see young Gangster commit an unspeakable act of violence against a mob rival. After breaking down the door to Lennie Taylor's flat and disabling him by shooting him in the knee, Gangster carefully removes his coat, undoes his tie, and takes off his shirt and pants to prevent them from becoming soiled in the events that follow. Then he methodically arranges the tools of his trade: a hatchet, a chisel, and a hammer. Stripped to his underwear, Gangster savagely attacks Taylor, and we see the action from Taylor's point of view as he shifts in and out of consciousness. The image of Gangster gleefully chopping his victim to bits is one that will not soon be forgotten.

Gangster No. 1
is a timeless crime saga that horrifies, thrills, and enthralls.