Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot: A rewarding stroll

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for dramatic intensity, alcohol abuse, nudity, sexual candor and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.27.18

The quickest entry to John Callahan’s caustic, macabre and self-deprecating sense of humor is to understand that this film takes its title from his 1989 autobiography, written 17 years after the traffic accident that left him a C5-6 quadriplegic.

As John Callahan (Joaquin Phoenix) begins to morph into an actual human being, he's
helped along the way by the kindness and patience of Annu (Rooney Mara).

His scratchy, hilariously irreverent cartoons appeared everywhere for a time, from Omni and Harper’s to National Lampoon and Penthouse. Most notably, his work was featured for 27 years in the Portland, Ore., newspaper Willamette Week, where both he and the staff delighted in the occasional protests and boycotts by enraged readers.

That reaction remains true to this day. You can’t help laughing at most of Callahan’s work, but then — just as quickly — you wonder whether you should.

All this said, he isn’t necessarily an ideal subject for a biographical drama … particularly one that wishes to be factually and emotionally accurate. He was as aggressively confrontational as his cartoons; for quite a number of years before and after the accident, he also was an exceptionally nasty alcoholic. It’s not easy to spend two hours with such an unpleasant person, and Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t hold back; his depiction of Callahan is quite brutal at times.

But we are a species which, by nature, believes in the miracle of epiphanies … and few individuals have undergone a greater change. That isthe stuff of captivating film dramas.

Director/scripter Gus Van Sant has spent the bulk of his career crafting compelling sagas about equally challenging — and often unlikable — individuals, from Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho up through To Die For, Elephant and Paranoid Park. His films intrigue not only for their unusual characters, but also for the often non-linear manner in which he lets a saga unfold.

That’s particularly true of Don’t Worry, which structures its (more or less) chronological narrative via Callahan’s candid recollections, as depicted during numerous Alcoholics Anonymous meetings; a chance encounter with young neighborhood skateboarders; and while addressing a crowd at a popular public presentation, after he had become quite famous. These sequences are further interspersed with animated versions of Callahan’s signature cartoons.

The running thread — the moral — is consistent throughout: Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Shrug it off, whatever it is, and take control.

A valuable lesson: one that took Callahan years to recognize, understand and embrace.

American Animals: Savvy indictment of youthful privilege

American Animals (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug use and brief crude content
By Derrick Bang

Real life isn’t merely stranger than fiction; sometimes it’s a lot dumber.

In 2004, a quartet of bored Kentucky college students, seeking a way to inject some spice into their plain-vanilla lives, concocted a preposterous scheme to “make millions” by stealing rare books from the Transylvania University library’s essentially unguarded special collections section.

Surrounded by the fluorescent blandness of a supermarket, Spencer (Barry Keoghan, left)
and Warren (Evan Peters) spin a series of what-ifs into an actual criminal plot.

Yes, books. Bulky, heavy books.

Which the lads expected to transform into cash by passing them along to a fence. In Amsterdam.

The mind doth boggle.

The actual events are jaw-dropping enough, but indie writer/director Bart Layton has enhanced the narrative even further: He blends his film’s dramatic depiction of what actually went down, with on-camera commentary and recollections by the now-adult thieves. It’s a cheeky maneuver strongly reminiscent of director Craig Gillespie’s handling of last year’s I, Tonya, with a similar result: We’re fascinated by the saga, yet left to wonder to what degree these narrators are reliable.

Layton audaciously signals his intentions right from the top, with a variation on what has become the usual introductory disclosure statement, when dealing with fact-based events:

This is not based on a true story

And while we mull that over, an off-camera exhalation — the sound of blowing out the candles on a birthday cake — chases away a few words, so the statement becomes:

This is a true story

Don’t know about the rest of you, but I couldn’t help italicizing the second word, as I scanned that line again.

After a brief flash-forward designed to pique our curiosity, we bounce back several months and meet chums Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) and Warren Lipka (Evan Peters). The former is a freshman art major at Transylvania University, the latter blowing off a soccer scholarship at nearby University of Kentucky. When Spencer gets an orientation tour of his library’s $20 million collection of rare books — a glassed-off room supervised solely by librarian Betty Jean Gooch (Ann Dowd) — he’s transfixed by an open copy of John James Audubon’s massive Birds of America, residing in its own display case.

Spencer later describes the book — and its “priceless” value — to Warren. One or both of them imagines taking it, selling it, enjoying their subsequent ill-gotten gains.

Layton intercuts between the actual Spencer and Warren, each remembering their plot’s genesis slightly differently, neither quite willing to admit being the one who actually proposed the theft.