Hey, whore, how's
the whoring? This week, the honor goes to:
Bill Diehl, of ABC Radio who is cited for
unrestrained use of supelatives
Harry Potter is "Wow, wow, wow!"
Spy Game "sizzles with suspense! Redford
rocks -- he's never been better!" (uh, Bill, are you sure
that's not ham sizzling?)
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©2001 by
Randy Shandis Enterprises. All rights fucking reserved.
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This week:
Behind Enemy Lines
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Filthy says:
"Hollywood ate some food dye and is now shitting Red, White
and Blue!" |
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You know why I think movies upset me so much? It's because
people like me aren't represented. Hollywood movies introduce
us to fuck-ups and losers, but within an hour and a half, those
losers have redeemed themselves. No matter how big of assholes
they are at the beginning, they always come out smelling like
French toilet water. I'd love to see Hollywood spend $80 million
on the story of a cowardly loser who, when faced with a character-building
challenge, gets the fuck out of there before someone tars him.
That's what I'd do. No doubt about it. If the fate of the U.S.
were in my hands, I'd be in the back of the first truck with
Baja plates. If I had one chance to save mankind from invaders
and prove my worth, I'd be covering myself in green makeup and
fashioning antennas out of tin foil.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a yellow-bellied
coward, so long as you admit it. Unless admitting it means some
big asshole might punch you. Then, there's nothing wrong with
just running as fast as you can. They'll figure out what you
are.
Behind Enemy Lines is yet another one of those war
movies where the reluctant hero proves what a courageous and
resourceful guy he is, and by extension, it's supposed to tell
us what a resourceful and heroic nation we are. If this movie
tells us anything, it's that we're too fucking lazy to recycle
aluminum but not a movie idea . And, if the intended message
weren't tired enough, the delivery will be reassurance to a thousand
lazy screenwriters who have let their ignorance of war stop them
from writing a crappy war flick. Wait no more, lazy hacks! If
you're vague on the details, you can just make shit up.
Owen Wilson is one of the bad-boy pilots that Hollywood seems
to think the military is chock full of. He's bored because there
is nothing to do on his current Bosnian peacekeeping mission
but enforce the "Cincinnati Accord." In real life,
there was a Dayton Accord, and the difference in cities here
is either due: a) to the screenwriters' stupidity b) the studio
thought that Dayton was a person who might sue them if they use
his name, or c) they couldn't shoehorn their plot into the terms
of the actual Accord. Wilson is about to hang up his supercool
jumpsuit and supercool nickname "Longhorn" when he
and his partner spy something while doing what bad boys love
to do: disobey orders and fly over a no-fly zone.
They're shot down by a member of the Serbian Olympic Basketball
team who wears his hair like Julius Caesar. Well, the guy is
either on the team or he just loves his Adidas jumpsuits. After
watching his partner executed by Johnny Adidas, Wilson has to
scamper through the Bosnian countryside, trying to rendezvous
with NATO forces while avoiding the extremely determined bad
guy with unfortunate fashion sense. Meanwhile, Wilson's superior,
played by Gene Hackman, sits on the boat and frets a hell of
a lot. He acts a shitload more melodramatic than I thought military
people were capable.
The movie takes place in a magical fairyland. It's supposed
to be Bosnia, but only to give the phony bullshit the smell of
real lilacs. The politics are a hodge-podge of what's real and
what made writing the script the easiest. The result is a fantastical
story full of wild improbabilities that's presented as something
we're supposed to swallow whole. As physically impossible as
it should be, Behind Enemy Lines takes place entirely
in one day, entirely during daylight. In fact, the light never
even changes, so I assume it takes place over about one hour.
In that time, Wilson walks at least 50 kilometers in a circle
and is driven another 26. There are worldwide broadcasts of his
situation, his father is informed, and multiple major war decisions
are made.
Wilson uses a radio at all elevations that, for plot's convenience,
can only be used atop the highest elevation at the beginning
of his journey. He follows Hackman's orders, which ultimately
leads him back to the site where he landed and his buddy was
executed a few hours earlier with the promise that it's a safe
place. When the fuck did it become safe? Well, it didn't but
a major plot contrivance (namely, the homing device on an ejection
seat that miraculously works off a flashlight battery) requires
him to return to that point. Wilson is also able to slip out
of some scrapes by simply having the movie cut back to Hackman
and the ship. It's also one of those movies where bad guys can't
hit shit with their thousands of bullets, but they come close
every single time.
Some of the aerial scenes are pretty good. It's nothing new,
but they are done well. And if you have a short attention span,
you won't get bored. The movie blows up more shit than there
probably is left in Bosnia. It's an old movie trick: whenever
the plot gets slow for, say, three seconds, blow something up.
A bomb is easier to write than dialog.
But, the most ridiculous element is this psychic Caesaresque,
Adida-clad bad guy. No matter where Wilson is, no matter what
he's doing, this fucker knows. He divines from skid marks on
a road that not only is Wilson in the truck that skidded, but
also that it's headed to a town 26 km away. We never see him
figuring out how to track Wilson. That's too much trouble for
the writers. Instead, he just keeps popping up behind Wilson,
glowering, aiming his guns, and presumably pissed about how fucking
dirty his track suit's getting. He's a cartoonishly evil and
powerful character in a movie wants so fucking badly to be taken
seriously.
Director Moore is a fucking spaz. The guy either doesn't trust
the material enough to leave the camera still for ten seconds,
or he's an idiot. Every God damn scene has jump cuts, hand-held
camera shots, cameras that rotate around characters and flashes
of light that I assume are intended to send epileptics in the
theaters into convulsions and to distract people from the movie.
There's nothing innovative here, but he probably won a bet with
someone over how many overused camera tricks he could cram into
100 minutes. It's like he's trying to turn the material into
a shitty POD video aimed at easily impressed thirteen-year olds.
Wilson is fine in the opening scenes of the movie where he
is establishing his laid-back California vibe. He's a goof and
that's what he does best. But, once the action takes over, it's
a God damn mystery as to why Wilson was chosen. The role doesn't
require acting, especially not Wilson' natural ability for comedy.
It just needs a warm body willing to wear dirt-colored makeup
and run a lot. Hackman's a fucking pussy, all soft and gooey.
Fuck, for all his handwringing and sensitive speeches, he might
as well be Marmee March in Little Women.
Two Fingers for Behind Enemy Lines. It'll do
you great if you need make-believe reasons to feel patriotic.
For those who are reading A God Damn
Love Story, the second act is up for your reading pleasure.
This script is not going to be a movie, and I am not going to
pretend it should be. I wrote it to prove that even a jackass
like me can write a better script than Tomcats.
And there are probably a thousand better scripts written every
year, if those grassfuckers in Hollywood would pull their heads
out of each other's asses, wipe off the shit and look.
Want
to tell Filthy something?
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