2025, Darren Aronofsky (Pi) -- download
Was this the guy who did Pi? Yes, this is the guy who did Pi, but then why does it feel like he was known for so much else that wasn't Pi? Because he was, and it was/is so so much more. Black Swan, Mother!, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, The Whale, and more. All films that got a lot of buzz, both critically and audience-wise. And yes, my brain always goes, "The guy who did Pi."
But also, because of my current viewing habits, and late-to-writing habit, the mushed up "violence in film" has Hold the Dark and Normal ping-ponging around in my brain pan. I didn't consider Aronofsky in that company (Saulnier and Wheatley) but this movie feels at home with them.
And yet, I recall, as Kent did, the trailers depicting a violent, quirky romp of a movie involving crazy Russians, crazy Jews, a mohawk-ed punk and a baseball player with his bat. We got that, but with a darker, much darker mentality, adapted for the screen by Charlie Huston who wrote the original novel, a violent little page-turner. Huston authors his own mish-mash of work including Wolverine and Moon Knight comics, and a vampire noir.
OK.
Late 90s, Hank (Austin Butler, The Shannara Chronicles) is a bartender in a dive bar in NYC's Lower East Side, back when pop culture depictions were still grimy and not IG ready. He's a friendly popular sort with hot girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz, High Fidelity) and punk neighbour Russ (Matt Smith, Morbius). He's also haunted by a car accident from his past, and calls his mom at least once a day to talk about baseball, in particular the San Francisco Giants. Russ has to rush out of town and leaves Hank to take care of his cat, who likes to bite, but likes Hank.
That's the setup. How it starts is when two bald, but maybe not skinhead, Russian mobsters show up at Russ's door and end up beating Hank into the hospital, where he has lost a kidney. For a heavy drinker and bartender, that's devastating, as we skip right past the likelihood of Hank actually having health insurance that would have paid for that. He talks to the police, and is questioned extensively.
It only escalates in violence from that, and Hank just gets dragged from one horrible situation into the next, all connected to some money Russ stole from his employers. The movie is not a fun romp; its a gut-wrenching escapade, where Hank, charismatic and likeable, doesn't deserve what happens to him, and really doesn't want to be involved. EXCEPT after Yvonne gets killed (pissed off at that fridging, but Huston wrote that in heyday of fridging) Hank doesn't really have a way out, but to see it through... somehow. To say that things only get worse when Russ returns from England is... saying it lightly.
I am still not sure how I feel about the movie. After the killing of Yvonne I was just soured on the whole thing, but still engaged by the whole quirky Coens-not-Coens aspects of the movie. To be honest, I found the "fun and wacky" kind of jarring, but yet... it still worked? You can do fun and yet dark; Bad Monkey did it really well, and Huston and Carl Hiaasen are from the same paperback crime world, but really, none of this is fun. I guess the only "fun" I had was when I recognized the two Hasidic Jew criminal Drucker Brothers, Lipa (Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan) and Schmully (Vincent D'Onofrio, El Camino Christmas) but that was more a realization that the characters were played so well, so reserved, that I didn't see the faces behind the fake beards.
Yes, like my mind, I flip-flop with my words on it.
This is the kind of movie I should probably watch again, to view the actual film making, but I probably won't. I have a feeling I would appreciate it more once the sour taste of the murder is out of my mouth; I probably won't be less pissed about it, but at least I know its coming.
Kent's take - we agree.
Credits rolling notes: glad Aronofsky gave some work to D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and I was amused by the stunt-casting of Griffin Dunne as the owner of the bar Hank works at, considering all the After Hours comparisons in this movie. Kent wrote about the movie here; I probably saw it on VHS but got bored.
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