Gory Emptiness

Rating: 2/10 (4 April 2005)

I went in the cinema expecting something novel. I got the standard fare instead. Tough talking gangsters? Whores with guns? Extreme violence? The movie should have a big 'Recycled' stamp all over it. Basin City is Gotham City, but to a T. Nothing new here. The character of the concrete tough guy Marv (played nicely by Mickey Rourke, I must admit) was nothing new: he reminded me of the 'overtaker' in William Gibson's novel "Idoru". In the novel the 'overtaker' is a big guy, full of scars, torturing criminals to death in order to get their money, but his heart (who would guess?) is made of gold. Oh yeah, and he wields a hatchet sometimes. Bruce Willis plays Bruce Willis as Hallenbeck. Oh, wait a minute, that was his name in the Last Boy Scout! Here he's called Hartigan. The differences are imperceptible. Since Tarantino is involved we have the obligatory Katana wielding Samurai whore. Luckily she doesn't talk too much (maybe she's a deaf-mute?). The difference from Kill Bill is that now she's using not one, wait for it!, but TWO full-size Katana at the same time! (And of course she likes to throw shuriken. Although if both hands are full how can she throw a shuriken? Maybe she spits them out? Who knows?) Comic book feel means that people like to jump off from great heights for great visual effect. (Really, how many times did one character or another fell ten-storeys or so just for fun? I stopped counting.)
After realizing that there's not going to be anything new in this movie I tried to enjoy it for its own sake. Boy, was it difficult. The dialog is bad, bad, and worse. I don't care if this is because it's supposed to be a comic book. So what? If they use a retarded 10-year-old to write the script and the result is incomprehensible, is it an excuse that he's retarded? What is this, special Olympics? GET SOMEBODY WHO CAN WRITE BEFORE DOING A MOVIE! Comic book fans can have (enjoy?) the original 'corny but brilliant' conversations. They can have the plot too. It commits the biggest crime a story can do: it's boring. By the time the movie got back to Hallenbeck's story the second time I wished it'd been over already. Really, there was nothing to keep my attention story-wise. Absolutely nothing. Here is the pattern: bad guys show up, good guy's sure to die, I'm sure he won't die, yawn, he manages, yawn, to escape (uninterestingly), yawn, bad guys die horrible deaths. Back to square 1: bad guys show up, ...
Maybe it's the comic book tradition but bad guys always shoot at the body while the good guys, cleverly, shoot at the head.
One more thing: maybe if they cast Rutger Hauer as Hartigan and Benicio Del Toro (without the stupid makeup) as Dwight the movie could have been better. (These two could turn the corniest of dialogs into something interesting.)
Ah, I almost forgot. The violence part: take it away and nothing remains but emptiness.