Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Diesel's Dystopic Road Flick
Babylon AD comes off as a 21st century genetically re-engineered Blade Runner in many ways. But its pacing and intensity is more like Star Wars and video games. Babylon AD's director, French actor Mathieu Kassovitz is forty years old, an age to be likely influenced by both the foundational perspective worlds of future and entertainment that Ridley Scott and George Lucas created decades ago. Babylon is a dark dystopic world, but not one we linger or meditate on very long because this is a film that takes you on all kinds of rides and one where there are surprising, well executed menace along the protagonist's journey.
I like to watch Vin Diesel. He plays the lunkhead with NY origins well. One of my favorite DVD experiences of a year or so ago was his performance in Sidney Lumet's overlooked Find Me Guilty. His delivery of a line like "Ain't that a bitch." may someday become as iconic as "Make My Day" or whatever it was that Schwarzenegger used to say. There is something very endearing about Diesel and I hope he gets the roles and notoriety he deserves throughout his forties.
Diesel plays Toroop, a mercenary living in a blown out building in eastern Europe in a world where survival is pretty much the name of the game. Gérard Depardieu plays despotic Russian gangster who gives Toroop the opportunity to have a passport to return to the US, where he is listed as a terrorist. His job is to transport a virgin and a badass kung fu fighting nun played by Michelle Yeoh to the US. There trip involves old American cars, Russian submarines, and lots of ambushes. And at the end of the film there is lots of strange singularity genetic engineering stuff thrown in. Yes this is pretty much dumbass escapist fare, but it felt right for ninety minutes for the first week of Winter quarter. I see the film received a pretty bad rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but who cares. I was entertained and a tad more than marginally.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:42 PM
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