How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 26 January 2016
A movie review of GREEN ROOM. |
YouTube review:
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“Let him bleed to death. Later is better for time of death, ” Darcy Banker (Patrick Stewart)
Forget the beloved Patrick Stewart of X-MEN and STAR TREK. Professor X and Jean-Luc Picard are relegated to the sidelines. Stewart eats up the scenery as a conscienceless white supremacist murderer; a formidable adversary for the hapless leads inadvertently caught in his crosshairs. Being a talented thespian adds weight to what might have been a one-dimensional foe. Also brought to bear is a man, who clearly has, if not intellect, a tactician’s mind, which deepens the peril for the heroes and makes the audience wonder what turning, on life’s path, brought him to this ideology.
Forget the beloved Patrick Stewart of X-MEN and STAR TREK. Professor X and Jean-Luc Picard are relegated to the sidelines. Stewart eats up the scenery as a conscienceless white supremacist murderer; a formidable adversary for the hapless leads inadvertently caught in his crosshairs. Being a talented thespian adds weight to what might have been a one-dimensional foe. Also brought to bear is a man, who clearly has, if not intellect, a tactician’s mind, which deepens the peril for the heroes and makes the audience wonder what turning, on life’s path, brought him to this ideology.
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GREEN ROOM is three for three from writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, a filmmaker now deserving of a fanbase. MURDER PARTY (2007) is a hilarious slasher-comedy, while BLUE RUIN (2013) is a ponderous revenge flick in the vein of I SAW THE DEVIL. His latest is a siege movie that removes typical he-men protagonists. DIE HARD-John McClane levels of skill are a dream for the 20-something punk band trapped and beleaguered. What makes Saulnier’s oeuvre so refreshing is the ordinariness of the characters caught in nightmarish scenarios, and the spins on genre.
If Bruce Willis’ breakout role was a riposte to the outlandish super-men of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, might we finally be entering an interesting cinematic phase of the normal forced to tackle overwhelming odds? See also GONE GIRL and VICTORIA and IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE and THE WORLD OF KANAKO.
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Punk band ‘The Ain’t Rights’ wake in a field. Looking to have passed out the night before, the van has ploughed into a crop. Running on empty, financially and fuel-wise, they choose to illegally syphon some petrol to make it to their next destination. Cinematic karmic meter turns against them, while also demonstrating mild back-to-the-wall resourcefulness. Their tour has been a bust, and needing coin to get back home they accept a gig at a skinhead club in an Oregon backwater. Disgusted by the setting, they muster a rebellious muse to sing ‘Nazi Punks F*ck Off’ to an aggressive afternoon crowd. Making it through their set, on the verge of getting out clean, they stumble upon a murder in the titular green room of the bar.
In the middle of nowhere, cell phones not in their possession, and a burgeoning array of neo-Nazi militia congregating outside under the command of club owner, Darcy, The Ain’t Rights scrabble to formulate some sort of plan. Harking back to the visceral cinema of early Walter Hill and John Carpenter, namely SOUTHERN COMFORT and ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, GREEN ROOM does not hold back on violence and the modulating of pace, tension and group dynamics.
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