Zahler is back with another slow-burn into hyper-violent pulp madness movie. Similar to Bone Tomahawk, I actually appreciate the dramatic work in his films and pretty much everything up until the over-the-top brutality of the third act.
Vaughn is GREAT here and succeeds where he failed in the second season of True Detective. The Don Johnsonaissance continues chugging along as well. Jennifer Carpenter is the world's skinniest pregnant woman. fun cameos from Fred Mehlamed, Smalls from Sandlot and solid character work from the majority of the cast add to the texture of the film and class up the joint.
It's definitely old-school reactionary exploitation filmmaking and Zahler continues to build his conflicts on the old white women menaced with sexualized violence from non-whites trope (see Wraiths of the Broken Land and Bone Tomahawk). In a way that adds to the trash cinema pedigree and keeps the movie from being another exploitation homage and instead modern-day update of the genuine article.
Zahler continues to be an interesting yet frustrating filmmaker. I want to see his films but I only want to see them once due to their descent into gore and gross-out effects work. Although the violence here, while brutal and bone-crunching, is nowhere near as disturbing as in Bone Tomahawk and definitely almost comical at times. In fact the third-act here feels slight in comparison to my expectations and those expecting a Raid 2-scale brawl will be disappointed.
I'm gonna sit with the soundtrack if I can find it because while the O'Jay's sound great, the songs, which Zahler wrote are kind of mess from a songwriting standpoint. Great idea nonetheless.
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Frank Longo Member since Nov 18th 2003 86670 posts
Mon Jan-01-18 02:05 PM
3. "I liked it, although the final shot felt needless." In response to Reply # 0
Sometimes his gore toward "heroes" feel cruel for cruelty's sake, which I'm not really about. I'm fine watching bad guys get gory comeuppance, but both the awful axe-hacking in Bone Tomahawk and the final shot here feel unnecessary to the point of me re-examining how much I like the movie on the whole.
He's clearly a very talented filmmaker though. I love the dialogue, and Vaughn is terrific here.
5. "Zahler's a horror director in a genre director's shoes....." In response to Reply # 3
His style is begging to be put to use in a straight up horror film. I think going that route would serve him well since the horror genre has been pretty good in the past four-to-five years.
A lot has already been said about the third acts in Zahler's films. The violence is so high at the end that it basically becomes the film's main takeaway. When I saw Bone Tomahawk I remembered the violent deaths more than the actual plot.
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