Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Okay. I’m trying to figure out how a film that some poster on an IMDb Message Board described as “straight-up trash” featuring tons and tons of nudity, including Anne Hathaway, could be a bad thing. I mean... it’s nudity, right? How do you screw that up?
Screenwriter Stephen Gaghan is a good guy. I have spoken with him several times, and he strikes me as bright, serious about what he does, and interested in doing provocative, challenging work. This reviewer doesn’t know who Barbara Kopple is, but any documentary nut will recognize her immediately. She’s won two Oscars, for pissakes, for the incredible HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A. and AMERICAN DREAM. This film’s got a pretty damn good pedigree.
So what’s the deal with HAVOC? What should we expect when it hits theaters sometime this year? This is our first report, and it’s bleak stuff. Dig in, and watch out for the big honkin’ spoilers...
Hi Harry. I'm a long time reader of the site and thought I would send this in. I saw Havoc tonight at the Ontario Mills AMC. I pulled some interesting information out of the IMDb about this one: the writer was Stephen Gaghan who wrote Traffic and the director was Barbara Kopple who has done nothing of note as far as I know. Anyway, back to the screening. It was some deal by a company called The Screener Exchange and they told us that we were the first people to see this and that there may be technical problems. Actually, I didn't see very many technical problems at all. If they were there my ignorant ass didn't catch them.
Let me tell you all a little bit about myself so that you know where I am coming from. I don't get laid much as I am a typical movie dork. (Hey, no sense in not being honest, and it comes into play later in my review). My favorite movie of all time is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I like a lot of different kinds of movies -- I enjoy the melancholy comedy of Royal Tenebaums right next to the ass-kickery of Blade 2 (cue clitty-licking jokes). Basically, I just like movies.
So let's get to the movie: it's not very good. And I don't mean that in a "there is a good movie in here that needs some polish", I mean "this is a bad movie that would take a lot of work to become a fair movie." I'll list the plot, then the good stuff of the movie, the bad stuff of the movie, and final thoughts. To talk about the bad stuff I am going to have to get very specific, so I am going to label that section as "spoilers". There are also minor spoilers in the plot section, but it's all stuff you see in the first half hour anyway.
First let's talk about the plot: the main character of this film is a beautiful rich girl named Allison. Allison has a bad family life - she calls her folks "latchkey parents" because they are never around, and it's implied her mother has a serious problem with depression. So Allison pisses away her days hanging with the PLC Crew - a bunch of rich kids from the Pacific Palisades (an affluent area west of Beverly Hills) that think that they are gangsters. (In a particularly stupid sequence at the beginning of the movie, one of them by the name of Troy proclaimes himself "a real hardcore nigga" and says he "hates white people". Keep in mind that Troy could be a poster-boy for the Calvin Klein Aryan Nation.) Allison also has a bizzare crush on her friend Emily while at the same time being Troy's girlfriend. Anyway, one night Troy and Allison take a few of their friends for a drive into East Los Angeles to buy weed. Troy thinks he is tougher than he actually is and is beat down and humiliated by a guy named Hector, a member of the "16th Street Crew" - a mexican street gang. Allison is intrigued by this tough guy vato, and she returns the next night to talk with Hector. He takes her and her friends to a Real Honest-To-God Mexican People Party and things progress from there. Rich Girl, poor boy, but believe it or not there's nothing cliche about where this "relationship" goes.
The things I liked about this movie: first of all, a moderate amount of gratitious nudity from some very beautiful women. (I told you the not getting laid thing came into play later). There are definately going to be some screencaps of this thing when it hits the net, as both Allison (Anne Hathaway, who will now be referred to as Pearly Whites) and Emily (Bijou Phillips, who will now be referred to as Angel Tits) show off their loveliness. Hey, I considered it a plus, don't slam me too hard in Talkbacks. Anyway, the other best part of this move was the 16th Street Crew. They seemed very real to me. I work in an industry where I am in contact with many reformed Latino gang members on a daily basis, and the guys in the movie occasionally reminded me of them, so that was good. One of the 16th Street Crew is Ding Chavez, and he really kicked ass. He steals a few scenes and gets a few genuine laughs. However, the real standout was Freddy Rodriguez. I thought he looked familiar while I was watching the movie and I was right - he's the Hispanic mortician from Six Feet Under, the one who got made a partner. Anyway, he was charasmatic and the movie mostly dragged when he wasn't onscreen. In fact, the four main 16th Street Crew guys were all very good.
There are some very tense and dramatic scenes in this movie. Again, I will play up to the fact that this is a very nonconventional movie. It goes places that you wouldn't expect, and there are some scenes of real drama. Read below:
SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE GODDAMN MOVIE
Allison and her friend Emily befriend the 16th Street Crew. And they want to 'join' the 15th Street Crew. Well, Hector sees his chance to get those Pearly Whites near Lil' Hector. He tells them that in order to join, they have to roll a 1d6 (yes he actually says this, he is a huge D&D fan*) and whatever it comes up with is the number of guys they have to fuck to get into the crew. Allison rolls a 1, Emily (Angel Tits, remember?) rolls a 3. Allison wimps out with Hector and leaves, but Emily decides to go for the gold. Unfortunately, Ding Chavez joins in and he and Hector make hamburger out of her happyhole. So Emily freaks out, Allison hustles her out of there, and the guys are justifiably pissed (as was I when I got into a simular situation involving a Vampire game and two goths...anyway) Emily decides to accuse Hector of rape, and Ding Chavez and another member of the crew decide to kill both the girls. They can't find them though. And Troy and his idiot buddies decide to kill the 16th Street Crew, and they drive around for a while and can't find them.
SPOILERS END
You probably weren't expecting this. Well neither was I, and I was interested near the end of the film. Unfortunately they managed to screw it up. Read below for more...
THE BAD. And believe me there is a lot of it.
The first problem I believe could be fixed. It is the pacing. This movie starts really really extremely slow. And it just kind of sits there. The first half-hour is PAINFUL. People walked out. Most of the beginning is like a sledgehammer trying to slam a tic-tac with a message on it through a two-by-four. And the message on the tic tac reads, "These kids adopt urban culture, but are actually spoiled and rich." The movie shows us scene after scene that reinforces this point. Great, guys, I FUCKING GET IT. PLEASE GET THE BALL ROLLING. I am not a two-by-four, guys, I am a sheet of paper. It only takes one scene (NOT TEN, of endless smoking and shit-talking and making out) to get me to realize what you are trying to do.
SPOILERS AGAIN. WHY, GOD, WHY?
Also, the ending is bad. Bad bad bad. Basically, the movie shifts into gear around the 45 minute to one-hour mark. It actually gets very dramatic and very good. You are actually riveted...believe it or not. And then...it ends. After the events above, Emily (Angel Tits) is sitting in the bathtub, Troy and the 16th Street Crew can't find each other, and Hector is in jail (although probably not for long, because Pearly Whites spills the beans on Angel Tits unlucky roll on the 1d6 and the fact that it was not rape). THEN IT ENDS. Just when it starts to get interesting, IT ENDS. Literally, people were booing and yelling about it. Those bastards. Cut some from the front, put it on the back. Show us what happens to the characters! This is not hard.
The pacing and ending aside (all of which can be changed), there is one aspect of the movie that is the most damaging. It is why I said earlier that I don't think this movie will ever be better than fair. It boils down to the simple fact that the character of Allison (Pearly Whites) isn't realistic. And this unreal character is basically the lens through which we view the whole movie.
Now, let me explain something here - I know that Allison (Pearly Whites) is a fictional character, so OF COURSE she's not real in an absolute sense. And one of the movies biggest themes (in fact, it is probably the movies ENTIRE THEME) is that Allison is a glass of water; she takes the shape of whatever situation she's poured into. So her lack of "realness" is just part of the character, right? Wrong. The screenwriter shows the following scene in the first five minutes of the movie:
Allison is being interviewed on a video camera by a nerdy kid from her school. He is interviewing bored rich kids who act like gangsters. Allison takes him back to her house and sits him down in her living room. She proceeds to show him that she is capable of being many things to many people. She plays a Jesus Freak, a smart girl, a stoned girl, and a gangster. She is smart and she knows the nerdy kid is attracted to her. No nerd can resist Pearly Whites, believe me. Anyway, Allison decides to play a little game with the nerd - she asks him if he would like to fuck her (on camera) and then WHIPS OUT HER TITTIE AND STARTS FAKE-MOANING ON HER COUCH. WHILE THE KID FILMS HER.
Now, this is just the stupidist fucking thing ever. No high school girl, power-games or no, is gonna be dumb enough to expose herself on camera to a kid who she doesn't already have in her pocket. Indeed, the nerd turns her down because he recognizes that her behavior is certainly stupid and borderline psychotic. Allison is a popular girl dating Troy, a popular guy. Think about the humiliation this would cause if Nerdy McCamera decided to show Troy the tape. Seriously, I could see the text on her forehead that said "I AM A WRITER'S CREATION, AND I AM DEFINING MYSELF." It was fucking ridiculous.
And things don't get better. Allison is shown dirty-dancing with Calvin Klein Wigger Troy and a bunch of vangrants in a parking lot, but later in the movie is able to succesfully seduce a 50-something year old man out of at least 500 dollars worth of cocaine. Um, hello? Earlier she was acting like whipping out a tittie was going to make some nerd fuck her 'till her head popped off and flew around the room screaming "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" but now she's a Bond Girl? Whatever. She's super smart when she needs to be, but idiotic when it advances the plot. And it drove me FUCKING CRAZY.
So not only is she unrealistic, Allison (Pearly Whites) is fundamentally unlikeable. In fact, ALL of the high school kids are complete and utter wastes of flesh. They are rich, bored, and decadent (as I stated earlier, the movie takes great pains to show this). They are also very good looking. In the case of Emily (Angel Tits) she even has a good home life to boot. So why should we feel anything when they smoke and pretend to be gangsters and fuck other beautiful people and act ignorant? Especially Troy. Jesus Christ, he's like some kind of Alpha Wigger. I wanted this guy to die, painfully, within five minutes of being on screen. But he doesn't die, he just bangs Pearly Whites and keeps on being a stupid fuck, even after he's taught a valuable lesson by Hector. So what the movie boils down to is watching fundementally unlikeable and unhappy people lead fundementally unlikeable lives. But unlike, say, One Hour Photo, these people actually learn something by the end. So at least they have that.
I could mention other things, like the characters are mostly stereotypical and suffer from "The OC" syndrome. I've lived in Orange County, and I can tell you that rich California kids that call each other "dawg" and try to act any more "street" (beyond listening to Eminem CDs) are going to get mocked. They don't all drive convertable black Escalades with Surfboards strapped to the bumpers. Jesus Christ, Hollywood - you fucking LIVE IN LOS ANGELES, GET IT RIGHT.
Also, Allison's dysfunctional relationship with her parents - the major motivation for her acting out - was given maybe 6 minutes of screentime. Thanks for building up that character development, guys. Oh, and her dad is Michael Biehn (HICKS REPRASENT!!! as Troy would say) and is onscreen for 6 minutes. FUCK YOU GUYS, YOU WASTED HICKS.
SPOILERS END
Final Thoughts: I don't think this movie is going to be the next "Traffic", that's for damn sure. There is some good stuff in there but like I discussed in the "Bad" section the problem is that the movie drags when 16th Street Crew isn't on the scene and all of the high school kids are unlikeable little Fucknauts. Plus Allison is an unrealistic character. It still could be a decent movie if they fix the pacing problems and drop some of the dumber scenes. Lord knows there are decent movies out there with bigger problems than sucky characters.
I hope this review is useful to someone. You can call me Sodomy Redux.
*Hector is not a huge D&D fan, I made this up.
I gotta wonder, though… it’s Barbara Kopple and Stephen Gaghan. There’s got to be something there. Right? Doesn’t there? We’ll know when we get a look at HAVOC later this year...
"Moriarty" out.
