The Hard Word (Australia, 2002)

Every once in awhile you see a movie that doesn’t make much sense, completely implausible, BUT…it’s got great actors, likeable characters, snappy dialogue, dazzling cinematography, exciting editing, some of the wildest music this side of an old James Bond movie, and you have to simply sit back and enjoy it, anyway.

“The Hard Word” isn’t a brilliant film but it’s a fun time-waster, a film that almost dares you to like it even though it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The film starts out showing a trio of Australian bank robbing brothers led by Guy Pearce cooling their heels in penitentiary.

Pearce is a prison librarian, his easy-going brother Mal is the prison butcher, and short-fused brother Shane just lifts weights and cusses a lot. Their defending attorney Frank Malone (Robert Taylor) keeps them in the cooler in between heists he arranges for them (??) while trying to bone Pearce’s wife, Carol (played by Rachel Griffiths) on the side.

Although the idea of prisoners being taken out of the pen to pull a heist is pretty ludicrous the ridiculosity doesn’t end there, because the job they pull is robbing the prize money at the Melbourne Cup, the Australian equivalent to the Kentucky Derby. With the help of two extra thugs, esp. a short-fused psycho named Tarzan, well, if it was so simple for five yobs to hold up the Melbourne Cup it would be done all the time. But so what? It’s only a movie.

After double-crossing Frank and his two rent-a-thugs (incl. Tarzan) the boys run off with the swag after scamming an innocent, drunken girl in the parking lot who Malcolm falls head over heels over (“You small better than Christmas dinner” gushes the larcenous foodie). On a side note, all three brothers get their rocks off at some point during the film, i.e., Shane gets jiggy with the hot redhead prison psychiatrist.

All through the movie Dale (Pearce) accuses his wife Carol of banging Frank while Frank in turn accuses her of banging anybody in pants, making us wonder all through the film which side she’s on. By the end of the film she has to make the ultimate decision, will it be her husband, dead-end con Dale or smarmy, connected attorney Frank? It’s all up to her.

It’s great seeing Guy Pearce playing an Australian thug, dirty, greasy and long-haired, way more badass than his work in “Factory Girl”, “Bedtime Stories”, and “The King’s Speech”. It's also cool seeing Rachel Griffiths play a cheap blonde after playing nerds in “Very Annie Mary”, “Muriel’s Wedding”, and “Hilary & Jackie”. They both give excellent performances, and I also thought Joel Edgerton and Damien Richardson playing Pearce’s crazy brothers were outstanding.

“The Hard Word” is highly recommended simply because it’s like a quick slug of Red Bull, not necessarily nutritious but so adrenaline charged you can’t resist the ass-kicking rush it gives you. Check it out.

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After a mind-numbingly long delay Todd Solondz’s latest film “Dark Horse” has finally seen a release. Now that it’s out the expression “catch the movie" has taken on a new meaning as the film couldn’t sit still to survive a screening.

When I found out it was out I planned on “catching” it at the Westside Pavilion Landmark where it played on Tuesday and Wednesday; however, by Thursday and Friday it was playing at The Nuart Theater in Westwood. Before I could even get to the theater it had been moved to The Chinese Theater (not the big one, but the Chinese 6 Cineplex next door) in Hollywood for Saturday and Sunday. That's three different locations within the course of a week!

By the way, the film stars Selma Blair, Christopher Walken, and Mia Farrow, a pretty heavyweight crew of actors, and again, this is Todd Solondz, the director of “Welcome To The Dollhouse” and “Happiness” we’re talking about. To see a film treated so poorly by distributors and exhibitors answers every question as to why the film industry is failing.

Speak Of The Devil

Every day when I drive home from work on the way home I see this teenage couple locked in a passionate embrace kissing against a fence, making out against the bars like its a matter of life and death. They're always at the same spot making out at exactly the same time, you could set your motherfucking watch to it, it's uncanny. It got me to thinking, what if they actually missed a day together, would one of them snap, would the boy snap first or would the girl snap? Will they eventually quit making out and marry, or will they just die like dried out flowers? But I digress...

There's a disturbing, violent piece of work by Gilbert Hernandez titled "Speak Of The Devil", which attains a nightmarish tone that never lets up once. A creepy Peeping Tom wearing a monster mask stalks the neighborhood watching the neighbors having sex. By Page 13 we realize not only is the Peeping Tom a teenage girl, but the local high school gymnastics champion! Beautiful, talented, and admired by her peers, she leads a perverse private life. To add insult to injury, the couple she peeps on is her father with his girlfriend, Linda! Another window she peeps in is her emo boyfriend Paul's house, watching her love getting periodically beaten by his bully father, constantly chiding him for being a "pencil-neck faggot". If he only knew.

Things get sicker, though: Paul discovers Val's secret obsession, and they make love in a cemetery. Soon after Val injures herself out of the gym championships (a reversal on the Samson and Delilah lovemaking turning to vulnerability?), hobbling around on crutches and cheering on her physically inferior classmate, Patty. If that isn't demoralizing enough, she comes home to catch Linda making it with her boyfriend, Paul! Val loses it and tries to kill them both, but they surprise her by attacking her. They decide to form a terror-laden menage a trois, the first victims being Paul's parents, blinding them before cutting their throats.

The trio decide to relax after the killing by hanging out at the beach, but not without killing an innocent woman and taking her wallet. They cut the eyes out of more innocent people just for kicks, hiding in a hotel and pretending they were abducted to cover their tracks. Val, jealous of Linda's control over her Dad and Paul, tries to convince him that she has to be killed before she turns them both in. Val, sensing trouble, leaves the couple and spins a yarn on the TV news about escaping "The Abductors". Paul begins moping about her absence, so Val flips out and stabs him to death. Don't worry, there's more!

Val decides to confess to her estranged mother about her crimes and quickly realizes her psychosis was inherited from, guess who? Brandishing a steak knife, Mom screams, "It wasn't that cow Linda who took your father from me! It was you!!" "From the day you were born he stopped loving me!" "I'll kill you to get him back!" Val, after a wild battle with her mom, using her best gymnastics skills, kicks her to death; out of guilt for killing her mother, comes back home and cuts her father's eyes out. Linda, believing she accomplished the murder, kills herself under the delusion the police are breaking down her door. Back at the cemetery, Val confesses all to Patty, her gym classmate, who strangles her to death on the spot. The story ends with a girl saying she's going over to Patty's house to see her, with the Peeping Tom monster mask sitting in her handbag.

This is probably the darkest thing Gilbert Hernandez has ever created, and that's saying quite a lot. I don't believe "Love And Rockets" fans in general like this sort of comic, but it's such a chilling and demented tale of familial unhappiness, almost like some kind of modern Greek tragedy with a suburban spin. Hernandez's use of light is highly expressive and adds greatly to the creepy vibe throughout. The lack of attention paid to this slasher epic is surprising. I loved the Herschell Gordon Lewis vibe "Speak Of The Devil" struck, and think that this particular tale of adolescent love gone psychotic will stay with you for a long time.