Dogma
Written
and directed by Kevin Smith
Starring
Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Salma Hayek, Jason Lee, Jason
Mewes, Alan Rickman, Chris Rock, George Carlin, Janeane Garofalo, and Kevin
Smith
130
minutes. Rated R. Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1. 1999
Y'know, it occurs to me that Kevin Smith is just an awful director.
Not in directing his actors -- that's not what I meant at all. He's great
at that. But he can't set up shots worth shit. Dogma, despite it's
brilliant script and it's fantastic ensemble cast, looks terrible.
But I'll get to that. First, let me rave about Smith's script. Smith, who
brought us Clerks and Chasing Amy (yes, and Mallrats)
has turned in another winner with Dogma. The script is not the blasphemous
piece of work that many religious types would have you believe. Rather,
it is a funny and thoughtful exploration of faith and a rather biting satire
of the Catholic church. Not of the Catholic faith, mind you -- the church.
The organization. Which is I guess why the church has gotten upset about
the film. Not that the church doesn't need a good ribbing. My own personal
feeling is that while faith is great, it's a personal thing, and you shouldn't
need an organization to tell you how to act and how to feel. Your own personal
beliefs and convictions should be enough. The church does little except
regulate people's actions and beliefs, according to what the church feels
is right. But enough of my ranting (which I'll probably get an e-mail or
two about -- the link's at the bottom of the page, folks). Smith's own
feelings -- what I can glean from the film, that is -- might be a little
different from mine, but what Smith is doing with Dogma is inviting
the viewer to actually think about the church and about one's own faith,
rather than just following blindly what others tell you is right, and what
you guess is supposed to be right.
Also, it's funny as hell. Like Smith's other films, the dialogue is so
subversive and shocking it's laugh-out-loud funny. Also, in this film,
Smith tries something new -- tension. It works, too. The script builds
and builds towards the climax, creating menacing villains, brave heroes,
and a pair of angels (Affleck and Damon) who are sort of straddling the
line between the two. The film has an epic feel to it that I like, thanks
to it's very well constructed script. The only big problem I have with
the script is the major parts that Smith gave to Jay and Silent
Bob. In small doses they're okay -- the scene in Chasing Amy with
the two of them was terrific -- but here they appear in almost every scene,
and it gets tiresome, real quick. Jay is obnoxious beyond belief,
and Silent Bob (played by Smith himself, as always) here uses facial expressions
that go beyond comic and expressive, and are just goofy. There's also none
of his usual wisdom that I've come to like -- after his wonderful speech
in Chasing Amy (and even the few lines he spouts in Clerks),
I was hoping for something a little more substantive than an Indiana
Jones homage.
But beyond those two goofballs, the acting is top-notch. I rather like
Fiorentino's heroine, and what the actress does with the part. Her character's
a sad woman, but she doesn't cross the line into self-pity, and Fiorentino
makes us feel for her. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon -- Affleck particularly
-- are simply brilliant here. This is the best I've ever seen these two.
Affleck is seriously Oscar-worthy. They're both likable at first, but then
Affleck takes on these more menacing qualities that are disturbing -- and
extremely well played. Jason Lee (who as far as I can tell has never been
in a non-Smith film, Kissing A Fool notwithstanding) is also brilliant
here as Azrael, a demon who wants out of Hell any way he can swing it,
and I wish he had gotten more screen time than he had. Gee, who could Smith
have taken screen time away from? Hmmm.
Rickman, Rock, and Hayek are also great. Many people don't seem to think
Hayek's a particularly good actress, but I like her. I don't think she's
Oscar-material (at least not yet) but I still think she's a good actress.
Rock is of course hilarious (when asked if he knows Jesus, he replies "know
him? Nigga owes me twelve bucks!"), and Rickman is also terrific (as terrific
as he can be, that is, when he's not playing a villain and he looks so
pasty).
Now. Kevin Smith's directing. It's just plain awful. This wasn't a problem
in Clerks or Chasing Amy, because he basically just had 
to
point the camera at the actors while they talked (although, if you look
at the Clerks DVD, there's an extended version of the scene where
Dante jumps Randall in the "deleted scenes" section that looks a lot better
than the one in the film. Smith says that the extended version was shot
mostly by his DP while Smith was sleeping, and that Smith only included
the stuff that he shot so that he could "feel like a real director." It
weakened the scene), but in a film like this, with tension, violence, action,
and an overall "epic" feel to it, his weakness behind the camera really
shows. I could have re-shot a number of the sequences and made them look
ten times better -- and added a lot of tension and power to the film, just
with a few simple cuts or dynamic camera angles. There are a couple points
in the film where Smith shies away from showing any of the fighting and
goes instead for the cheap laugh by focusing on the reactions of people
watching the fight -- I think because he knew he couldn't do a very good
job with the action (he reffers to himself on the Dogma website
as a "visually crippled director with no flair for images"). It's not because
he didn't want to show violence, because there is a shot towards the film's
climax where a man is blown away by an uzi. But I think if he knew filmmaking
a little better, he might have attempted to stage the action sequences
(or maybe he did and he just didn't like what it looked like). It would
have added not just more excitement to the film, but it would have increased
the tension (especially in the scene where Fiorentino is attacked) and
-- in one case -- given Damon's character a more menacing feel, which would
have paid off later in the film.
I'm not saying Smith is hopeless -- he just needs to apply himself more
towards becoming a serious filmmaker. There's a shot involving slow motion
in the climax that looks great (indeed, had Smith just put some of the
other fight scenes in slow motion it would have probably looked fine --
even the most stupid-looking shots look great in slo-mo!), so he just needs
to take the time to learn the craft. He's a brilliant writer (the Superman
Lives script floating around on the Internet notwithstanding), and
he knows how to get what he wants out of actors (and he inspires repeat
performances from many of them, which says a lot for him -- watch for cameos
by the actors who played Dante and Randall in Clerks) -- so I definitely
think he should keep directing. He just needs to work a little harder at
it.
Bottom line: Looks crappy, but brilliant writing and fantastic acting make
that almost forgivable.
My grade:
A -
My advice:
Take what Smith has to say seriously, and give it some thought. Blind faith
is not a good thing. And a Shit Demon is not to be trifled with.
Get the movie
poster!
