reVIEW (42)
SHALLOW GRAVE

After first hearing the buzz on Shallow Grave (1994, Talking Movies, if memory serves me right), then seeing the trailer, I immediately thought this looked like a crackerjack thriller that I needed to see.
And when I did, a bunch of names quickly barged their way onto my Need To Keep Tabs On list: among them, director Danny Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge, and actor Ewan McGregor.

An impressive feature film debut for all three, Shallow Grave tells the story of three friends and flatmates, Alex Law (McGregor), Juliet Miller (Kerry Fox), and David Stevens (Christopher Eccleston), who, at the top of the film, are interviewing prospective flatmates, in a humourous montage that highlights both the insularity of their clique, and their individual characteristics: the pushy smart-a$$ Alex, the coolly detached Juliet, the exacting David.
Soon however, they find themselves in possession of a suitcase stuffed to the brim with money, and the film gradually enters dark territories, where they are forced to navigate the slippery slopes of morality and sanity, with a suitcase full of temptation making the journey all the more difficult.

Like a blackly humourous version of one of Boyle’s subsequent films, Millions, Shallow Grave is a clever, smartly-told thriller that, through a great script by Hodge, becomes a showcase of not just Boyle’s keen directing talents, but also of a trio of excellent performances.
McGregor, of course, would go on to become the breakout star (largely in part due to his second collaboration with Boyle and Hodge, Trainspotting), one of today’s most charismatic performers, and that potential is already evident here. His Alex is that certain someone we all know who thinks he’s funnier, and more charming, and smarter than he actually is, who constantly runs off at the mouth, quite possibly to mask his own insecurities.
For all his flaws though, Alex is a charming devil, and the on-screen presence McGregor has is plainly evident. As such, the performances by Fox and Eccleston may perhaps be overlooked by some, but they’re just as informed and effective as McGregor’s. Eccleston does wonders with a torch, and Fox, well, she just subtly exudes “manipulative b!tch” like it was the latest scent from Dior.

Also, just as McGregor may have outshone both of his co-stars, Boyle himself may have served to eclipse the significant contributions Hodge made through his script, maintaining the thrills while giving us real people with palpable personalities to (perhaps) care about. The writer-director tandem would go on to collaborate in three subsequent features, Trainspotting (for which Hodge would be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars), A Life Less Ordinary, and The Beach, and it would only be in the last, in that disastrous Leo-starrer, that the team would disappoint me sorely.*
Cinematographer Brian Tufano is also present on Shallow Grave, and he would then go on to shoot both Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary for Boyle, as well as provide additional photography for Millions. An excellent cinematographer is always a key element of Boyle’s creative arsenal, the reason why his films look so great.
Paired with editor Masahiro Hirakubo (who would edit Boyle’s films till The Beach), Tufano shoots dynamic film that alternately crackles and simmers with energetic imagery. (Though admittedly, Tufano’s true skill with the camera would be displayed more conspicuously in his two latter collaborations with Boyle.)

Slamming out of the gate with the compact and effective Shallow Grave, Boyle would go on to genre-hop like mad (drug cinema, screwball romantic comedy, zombie cinema, science fiction), in the process becoming one of modern cinema’s most inventive and interesting voices.
It all starts here though, in a flat in Edinburgh, with three friends, and a suitcase full of money.
You never really know, do you? The inauspicious beginnings of greatness…

* Sadly, for whatever reason, Hodge and Boyle would cease to collaborate following the 30-minute short film, Alien Love Triangle (originally meant to be part of a discontinued anthology feature), which was done after The Beach.

Parting shot: Shallow Grave was honoured with the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 1995 BAFTAs.

(Shallow Grave OS courtesy of amazon.co.uk; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

CHUCK
Season 1 Episode 2
“Chuck Versus the Helicopter”
Written by: Josh Schwartz & Chris Fedak
Directed by: Robert Duncan McNeill
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So Sarah takes a job at the Wienerlicious just down from the Buy More to keep a close eye on Chuck, while Casey of course, is now a Buy More employee.
Dr. Zarnow (John Fleck, from HBO’s Carnivale) is brought in to take a look at the Intersect data that’s stuck in Chuck’s brain, with the intention of the good doctor getting all of those “really scary, nasty, get-killed-for-having-‘em secrets” out.
But just after seeing “Patient X”—Zarnow is not allowed to actually see Chuck during the test—the doctor is apparently killed by an NSA incinerator (which obliterates every single molecule of the target, so no body is found). And who works for the NSA, but Casey.

Thus begins the amusing, but nonetheless tense tug of war as Sarah thinks Casey’s out to ice Chuck, while Casey thinks Sarah’s the double agent. Poor Chuck’s stuck in the middle, while still hoping that his relationship with Sarah (“which isn’t even remotely real”) can actually go somewhere.
Things come to a head at the dinner that Ellie insists on having so she can finally meet Sarah. Hilarious hi-jinx ensue.

We also discover that another Intersect will be up and running in about six months’ time, and when that happens, Casey is instructed to do what he does best.
Uh-oh…

Sure, the helicopter sequence could have been better executed, but the laughs and action are still coming on strong, and while “Gone, Daddy, Gone,” the Trainspotting nod, and Them are all fantastic, the Lost reference slays them all!

Parting shot: A review of Chuck’s Pilot episode (TV Watch 2007) can be found in the Archive.

(Image courtesy of aintitcool.com.)

THE TRIPPER
(Review)

“A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.”
-- Ronald Reagan

After a brief prologue set in 1967, in the Northern California lumbertown of Carlisle, we flash forward to the present, where Carlisle is set to host the Free Love Festival, a weekend bacchanalia of sex, drugs, and rock and roll organized by one Frank Baker (ol’ Pee-wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens).
Throw in a bunch of modern day hippies (among them Jay himself, Jason Mewes), Carlisle’s “de facto peacekeeper,” Officer Buzz Hall (the Punisher himself, Thomas Jane), and a mad Ronald Reagan mask-wearing killer, and you’ve got The Tripper, co-written and directed by Deputy Dewey himself, David Arquette.

Given that this is a film that kicks off while the fires of the Vietnam war rage, set during a time when the war in Iraq continues to drag on with no apparent end in sight, and featuring a killer who dons the visage of a President who reigned over an America characterized by excess and conspicuous consumption, it’s obvious that Arquette is attempting to use the slasher film as a stage for some biting socio-political commentary.
Anyone who’s visited the Iguana before knows I love me a good horror film that actually says something, and though what The Tripper is saying is not necessarily anything new, my main problems with it are its ill-paced script, and the fact that a majority of the narrative’s characters are dope fiends who don’t really seem to deserve any audience sympathy.

Thus, not only does the film meander badly (I’d love to have used the adverb “trippily,” if the experience had been entertaining, which it ultimately wasn’t), but the gorehound in me found himself blasted back to the bad old days of the slasher film, when all I ended up doing was wait impatiently for the next victim to wind up dead. These are characters who are in a perpetually fraked-up state, and sympathy for these sorts is pretty hard to come by.
It’s always a challenge to get an audience to take a ride with characters like this, and when the film is a Trainspotting, or a Spun, or a Requiem for a Dream, you know all involved did their jobs splendidly. In films like these, you end up caring for and sympathizing with individuals you probably wouldn’t want to be seen in the same room with in real life.
Now, the average slasher film does have sex, drugs, alcohol, and wayward youth as some of its conventions. Not only does The Tripper up those particular antes exponentially, but Arquette asks us to spend most of our time with this host of druggies who seem to display no redeeming qualities at all. In the end, I don’t see why I should care for these people in the slightest.
And yes, we do have Samantha (Jaime King; from Sin City and TV’s Kitchen Confidential and The Class), who is currently abstaining from drugs because of a recent Bad Experience, and who is clearly the Last Girl-in-waiting, but she’s one out of six, and not a particularly compelling, charismatic screen presence. (Hey, if you’re gonna be the Last Girl, you better have some chops to deserve that honour.)

It’s also sad that some interesting actors (Balthazar Getty and Lukas Haas) are in this but aren’t really afforded anything meaty to chew on. Jane’s is perhaps the most noteworthy performance as the sane voice of authority, but of course, it’s a voice that’s drowned out by all the chemical hi-jinx going on.

One of the things The Tripper seems to be saying—an idea reinforced by the film’s end credits roll—is that while the American Powers-That-Be are evil, ineffectual passive resistance to that towering monolith is not really any better either.
Where The Tripper fails, I feel, is in not really presenting us with an alternative; in what is perhaps a gross oversimplification, the narrative doesn’t really put forward a stance between the ultra-left and the ultra-right which would make any sort of sense in this day and age.
I realize this may not really have been Arquette’s ultimate intent in the first place (this is, after all, a slasher film and not a Michael Moore documentary), but if you’re gonna get into this particular sandbox, you should at least play the game, right?

I wanted to have fun with this one, but in the end, it just didn’t float my boat.
Maybe if it had been funnier, or gorier, or more thrilling, or if it had had something more substantial to say, then The Tripper might have been worth the time and the price of admission.
As it is, re-watching a double feature of the Masters of Horror episodes, “Homecoming” and “The Washingtonians” (review in Archive: September 2007)—both effective exercises in horror as socio-political commentary—would be a far better prospect.

Parting shot: For those interested, Arquette also appears in the film as the redneck Muff, while the missus produces and has a teeny cameo.
Another name of note on The Tripper is comic book writer Steve Niles, whose 30 Days of Night has been adapted for the big screen and is just about to be unleashed on all of horror geekdom.

(The Tripper OS courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com; DVD cover art courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)