May 13, 2005

I think it’s fair to say that, at least at one time, Renny Harlin’s MINDHUNTERS held a revered status around here. When I reviewed it a couple years after it came out I was thoroughly won over by what I described as “a movie that is really fuckin dumb, but in a good way.” Many readers shared my joy and when, on some other review I can’t find right now, a commenter mentioned being a stand-in the the legendary liquid nitrogen kill scene, we treated him like a superstar. I hold much of this movie in my treasured cinematic memories that I bring up from time to time, but have I ever watched it a second time before now? Not that I remember. So this retrospective was a good idea.

(Note: I didn’t re-read the old review until after writing this one, so forgive me if there’s a little overlap.)

What I really get a kick out of in this movie is that it’s preposterous from top to bottom and side to side. Some ridiculous movies, even to a certain extent Harlin’s own DEEP BLUE SEA, have a semi-reasonable premise and then the silliness comes from what they do with that premise. Okay, people laugh at super-intelligent-sharks, whatever, but it’s a decent sci-fi/action concept, that the sharks have been enhanced for some scientic purpose and then the facility gets flooded and oh shit we have a problem here. Not as cool of a starting point as JURASSIC PARK, but in the same tradition.

For this one the idea is that a group of trainee FBI profilers are on an island for an exercise where they profile a simulated serial killing, and oh no, a real killer comes after them. But let’s not roll on past the fact that it’s a training simulation for profilers. It’s presented as an unorthodox teaching method, but I still have trouble swallowing the idea that if their teacher Jake Harris (Val Kilmer while growing his hair out for WONDERLAND) makes up a fake person for them to make guesses about that it will teach them anything at all. They’re just playing a very expensive version of a murder mystery game, paid for, as Philadelphia P.D. outside observer Detective Gabe Jensen (LL Cool J, ROLLERBALL) jokes, by our tax dollars.

Even if you accept that doing a role playing game is good training, the whole island thing seems like a step down from their last exercise. In the opening scene we see partners Sara Moore (Kathryn Morris, PAYCHECK) and J.D. Reston (Christian Slater, WINDTALKERS) following evidence down snowy wooded roads, knocking on doors late at night, storming a house where they hear a scream, and ultimately confronting a killer. Or a “killer.” Shit goes south and everyone plays dead for a few seconds before acknowledging that this wasn’t real. Of course the fake crime scene that they very well might not have even found is meticulously set up with artfully filthy walls, dozens of human and animal corpse dummies, victim photo collages, a creepy music box, burning candles, a sliced birthday cake, lit cigarettes, a fly-buzzing sound effect tape.

As far as we can see it’s an open world game where they drive all around looking for the place. Seems extremely reckless (what if they raided a real person’s house that had nothing to do with the fake mystery?) but with more possibilities than just being on a tiny island.

So anyway, we’re starting from nonsense and then building nonsense on top of it. Get ready for a fun time. One funny touch is that since they’re trainees they can still be fun, horny young people like a slasher movie. Before leaving for the island they go out drinking together, in a scene seemingly based on GOOD WILL HUNTING. The wannabe-professional-profilers try to get a phone number while playing a game of looking around at the people in the bar and making assumptions about their lives based on some detail like their brand of shoes, the book conveniently visible in their bag, what’s on their key chain. Maybe the guy who says, “And that ‘J’ on my key ring, it means I’m either a Jill or a Jennifer, those being the favorite ‘J’ names of Beltway parents circa 1981″ is supposed to be joking, but I like to think he actually memorizes charts of favorite names of each letter during each era in each region, in case something like this comes up.

They play the game more (minus the phone number) after arriving on the island, with stupid assertions such as that Gabe “has resentment toward his parents, as per the overload on tattoos he’s got there.” Gabe retaliates with descriptions of each of them like “You take charge of your team because you never had a leader in your own life,” before dismissing these things as “all surface, Psych 101 bullshit.” Correct. So he puts the kibosh on that gimmick and as far as I can tell they just approach the whodunit mystery like a normal one, they don’t have any profiler-specific tricks. They do indulge in other specialties like forensics, so I guess it’s a well-rounded education there at Quantico.

There’s kind of an allusion to slasher tropes when the camera slowly zooms in on J.D. in the shower and it seems like he’s going to get attacked, but it’s only a consensual sex attack from secret girlfriend Nicole Willis (Patricia Velásquez, BEOWULF, THE MUMMY). This would be a slasher movie if they showed a guy in a mask doing some murders, but instead they keep them off screen, setting traps that do pay off in some very enjoyable kills. It kicks off with the aforementioned legendary scene where a complex domino set up triggers a tank of liquid nitrogen tipping over and freezing J.D. solid. Obviously he gets to yell “Ah, my legs!” before his legs snap off and then his body falls and breaks like he’s made of porcelain.

I think we all agree that this is probly not physically possible but that we would rather not look into it because we will probly never have a situation where we’ll need to know for sure but we have all had a situation where it is fun to watch it in the movie MINDHUNTERS.

One thing different from a slasher movie is that because of their background and their location they themselves carry their friends’ bodies into a lab and even do a little bit of makeshift autopsy. That’s fucked up, but they handle it like professionals.

As much as it’s working in a horror register, there’s at least one part where it makes sense that it’s the director of DIE HARD 2:

I don’t think this is an intentional bit of satire, but it’s funny that the one Black person on the island is the one all these future cops instantly suspect, pull their guns on, refuse to believe no matter how much he explains himself, and handcuff to a wall even after they all witness strong evidence of his innocence. They do this despite having a more obvious suspect in the guy who they all agree is a weirdo who brought them to the island and set up the elaborate fake murder puzzle game and has not been seen or heard from since it was interrupted by a real murder puzzle game. I mean, he does end up not being the guy, but it’s funny that they barely discuss the possibility while being needlessly accusatory towards Gabe.

The actual killer deserves props for his deadly dungeon mastering. I mean yes, his spree involves a bunch of dumb bullshit about clocks and numbers and a code alluding to a historic incident that Vince Sherman (Clifton Collins Jr., FORTRESS) happens to know about and tells like it’s the “I’m gonna give it to you straight about Jason” campfire story in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2. Gabe has the correct response to that.

But at least the killer comes up with a wide variety of gimmicks that keep things lively. Like when everybody collapses during their confrontation with Gabe and realize the coffee they’re drinking is drugged. (Good thing no one abstained.) Harlin and director of photography Robert Gantz (making his movie debut before going on to the ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 remake, both MESRINE movies and BLOOD FATHER) go wild with the craning and panning and twirling and other cool camera moves throughout the movie, but particularly in this scene when representing disorientation.

Okay just getting knocked out isn’t that cool, but it leads to an excellent variation on the “trying to get someone’s attention and actually they’re dead and their head falls off” trope.

The most memorable non-frozen-Christian-Slater related sequence is actually very DEEP BLUE SEA-esque, because it involves LL Cool J and a flooded hallway. Vince, who is paraplegic, falls victim to a trap that breaks a pipe and dangles the ceiling lights so he has to hang from a bar on the ceiling or be electrocuted. Following the well known movie rule that you can hang on to a thing indefinitely even with one hand, he reluctantly agrees to unsheathe his gun and perfectly toss it to handcuffed Gabe across the room so he can deftly catch it, provide suspense while seeming to aim the gun back at Vince, then fire it into the handcuffs so he can escape and try to get to the other side to turn off the power.

Let me tell you, if this was attempted between me and any person I have ever met, we would both be instantly killed. The hanging guy would lose his grip and be electrocuted, the other guy would fumble the gun, get hit by an accidental discharge, then slump over and be electrocuted before bleeding out. But this is LL we’re talking about, so his rescue is a thing of beauty. It involves not only American Ninja Warrior style wall and ceiling climbing, but firing into a wall and then kicking the bullet holes to turn them into hand holds like it’s the rock climbing wall at REI.

Other classic moments: Nicole smoking an acid drenched cigarette that melts her foot and fingers and mouth and then her lungs from the inside. And it was set up with repeated references to her trying to quit smoking before she finally gives in. Harlin going back into Freddy mode.

And of course there’s the part where they find Harris dead hanging from hooks and a mechanism that makes him dance around like a marionette. And the underwater gun fight. And the legendary line that Gabe says after Sara shoots the killer (“I guess we found out his weakness. Bullets.”)

In my previous viewing I thought they did a cheat where Gabe just acts evil for a while but then turns out not to be the killer. This time I see that they both believe the other has been revealed as the killer and don’t understand what each other are talking about. Actually it works for me now. Also I like how near the end for a couple minutes it’s an LL Cool J action vehicle where he’s knocking tables around and running across catwalks doing jump kicks and stuff.

The other characters I didn’t mention are Lucas Harper (Jonny Lee Miller, DRACULA 2000), Bobby Whitman (Eion Bailey, CENTER STAGE) and Rafe Perry (Will Kemp, VAN HELSING, later in STEP UP 2 THE STREETS), semi-interchangeable handsome dudes who snipe at each other and have one or two broad character traits that are not memorable except for the one who tries to be the most caring but is actually the killer.

MINDHUNTERS was originally scheduled for release in 2003, but it kept getting delayed due to financial issues at Miramax that led to their separation from Disney around the time it finally came out. Harlin believes it was neglected, which is supported by the fact that I couldn’t find one of those promotional group cast photos I’ve been finding for some of the other movies. This would’ve been ideal for that, so they couldn’t have been trying very hard in the marketing. It made less than $5 million in North American theaters, with a $27 million budget.

To Harlin’s credit it seems like a much bigger movie than that; he got tax credits for shooting it in the Netherlands. The distinctive building in the center of the island that seems like a cool design for the movie is actually a real place called Building A, a.k.a. The Cathedral, in the Dutch hamlet Radio Kootwijk. It was built to house a shortwave radio transmitter in 1918. Now it’s a MINDHUNTERS museum. Well, citation needed, but I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s what I would do.

The movie started as a spec script called UNSUB by Wayne Kramer, writer/director of THE COOLER and RUNNING SCARED. He reportedly didn’t like the title change because it was too similar to the book Mindhunter, which is funny because every time I hear of the Netflix show based on that I think of this movie. Sorry David Fincher, Renny Harlin owns the title.

Kramer told IGN that his script “was rewritten (dumbed down) by a dozen writers” and “the finished movie bears very little resemblance to my original work. I don’t have a line of dialogue left in the film and very little of my original storyline.” The other credited writer is Kevin Brodbin (THE GLIMMER MAN, CONSTANTINE), and IMDb trivia claims Ehren Kruger (SCREAM 3, REINDEER GAMES, THE RING, three TRANSFORMERSes) and Kario Salem (THE SCORE, CHASING MAVERICKS) did uncredited rewrites. I think based on this information we have to credit Brodbin and the “dozen writers” for everything we love here. Whatever the merits of Kramer’s version would’ve been, I can’t picture how any of the many great things I mentioned above could exist in a “smart” movie. Hooray for dumbing down.

Early Summer 2005 impressions: The visual style of 2005 movies holds up, but the typography does not.