CHOPPER

CHOPPER
Written and Directed by Andrew Dominik

I never killed anyone that didn't deserve it."
- Mark "Chopper" Read

There's justifiably been a lot of discussion about the nature of violence this week. We try to postulate the many causes of erratic and sociopath behaviour, and more times than not we come to a nebulous notion of hatred and fear. There is some inner demon that haunts these men and women who commit such violent crimes- the religious right would call it possession or sin, the scientists would call it the ego, the metaphysicians would call it a dark negative energy. I think there's an element to all of this that is universal, however, and that is the call for attention, which in turn is a function of loneliness.

In lieu of the Virginia Tech shootings- particularly the public release of videos, photos, and written screenplays by the gunman, I decided to revisit an old film that I thought might give me more clarity on the mindset of crime and publicity. I turned to Andrew Dominik's CHOPPER, a little-seen Australian film starring Eric Bana.

Bana (in one of the best performances you'll ever see, seriously) plays the real-life Mark "Chopper" Read, a hardened criminal serving seventeen years in the slammer for a variety of crimes from drug dealing, extortion, and attempted murder. An endlessly charismatic man, Chopper is also a man prone to violence stemming from a deep distrust of his fellow human being. He is a short fuse, an otherwise intelligent man whose literacy is shunned in the face of jealously and mistrust.

The film opens in a maximum security prison in Tasmania, and the clear divide between cliques of prisoners is established from the outset. Blurring the lines sits Chopper, shit-eating grin on his face, a man who defies categorization and doesn't care for it. To be given an archetype would be to meld in, and Chopper's thirst for attention drives him to acts of insane violence within the prison walls (including a scene involving self-mutilation that makes "Reservoir Dog" seem tame). He is determined to make sure that in whatever space he occupies, his name will be the one in the spotlight. Even when other inmates assault him, he is the one who gets more press then the assailant. From the moment we meet him, we know that Chopper has one goal in mind: to be the most notorious man in all of Australia.

But as bizarrely magnanimous as Chopper is, he is also the most hated man in Australia. Every other bloke has a contract out on him, and once released from prison, Chopper's life is one consumed by looking over his shoulder. Self-preservation becomes paramount, although the drive for attention follows close behind.

But it's not like the cops would let a nutcase like Chopper out on the streets and simply let him roam free. A relationship is established between Chopper and the fuzz, and we're never truly clear as to who in this relationship has the upper hand. Because of his history, the police know that Chopper will have the top criminals after his head, and that he is the bait they so desperately need. Conversely, Chopper uses the relationship with the police to carry out his dual plan to eliminate his enemies, and to make sure he gets some good press out of it. It is the most unholy of unions, to say the least.

Armed to the neck, Chopper traverses across Sydney and proceeds to harass, instigate and eventually murder those who seek him harm. These are not simple acts of vengeance, however, as they are coolly calculated- Chopper knows who should be maimed, and who should die. While Chopper himself comes off as a ranting, raving bulldog, we never lose sight of the fact that this is an intelligent man, one who has lucid vision in terms of the (literal) execution of his goals. Chopper's actions take him to the front page of media, when he is accused of killing a man in cold blood. He is acquitted of the murder, but is sent to serve time for a previous attempt of murder. With his face on the front page of papers all over Australia, Chopper couldn't be more happy with the verdict. He even proceeds to write a book in prison, and riding the notoriety of his reputation, the book becomes a bestseller and makes Chopper a very wealthy, and more importantly, very popular man.

Bu it's the final scene in the film that delivers the most poignant message, and its relevance to the recent events at Virginia Tech is revealing and bone-chilling. The film ends with Chopper in his cell, watching television with a pair of prison guards. The program is a news interview with Chopper, a tell-all about his new book. On television, Chopper is in fine form, cracking jokes, flirting with the newswoman, and exuding panache and cool. Watching the program, Chopper is in awe of himself, paying more attention however to the reactions of the prison guards, who treat him with the kindness and privilege of a celebrity client. The program ends, and the guards inform Chopper that it's time to lock up. They leave the cell, and shut the heavy metal door. We see Chopper alone in his cell, quiet. All he can do is stare at the wall. He no longer has an audience. He's back to being a loner. And for the first time in the film, we see some hint of sadness. The film ends.

It's one of the most poignant scenes I've ever seen, and the message it implies about the quest for attention rings true in every facet. Chopper got his fifteen minutes of fame, he rebuked his naysayers, and he was, for that moment, the ruler of his domain. But in one moment- the shutting of a door- he was alone again, back to where he started. Nothing gained, but much irreversible damage done. I see the same in Cho Seung-hui, the shooter at Virgina Tech. Why make a video? Why mail it to the local news media? It's a bitter indicative of a man seeking an audience, and like Mark "Chopper" Read, he was willing to do it at the maximum expense of others. Cho Seung-hui has successfully grabbed our attention, and he will be written in the history books, but his legacy as a man is already forgotten. He died a sad, lonely death. Like Chopper, I feel little sympathy for him, if anything I feel great pity for them. I feel like all that a normal person- a friend and not a doctor- could have done for people like Cho Seung-hui or Chopper was to simply ask them "how's your life going" and just listen to what they had to say.

And maybe that's the problem. A person who seeks attention never has an audience, because the audience has already judged them as not worthy their time. Cho Seung-hui probably wanted to be seen as a normal Joe. But he wasn't a normal Joe, he was a troubled man, who refused the help of others. He denied his audience by himself insisting that his behaviour was normal. He denied he needed help when a doctor told him he was a danger to himself. He saw himself as someone the world didn't understand, a tortured soul who stood for something true in a world full of falsities. But his truth was demented and flawed- he just could not accept that. It reminds me of a dialogue from the film, when Chopper makes the odd declaration:

"I'm just a bloody normal bloke. A normal bloke who likes a bit of torture."

So sad is the denial of truth, and the embracing of the absurd.

GRINDHOUSE

Every once in a while I feel plucky and venture onto IMDB.com, and make occasional postings on the infinite number of message boards that the site has to offer. I was feeling particularly frisky after seeing '300', and posted a message of how I found the film hollow, specifically how it's violence had no meaning and served no other purpose but to quell the bloodlust of 14-year old boys.

I took quite a beating at the hands of fanboys, who berated me for 'not getting it' and 'forcing family values' down their throats. Water off a duck's back, but it did reveal one thing to me: I do love a good violent movie, but it's been a while since I've seen one that put its violence within context, that had violence with purpose, impact, and ramification. '300' left me feeling upset and disgusted, and when I see the ads for the new film PATHFINDER bookended with the announcement that the film is 'Rated R for strong brutal violence throughout,' well, let's just say I'm left with the idea that we're peddling violence for the simple sake of violence. I miss seeing a violent film with some semblance of a motive, or at least an internal logic for the violence that is designed to tell a story. I just haven't seen that type of film for a long, long time, and I really wanted to see a good, throwback, violent-ass movie.

After seeing Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's double feature GRINDHOUSE, I left theater satisfied, my thirst for violence quenched, and I didn't have a single guilty bone in my body for enjoying it. Infact this wasn't even a guilty pleasure, it was a pleasure through and through. It's an excellent film and a a brilliant example of genre filmmaking, and we're witnessing two of cinema's great talents on their way to reaching the height of their creative powers.

A bold statement for a film that pays loving tribute to some of the most ludicrous movies ever produced in cinematic history. Across America in the 70s and 80s, independent cinema halls would cram two, sometimes three of these Z-grade features into one program, a 'grind' of films that had no reason to exist other than to waste away an afternoon during summer break. These films, as ridiculous and over the top as they were, were pure escapism, and the fact that the filmmakers behind them actually 'went there' made them as bold statements of cinematic freedom as their more serious counterparts that were winning Oscars and Palme D'Ors. I remember my favourite grindhouse films were shown at the Cinderella City Drive-In Cinema in Denver, where we spent hot summer evenings watching implausible classics such as GRIZZLY, DAY OF THE ANIMALS, EL TOPO and GYMKATA. So when I heard that Rodriguez and Tarantino were making a tribute to the Grindhouse, I waited with baited breath.

And Hollywood's enfants terribles didn't disappoint. After a trailer for a Mexican renegade revenge drama MACHETE (with a scene-stealing cameo from Cheech Marin), we're greeted with a slinky, oversexed pole dance courtesy of Rose McGowan, who oozes sex bomb appeal in full Bettie Page/ Bardot pinup glory. At the end of the dance routine the dancer, known affectionately as Cherry, sheds a tear, saddened by the potential of her life wasted, her dreams of becoming a doctor washed away. The tear is an incomplete thought, and in classic grindhouse fashion, it's a good idea soon to be left to the wayside when the writer/ director finds a much more visceral subject to dig his teeth into, primarily flesh eating zombies. Welcome to PLANET TERROR.

Robert Rodriguez's contribution to GRINDHOUSE is a balls-to-the-walls splattercore zombie classic, a pitch-black headtrip that never relents in its desire to both shock and entertain the viewer. The film is as funny as it is grotesque, replete with exploding pustules, gory dismemberment, cheesy lines, and character archetypes so thinly devised that to call them transparent would be to call Paris Hilton vapid.

The plot is simple: a deadly biochemical gas has spilled into the atmosphere, turning ordinary people (in the backwater hick sense of ordinary) into flesh eating zombies. A small motley group of people are inexplicably immune to the gas, and it is up to them to ensure that the human race will survive. Rodriguez derives great pleasure from gazing over his victims' bodies (Black-Eyed Peas singer Fergie makes two notable contributions to the film, from the front and back) and destroying them in the most imaginative, sick ways. Every conception of logic is obliterated in glorious fashion, and the sinful pleasure is that as an audience, we are aware of the silliness, but it is the characters in the film who remain deadly serious about their predicament. Our enigmatic hero El Wray spews off heroic and purposeful one-liners from bad horror films as if its the only form of English he knows. Besides, he shouldn't waste time talking- he has a lot of ass to kick and tap. And lord knows he does, if only interrupted mid-coitus by a suspicious 'reel missing' slide placed by 'the management.'

PLANET TERROR is one of those films that makes you want to cringe, laugh, vomit, eat red meat, have wild sex and drive around like a maniac. It implores every basal element of our hedonistic desires (both male and female), and even manages to throw in a spot of forced patriotism (a name check of Osama Bin Laden is tossed in for good measure). It's what we call a plain ol' good time at the movies, but one that still requires our attention- there's no 'shutting off' one's brain when watching a movie like this because there's just so many parts, plots, subplots, and elements thrown at us. Rodriguez weaves it all together in a seamless, cognizant fashion, and in lesser hands the film would be rendered an incomprehensible mess.

PLANET TERROR is followed by a trio of trailers for never-made horror classics, including Rob Zombie's WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE SS and Eli Roth's THANKSGIVING. Credit goes to Roth for creating the best of the trailers, a truly tasteless slice of 70s horror exploitation that is both nauseating and hilarious.

Coming off the adrenaline rush that was PLANET TERROR, Quentin Tarantino's half of the double feature, DEATH PROOF, does not start off with a bang but rather a mouthful of gab. In true Tarantino fashion, emphasis is placed upon witty dialogue between a host of characters that discuss everything from bar pickup etiquette to esoteric discussions of rarely-seen cinema. The dialogue is long winded and, while not uninteresting, manages to unfortunately kill off any thrills that were built up in the first half of the double feature.

It's only until halfway through the feature that Tarantino hits his stride. After four girls (including stunning headturner Sidney Poitier) roam about Austin, Texas talking, drinking, and talking some more, they come across a stranger who goes by the name Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russel in a superb performance, perhaps one of his best). The girls do not fear Stuntman Mike, rather they fear his car, an ominous black muscle machine with a skull painted across its hood. Common sense tells us to stay leery of such symbols, and Tarantino plays it like a fiddle in a gruesome turn of events.

Cut to the second half of the film, and Tarantino once again drowns the momentum in dialogue with a new quartet of women, including Rosario Dawson and Zoe Bell.

A quick word about Zoe Bell. She is a physical specimen unlike any other human being ever put on film, save for maybe Sebastien Foucan, co-founder of the sport Parkour, who showed unheralded dexterity in the opening sequence of 2006's CASINO ROYALE. But Zoe is as tough and skilled as Foucan, and maybe more so, demonstrated by her amazing stunt work in DEATH PROOF. Actually, amazing doesn't do her sequences justice- jaw dropping is perhaps more suitable. Bell is an action superstar in the making, and it almost seems Tarantino concieved the entire script for DEATH PROOF to showcase her talents. And who can blame him, she's simply incredible.

The second half of DEATH PROOF shows us that Quentin Tarantino rightfully belongs among the ranks of James Cameron, John Woo, Steven Spielberg, William Freidkin and Buster Keaton as one of the great directors of action, even though he's known more for his pop-culture dialogue and fractured storytelling techniques. DEATH PROOF contains one of the most memorable car chase sequences since THE FRENCH CONNECTION, and is lent all the more punch by the fact that it is done without the benefit of CGI. Tarantino's highway sequence has more impact than the multimillion dollar videogame spectacle that was THE MATRIX RELOADED, and it gleefully rewrites the cat-and-mouse dynamics of the chase with a delightful and unexpected twist that is unprecedented in classic chase films like DEATH VAN and the seminal Spielberg classic, DUEL.

There's enough blood spilled in GRINDHOUSE to make a vampire blush, and the violence is both excessive and over-the-top. But unlike '300' and PATHFINDER, it is completely justified, defined, and rationalized. I didn't leave GRINDHOUSE worried about what kind of world we live in, a world populated with nihilists and sociopaths who applaud in the theater when humans are brutally slaughtered in the vague name of "freedom" or some other rose-tinted myopic cause. Rather, I found GRINDHOUSE to be a celebration of what makes art enjoyable, of why we truly go to the movies. It's by and far one of the best movies of 2007, and earns my highest possible recommendation.

Note: GRINDHOUSE has not performed well at the box office, which has come as a shock to industry analysts. This despite excellent reviews, an aggressive marketing campaign and above everything else, Rose McGowan in hot pants with machine gun for a leg. GRINDHOUSE has managed to be beat out by cinematic tripe such as ARE WE DONE YET?, BLADES OF GLORY and MEET THE ROBINSONS. It remains as one of the true mysteries of the year, and one can only hope that strong word of mouth will bring the film the success it so richly deserves. I may just have to bring it up on IMDB.