Movies

I SAW THE TV GLOW: brimming with originality

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Photo caption: Justice Smith and Bridgette Lundy-Payne in I SAW THE TV GLOW. Courtesy of A24.

The evocative psychodrama I Saw the TV Glow is unlike any movie you’ve seen and marks the emergence of gifted filmmaker. Set in 1996, in the last days of what we now know to be the pre-Internet age, two suburban teens are captivated by a very trippy, highly stylized TV show. The fictional show, The Pink Opaque, has its own internal mythology, and kid characters, Isabel and Tara, battle the the monster of the week sent by Mr. Melancholy. The teens, Owen and Maddy, follow The Pink Opaque with the devoted fervor of fans of The Prisoner and Doctor Who.

Both Maddy and Owen feel alienated by mainstream high school culture, and Maddy (Bridgette Lundy-Payne) is okay with that. She is comfortable with being gay and confident that the burbs have nothing to offer her. Unplagued by self-doubt, she’s is eager to leave for an environment with more excitement and diversity.

Two years younger, Owen (Justice Smith as the young man Owen) is a puddle of anxiety, hesitance and awkwardness. He isn’t confident about ANYTHING, let alone his identity. Maddy tells him that she likes girls and asks about Owen’s preference; he responds, “I think I like TV shows”.

Owen’s parents won’t let him stay up to watch The Pink Opaque at 10:30 pm Saturday night, so Maddy slips him VHS tapes. The show speaks to them in away that nothing else in their lives does, and they bond in their earnest devotion.

Suddenly, Maddy disappears without a trace, with only her TV burning in the backyard. And then, The Pink Opaque gets abruptly cancelled. Now Owen must navigate the harshness of life without his most pivotal supports, and it’s a rough ride. The story skips ahead eight years, and then twenty more, to the present.

I Saw the TV Glow is the third feature for writer-director Jane Schoenbrun (their first two films were credited to Dan Schoenbrun). I Saw the TV Glow is a mesmerizing slow burn that doesn’t spoon feed the audience, but requires active engagement. Masterful in tone, Schoenbrun spins their tale with the eerie and suspenseful fell of a horror film, but it is not horror – the only thing that gets slashed and splattered is a young man’s nostalgia.

Most of I Saw the TV Glow takes place at night, in darkness highlighted with vivid neon-like colors. The cinematographer was Eric Yue (A Thousand and One). The kids’ perspective, attitudes and speech resonate with perfect pitch; these characters are utterly authentic (in sharp contrast to Disney Channel sitcoms). Brimming with originality, Jane Schoenbrun is gifted with very special talents.

This should be a breakthrough performance by Justice Smith. Everything about his Owen telegraphs his discomfort in his own skin and his fear of doing something embarrassing. His voice quavers with hesitation. It’s a haunting performance, and the audience’s fear for what will happen to Owen drives the movie.

Lundy-Payne gets to deliver a remarkably chilling monologue as Maddy.

How popular will this film be with teens? Hopefully, teens will be attracted by the horror look-and-feel and seduced by the realism of the teen characters.

I Saw the TV Glow stands to become a cult film for all the right reasons – it’s unlike any prior movie and it resonates with anyone who felt like an outsider in adolescence. Trippy and spooky, midnight screenings await.

That being said, I Saw the TV Glow is not for everyone. Some viewers may become impatient with the pace or confused by the construction of the narrative. This isn’t conventional storytelling.

I Saw the TV Glow debuted at Sundance and was nominated for awards at the Berlinale and SXSW. After a limited release in the spring, it’s back in some theaters now; I Saw the TV Glow can be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV and Fandango.

DADDIO: intimacy between strangers

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Photo caption: Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn in DADDIO. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

In the absorbing Daddio, Dakota Johnson plays a woman who gets into a cab at JFK for the final leg of her trip to Midtown Manhattan. The driver (Sean Penn) engages her in chitchat. She is amused to find herself with one of those philosopher cabbies. He likes that she is a New Yorker, not a tourist, and that she doesn’t ignore him in favor of her smartphone.

He fancies himself an acute judge of people, and proves it by correctly guessing an important fact about her current relationship. As he probes about her personal life, she probes back, and soon they are revealing intimate secrets to each other.

It’s possible that a conversation can cause you to rethink your life – even if it with someone you’ve never met and will never see again. That relatively instant and profound bonding is the core of Daddio.

Their conversation is limited by the duration of the cab ride, but the 40-minute trip is extended when traffic is stopped to clear a major accident up ahead. Daddio is a story told in real time – a story of two people talking inside a car – and I was captivated the entire time. Daddio is the first feature for writer-director Christy Hall, creator of TV’s I Am Not OK with This.

Dakota Johnson in DADDIO. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

It’s a good story, but Daddio is so good because the performances are superb. Their faces, in closeup and extreme closeup. tell us what they’re not saying – whether they are guarded, offended, surprised, hurt, annoyed, intrigued. Their eyes mostly meet in the rear view mirror.

Dakota Johnson is a very able actor, and has done excellent work lately – The Lost Daughter, Cha Cha Real Smooth and here in Daddio.

Penn’s cabbie is devilish, and enjoys being a provocateur. It’s been a long time (his Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) since I’ve thought of Sean Penn as funny, but he sure is funny here. And, of course, Penn is unsurpassed in embodying profound sadness.

Sean Penn in DADDIO. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

It’s really surprising how two actors in a car can make for such an engrossing experience. Daddio, with its penetrating humanity, is thoughtful and entertaining.

SORRY/NOT SORRY: revelatory, and posing the smartest questions

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Photo caption: Louis C.K. photographed at the Toronto International film festival 9/17/17 for The New York Times’ article Asking Questions Louis C.K. Doesn’t Want to Answer by Cara Buckley. Photo Credit: Angela Lewis for The New York Times.

The unusually thought-provoking documentary Sorry/Not Sorry uses the Louis C.K. scandal to explore the issues of consent, cancel culture and #MeToo accountability while protecting survivors. Produced by the New York Times, Sorry/Not Sorry traces comic Louis C.K.’s ascendancy, his abhorrent behavior over a long period of time, its exposure by the NYT, his demise and comeback. That story is well-researched and comprehensive, but the real value of Sorry/Not Sorry is in its discussion of consequence for everyone involved – the perpetrator, the survivors and those who at least should have known.

This story, as have other #MeToo episodes, involved a power imbalance; in this case between C.K. and other comedy professionals who were not as famous as he was. In social situations, C.K. would ask if is was OK if he pulled out his penis and pleasured himself. Apparently, no one voiced the actual words, “I would ask you not to do that because it would offend me and make me feel unsafe“. But who can consent if they can’t imagine that it is a literal request for permission? It’s not consent if someone’s jaw drops and they fidget in their seat.

As icky as this was for women, men were also confounded. After all, heterosexual men generally seek sexual gratification in a woman’s body – looking at it, touching it, uniting with it. Louis C.K. wasn’t seeking a woman’s body to get off, just her presence. Who does that? What kind of sick power trip is that?

In Sorry/Not Sorry, three strong women – Jen Kirkman, Abby Schachner and Megan Koester – give first-hand accounts of what transpired. The NYT investigative team of Jodi Kantor, Cara Buckley and Melena Ryzik explain how they ran down the story. C.K., with remorse, confirmed what had happened, and ceased performing.

You probably already knew these facts, but now Sorry/Not Sorry takes the story further. C.K.’s exposure made Kirkman, Schachner and Koester relive the unpleasantness and subjected them to torrents of hate from anonymous internet trolls; their careers were certainly not helped by the publicity, and were probably hurt. Remember – all they did was to be present when someone else behaved transgressively, and to be truthful when asked about it years later. (Plus, they were mocked by Dave Chappelle, who is more the villain of Sorry/Not Sorry than is Louis C.K.)

In stunning contrast, C.K. revived his public career, albeit at a much lower level, within less than a year. Sorry/Not Sorry raises the question of, at what point should a disgraced transgressor be able to re-enter the mainstream? And just what is the so-called cancel culture?

It’s pretty clear that, in the case of a serial rapist like Harvey Weinstein, the offender should be incarcerated to protect the public and never be allowed to enjoy a public career again. But, as #MeToo offenses go, Louis C.K. presents a somewhat unique case in two ways. First, he didn’t physically hurt or violate the women; he disgusted and appalled them. Second, he honestly and contritely answered the charges with “These stories are true“, which is a long way from the standard #MeToo response, which is more like “I never met the woman in my life, and it was all her idea“. So, in this case, it doesn’t seem like justice requires his permanent exile, public silencing and unemployment.

But, if not permanently, for how long?

Louis C.K. did endure public disgrace, had his career sidelined for most of a year and lost the ability to earn TENS of millions of dollars. But he has resumed making mere MILLIONS of dollars and being idolized by his diehard fan base. Given the relative situations of the women involved, it doesn’t feel right.

These questions are pondered in Sorry/Not Sorry by an array of talking heads, the most sensible being Parks and Recreation creator Michael Schnur and comedian Aida Rodriguez.

This is a smart and revelatory film. Sorry/Not Sorry releases on July 12th, both into select LA and NYC theaters and digitally.

CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN: of course, wouldn’t you?…WHAT?

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Photo caption: Penny Lane in her CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN. Courtesy of Sandbox Films.

Documentarian Penny Lane is known for her choice of offbeat subjects (Nuts!, Hail Satan?) and her unexpected takes on the familiar (Our Nixon, Listening to Kenny G). In Confessions of a Good Samaritan, she turns her camera upon herself as she decides to donate one of her kidneys to a person that she doesn’t know and will never meet. An in-depth exploration of both kidney transplants and altruism ensues – all from the very personal perspective of a person about to go under the knife herself. Lane herself is a delightful subject, and she courageously shares her most intimate feelings, making Confessions of a Good Samaritan ever more engrossing.

I screened Confessions of a Good Samaritan for the SFFILM; this week, it opens at Laemmle’s Royal, NoHo and Monica Film Center in LA and the Roxie in San Francisco.

PERFECT DAYS: intentional contentment

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Koji Yakusho in PERFECT DAYS. Courtesy of NEON.

Wim Wenders’ quietly mesmerizing Perfect Days is an ode to those who can identify the beauty in everyday life. Sixtyish Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) works cleaning public toilets in Tokyo’s urban parks. He lives a simple, even spartan existence, within the parameters of a firm routine. Others might be ground down by a life of drudgery, but Hirayama is a happy man.

Hirayama finds beauty in the parks, his massive collection of audiocassettes of 70s and 80s rock, dramatic cityscapes, his friendship with a restaurant owner, a little gardening and reading William Faulkner and Patricia Highsmith. Hirayama isn’t a blissed-out simpleton – he is deliberate in seeking and garnering pleasure from bits of beauty. It’s as if he frames his job, not as cleaning toilets all day, but as working in Tokyo’s most serene urban oases. Hirayama lives within a complete absence of envy and has long since discarded any need for striving. Hirayama lives a life of intentional contentment.

He is kind, but not a naive pushover. His younger work partner is a slacker who is shallow, impulsive and lazy; Hirayama disapproves of his lack of work ethic, but doesn’t let it ruin his own day. Hirayama doesn’t seek social interaction, but is available to emotionally support his runaway niece and a cancer-ridden acquaintance.

There are characters who do not get Hirayama’s ethos, like his estranged sister. The annoying younger co-worker is not affected by Hirayama’s cassette of Patti Smith’s Redondo Beach, and doesn’t notice that the woman he is dating is entranced; we know that it’s going to be his loss.

Hirayama catches the eye of a young working woman as each lunches on a sandwich on a park bench; she looks back, not understanding how he can find a sandwich in a tranquil setting to be so rapturous.

Wim Wenders first directed a movie in 1967 and became an acclaimed international auteur, his masterpiece being Paris, Texas. Now at 78, Wenders still has something to say, and it’s about contentment and beauty.

Perfect Days is not for everyone – some may be bored by the repetition in Hirayama’s routine – getting up, commuting, cleaning toilets, dropping in a public bath before bed, rinse and repeat.

Koji Yakusho won the best actor award at Cannes for this performance. You may remember him starring in the arthouse hits Tampopo (1985) and Shall We Dance? (1996), in Alejandro Inarritu’s international ensemble in Babel (2008), as the lead assassin in 2010’s 13 Assassins and as the oddball confessed murderer in Hiroyuki Koreeda’s 2018 The Third Murder.

This is a beautiful little film, sweet, without being cloying or sentimental. Perfect Days can be streamed on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango and Hulu (included).

KINDS OF KINDNESS: disgustingly indulgent

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Photo caption: Jesse Plemons in KINDS OF KINDNESS. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) probably enjoyed writing and directing his disgustingly self-indulgent Kinds of Kindness, but there’s no reason for an audience to waste three hours on it. There are three separate stories – equally bizarre fables in Kinds of Kindness. The same ensemble of actors play different roles in each of the three stories: Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Mamadou Athie, Hong Chau and Joe Alwyn.

I like absurdism in cinema (see this week’s Mother Couch), but to SOME end; Kinds of Kindness is just an unremitting sequence of outrageously transgressive behavior in weird circumstances. Lanthimos has been quoted that we was exploring relationships and memory, but all we get is a torrent of provocations. So much is being thrown at the screen, including cannibalism, that, at least, it’s not boring.

  • In the first story, Jesse Plemons plays a corporate lackey who owes everything to his nightmarishly micro-managing boss (Willem Dafoe), who decrees what he wears, what he eats and drinks, when he has sex with his wife. He’s finally baited into saying “no” to th boss for the first time in eleven years, as his life dissolves.
  • In the second, Plemons plays a cop devastated by the disappearance of his wife (Emma Stone, a marine biologist on a research mission. When she is miraculously rescued, he is convinced that it’s not really her, but some malevolent double. There are two extremely funny moments in this chapter – a stunningly ineffectual psychiatrist and a riotously inappropriate home movie. And, then, there’s cannibalism on the menu.
  • The final episode involves a cult with a weird fascination for water purity that has sent out scouts (Stone and Plemons) in search for a prophesied young woman who can raise the dead. Stone’s character is kicked out of the cult, and she goes to great lengths to get back in.

Jesse Plemons is exceptional in each of his three roles, and he’s by far the best element of Kinds of Kindness. There’s isn’t a bad performance in Kinds of Kindness, just the finest of screen actors trapped in a bad screenplay. Margaret Qualley continues to act unclothed in what seems to me to be a high proportion of her films.

Lanthimos co-wrote Kinds of Kindness with Efthimis Filippou, as he did with his most off-the-wall work – Dogtooth, which I loved, and The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, both of which I hated. (Filippou also co-wrote Athina Rachel Tsangari’s hilarious skewering of male competitiveness, Chevalier (which I REALLY loved). )

Unfortunately, Kinds of Kindness is really just Lanthimos’ exercise in devising outrageous behavior for his characters, just because he can. We don’t need to watch.

MOTHER COUCH: obstreperous mom, surreal situation

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Ewan McGregor (right) in MOTHER COUCH. Courtesy of Film Movement.

In the nightmarish fever dream Mother Couch, Ewan McGregor plays a man trapped in an absurd situation – his obstreperous, estranged mother (Ellen Burstyn) is refusing to leave a couch in a furniture store. His adult siblings (Rhys Ifans, Lara Flynn Boyle), whom he barely knows, are present but not supportive. The oddly singular furniture store is itself a bizarre construction, and this fable of parental emotional abandonment just keeps getting ever more surreal.

The now elderly mom has been a terrible mother – selfish, emotionally unconnected and not the least bit nurturing – and unashamed. Now that she needs care, her two oldest kids are prepared to giver a dose of her own medicine. But the youngest son (McGregor) feels obligated to take care of dear old mom, as hateful as she is.

Ellen Burstyn in MOTHER COUCH. Courtesy of Film Movement.

McGregor’s and Burstyn’s performances are very strong, and the depth of the cast is extraordinary: Taylor Russell, F. Murray Abraham and Lake Bell.  I particularly admired Rhys Ifans’ subtle performance as guy who doesn’t want to be as apathetic and irresponsible as his behavior would indicate. We get to enjoy Abraham as two characters – twin brothers with very disparate personalities.

Mother Couch is the first narrative feature for writer-director Niclas Larsson, an acclaimed director of car commercials, and it’s a remarkable calling card.

This is the most surreal film that I have seen in a long while. I screened Mother Couch for the SFFILM in April; it releases into primarily arthouse theaters on July 5.

THE BIKERIDERS: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care

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Photo caption. Jodie Comer and Austin Butler in THE BIKERIDERS. Courtesy of Focus Features.

The Bikeriders is Jeff Nichols’ engrossing exploration of the culture of a 1960s Midwestern motorcycle gang and its (unfortunate) evolution. The source material is a book by a photographer who embedded himself with a real biker gang, and taped interviews as well as photographing them.

The gang was founded by Johnny (Tom Hardy), inspired by a TV rebroadcast of The Wild One, in which the biker played by Marlon Brando is asked what are he is rebelling against, and replies, Whadda you got? The bikers are a collection of misfits who share an ethos of breaking every available rule. Of course, none of these guys know what an ethos is, let alone intend to have one.

The most reckless biker is Benny (Austin Butler), whose girlfriend Kathy (Jodie Comer) is fiercely in love with him, but at most agnostic about the biker lifestyle. We see the story of the 1960s gang in flashback; Kathy, from the 1970s, narrates the story.

The Bikeriders bears out Nichol’s great gift as a storyteller – recognizing the humanity in his characters. I guarantee that I would, in real life, not care one whit about any of these characters. But, in The Bikeriders, I did care and was deeply invested in them.

Nichols’ previous films Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud and Loving, have each made my list of their year’s best movies. Those films, three fictional and one historical, tell the stories of redneck brothers betrayed by their father, a quasi-supernatural psychiatric decompensation, a backwoods coming of age and interracial love in the Jim Crow South. What all of them have in common with The Bikeriders are the authentic, compelling characters.

After all, what mostly happens in The Bikeriders is drinking, fighting and riding motorcycles – and the plot traces the natural consequences. Motorcycle riding is a relatively dangerous activity, as are binge drinking and fighting, so you won’t surprised that not everyone comes out unscathed

Tom Hardy and Austin Butler in THE BIKERIDERS. Courtesy of Focus Features.

As Johnny, Tom Hardy is an amalgam of world weariness and alpha power. Hardy is known for his physicality, but his Johnny looks like more of an average guy than his characters often do; he doesn’t look scary at first glance, but no one wants to mess with him. Hardy is able to project internal steeliness.

The Wife noted that Austin Butler just looks like movie star. Indeed, when a barroom crowd parts so that Kathy can first glimpse Butler’s Benny at the end of a pool table in all his hunkiness, the scene evokes when John Garfield first sees Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, or when Burt Lancaster first sees Claudia Cardinale in The Leopard. Benny is so devoid of emotion for most of the movie, the key to Butler’s performance is making us wonder whether there’s any empathy buried deep down in there someplace. Is Benny a one-dimensional sociopath or somebody able to repress his feelings?

Jodie Comer in THE BIKERIDERS. Courtesy of Focus Features.

The Bikeriders is a showcase for Jody Comer, whom I had most recently seen playing a medieval French noblewoman in The Last Duel, as the biker girlfriend brimming with ambivalence. The Bikeriders works because of Comer’s matter of fact and perceptive narration; Kathy is the only surviving character who is observant and articulate enough to tell the story. Comer’s performance definitely merits an Oscar nomination.

As Kathy, Comer, who grew up in and lives in Liverpool, sounds like a lifetime Chicagoan; it’s the best American regional accent in the movies since Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson in Fargo.

Nichols essentially discovered and launched the career of Michael Shannon in Shotgun Stories; Shannon has acted in all of Nichol’s films except Loving. Shannon is again wonderful here in a small, juicy role. Emory Cohen and Norman Reedus sparkle as gang members Cockroach and Funny Sonny, respectively.

Nichol’s character-driven slice of biker life is a grand movie, and Jodie Comer elevates it even more.

GHOSTLIGHT: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter

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Photo caption: Keith Kupferer and Katherine Mallen Kupferer in GHOSTLIGHT. Courtesy of IFC Films.

In the endearing family drama Ghostlight, we meet Dan (Keith Kupferer), a middle-aged hardhat who is at the end of his rope. Dan seems to be a gentle and profoundly decent guy, but he is stressed to the point that he’s ready to explode in rage, and he’s sinking out of his marriage to Sharon (Tara Mullen). Their precocious and spirited daughter Daisy is insolent even by teen standards and out of control.

Eventually, we learn that the family has suffered a loss. Sharon can’t grieve because it’s taking all of her energy to hold the family together with Dan refusing to acknowledge anyone’s feelings and Daisy’s behavior blowing up. Dan describes himself as Old School , which, in his case, means he doesn’t acknowledge anyone’s feelings, especially his own, he doesn’t believe in therapy or understand art. This is a family processing (or not processing) grief at the pace of its slowest, most recalcitrant member.

Dan has a chance meeting with Rita (Dolly De Leon, who stole Triangle of Sorrow), who inveigles him into a tiny community theater’s table reading of Romeo and Juliet. Dan, of course, is ill at ease among the touchy feely theater types. Dan has heard of Romeo and Juliet, but doesn’t know how it ends, yet it strikes a chord with him, and he comes back for more. Daisy, who can quote passages from the play, wisecracks, “Here’s a hint – it’s a tragedy“.

Dolly De Leon and Keith Kupferer in GHOSTLIGHT. Courtesy of IFC Films.

What happens next is that Dan takes the family on a journey that is funny, heartrending, and ultimately redemptive. There’s never a false moment.

The acting in Ghostlight is superbly authentic. The family members are played by an actual family. Teen actor Katherine Mallen Kupferer is the daughter of actor Keith Kupferer and theater director and actor Tara Mallen.

Here’s another real family aspect of Ghostlight – it’s the first feature from director and co-writer Kelly O’Sullivan, who just had a child with co-director Alex Thompson.

Ghostlight won the audience award at SXSW. This little movie is one of the best films of the year and a Must See.

THE DEAD DON’T HURT: such a bad movie

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Photo caption: Viggo Mortensen in THE DEAD DON’T HUNT. Courtesy of Shout! Studios;  photo credit Marcel-Zyskind38.

I sure do like me a western and I admire Viggo Mortensen, so I was very disappointed in The Dead Don’t Hurt, which Mortensen wrote, directed and stars in. Mortensen plays a guy who finds a woman (Vicky Krieps) in San Francisco, takes her to his Nevada homestead, and immediately heads off to the Civil War and must deal with the consequences when he returns. Cliches ensue, culminating in a lousy movie.

The central problem with The Dead Don’t Hurt is that Mortensen, as screenwriter, developed a story where the behavior of the two main characters is not always plausible or understandable and the other characters are all one-dimensional. Consequently, we don’t care about the characters; I will allow that I did care about the villain, a psychopathic villain, whom I wanted to see dead, but he was perhaps the most one-dimensional of the lot. I take notes while I watch movies, and, at one point, I scribbled this is Viggo’s movie; this is Viggo’s fault.

This screenplay was a terrible waste of Garret Dillahunt, Danny Huston and W. Earl Brown, some of our most gifted and colorful character actors, who were assigned to play roles which are essentially cardboard cutouts.

Only Ray McKinnon (Reverend H. W. Smith in Deadwood) gets enough singularity to work with, and he sparkles as a perversely random-behaving judge. (The other good thing about The Dead Don’t Hurt was the music in the closing credits, which was composed by Mortensen.)

Much of the movie rests on Vicky Krieps, whose screen appeal has eluded me. The Luxembourgian actress Krieps received much critical buzz for Phantom Thread, but I wrote then that I wouldn’t cross the street to see her next movie.

I usually watch movies alone, unless I’m with The Wife, and she and I have pre-arranged silent signals when one or both of us want to walk out of a movie. I saw The Dead Don’t Hunt with my friend Keith, and it occurred to me, about 30 minutes in, that we don’t have that kind of signal, and I couldn’t figure out how to see if he wanted to leave, too, without disturbing other patrons.

Keith and I are gonna have to develop a signal; we have been going to movies together for decades, and we’ve sat all the way through bad movies like Bite the Bullet and Le Quattro Volte, but I’m now too old to waste an hour of my remaining lifetime.

[SPOILERS FOLLOW] I usually can write a full review with a spoiler, but I just need to explain elements of cinematic misfire that entirely distracted me from the story. It begins with the rape revenge, which has become one of the laziest of plot devices. The psychopathic bully murders for sport and immediately starts leering at the Krieps character, telegraphing the most obvious movie rape since Billy Jack. She is impregnated in the rape and bears a son. Now, the Civil War was four years long, and human gestation is nine months; this means that when Viggo returns to find his wife with a son, the kid should be three years old. But the kid in the movie is five at the youngest, and more likely six. He doesn’t look or act like a three year old, speaks English, French and a little Spanish, and is learning to write numbers. He’s a six-year-old who is supposed to be three and It’s VERY distracting.

The one novelty in The Dead Don’t Hunt, the one thing I hadn’t seen in a movie before, was a death from syphilis.

When Viggo’s character despondently throws his military medal away, I was wishing he had tossed the script, too.