Tuesday 4 February 2014

Clean Up In Aisle...DEATH

4th Feb Removal

WHAT a generic title! I know my memory for names was never the best, even before I took all those bumps off the top rope, but I've been calling it 'Retrieval', 'Revival', 'Resolved'...Still, boring title, generic cover and misleading Lovefilm synopsis aside (and they have the WORST synopsis writers on god's green earth; they could make Gone With the Wind sound like Mandingo), this one was actually worth my time. I am made of surprise.

Though it was obviously made for less money than Avatar's second unit's weekly doughnuts and coffee expenditure, it actually looks good; had a real camera! Possibly more than one! And still my heart, a microphone that picks up dialogue! Le swoon.  Also, real actors that have been in other things, including Billy Burke: yes, Bella Swan's perennially-nonplussed father from the Twilight Saga; known affectionately to Rifftrax fans as Mustache Dad! He is one of the few things (apart from copious alcohol or a recent concussion) that makes sitting through any of those wimped-down-high-school-Langella-Dracula fanfilms bearable to a viewer whose age or IQ reaches double digits, and he's quite the dawg in this one too; yes, a mustache is evident, plus beard, and so at various times are a rather nice suit, and some unsuspectedly-rocking tattoos.

Louche Mustache is the cooler associate of a sad little schlub with a distracting resemblance to Sam Raimi after a fortnight without sleep (after the reviews of Spiderman 3, for example), who's having a really bad time of things. Glum Raimi's on the outs with his missus and son, and appears to be having some version of PTSD that led to him being institutionalised for a while (under the care of oh hi Elliott Gould; thanks for keeping your shirt buttoned up this time), and now has him under on the sort of heavy-duty medication regimen that means he probably shouldn't drive, drink alcohol or operate heavy machinery.  It's okay, though; he's found a cleaning job where he drives from house to house with a large industrial vacuum cleaner.  Oh.  Well, don't worry; at least he won't take the offer from the wealthy douche householder at his newest job (who's paying him $5,000 cash off the books to clean the whole house right here, no questions asked, and including the suspiciously pinkish stains on the white shag rug) to share several bottles of rich dick's mysteriously-missing-wife's red wine, though? Oh.  He makes poor decisions, is what I'm saying here; is that coming across?

Well, I'm sure the one-percenter-prick is just catching up with some overdue spring cleaning, what with all the heavy steamer trunks being shifted around, and there's no sinister implication to be drawn from privileged twatwaffle's butcher-knife fondling, and bottle-smashing fits of rage.  At all.  I must confess that imperious arsehole was the highlight of the film for me, and what a tall cool drink of paraffin he is; imagine that someone built a robot duplicate of Stephen King (quite poorly), then programmed it to be nothing but an arrogant jackass with a smug face you'd like to rearrange with a pickaxe handle. He's played by Oz Perkins [elephant in the room lives here], who also has a co-writer credit, and I choose to believe that he wrote his own dialogue, because it rings out of his mouth like Donald Trump tossing a fake nickel into a blind man's cup.

I like this one; the plot turns, but does not swerve, it's funny, and seldom runs out of steam, or into the 'yes, I know what's coming, sweet lord, can we just GET THERE, thankyou?' that seems to be a hazard with many thrillers that aren't quite as clever as they think they are.  It deserves to be watched by more people than just (judging by the IMDB's "People who liked this also liked..." recommendations) Kelly Brook completists and/or chronic masturbators.

No comments: