The Kingdom

Somewhere in The Kingdom lies the rapidly beating heart of a fun, straightforward B-movie, the kind of film that is enjoyed and forgotten until it appears in graduate theses about the cultural landscape of a certain time period or the ground-breaking start of a particular auteur. The plot is full of conventional action thrills and formulaic buddy-cop beats with a high-concept twist, and, much like other B-movies, the majority of the film serves only to drive the audience to its most rousing set-piece—in this case, a thrilling shootout in a hostile Saudi Arabian neighborhood. No one making the film seems to have noticed this, though, and as a result, The Kingdom overreaches. The hollow plot is padded out, drama is sacrificed for verisimilitude, and the film is stuffed with dumbfounding scenes that answer questions no one is asking.

After a terrorist group explodes an American housing complex in Saudi Arabia, Jamie Foxx leads an FBI team that heads to the crime scene—-against orders—-ostensibly to help Saudi law enforcement find the perpetrators of the attacks, but really to avenge the death of a friend of his that was killed in the blast. Upon arrival they encounter resistance from the locals, but nevertheless manage to form a mutually beneficial partnership with Colonel Faris Al Ghazi, a Saudi who helps them solve the mystery by telling them about local customs and using his awesome powers of translation. The film takes so many detours before the characters even begin their investigation, though, that they mystery fades into the background. And even when they do start their investigation, there’s no sense of discovery, no joy in the procedural aspects of their work. Despite the flash of text depicting each character’s name and specialty at the beginning of the film, I didn’t even have a grasp as to what most of the agents were supposed to be doing. And, at times, it seemed as if they might be confused as well.

Ashraf Barhom is really quite good as Colonel Al Ghazi, but it’s a thankless role. The character is just another version of the local guide, helping these (much more important) yokels navigate the harsh jungles of his native land while goggling at the weird, wonderful technology they bring to his rustic backwater (in this case, it’s not a Walkman or a flashlight, but Jennifer Garner’s breasts). The film offers plenty of screen time devoted to showing how very real and human he is, but it’s a humanity I never had cause to doubt, particularly as he’s depicted as competent, sensitive, and caring early in the film. Nevertheless, this dunderheaded film bravely depicts that this is a guy who is able to both be a Muslim and love his family and country. Huhwhaaaa????! Such a noble, noble man, and to think, for the entirety of the movie he’s pretty much stuck babysitting Jamie Fox, telling him that Americans aren’t allowed in that alley or in this room people don’t eat apples or whatever.

The notion that citizens of Saudi Arabia, even terrorists, are, deep down, no different than Americans is the ostensible message of The Kingdom. That the viewer needs to be told this is about as idiotic an assumption as I can imagine a mainstream Hollywood film making. What’s more, the set-piece at the heart of the film invites the viewer to participate in the gleeful slaughter of the bad-guy Arabs. This shoot-out is fantastic, as good as these kinds of urban warfare action scenes get. And it’s the only time in the film where what’s at stake is clear and unambiguous, not mired by unnecessary red tape. When the movie concludes by asking the viewer to ponder the moral ambiguities of enjoying such a bloodbath, it feels cheap, phony. It may be the most unconvincing, ridiculous moral to the end of a film since the racial harmony ending of Volcano, where a little boy looked at the ash-covered survivors of a Los Angeles volcano and declared, “They all look the same.”

Would be a good double feature with: Proof of Life

Day 76: King Kong (2005)

Let me get the gripes out of the way.  The movie's definitely overlong, with many scenes that could be cut by half.  The structure of the film is a bit wonky in that, despite spending a rather lengthy amount of time developing characters on the journey to Skull Island, the romance between Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow is given so little time that it feels even thinner than the romance in the original version.  There are some really awful choices scattered throughout the film; Adrien Brody typing out "SKULL ISLAND" in jittery, strobe-effect slow motion is one of the worst, most bullshit things I've ever seen in a movie of this caliber, and there are a few other similarly indulgent, boneheaded moves.  And the score, while effective at times, is at turns too sentimental and obvious (they really, really should have trusted Howard Shore to do this, especially since the score often sounds like an imperfect emulation of Shore's fantastic work for The Lord of the Rings [which makes one wonder why he was replaced at all]).  And this only makes more apparent the times when the movie itself is, at turns, too sentimental and too obvious.

Okay?  Can I gush now?  The film really works on a level I hadn't expected from it.  They've taken a tale about men trying to tame savagery and bestial instincts in order to save women, and turned it into a film about how the women these men are trying to save need this savagery within themselves.  The character of Ann Darrow goes from shrieking scream-box in the original to main character in this film, a vaudeville actress plucked out of New York during the depression by a savage, primal movie producer (a pretty great Jack Black).  When they get to Skull Island, they encounter a scary, savage (and when I say savage, I'm speaking of the random killing and decapitating kind of savagery) and, what's more, matriarchal group of natives who eventually abduct Ann and offer her to Kong.  Ann is understandably terrified of Kong at first, but, after some harrowing encounters with the local wildlife, she comes to see him as a protector, a necessity for survival in the hostile land.  When Kong is brought back to New York, Ann, in a turn of character that is shot similarly to the moments right before her abduction, seeks him out, apparently unable to resist the primal connection they have.

The secret behind Peter Jackson's work as a director has always been the writing.  As a director, he's got a flashy style that's hyperkinetic to the extreme and has always tended towards the mawkish and the sappy, even when the heroes of his films are doused with zombie blood.  But the written structure of the movies he's made in the past, and the exploration that happens within those structures, has always been interesting, the characters are sketched out nicely, and the plots of his films are often pleasant in the inventive way they harvest seeds of narrative planted at the beginning to find a satisfying ending (I, perhaps unfairly, usually give credit for this to Fran Walsh, who seems from what I've heard in interviews and commentaries, to be the more conscientious writer of the two.  But I really don't know.).  Generally, the work put into the script results in the sappiness feeling earned.  

While the film's script is hampered a bit by the structure of the original Kong and with the notable exception of the Jack/Ann romance, this strength is on display here as well.  The world, its characters, and their relationships are pleasingly etched in little gestures that build upon themselves, allowing us to fill in the gaps with our own baggage and, thus, creating an engaging, involving experience.  This is no more apparent than in the early scenes between Kong and Ann, scenes in which very little dialogue is spoken and even the non-verbal communication has a distinct species barrier. Yet, Kong seems to have a personality that Ann (and we) can understand, though he's still rather alien in his behavior.

Another thing this film hammers home, something I didn't realize and am now smacking myself on the forehead for not having seen sooner, is the influence on Jackson's style from silent comedy.  So often in films, action set pieces are mindless exercises in kinetic movement coupled with kinetic editing.  In King Kong, the set pieces are funny, cheeky, and, in their inventiveness and their use of the inevitability of physics, reminded me of The General and some of the cinematic stunts found in Harold Lloyd's work.  Thinking back this has been the case since, at least, Meet the Feebles (it's been years since I've seen Bad Taste).

A few words about Kong, the effect:  Convincing.  Utterly.  I forgot he was in a computer, and he's the second fully-fledged, well-wrought CGI character from these people.  Some of the effects in the movie are spotty, but Kong is so good, it bears no further discussion as far as I'm concerned.

I wish the makers of this film had reined themselves in more.  There's a great 2 hour movie in this, probably even a great 2 and a half hour movie.  In between the unfortunate choices and the excess, King Kong is notable in the way it takes its silly premise quite seriously, and finds a reason for its own existence, despite the original's place in the pantheon of cinema.  When the natives in Carl Denham's stage show are represented in exactly the same way they're represented in the original film, it's a strange comment, a criticism even, of the naïve and condenscending attitude toward beasts and men found in the original film.  This film's Ann Darrow character, meanwhile, is a sharp reproach to the original film's notion that when encountering a scary behemoth of primal rage and instinct, her only correct response is to scream, scream for her life.

Day 67: King Kong (1976)

So, I hope I'm not wrong here, but that was the giant snake from Conan, right? I only ask because both movies were Dino De Laurentiis productions and they looked awfully similar. Maybe it's a venerated line of fake snakes, like the Barrymores, or siblings, like Donny & Marie.

The thing is, aside from Kong, there was only one monster on Skull Island in this version of King Kong, and it was a giant snake. It's weird because, though much time is spent on the island, nothing actually seems to be happening. Jessica Lange spends a lot of time in Kong's hand (I got so sick of seeing that thing) gets washed and blown on by him, he pokes her, she shouts at him, and that's about it. At least in the original, Fay Wray and Kong had a sort-of Stockholm Syndrome thing going on as she depended on him for her survival.

Though, I give the movie many points for trying to answer the question of why Kong would want a human lady friend in the first place. That it goes for the most literal of answers (sex, duh) results in my subtracting most of the points. It does lead to a moment in which Charles Grodin, referring to the fifty-foot ape, tells Jessica Lange, "He was going to rape you," but perhaps the reason that Kong wants human females isn't a question that needs to be answered, literally or not. It's certainly a lot more primal when it's unexplained, a lot more interesting, and allows me to have conversations with my girlfriend where we debate as to whether Kong likes these women as pets or flowers. The movie also does well to show difficulties in transporting Kong to America, but what does it matter since we're all waiting for him to stand on a skyscraper anyway?

This is a vulgar movie, a loud and trashy junk film, with too many fun, dumb elements to kick to the curb, but one that far overstays its welcome in its 134 minute running time. The movie is paced like it was made by snails, despite the fact that there's a lot of screaming, yelling, and crashing going on, and, thus, one can only imagine that these were coked up snails, having just done a line off of a hot snail's slime trail. There's definitely a weird Vietnam hippy-counterculture vs. Nixon voter symbolism-thing going on in the script, but the movie is so unwieldy and everything in it is so muddled, any intended Chayefsky-esque satire is lost amidst the roaring.

The worst, most unfortunate part of the film is the way it handles Kong. I don’t give a rat's ass about how "real" effects seem, or that I can see wires or composite lines. None of that really matters to me as long as the effects are placed within the fabric of the movie well. Despite the fact that the face is well articulated and Kong's personality comes through, the full bodied Kong is uninteresting to watch, held down by his technology, sluggish in responding to anything. Kong's lethargy here is a stark contrast to the vitality and joie de vivre that the original Kong exhibited, and, wouldn't you know it, this typifies the difference between the two films.

Day 62: King of New York

Notable for a fun, over-the-top performance by Laurence "Larry" Fishburne, a cool, indulgent performance by Christopher Walken, and some hyperslick cinematography, King of New York is not quite good, but it is an authentic greasy diner at 3 a.m kind-of. junk food viewing experience that is often alluring.  The tone of the film shows what a film would be like if Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, and Brian DePalma were fused together in a freaky telepod accident, a three-way Brundlefly of slick, pretty cinematics and unfulfilled arty aspirations, expressed through heartfelt close-ups of violence and tits; a Brundlefly named Abel Ferrara.  It's not quite as good as it sounds though.  If this were a more focused character drama or a go-for-broke, by the numbers genre film, it would have been awesome, but the movie straddles both worlds unsuccessfully, leading to a pretty, yet scattershot mush.

Walken plays Frank White, a New York drug kingpin returning home from a lengthy stay in prison.  He's anxious to reclaim the city's crime scene from those he feels are unworthy to carry the torch, motivated by a newfound sense of altruism.  White's big plan is to fund a hospital in a poor neighborhood with his drug money, and he wouldn't mind taking out the other drug lords who, according to him, unnecessarily exploit people while he does this.  Meanwhile, a group of cops led by David Caruso steam and fume over his release, lament his wealth from a life of crime while they barely make do with their miniscule salaries.

A wonderful moment, albeit one of easy sentiment, occurs about three-fourths of the way into the movie.  Walken, in a dingy underground tunnel, orders the death of the squealer.  He walks to the exit of the tunnel and stops, staring out at the city he loves.  The camera stays behind, observing him from within.  It's a beautiful moment, capturing the way the lifestyle Walken is leading holds him back from realizing his dreams for New York.  It's the stuff of every gangster movie in memory: the desire to leave a corrupt and failed system to do some real good, but being unable to do so.  It's quiet, poignant and thoughtful, and the movie could do with some more of this kind-of filmmaking if it had anything it wanted to say about White's misplace altruism.

But, then there's all the shooting.  The genre beats, the shoot-outs, and the squib explosions are all accomplished bits of filmmaking in their own right.  I admired the way some of the death scenes in the movie were played by the actors as extensions of their characters, not simply "I am dead now!" moments where they'd get shot out of the plot.  And I particularly enjoyed the way two out-of-focus background bums watched a climactic shootout.  A long car chase with shooting on the wet, rainy (and bridgey) streets of New York is well handled too.

So what's wrong here?  Frankly, Walken dances a little too much (blasphemy, I know.  It should be noted, though, that there's a classic buildup to a Walken monologue near the end.), the script focuses on certain story beats for much longer periods of time than they deserve, and the film's conclusion is a muddled riff on the reflexive nature of power and violence.  You know, the old live by the sword, die by the zzzzzzz, huh, what?  Oh yeah.  The editing is also all over the place; the movie never really finds a narrative a groove until sometime in the third act and this groove is quickly discarded.  So, despite the excessive and vulgar tawdriness at times, King of New York is not great, kinda fun, and better than McBain.  

Day 59: King Kong

Years ago, I was in a book store and saw a children's book version of King Kong.  It was a simple retelling of the tale with illustrations and, aside from the fact that it told the same story, it never referenced the movie.  It just was, Kong as mythic a creature as the Big Bad Wolf or Rumplestiltskin, a fable about the hubris of man versus nature or the explosiveness of rage.  It was then that, though I was a stop motion nut, King Kong really began to excite me.  I realized that Kong is one of the first, if not the first, filmic myths, myths whose origins began when the lights went down in some movie theater somewhere (I'm hard pressed to come up with another one right now, though I think Freddy Krueger might be another example of a purely filmic myth).   So, while I loved the idea of Kong as much as Kane loved the idea of his past, every now and then I'd remember that I had never actually sat down and watched the whole thing from beginning to end.  As a kid, I'd watch bits and pieces of it when it came on TV, but I had a short attention span back then and had trouble accepting anything in black and white.  So this was, I believe, my first viewing of King Kong from beginning to end, though I'd probably seen the entire movie in chunks prior to this.

And, finally watching it, I realized why it was a myth that refused to die and why children still know through cultural osmosis about Kong atop the Empire State Building (how many know about Mighty Joe Young's fight with lions?).  King Kong is made of the same stuff as the Grimm Brothers' Tales.  It's got the logic of a fairy tale (particularly when he randomly climbs up the Empire State Building) and whatever the moral of the tale is, it's delightfully obscured by the sheer narrative of it all, slim though the narrative may be.

I don't have anything to say about it that hasn't been said to death, but while watching it, I was tickled to notice that every single time Jack Driscoll showed affection for Ann Darrow, something Kongish would happen.  He tells her that he loves her on the boat and then she's whisked away by the "primitive people", given over to a hulking monstrosity of pre-human (read: id-like) impulses.  He puts his arm around her in New York and the same giant bundle of animal instinct breaks free!  He comforts her in a hotel room (I mean, a hotel room, wink wink, nudge nudge) and Kong breaks through the window with a giant furry appendage and takes her away.  Is Kong simply a hyper-Freudian manifestation of Jack Driscoll's repressed sexuality?  Why not?


There are a bazillion reads on Kong (including the "miscegenation read," something I leave to better folk than I).  And I take that as evidence that it's the stuff of myth, the stuff of enduring folk tales.  Like Dracula, Frankenstein, or the Wolf Man, Kong is a manifestation of something primal, something dangerous, but also something loveable.  The difference between these other monsters, though, is that Kong is a direct result of industrialization.  He's a natural warning about how, as we build our buildings bigger or have the ability to take to the sky, there's a danger that grows in accordance with this "progress."  Strangely enough, the threat looks a lot like we do, represents our evolutionary past and, god dammit, when it dies, everybody gonna cry.  Of course we cry.  He's a symbol for everything we've lost or left behind in our development as a species and we have to slaughter him if we want to continue developing.