Ultimately Sam is a heroic character, ’cause he puts himself at risk to do the right thing. But he’s also kind of an asshole in a way that I think is interesting. His insults to his dead father and living brother are like his police work – a little bit over the line. Apparently his little brother is still traumatized by his cruel bullying when they were growing up, and he shows no remorse when he finds this out. Like Joel Edgerton in WARRIOR he’s accused of being a coward, leaving the family with an abusive father, but he was young and didn’t know what to do, etc.

Amy Smart (Felicity), seeming a little more enthusiastic than in her last wrestler picture, THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN, plays their sister who loves them, flaws and all. She’s the executor of the will and she tries to bring them together and make peace. I don’t think that’s her on the cover though, I think that’s some other girl that’s in the movie. She never gets a gun ’cause she sits out the action. But she does convey a sweet, sisterly compassion in her scenes that makes it sort of believable that these lunkheads would humor her and give it a shot. (Although I guess it’s the money that really motivates them.)

The condition of the will is that the boys have to run a business together for 2 years before they get the money. This could’ve very easily turned into a movie about a bakery, a laundromat or a Dairy Queen franchise, but they just end up following a Mexican cartel guy that skipped bail on Leo. This gets them mixed up in the kidnapping of a millionaire (Gregg Henry). So Leo uses his bail bondsman knowledge but is always shown up by Sam’s detective work/guns and Douglas’s special skills that get them through doors. By that I don’t mean picking locks, I mean that women love him and help him out.

Cena’s muscles are distractingly giant, almost the male equivalent of those crazy watermelon-sized fake boobs they used to have in the specialty pornos. But it’s funny ’cause he still has some kind of everyman charisma. I think he’s gotten more comfortable on screen since THE MARINE, but maybe I’ve just gotten used to him. He doesn’t quite know how to deliver all the quick band-and-forth banter in this one, but he’s almost there. It’s not a Dennis Rodman situation. I liked him in this, and the playful insults and competition flying between the three brothers who probly, hopefully at least, really care about each other.

As far as this year’s slate of WWE pictures go, INSIDE OUT is a little more my speed. I like the way it fits into the old ex-con-getting-pulled-into-more-trouble type formula but adds little quirky tweaks and unexpected nuance. But this is an enjoyable movie that some people would probly prefer. Hats off to WWE Studios for trying out different things and at the same time improving the overall quality of their works. I hope they continue to grow and some day have a backlot tour to rival Universal’s. I look forward to THE MARINE 2: THE RIDE and the SEE NO EVIL Halloween maze.

Rainn Wilson (HOUSE OF THE ONE THOUSAND CORPSES) plays Frank, a cook at a diner who somehow got married to Liv Tyler, but she got hooked on heroin and left him for a strip club owner/drug dealer named Jock (Kevin Bacon). Frank is kind of a nut and has visions inspired by a “Bibleman” type show on the Christian channel, so he decides to make a super hero costume and “fight crime.” His routine mostly involves sitting behind a dumpster for hours and eventually crushing somebody’s skull with a big wrench.

It’s more grounded than KICK ASS, there are no jetpacks or super villains. It’s also nice that they talk about actually existing comic books like Batman, instead of the usual routine of making up a fake comic book that the hero is obsessed with. And for most of the movie they do a good job of showing that although in his mind he’s a super hero in everybody else’s he’s a fuckin psycho who’s going around bashing people over the head. Then they kind of blow it later on when they do the same phony “I think he’s a hero!” / “Well I think he’s a menace!” man-on-the-street-interview montage that’s in 99% of all “real super hero” or DEATH WISH type movies. And by having him fight against actual bad guys who might deserve it.

He goes way overboard in the crime fighting, and the gore is pretty over the top. I think either we as a society or me as a dude are desensitized beyond the point of this “you think it’s gonna be fun, but then it’s so fucked up you feel bad that you wanted to enjoy it” type business being as effective as the filmatists always seem to think it’s gonna be. What are they supposed to be subverting here? Is there anything left in super heroes to subvert? Does it get reverted in between all the subverting in order for it to be resubverted each time?

Although they shoot it handheld on real locations and have very few CGI effects they don’t really give it a naturalistic enough feel to seem all that real. It might pass for a while but then there will be some Troma-esque reaction (a little girl enjoying a gorey attack) or completely forced behavior. I mean I like the idea of him overreacting to line-cutting at the movie theater and hospitalizing two people, but couldn’t they have made them cut the way people actually cut? Nobody just shoves their way into the middle of a neat single file line and tells everybody to fuck off. You’re taking me out of the movie. The little things are important.

And the costume he makes. It’s actually very functional with its hockey-style armor approach, and not too bulky. But then they gotta put a cartoonish wrong-colored patch on the side of his head so you know he did a bad job of sewing it. I feel like the excessiveness of his vigilante justice would be both funnier and more disturbing if there was more subtlety in the other areas.

Which brings me to my biggest problem with the movie. Most people probly wouldn’t agree with me on this, but I think Wilson was the wrong guy for this role. He’s funny as Dwight on The Office and everything, but that type of wild eyed, exaggerated character is not as funny or creepy in this role as it would’ve been if it was a guy who seems reasonable at first glance. From the beginning Wilson is making crazy faces and talking crazy. When he’s running around in the costume he has to do a “funny” run, instead of just doing it how somebody would really do it and letting the foolishness come out naturally. So it’s “look at this lunatic!” when it could’ve been “he seemed like a nice guy, why is he doing this?”

But he kinda looks like Frankenstein’s monster the way he frowns with that mask on. That’s kinda cool.

DEFENDOR is to me probly the most effective of this subgenre of movie, and that’s partly because it plays it straighter. It’s actually a less comedic take on the idea but alot of humor and discomfort comes out of Woody Harrelson seeming like a fairly normal guy doing something absurd. He doesn’t bug his eyes out and say corny things like a parody of a parody of Superman.

On the other hand my favorite part of SUPER is Ellen Page, and she’s not subtle at all. She plays a loopy acquaintance who finds out Frank’s secret and pushes her way into being his sidekick. Her fetish for costumes and her crazed giggling and cursing when she commits or sees violence is a weird combination of hilarious, adorable and unsettling.

Bacon is also good, as always, as the twitchy, sleazy villain. You don’t want to be in your kitchen making eggs and suddenly see that guy at the back door asking if your wife lives there, but that’s what happens. I like that he’s an evil asshole but seems to see Frank as more of an annoyance than a nemesis. Sometimes I get the feeling that he’d rather just convince Frank to leave than actually kill him. In fact, one of my favorite scenes is the first big showdown between Frank and Jock, when Jock threatens to kill Frank if he touches his car one more time. So Frank dramatically pokes the hood with his fingertip, but Jock says “That’s not the kind of touching I meant,” and tries to drive away.

Gregg Henry (of PAYBACK, many Brian De Palma movies, and SLITHER) is also in there, as a police detective who doesn’t want to investigate Frank’s wife’s alleged disappearance. And Michael Rooker as one of Jock’s henchmen. There’s a great moment where, after witnessing a dramatic confrontation between Frank and his boss, he stupidly offers Frank some of his Good ‘n Plenties. So it’s a really good cast, that definitely elevates the material.

And despite my misgivings I’d have to say this is one of the best of this type of movie. MIRAGEMAN has the best action and starts out the best, but gets goofy fast. KICK ASS had some good parts and the great performance by Nic Cage, but annoyed me with its less-real-than-the-serious-super-hero-movies approach to the what-would-really-happen-if-there-were-super-heroes concept. SUPER has plenty of weaknesses as well but keeps a fairly consistent tone and did make me laugh quite a few times. For the most part it doesn’t hammer on its jokes too hard, for example they never really nudge you in the ribs about how ridiculous it is that the masked hero’s symbol is a picture of a mask. Why would you wear that on your chest?

Most importantly, by the end it had me caring enough that it was upsetting to see bad shit happen. I guess that’s kind of an implied spoiler, but just let it hang over you like a dark cloud. This guy is not a charmer, it’s not gonna end with him admitting he’s Iron Man, most likely. Maybe it’s a subversion of the subversion of super heroes? I don’t know.

Cort plays Alex West, a sanitarium buddy of Norman Bates. Alex got locked up at the age of 6 for killing his stepfather (kids do the darndest things), and had a great father-son relationship with Norman. Now not only is Alex free, but Norman has just died and willed the motel and house to Alex so he can make something of his life. Or peep on women and then kill them, I guess. Hopefully the first one.

The premise is explained in a hokey black and white 1960 segment where Norman is glimpsed briefly, not played by Perkins but by a guy named Kurt Paul, who was the Norman stunt double in PSYCHO II-III. (He also played “Norman Baines” in a Halloween episode of KNIGHT RIDER.) There’s a scene where the executor of the will announces who gets what, and some guy who taught him how to cook gets a turkey. I can only assume this scene is supposed to be funny, but otherwise most of this doesn’t come across as a comedy exactly.

Cort looks about as boyish as he did in HAROLD AND MAUDE even though this is 16 years later. With his weird makeup and bug-eyed expressions I think they’re trying to make him look like Norman. What they don’t do is make him a psycho, at least not in this pilot movie. He might be crazy but he doesn’t get tempted to kill anybody. He sincerely wants to honor his friendship with Norman by getting the motel up and running again, even though he could make alot of money demolishing it and building condos according to the guy at the bank (Gregg JUST BEFORE DAWN Henry). It’s actually kind of cool and humanistic that this fella is trying to honor the memory of a guy who, let’s face it, made some pretty large mistakes in my opinion. Not to be judgmental, I’m just saying he stabbed some people to death, left some bodies in ice machines, etc. But Alex isn’t dwelling on that, he’s remembering Norman’s good points. For example he knew alot about birds, he kept the sheets clean, etc.

It’s the same Bates Motel and “Psycho House” set familiar from the other movies and the Universal Studios tour, but we’ve always only known it to be located 15 miles outside of Fairvale, CA, now all the sudden they tell us it’s in a town called Fairville. Also, Alex adds a little fountain in the courtyard to make it fancy.

Helping Alex to get the place running again are Lori Petty (POINT BREAK) as a teenage runaway he finds squatting in the Bates house and Moses Gunn (SHAFT) as a defiant carpenter who he finds in a standoff with police when he goes to hire him. Actually come to think of it his introductions to these two characters are the best parts of the movie because they’re genuinely weird. He first sees Petty as a silhouette in the dark and he freaks out. There’s a long, spooky shot of her covered in shadow, a dim line of light dancing around the edge of a weirdly wavering mane… it turns out for some god damn reason she’s walking around in the dark wearing a chicken costume. I would have to say that’s the highlight of the movie, it’s supposed to be funny I’m sure but it’s so strange it makes it effectively creepy.

Other than the part about Henry pulling a Scooby-Doo to try to get more money out of the property, which you can see a mile away, it’s hard to guess where this story is going. Alex keeps talking to Norman, but it doesn’t really seem like he literally thinks he’s having a conversation with him. Then his bulldozer crew discovers Mrs. Bates’s body (and her name is Gloria instead of Norma). And he starts hearing legends about Mr. Bates. I was wondering if Alex would end up with some mummified corpse or other staying in the house. Maybe Mother could get back in the rocking chair and introduce each episode Crypt Keeper style.

But just when it seems like it might start to get interesting, suddenly there’s a complete left turn. Kind of like how Marion Crane died and suddenly the movie was about Norman, this one suddenly starts to follow a woman who stays at the motel. She tries to commit suicide but suddenly discovers some kind of prom going on at the motel and has a romantic encounter with a teenage Jason Bateman. If I had been prepared for it to suddenly switch to a different story I guess it would’ve been okay, it has a pretty good ending. Anyway, this is where you realize that if BATES MOTEL had actually been a series it wouldn’t have been all about the motel management adventures of Alex West. It would’ve been a horror anthology deal where different (probly supernatural) stories would happen to guests of the motel. FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES also started in ‘87, so I guess everybody was looking for ways to make anthology TV shows loosely tied to famous horror movie series. This might’ve been more like 1988’s FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES, which was a bunch of random dream related horror stories introduced by Freddy Krueger (only a central character in a few episodes, like the cheesy Krueger origin story pilot directed by Tobe Hooper). I wonder why they never tried a CHUCKY’S TOYBOX or a HALLOWEEN: THE YEAR-ROUND SERIES?

BATES MOTEL was written, directed and produced by Richard Rothstein. The only other things he directed were two episodes of THE HITCHHIKER, but he did go on to write UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. The movie’s TV production values are a poor replacement for the cinematic feel of the movies, especially when the music by action movie maestro J. Peter Robinson resorts to keyboard quirky circus music type shit. You’re gonna replace Bernard Herrman’s orchestra with some shit that could be in a comedy scene on Power Rangers? I don’t like that. Not inordinately.

This is by far the worst of the PSYCHO related movies, but that’s not a surprise. Apparently they tried to get Anthony Perkins to do it first, and he was right to be against it even if the part 4 he made later wasn’t so hot either. This one goes in the “interesting as a curiosity only” file.

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I love this type of movie, and this has a good twist on the usual subtext. There’s the traditional class difference – Henry and friends drive into town in a top-of-the-line RV, listening to Blondie and snapping pictures of people like they’re tourist attractions. Henry wears a trucker cap and sleeveless shirt, so maybe he’s not a yuppie, or maybe he’s a yuppie and a poser. Either way you still get a feeling from that slick RV (I think Kennedy calls it “your fancy wagon” later) that he’s too arrogant about being able to overcome Mother Nature with his money and technology. He and his girlfriend fancy themselves climbers, but they’re kind of amateurs when it comes to camping. Which is allowed. But there’s that whole city-mouse/country-mouse tension, you know.

There’s a great moment when our campers are out at night, in the middle of nowhere, drinking and dancing, blasting their music. And suddenly some old country folk appear out of nowhere, firing a rifle and telling them to leave because they’re gonna “raise the devil.” This scene has a nice complicated tension because their intrusion isn’t as cut and dry is it often is in a movie like this. They’re not exactly trespassers. He owns this land, and didn’t know anybody lived on it. His friend is pushing that logic, but Henry’s not comfortable with it, saying that showing them the deed is not gonna satisfy these people. I think he senses that at least out here “ownership” of land is kind of  a sham. Just because your name’s on a piece of paper doesn’t mean you can control this.

But they stay, and the devil is in fact raised in the form of a huge, giggly inbred who playfully attacks with a machete. As he kills them he takes souvenirs, so you end up with the creepy image of a killer halfwit chasing people around blowing a whistle. There’s something about that, just the stupidity of the whistling over and over, it really works. Jason should try that one.

There are a bunch of great scenes (SPOILER): the guy whose rope bridge gets chopped and he climbs all the way back up the cliff only to be pushed over by a foot-to-the-head. And the final kill where the woman literally shoves her fist down a guy’s throat. Also there are some really clever stagings where the characters don’t see what we see. In one scene the couple kisses in front of a waterfall while we see their friend’s corpse flop like a dead fish over the rapids behind them. In another part Henry searches the dark woods with a lantern, repeatedly lighting it so we can see a dead body behind him without him noticing it himself.

I have one nitpicky complaint about the themes of the movie. Not a big one. There’s a whole progression where the girlfriend is the nicest of the group, she doesn’t want to hurt animals, she won’t even hold a weapon to defend herself, etc. And then in the end she’s shoving her fist down a retarded man’s throat. (The potential of ever having to do this is why you gotta carry Handi Wipes at all times.) It doesn’t come off so much like “look, she’s been reduced to an animal by these circumstances” as much as “you can’t care about shit, if you’re gonna survive you gotta kill without mercy!” But it seems a little forced. Sure enough on the extras Lieberman talks about how he liked DELIVERANCE so he wanted to have a character go through the same transformation that Jon Voight does. That’s why it doesn’t quite feel natural, it’s more of an homage than a deepfelt feeling.

I can live with that though. This is a fun one with lots of tension, a little bit of dark humor and a story that just gets more and more interesting as it goes along. Also in my opinion it is a very positive portrayal of homicidal inbred rednecks because in this one they’re not cannibals. Everybody needs role models, you know.

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I guess horror movies are like anything else, they go in cycles. We’ve had this whole drought where it seemed like there was nothing but sissy PG-13 studio horror, and lots of horror fans whining. Now the harsher R-rated horror movies are starting to trickle back in, and a whole other set of people get their chance to whine. (It turns out that our society is just now going down the shitter because there’s a movie where mutant cannibals are mean to a baby. Even though it’s a remake of a 30 year old movie about mutant cannibals being mean to a baby.) Anyway, now with SLITHER we get back another old buddy we haven’t seen in so long we almost forgot about him: the funny horror movie.

Horror and comedy are a tough mix. There are different ways to balance it. I like the serious horror but on those rare occasions when they got the perfect balance, it’s a sight to behold. To me AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is the top of the line. It’s very funny but the laughs come from serious horror situations. To me it’s more of a horror movie than a comedy. Perfect. Another good one is RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, but I think they tip it too much with all that punk rock shit. “Does this look like a fuckin COSTUME?” Still great, but too goofy to take seriously. But the opening scene, up until the credits, is a perfect balance. I think EVIL DEAD 2 has it just right too, although most people seem to think it’s more comedy and less horror than I think it is.

I guess the most significant recent attempt at comedy and horror is SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but I gotta be honest. This ain’t gonna win me any friends around here, but I don’t think that one counts. Sure it’s funny and worth watching. But even if the zombies look legit, the characters and what they do and say are sitcom through and through. It works as comedy but not as horror. It’s a tribute or a parody but not the real thing.

This one is the reverse of AMERICAN WEREWOLF: it works as both but it definitely leans alot harder on the laffs. The only good comparison I can think of is TREMORS, but alot more disgusting. The story itself is clearly influenced by THE THING, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and others. Some people said NIGHT OF THE CREEPS but I ain’t gonna lie, I never seen it. So I’ll just make a guess and say no, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS was not an influence in any way. Anyway, it’s basically a mix of existing elements but I thought they were put together in a clever and entertaining way, and also refreshing since you don’t see too many movies like this these days.

It’s gonna be better for you to see it without knowing what exactly is gonna happen, but here’s the gist of it. Michael Rooker (HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER [part 1 only]) plays the dude who, in a classic THE BLOB type scenario, gets too curious about the slimy thing that crawled out of a meteor. Next thing you know an outer space worm thing has penetrated his brain and he begins a slow transformation to freaky alien overlord that will continue all the way through to the end of the movie. The biggest twist is that as he turns into a more and more disgusting monster, he remains stuck on his wife (Elizabeth Banks, who played some character only you guys would remember in the SPIDER-MAN trilogy). At first he tries to work it out and just hide his condition from her. Later it’s clear it’s not gonna work but he still pines for her. Maybe the cleverest joke in the movie is when he’s spawned an army of zombies but they all share a brain, so instead of saying “Brains!” like in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD they mostly whine “Starla!”

When I say it’s influenced by THE THING, I don’t mean it has any of the sense of dread that makes that thing so great. But it’s rare to see a movie really follow in that tradition of crazy, over the top special effects mayhem. So this one definitely deserves some credit. I mean I’m talkin tentacles left and right, giant blobs, piles of wiggly slugs, bladders and slime. And it’s a good balance of rubber and computers. You don’t get much of a chance to get bored of the creatures because this alien’s reproduction process spans the whole movie, and manages to involve a constantly mutating Rooker, lots of slugs, zombies, killer animals, and more. Something for everyone.

There’s even a nice part where you get a glimpse of the aliens doing their thing on some strange species on another planet. I always wished they would make an ALIEN movie on the planet where those space jockey dudes live. No humans, just a WALKING WITH DINOSAURS type nature doctumentary. That ain’t gonna happen so maybe I should start wishing for a SLITHER 2 on the planet of the whatever the fuck these things are.

By the way, if you’re wondering what happened to the apartment building and the pervert spying on Sharon Stone with security cameras, you’re thinking of SLIVER. This is similar though.

Where the TREMORS part comes in is the characters, who are goofy and have lots of funny lines and quirks. The hero is the chief of police played by Nathan Fillion (DRACULA 2000, etc.) and I was happy to also see Gregg Henry (Mal from PAYBACK) as the mayor, who constantly calls people “cocksucker.” I wonder if Gregg Henry enjoys exclusively playing prick roles? Or does he just take the jobs he can get? Does he always long to play a nice, polite fellow, instead of weirdos in Brian DePalma movies? Anyway, the story is mostly that crazy shit happens and then they all react to it. My favorite part is when they first spot Rooker running across a field waving a goofy tentacle off the top of his head. I like how the director shoots it from a distance so you can sort of put yourself in the character’s shoes, watching this weird ass shit go down across the field.

The writer slash director is James Gunn, who got his start with TROMEO AND JULIET and throws a couple nods to Troma in here. There oughta be some kind of Most Improved ribbon or lapel pin for this dude. Because first of all, almost nobody goes from Troma to serious mainstream success. I know the guy who directed ROCKY did a movie with Lloyd Kaufman, but that was before Troma so it doesn’t count. Anyway, forget Troma, this is the guy who wrote SCOOBY DOO 1-2, that’s a stigma you gotta work hard to overcome. Okay, so I haven’t seen those movies. But I don’t expect anybody is gonna tell me my assumption is wrong.

So after writing the surprisingly unsucky DAWN OF THE DEAD remake and now directing this one, I think he has earned his stripes, or at least one stripe. Maybe he has earned his two fairly thin stripes. Or one fat one. He earned something, anyway. I’m willing to give the guy a chance. SLITHER is no classic but it’s a fun time at the movies. People who like a fun time at the movies will have a fun time at it, in my opinion. Also there’s a part with a deer monster.

thanks boys,

Vern

p.s. Merrick, you bag-wearing freak, don’t cut off my links this time. It’s part of the package. People like clicking on links.

p.p.s. Also you gotta keep the postscripts on, that’s how we do things around here bud. With postscripts.

Originally published at Aint-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22904

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Well okay, I admit that Mel hasn’t amounted to as much as we as a society thought he would back in those days, but that doesn’t mean you can Write the man off entirely. I know what you are thinking, this dude hasn’t done shit since Mad Max so just forget about him. But sometimes even after he’s considered washed up by the general public an actor or actress is still putting out high quality type performances with little recognition.

At the video store I found one Mel Gibson film called Ransom, about a kidnapping. I figured okay this will be good, it’s probaly about a cop named Ransom, I’m thinking most likely John Ransom. Well turns out he’s not John Ransom, Ransom is just the name of the movie and not Mel Gibson. He’s not a cop either, he’s just a rich guy. But his name isn’t Ransom. So I decided to give this one a pass and pickup Payback instead.

Turns out his name is Porter in Payback but at least he’s not some rich guy. He’s not a cop either but come to think of it why the fuck does the star of an action movie have to be a cop anway? I mean nothing against McClane but let’s face it, if you had to pick one occupation of guys you want to hang out with, it’s not going to be a fucking cop, jesus. That’s why I haven’t been watching as much TV lately, I mean if I want to see cops and lawyers I’ll just answer the door.

Payback starts off real nice and right away you can tell this is going to be a more down to earth type hero you can relate to. First a doctor who in my opinion is probaly unlicensed pulls bullets out of Porter. From there there is a montage type thing with Porter stealing from a panhandler, lifting a man’s wallet, using his credit cards to buy suits and food, getting a gun from a thrift shop. Then he just starts strutting along like a true motherfucker and it plays this funky theme song and it just makes you go, “I love this fucking movie already.” This scene sort of tells the rags to riches type story of a dude who lost everything who now uses his wits to build up a roll and get the basic tools needed for his mission.

That mission is the title of the film. What it is in case you forgot is he is going to get payback. What he needs payback or revenge for is this whole deal where his wife and his partner double crossed him and shot him so they could take all the money from a robbery. I don’t know if you have experienced something like this but it is a real pisser in my opinion, some of you may know what I’m talking about. So you know you can see where this carter dude is coming from right away.

The structure of this filmwork is very simple and old fashioned and follows the same pattern as that opening montage. He takes each basic resource and builds up more resources – first a suit and a gun, later a police badge, various connections, etc. His partner used his money to pay off a crime syndicate called THe Outfit. It is only fair for him to ask for his money back so he climbs his way up to the very top of the outfit killing people until he gets it.

Let me tell you man it is really good to see Mel back playing a regular guy like Porter or Mad Max instead of a cop or a rich guy. Porter is a real Badass unlike I have seen in any other recent movies. I mean he does a lot of Badass type activities up to and including blowing up a car, intentionally crashing a car, pulling out a dude’s nose ring, getting his toes crushed by a hammer, killing a dude for not having a lighter on him. The main thing about this movie, and the Badass movement in general, is attitude. Mel has a real dead look in his eye, doesn’t talk too much, he knows how to smoke a cigarette just right and he can intimidate and/or mangle motherfuckers like nobody’s business.

For one example, there is a scene where he comes in wanting to talk to a crime boss, but there is a HUGE black dude in the front office that tells him the man isn’t in. Porter keeps trying to ask where is he, maybe he’s at home, where is he exactly? But the bouncer won’t give him the time of day. Porter shakes his head in frustration and disappointment.

Suddenly, cut to that bouncer walking into the back room holding a towel over his ear, blood dripping down his face, calling for his boss somebody’s here to see you.

This is Porter’s style, you don’t even have to see what he did to a dude, you just can assume it was Badass. This dude can get past security in an elevator AND steals their cigarettes. Good work Porter.

This movie, and again the Badass movement, is also about style in my opinion. This is very much like an early ’70s movie, with alot of funky music and the photographing is all washed out and tinted blue. The world is kind of a timeless place where there are rotary phones in the cars but nose rings on the heroin dealers. It is like real life where both the policing and criming industries are mostly filled with a bunch of pricks. But I do like this Porter in my opinion on account of he is good at what he does, which I should remind you is getting payback.

Now okay not everything about Payback is that good. Some of the guitaristry I thought was out of date but not out of date enough to be cool. Also the technique on blowing up the car was the oldest trick in the book although I do give points for the explosion itself just on principle. But I would highly recommend this piece, it is definitely one of the best movies and characters of this year and hopefully it will show audiences that the Badass community are still a vital audience in the millennial Cinema films of the year 2-G.

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