Movieline Magazine
October 2002
Roger Avary has an impressive track record - he had a hand in coscripting, along with Quentin Tarantino, the breakthrough crime dramas Reservoir Dogs, True Romance and Pulp Fiction, and he wrote and directed 1994's grim, fiery Parisian heist tale Killing Zoe. Now he's directing the film version of Bret Easton Ellis's cult hit novel The Rules of Attraction, which follows the not-so-pristine goings-on of a group of New England liberal arts college types. What's probably most impressive about Avary's recent outing though, is his primo "Who's-Who of Young Hollywood" cast, captured on these pages while they were still in character.
This issue of Movieline also has an article entitled "Tales from the Dark Side" about the seamy, desperate characters in Auto Focus, The Rules of Attraction, The Banger Sisters and Undisputed making for some interesting moviegoing.
Noble, heroic individuals rule Oscar bait movies. Most award-laden films - from The Life of Emile Zola to Gladiator - feature brave characters who struggle against imposing obstacles and triumph. Last spring, however, Oscar took a detour when the Best Actor prize when to Denzel Washington for playing a vicious, corrupt cop in Training Day. Washington reminded us that lowlife monsters can be just as compelling as idealistic warriors, and a few memorable movies have been daring enough to journey to the dark side. This month's films display a rare collection of sleazeballs and sexaholics in place of the customary cinematic paragons.
In Paul Schrader's Auto Focus, Greg Kinnear brings a lot of energy and verve to the seamy saga of TV nonentity Bob Crane, who sank into a morass of sordid sexual liaisons before ending up the victim of a brutal murder. The picture begins in 1964, when Crane is working as a radio DJ and about to get his acting gig on "Hogan's Heroes." At that point, he's the ultimate straight-arrow - a gee-whiz family man and churchgoer. Within a few years, he's hanging out at seedy strip clubs, though the script by Michael Gerbosi doesn't offer much insight into what precipitates his radical transformation. The producers of this movie include Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the writers of three earlier biographical pictures: Ed Wood, The People Vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon. Auto Focus is consistent with those three movies in that it presents a bizarre oddball without delving into his background or trying to illuminate what makes him tick. This new picture, however, cries out for more psychological acuity.
Crane's guide to the
swingers' paradise is a creepy amateur photographer (Willem Dafoe). The
undercurrent of homosexuality that defined their friendship is intriguing; the
film dares to confront provocative sexual themes at a time when most movies aim
for timid PG-13 titillation. Kinnear captures Crane's boyish charm, but
also bravely highlights his bleary eyed torpor as he wallows in orgies and group
gropes. The actor makes the character's reckless downhill slide into a
mesmerizing spectacle.
Sex maniacs rarely appear in American movies, except in teen
comedies like American Pie and Road Trip. Of course, these
pictures are fundamentally fraudulent, because they ask us to believe that the
horny heroes retain their All-American innocence. But there's nothing innocent
about the decadent, drug-addled, sex-crazed slackers who populate the film
version of Bret Easton Ellis's novel, The Rules of Attraction. Roger
Avary's movie has a refreshingly acerbic edge; the filmmaking is stylish, and
the cast is alluring. James Van Der Beek plays the central character, a
manipulative college drug dealer who inflames the lust of many of his fellow
students, especially Ian Somerhalder and Shannyn Sossamon. Van Der Beek conveys
the charisma that makes the other characters tolerance of his cruelty almost
comprehensible.
Still there's something off-putting about a movie in which
all the characters are self-absorbed or zonked out of their minds. This extends
to the adults; Eric Stoltz, as a randy professor, and Faye Dunaway and Swoosie
Kurtz, as the drunken moms of a couple of the kids. While most teen movies work
overtime to make shallow characters loveable, this picture goes to the opposite
extreme and makes them so depraved that we aren't eager to spend a lot of time
in their company.
The article goes on to discuss The Banger Sisters and Undisputed and ends with:
A steady diet of movies
about convicts, sex-crazed lowlifes, and druggies might quickly pall, but these
trashy characters make for a diverting respite from all the noble strivers and
wounded saints that Hollywood usually enshrines.
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