johnerael
I had the privilege of catching Penn JIllette's Director's Cut at a screening in LA.
You may or may not remember back in 2013 Penn JIllette and director Adam Rifkin announced their plans to 'Make Penn Bad' and produce his thriller screenplay. By November 2013, they had successfully crowdfunded their film to the tune of 1.1 million dollars.
Of course, I sincerely doubt that covered all the costs of making the film, which looks pretty good, aside from the moments when it's not supposed to. But we'll get into that.
Full disclosure, I know Penn, and he knows me . I should hope so, I've been nearly naked on stage with him a few times (he had clothes on). Also, I'm a fan of Penn's, and have been for a very long time.
In any case, Director's Cut is good... it's uh... Good. It's not bad. In fact, it's good. In fact, on a purely conceptual side, it's genius. It's one of those ideas where when you first hear about it, you're like "Duh! Why has no one thought of that before?! A director's commentary (slash) cut that tells a different narrative than the actual film that is being commented on. YES!!!"
I was really excited about this project. I even read part of the screenplay when they were doing their fundraiser, which may have altered a few of my expectations.
But I'm pretty sure in a couple instances, Mr. Jillette and Mr. Rifkin just fell short of their intentions. For example, in the screenplay there's a note that the film within the film will be a cop movie that's "done earnestly. Not campy at all." This isn't the case. I suspect that the cast and crew may have thought they were doing a sincere job with it, just like Al Jolson may have thought that he was doing a sincere homage to the talented black people he knew. I will say the cinematographer sure as hell was (good job, Scott Winig), but the film within a film definitely came off as campy.
What you see on screen are really talented actors, having fun by pretending to be terrible actors in a bad cop movie. I could just see Rifkin giving them direction: "Go on, have fun with it; it's a B cop movie. We've all seen those. We know how cheesy they are. No reason to commit and let the material speak for itself."
See, that's the problem that a lot of people fall into when they are doing something comedic, satirical, or tongue in cheek; they don't take it seriously, and that reads on screen. If you want a joke to truly pay off, you need a director and performers who are going to commit, and you definitely had the right cast. I mean, Harry Hamlin?! The man was in Clash of the Titans for God's sake.
There is one exception to this, and it's pretty ironic since his role was extremely over the top, and he's definitely not known to be an actor. Teller's performance is downright stunning. You may not notice it at first because he's only on screen for like 3 minutes, and, again, it's a very over the top character, but that man commits!
I say this with no hesitation: Teller gave the best performance of the movie. You can actually see most of his performance on the Director's Cut Youtube channel.
And, as Teller actually told me with words after the screening, the writing for his scene was perfect. We knew everything about this man's character, his motivation, even his moral compass within 60 seconds. Penn nailed that scene, and, clearly, understood that character.
Sadly, he didn't put nearly as much thought or care into the main character of the movie, the one he plays; the 'director'. It's a very shallow and cyclical character.
He's a character who dresses and acts weird. Why? Because he's weird! His character stalks an actor who he's in love with. Why? Because he loves her. He has poor social skills. Why? Because he doesn't have any friends.
I'm not asking for a character backstory or anything; a fully realized character doesn't even need one. A good villain is often better without too much exposition. But we, as the audience need to believe that we know something about this character, even if it's just his intentions or instincts. 'Weird with a PG level of creepy' isn't a fully realized character; it's affected and stagy.
As Penn's character says in the screenplay; "the better the villain, the better the movie." This movie didn't have a good villain. It also didn't have a villain with a story arch. I mean, the entire plot and very concept of the film is built around this character, and he is the same from beginning, middle, to end. Nothing that actually happens to him seems to affect his weird and oddly enthusiastic demeanor. He doesn't appear to have any 'triggers' or weaknesses that have any effect on the actual story. Our main character has no stakes!
Maybe Penn liked the idea of a bad guy who was perfectly content to be his weird self regardless of circumstance. Maybe he thought his character was an 'unshakable villain'; instead, it just comes off Magoo. And this could have sincerely paid off as well, if, for example, after we watch Magoo blindly bumble through most of the obstacles, we learn that his only solution to complete the film is to create a life size stop motion puppet out of Missi Pyle's body parts... or whatever! We needed something that was a genuine revelation.
Sure, the 'director' kidnaps Ms. Pyle, and kidnapping is a very big deal in real life, but we're so desensitized to hostage situations in movies that it's usually a pivotal plot point in half of the family friendly movies ever made. Seriously, the last 3 Disney movies I saw all had at least one hostage/kidnapping situation.
So there was no revelation. This movie was genuinely toothless. There were a couple moments of mild discomfort, but nothing that your average 10 year old couldn't handle.
Without giving away any details, because the details don't actually matter, this had a very quirky and cute ending.
It's the kind of ending that you would choose to attach to this kind of plot if you were doing a short film because the audience wouldn't have time to fully believe or invest in your world, so you can't ask them to go to any truly horrific places with you, and expect that journey have a genuine impact.
But Penn and Adam had us for 90 minutes. We were there! We were invested! We were waiting for them to go for the gusto. Whatever that turned out to be. I mean, this is an original idea, and they got there first! Imagine if Blair Witch had ended with the kids realizing that they were being pranked, and then they get picked up by their moms and dads.
Even forgetting Blair Witch, we live in a post-RedLetterMedia/YouSuckAtPhotoshop world! You need to take the gloves off, especially if you have a genuinely unique idea.
If you get somewhere first, you don't pose for an ironic selfie. You climb on top, and shove your flag in that mountain!
I don't know. Maybe they just didn't want to take it to that next harsh level. And 'Make Penn Bad' is a lot catchier for a fundraising campaign than 'Make Penn a Weird and Oddly Loveable Antagonist'. I mean, Penn is a family man, and this does come off less like a scary story told by your best friend, and more like a mildly dirty joke told by your dad or uncle.
Sadly, it could have been a much funnier joke, had they committed to the setup.
In an interview, Penn said "I'm always interested in how things that we trust automatically can be used against us. I mean, that's what magic is, really. It's finding a way to lie to yourself. A director's commentary seemed like the perfect way to kind of get people to be betrayed. With a director's commentary, it's a different kind of trust, but it's still a kind of artistic trust. What if the person talking to you doesn't know what the f--- they're doing?"
Fascinating, right? I wanna be artistically lulled into a false sense of security by a guy who might be taking me to a place I didn't want to go.
Well, forget it. As soon as the movie starts rolling, they give away the entire plot. Not that this project has been kept under tight wrap or anything, but I wanted to see a gradual transition
Instead, the entire plot/joke/concept is telescoped to us within the first 30 seconds. So there was no genuine setup and therefore no good payoff.
I'll tell you one of the ways they did this was with those obnoxious scribbled on titles that are supposed to 'read' as amateur, but anyone who has spent any amount of time with graphics software, which is literally everyone who owns a computer knows that it's actually more difficult to produce crap like that than adding regular titles. I know it sounds like a minor point, but the whole manipulated title sequence could have been a cool easter egg or plot device for those savvy enough to notice the difference in fonts and shadow effects or whatever. Especially if those added effects start to look lamer and more homemade as our protagonist has to keep downgrading his editing system because of his changing circumstances, thus helping to tell the story!
Everything was given away upfront, which means we were, whether intentional or not, treated like rubes. But that is one of the great dilemmas: is it better to treat your audience like morons or create something enigmatic that risks making your audience feel like morons. I mean, no creator wants to do either, but you can't always tell how things are going to come off. And to Penn and Adam's credit: I never once felt dumb or lost while watching their potentially convoluted film. So that's good. And again, it was good... It was... Let's call it an interesting exercise in filmmaking; one that I'm sure a lot of would be filmmakers would enjoy seeing if only to realize the potential of such a work of art.
