8mm
More fun than a barrel of dead monkeys
Four words that fill me with dread: "A Joel Schumacher film". Not dread of the film itself - but of the response it's doomed to get from genre fans. Let's face it - if it weren't for two Batman movies, Schumacher wouldn't be regarded as anything other than a professional, competent, and rather unexceptional director-for-hire who often gets handed interesting projects. But those two Batman movies are, nevertheless, here...and as a result, Schumacher is probably the most hated single individual in genre Hollywood, and anything he puts out seems to send genre fans into a frenzy of whining. Never mind right now that I believe Batman And Robin is the single funniest and most savage cinematic weapon ever devised, a big-screen Pat Boone's In A Metal Mood. (there's more to it than that, but suffice right now to say that it put a stake in the heart of a deserving franchise and hilariously reduced even the most otherwise sensible genre fans to a bunch of whimpering crybabies) After that film, Schumacher could only expect to be hated anyway. So it's with 8mm that he's apparently attempting to redeem himself.
He sure got the right vehicle to do it with - a script from Andrew Kevin Walker, who penned the ickiest creepiest movie of the decade so far, Seven (although I think it's important not to forget that he also wrote Brainscan). The movie's taken flak for a lot of things - and I mean a LOT, from all sides. I'll try to look into those. So let's see what we've got here.
Private Detective Tom Wells (Nicholas Cage), who's known in the biz for his discretion, is called upon by a recently widowed wife of a steel tycoon to look into a reel of film found in the dead man's vault. The film depicts the murder of a teenaged girl - and what the woman wants is proof that this really was just special effects and red corn syrup. Already, we're likely to piss people off, people who think that this is somehow a tackier subject than what other thrillers toss into their plotlines. (and where were these complaints when Mute Witness came out?)
You'd have to be a pretty silly twit to think that by the end of the movie, Wells is going to find that yes, the film is a hoax. The movie's not really about the discovery of that. The movie's about the moral slide that Wells takes as he gets to the bottom of things. Yes, Wells does slide. Oh, boy! Does he ever! Wells finds the girl's identity, and then her diary (come on, lady, seven years and you never once looked in the toilet tank?),which takes him to LA, where he has a look into the world of underground porno. He gets there through Max California, a porn store clerk, played by Joaquin Phoenix. Phoenix's best moment comes when he makes a feeble, unconvincing justification of the direction his life's taken, and insists that he doesn't endorse it, he just points the way (as if that didn't amount to the same thing).
This flick's been criticized for failing to show a difference between legal, regular, average-joe porno and the really seedy stuff Wells finds in basement sales (rape flicks, kids, etc). I dunno, it looked sufficiently deliniated to me. I mean, there's just not much more it could have done without incurring the dreaded NC-17. An on-screen enema may not be to your taste (it sure isn't to mine), but if the viewer reacts to that the same way he would to a kiddie porn film, that's the viewer's problem.
"You're going to see things that you can't unsee", says Max." They get inside your head." What Wells finds in this underworld is a sleazy producer (wonderfully played with pure vileness by...shit, I don't remember), an obviously insane director of artsy, nasty porno (Peter Stormare, who's always fun), and the enigmatic Machine - a beefy porn star who always wears a bondage mask (but, like Blaster from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, you just know he's gonna be a pretty gimpy-looking guy when he takes it off). These are the men responsible for the film, and Wells' attempt to find a semblance of justice and understanding is what pushes him down the path of evil, not merely the things he sees.
What Wells doesn't find - thankfully - is a black market for snuff films. There isn't much in the way of evidence for snuff movies actually existing, and Walker knows that quite well. For the purposes of this film, it doesn't matter whether they exist or not - what does is that if you have enough money, some lives are cheap enough that you can get one made if you're really interested.
When Wells finds the truth behind the film, he looks primarily for understanding. He looks at this product of pure evil (and part of the film's point is to differentiate - some might say fallaciously - between evil and madness, whereas in Seven, people are still debating if John Doe was evil or just nuts) and demands of the men responsible for it to explain to him why. He assumes that the film in question was a sex thing, and assumes incorrectly. What the film was really about might not seem like a particularly inventive motive, but is it really less lame than it just being a sex thing?
Stormare gets the film's best moment, when he gloats that "It's as if she never existed" as he closes off forever one option available to Wells. It's also a turning point in the film - the legal measures really are closed off considering justice for the girl (but come on, there's three more very clear foul-play deaths which can only result in very serious consequences for the surviving baddies). Wells really is the only person left to make things right. But Wells doesn't know how.
The film's last act - which starts just as the movie feels like it's about to conclude - concentrates on Wells going after the remaining baddies. This sounds like standard Death Wish fluff, and maybe it is, but at least it introduces some fairly interesting elements. Take one moment where Wells, unable to muster whatever it takes to coldly kill a man (courage? Cowardice? Cruelty?), phones the girl's mother and asks - nay, begs - her for her blessing. It doesn't let Wells off the hook, but it lets him con himself into believing just that for long enough to do it. By the time the film concludes, Wells is completely aware of what he's become, and all things considered, he lets himself off pretty lightly.
Schumacher does his damnedest to ape David Fincher's style here, and for the most part, he does a pretty good job. He ain't no Fincher, but it's not like he's in full B&R-mode. The score of the film is likely to make your teeth itch, with screamingly loud eastern themes which are just painful to listen to. The production design is topnotch, however inaccurate it might be (I've heard that real bondage clubs are nothing like that. Like I care.), creating a world of sleaze and ick that mainstream Hollywood generally doesn't touch with a ten-foot dildo.
I have to wonder about Phoenix's super-graphic sex scene that I'd heard so much about before. I can't imagine where in this movie that would fit in, since it appears to have been removed. And like I said, performances are pretty good all around.
Still, one feels a little ripped off, considering the trashily alluring hook of the "snuff" theme, which is explored much less than Wells' slide into evil action. Not much is really done with the notion of underground porno; it's mostly there as a backdrop. The movie doesn't really seem to be condemning anything as some have objected - note the relief with which Wells and Max note that the snuff films they find are fakes, and they forget about them completely afterward. If it's not real, it's harmless, right? And since there's no evidence for "real" snuff films, what's to object to? Whether it is or not, this movie doesn't seem interested in making that point. It just seems to want to show a mostly upright man (with some crooked tendencies - note the lawyer's speech) become a cold-blooded killer, but not become awful enough that he doesn't want to make things right with himself in the end. I would say that it just didn't go far enough in this aspect. Wells, despite Cage's really great effort, isn't particularly fleshed out. Seeing him slide into evildoing is interesting, but not really involving.
This is not a movie for the faint of heart, nor is it for viewers with an axe to grind (be it with Schumacher himself or with some perceived state of moral societal decay). It's not a completely ugly experience like it's been touted as (both by its supporters and detractors) - but then, neither was Seven, and this isn't as much fun as Seven was. (take that as you will) I'd give it a cautionary, marginal recommendation for those who are curious.