Really Awful Movies

Bangs on a guy pushing 30 is a sure sign of psychopathy, a far better indicator than anything dreamed up in the annals of phrenology. In Bastard, he’s West, one-half of a killer duo, the other being ginger bombshell girlfriend Hannah (pictured below).

They’re Paul Bernardo / Karla Homolka types (and bickering bandmates too) on a honeymoon / musical road trip.

They’re racing along in a convertible and decide to pick up, but not to murder, teen runaways Jake and Betty, a couple escaping his abusive home life and willing to head anywhere the road takes them.

When West and Hannah’s bar gig is cancelled, all four find themselves reluctant guests at a B&B somewhere in the California mountains.

Another guest at the inn is the boozing, suicidal, cross-dressing, trigger-happy officer of the law Michael who’s just broken up with his boyfriend and is looking for piece and quiet and respite.

Bastard has a neat premise, we’ll give it that.

Not only does it feature killer newlyweds, but the excuse to put together all these disparate people, seems plausible. So far, so good.

A screenwriting tip though: don’t make everyone in your film f-ed up. It’s impossible to set up a counterweight to your sociopaths if there’s no normalcy. It also screams “indie.”

In Bastard, there’s a rude gas station attendant. Nothing out of the ordinary there as most people’s experience with these guys is that they’re taciturn at the best of times. No biggie. In the film though, the gas station attendant pushes the bounds of believability by calling Hannah a whore without any provocation, right in front of the boyfriend. This act of button-pushing made zero sense.

Even the most normal one in the bunch, Rachael the B&B proprietor, drops C-bombs on her guests. When it comes to the service industry, Bastard isn’t working for tips.

Also, clubbing someone with a sexual aid to the strains of Schubert’s Ave Maria, while surely a cinematic first, is tonally off. This isn’t a Troma production and the gimmick undermines the smarts that preceded it.

Storytelling quibbles aside, the way the hunters become the hunted is handled deftly here. And the preceding kills score big-time in terms of shock value. The practical effects and acting are pretty darn good too. And Bastard looks good — great in fact — considering the budget.

The nod to Cronenberg’s The Brood was truly out of left field. However the revelation didn’t feel legit. Bastard is ambitious, we’ll give it that.

*** (out of 5)

For Nightcrawler, clear your throat and do your best movie trailer guy impression: IN A WORLD WHERE…fewer and fewer people are getting their news from television, news teams are left competing for the scraps…

Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) makes his living from scraps, salvaging, but mostly stealing, copper wire for resale.

For someone of low moral probity, he finds it easy to make the transition from con artist to TV news stringer when he manages to sell some “If it bleeds it leads.” video footage to a station with sagging ratings.

Now it’s not hard to take a withering view of television news. This reviewer (briefly) went to journalism school and was told by a professor, “People like pets and kids”, however the level of cynicism displayed by producers at this station is beyond the pale. True, news outlets are not above paying for all kinds of content, but IN A WORLD WHERE crime is as commonplace as LA, murder after murder would only have diminishing returns $$$-wise. Yet this station pays for videos that look like ISIS productions when it’s hard to believe any of this would air anywhere, even on the sleaziest 6 O’Clock News Hour.

In Nightcrawler, Louis quickly moves up the ranks, procuring more professional video cameras and a police scanner, and even hires an assistant to get to crime scenes, fires, accidents etc. that much more quick.

This is another conceit that borders on the absurd: with margins being as tight as they are (some TV stations pay $75 for a piece of footage, which barely covers gas, especially in perpetually gridlocked Los Angeles) it beggars belief that Louis would hire an assistant. However, it’d be a very different movie indeed if there were no one for our protagonist to chat with.

Riz Ahmed is amazing as the assistant, who’s kept under Louis’ employ because he’s homeless and therefore really in it for the money. As a result, he’s somewhat forced to do Louis’ bidding with no moral agency when all professional ethical considerations (such as they are) are left on the cutting room floor.

Gyllenhaal as Louis is unhinged and creepy, doing everything it takes to undermine the competition (Bill Paxton as ENG vet Loder). But his character is too bug-eyed and one note. According to UBC criminal psychologist Dr. Robert Hare, people who are psychopaths “can be amusing and entertaining conversationalists, ready with a clever comeback…” Not so here. Right from the get-go, we see that Louis Bloom is a nutter; his character isn’t gradually revealed. It’s the same criticism levied at Jack Torrance in The Shining, an otherwise brilliant film.

nightcrawler-1 — Bill Paxton as Loder, Louis Bloom’s competition

Still, Nightcrawler is not without its thrills It’s frequently gripping and its two-hour run time is never an issue. Rene Russo is dynamite as the world-weary producer whose contract is coming to a close and who’s coerced into an Indecent Proposal arragement.

The denouement reveal is corny and heavy-handed, but then again, TV news isn’t the paragon of subtlety. Network it ain’t but failed aspirations aside, Nightcrawler is a dynamite popcorn movie.

***1/2 (out of 5)