The Fanatic: Nothing to admire

The Fanatic (2019) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for violence, gore and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.30.19

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Seeing John Travolta starring in a tawdry little flick such as The Fanatic is disheartening enough; further noting gifted cinematographer Conrad W. Hall’s involvement qualifies as an out-of-body gob-smack.

Moose (John Travolta, left) cannot understand why his proximity to the house belonging
to his favorite movie star — Devon Sawa, as Hunter Dunbar — is cause for such a
nasty outburst. All he wants is an autograph...

Fred Durst’s dreary thriller is the sort of ham-fisted junk that once got sold directly to late-night cable. These days, thanks to the rise of indie cinema and vanity production companies with more cash than common sense, such films sometimes get unwarranted movie theater play … as is the case here.

The recent explosion of pre-title production company logos has become a joke, and this lurid fiasco is no exception. Seriously, would you expect anything worthwhile from an effort “presented” collaboratively by MFC, VMI, Wonderful Media, Quiver Distribution and — my favorite — Pretzel Fang?

It has been said that nobody sets out to make a bad movie; things just go wrong along the way. After enduring this one, I’m not so sure. It’s clearly a vanity project for Durst, best known as the face of the rap/rock band Limp Bizkit; he wrote the story, co-scripted (along with Dave Bekerman) and occupied the director’s chair. It’s not his first rodeo; he previously directed a string of music videos and two big-screen features that didn’t make much noise (2007’s The Education of Charlie Banks and 2008 The Longshots).

I’m sure he’s a nice guy, and — in fairness — he has a confident sense of mood and atmosphere (although I suspect Hall deserves the credit for most of that).

But this is his first story/script credit, and let it be said: The man cannot write. He has no feeling for the way people talk to each other; no concept of plot logic; no understanding of the need for a consistent narrative tone; no grasp of the means to develop and maintain suspense. The Fanatic is a clumsy mess, which makes it a terrific model for teachers of film studies classes, on how not to make a movie.

According to pre-release hype, the premise is based on an actual incident from Durst’s music career, when he had to deal with an overly aggressive fan who crossed the line of acceptable behavior. If so, that makes this story’s jaw-droppingly weird and deplorably brutal climax even harder to understand. If it’s wish fulfillment, Durst’s time would be better spent in therapy.

On top of which, we’ve been here many times before. Lauren Bacall was targeted by an obsessively unhinged Michael Biehn, in 1981’s The Fan; all-star baseball player Wesley Snipes ran afoul of the equally deranged Robert De Niro, in 1996’s The Fan. (Not much originality in titles, eh?)

And didn’t Stephen King make the ultimate statement with Misery, which brought Kathy Bates a well-deserved Academy Award for her 1990 portrayal of poor James Caan’s “Number One Fan”?

The Bacall flick is nothing to write home about, but Durst managed to top its deficiencies. No small feat.

From Paris with Love: Frantic French free-for-all

From Paris with Love (2010) • View trailer for From Paris with Love
Three stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, profanity and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.5.10
Buy DVD: From Paris with Love• Buy Blu-Ray: From Paris with Love [Blu-ray]

Live-action cartoons rarely are worth writing home about, but the better ones can be fun to watch.

And when it comes to crazed action thrillers, few filmmakers deliver the goods better than Luc Besson, the French writer/director/producer who seems responsible, at times, for every third film released in France. At his best, Besson has brought us La Femme Nikita, The Professional and The Transporter series, and even lesser efforts — Danny the Dog and Angel-A — are intriguing misfires.

Impulsive black-ops agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta, left) thinks nothing of
breaking into an apartment in order to spy on somebody across the street, an
act of questionable legality that draws reproach from neophyte partner James
Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Charlie's response to James' raised eyebrow is
always the same: a long-suffering glance and an unspoken "Do you want to
get the job done, or not?"

From Paris with Love is a hoot 'n' a holler, not to mention a triumph of clever directing (Pierre Morel, strutting the same stuff he gave us in Taken) and slick editing (Frederic Thoraval). It couldn't have been easy to turn paunchy, 55-year-old John Travolta into a credible action hero, and yet his Charlie Wax (love the name!) brings down the bad guys with the panache of an actor 20 years his junior.

Besson takes credit solely for story here — scripting chores having been handed to Adi Hasak — but all the usual elements are firmly in place: oversized weapons, laughably overblown gouts of gunfire, plenty of male bonding and a tendency to treat women as appendages.

Despite being preposterous beyond words, though, Morel moves things along at a pace slick enough to minimize questions, while Travolta and co-star Jonathan Rhys Meyers keep us amply entertained every step of the way.

Folks seeking a rip-snortin' way to spend 95 minutes on a Friday evening couldn't do better.

Rhys Meyers plays James Reese, personal aide to the U.S. Ambassador in France (Richard Durden). James is a capable young man who has earned the respect of his boss, with whom he frequently plays chess. James also has a gorgeous, loving girlfriend (Kasia Smutniak, as Caroline) who designs clothes and dotes on him, and an enviable Parisian apartment with a rooftop perfectly suited to dining beneath the stars.

More than anything else, though, James likes his side job as a low-level operative for the CIA: a bit of moonlighting that he hopes, one day, to transform into a career as a bona-fide agent. This desire takes an unusual turn when his never-seen handler sends him on an urgent mission to collect somebody at Customs.

Enter Travolta's Charlie Wax, introduced as he verbally abuses the French Customs agents who are refusing to allow a bag of canned sports drinks into the country.

The Taking of Pelham 123: Quite a ride

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) • View trailer for The Taking of Pelham 123
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence and considerable profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.12.09
Buy DVD: The Taking of Pelham 123 • Buy Blu-Ray: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 [Blu-ray]


The ground rule for remakes is quite simple: If the new version isn't at least as good — if not better — than the original, then what's the point?

Slavish replication isn't necessary; a solid story concept can support various interpretations, and sometimes a fresh approach is the best choice. Consider the two quite distinct versions of The Thomas Crown Affair: Each is entertaining and clever, and an excellent vehicle for the star of the moment (first Steve McQueen, then Pierce Brosnan).

Having unintentionally endeared himself to the maniac menacing a carload of
people on a hijacked subway, dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) is
ordered to deliver the ransom money himself ... an obviously dangerous
assignment that our hero likes even less after a helpful cop presses a gun into
his hand.

The Taking of Pelham 123 remains one of the best 1970s crime thrillers, thanks both to scripter Peter Stone's intelligent adaptation of John Godey's crackerjack novel, and Walter Matthau's wonderfully phlegmatic performance as the dour subway transit officer whose day takes a bad turn when Robert Shaw hijacks a subway car and demands $1 million in a single hour, lest he start killing the passengers, one by one.

Back in the day, director Joseph Sargent delivered a nerve-wracking head game between Matthau and Shaw. Three decades and change later, director Tony Scott — notorious for his bombastic touch and frankly irritating smash-cut editing style — makes the story louder, nastier and much more profane.

But — and this is good news — Scott kept his more aggravating tendencies in check. The self-indulgent, self-styled auteur who made such a disconcerting visual mess out of trash such as Domino and Man on Fire has restrained himself, and with welcome results. Only the deliberately blurred opening credits reflect the behavior of "bad Tony Scott"; once the story begins, he settles down and orchestrates a first-rate thriller.

Credit also goes to screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River), who deftly broadens both major characters while maintaining the unexpected — but always welcome — moments of cynical comedy that also punctuated the 1974 original.

Denzel Washington's Walter Garber is introduced as an intelligent and capable New York City subway dispatcher, but the chinks in his armor surface quickly and become ever more troubling. Why, for openers, is such an obviously over-qualified individual wasting his talents at such a mid-level job? And why so much friction with his condescending boss?

Garber, we soon learn, is flawed; for all his resourcefulness and quick thinking, he has shortcomings that didn't infect Matthau's much more morally upright interpretation of the same character. That makes Washington's Garber much more interesting, not to mention a greater acting challenge: Garber is the hero here, and always must be viewed as such.