Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I’m freaked out. Y’see, that’s not a nickname our new spy is using. “He” really is Harvey’s third chin, the one right in the middle. It’s come to like like Quaato from TOTAL RECALL, and it’s started sending out e-mail. Even worse, it loves to use its webcam. I’m getting nightmares from our chats.
Anyway... he’s just started writing reviews for us at AICN, and first up for him is a film I know literally nothing about. Didn’t even know it existed before right now. Let’s see what the hubbub’s all about...
Hi. What evil lurks in the hearts of men?
I saw a screening of EMPIRE this evening. I attend these things fairly frequently but it never really occurred to me to write in about one before, but since I'm in that mindset - here goes.
I attended the test screening of this film at the Winnetka Pacific Theaters. After spending the obligatory 45 minutes in line and watching African-Americans get front-loaded into the theater ahead of me (given priority tickets and, I suspect, soda pops) I was eventually rewarded for my patience and lack of pigmentation with a prime seat in the theatrical corollary of the back of the bus - front row, dead center - with the rest of my melanin-challenged homies. We all exchanged a glance, each wondering - I'm certain - if this was in fact the prelude to some elaborate hit.
Much as I like reading about them on this site, I generally go see these things because I like seeing films at various stages of completion - I like to think I can learn something from it. But this time they tricked me as Empire appears to be a finished film (though the emphasis in the cards led me to believe that they might be considering opening the film back up and changing the ending). Empire is directed by Franc Reyes and stars John Leguizamo (John L. from now on) as well as Denise Richards, Isabella Rosellini, hip-hop artists Treach and Fat Joe and newcomer Delilah Cotto.
The film is essentially (POSSIBLE SPOILER) about a major heroin trafficker from the South Bronx who gets hustled himself by a Wall Street broker. The one-liner sounds better than the film actually is. It's not that it's a bad film - it's not - it's just that it's on the ordninary side and feels almost bored with its own conventions. Had it focused on that story and convinced us that the protagonist - Vic Rosa (played by John L.) really was a) a fear-inspiring drug dealer or b) really had any compelling reason to get off the streets (where it seemed to me everything was chugging along quite nicely for him (he had 4 million in the 'bank' for fuck's sake)), rather than getting sidetracked with the melodrama of his pregnant girlfriend, etc. it would have been a little easier to become involved in the film. At the end of the day, its a little hard to sympathize with someone who loses the money they made destroying people's lives with heroin (called 'Empire' in this film) in a bad stock transaction. Be that as it may, however, the film is competent enough to hold the interest for 90 minutes.
The good and the bad in this film ...
One of my biggest complaints about the film is that Reyes seems to handle the street dialogue and interactions so much better than he does those on the Wall Street side. Wall Street and its denizens become so grossly simplified that credulity is stretched paper-thin and, consequently, characterizations and some plotting along with it. There was an interesting scene where (SPOILER) Denise Richards tries to give John L. head and he pushes her off him. I kind of wondered as I sat there exactly what sympathy of what demographic this was pandering too - the noble ethnic hero/drug dealer who must fight off the evil white temptress. I mean, is this the direction fairy tales are headed in our post hip-hop culture? The audience was clearly delighted with this, but I had to wonder if we were not in some way devouring ourselves from within. Besides, it's been irrefutably established in previous film lore that Denise is Black Man's Kryptonite and since I would assume that this would logically also apply to Latinos and possibly Asians and Turks as well, this whole plot-device just doesn't wash.
John L., who proved that he can act his ass off in ZigZag, feels under-used here. For one thing, I am convinced that he's just the nicest guy in the world and, try as he might, he just didn't pull off intimidating for me. A lot of his scenes feel as though they have been workshopped too - being overly long and without punctuation. Isabella Rosellini also seems miscast as a Hispanic drug queen who runs all the heroin traffic in New York - it was one of those situations where you could just feel make-up and wardrobe hovering around her - she wasn't at home in her hair and clothes . Delilah Soto, who plays John L.'s love interest is beautiful but the DP did her the same disservice in many shots that Peter Suschitzky did Valeria Golino in Immortal Beloved (in fact, on the whole the cinematography was pretty inconsistent with a lot of soft shots and some pretty badly lit stuff) Denise Richards for whom I have a pure love that transcends her performances and her unclean commerce with Charles Sheen, must be good in this film because all of the black girls behind me (in the good seats) whooped with delight when something unfortunate befell her at the end of the film. Peter Sarsgaard, who plays the second villain named 'Wimmer' I have seen in a film this year (the first being in Jason X - a disturbing trend) is also the victim of some unpleasantness which again met with the general approval of the largely ethnic audience. He was actually pretty good, playing the intellectual brand of evil that is unsupported by either courage or physicality I found this sort of interesting in the context of the way the film played out. I know it probably wasn't intentional but at the end of the day, a drug dealer off the streets was pitted against a Harvard educated hustler from Wall Street and we're supposed to cheer the drug dealer - the implicit message seeming to be that evil and the right to perpetrate it is something that needs to be earned - backed up by balls and bullets - and that these busters out there that are doing it with their brains alone are somehow cowardly and beneath contempt. (maybe I'm reading too much into it) Anyway, weirdly, there was very little chemistry between Sarsgaard and John L. and it stood out in a way that I've only seen it stand out between male and female leads before. Again, I suspected maybe they were improv-ing it. Treach and Fat Joe I won't comment on because they might actually know some people who know some people who know some real gangstas who could conceivably locate me and split my wig.
The movie is a bit slow in spots but Reyes pauses on several occasions to bizarrely spice things up with several mini-music videos that feature slo-motion shots of lovers gazing at each other through 120mm lenses to the accompaniment of latin crooners. Honestly, it had the feel of a Mexican nighttime soap opera which in itself wouldn't be bad except that it wasn't supported by the conventional nature of the rest of the film. On the sound side, maybe it was my unoptimal seating in the white section but the mix didn't sound so hot to me - with the music often favored to the detriment of the dialogue.
The Good? John L. is good, if not up to his potential. Denise and Delilah are a pleasure to look at whenever they are on screen. The plot, as far-fetched as it sometimes feels, is interesting, if only for its surreal disconnects between the two worlds it tries to bridge (in a way, it almost feels like a dream that a street dealer is having about Wall Street (hey! maybe THAT'S how they could change the ending!). There are two beautiful lesbians who take a bath and kiss. Sarsgaard is fun but a bit understated. They probably didn't spend a helluva a lot on this one but got a legitimate looking film out of it. If you caught it on pay-per-view you'd definitely watch the whole thing. If you paid to see it at the theater, you might be a little more critical. A presto!
Great work, man. Thanks a bunch.
"Moriarty" out.
