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drizzle wrote:Liked it but surprisingly didn't love it, def not as much as Blue Ruin. The story and directions are good, the acting is good, but still it felt a little off to me. I think it's a mix misplaced expectations on my part and actual missteps by Saulnier.

I feel like the implication that this is some kind of orgy of violence that stands in contrast to Blue Ruin's restraint, which has been pretty prominent in promotion and reviews, is misleading. There are some gory bits here but not THAT much, and there isn't really any momentum to the action or catharsis derived from it. Saulnier is much more concerned with creating tension than releasing it, so you have this really great build up of setting and characters and concept ... but when it comes time for the shotguns and the face-eating dogs he handles it in a proficient but not very viscerally satisfying way. The movie is really more about establishing characters and mis-en-scene - the kinda douchey but likeable punk band, the oddly personable cadre of nazis, the extremely well detailed venue/setting full of really great specific references to dynamics of various punk scenes. The action is not quite an afterthought, but it def was not the main attraction for me. And if you adjust for that, the movie is a good time.

found a review that sums it up nicely and more eloquently than I did (spoilers)

This was a fine siege movie, but the tension deflates as soon as they all initially make a break for the door, and people start going down. The film is a taut powder-keg chamber drama where the threat of coordinated organization by Patrick Stewart and the maneuvering of the big dude within the room maximize the fear and anxiety. Violence in Saulnier's movies is parceled out suddenly, and the first time it happens in the room - when the arm is broken and lead dude's arm is sliced up and the box cutter to the stomach quickly reifies the menace growing outside.

But after that abrupt, jarring jolt of violence, the ensuing attacks are more rote and perfunctory. I mean, it's still good and interesting, but when it goes from siege to survival and the meth-basement cat-and-mouse with the guy brandishing the shotgun, it just becomes less engaging. The comeuppance isn't so much cathartic as flat, deliberately. Salunier always undercuts the revenge moments - like how they just sit there without any clue as to what to do next, and then the dog just comes to make it real sad.

To his credit, Saulnier is mindful of, and tries to subvert certain expectations: everyone you expect to survive or make it to the climax - the resourceful (vocalist who finds the way down to the lab), the strong and aggressive (MMA bro who armbars the big guy), and the insider turncoat - all die briskly and without warning. When the guy reveals his shifting allegiances and his cause for revenge (which gives him a bit of business to resolve), he dies unceremoniously without any resolution (his subplot had sort of been building a bit). The, "I finally figured out by desert island band" call back getting shot down for a nice gag. Unlike the gluttony of self-aware '90s genre fair that misconstrued what Tarantino did (he doesn't dismantle tropes; he gathers together genre influences and makes film criticism with his movies in a constructive [not deconstructive] way), Salunier is a dude like Barrett and Wingard who are conscious of - and disrupt - genre conventions in a way that honors the genre instead of winkingly mocks or strives to dismantle it. Even as he veers away from an expectation built, this is very much a loving siege movie that plays the beats straight.

If Blue Ruin was his black comedy Cohen's movie, this was more of his Walter Hill flick, where a group is just trying to make it out of a confined, well-mapped space alive. Gone is the bumbling fecklessness and the humor derived from that. The levity is more subtle or carefully planned and distributed (the Dead Kennedy's cover, "This guy is legit." "Why? Because he puts some cum in his hair every morning?"), and it's dialogue-based instead of situational/sight gags like Blue Ruin. I like that he finds a way to get in the orphan theme he's been interested in since Murder Party. It's a small moment, but the upshot of violence in these things is always a son lost and wandering without a father, guaranteeing a reoccurrence of the cycle of violence. Here, it's the attack dog putting his head on his late owner's arm. Children always seem to be collateral damage of these warring factions (the families in BR, the band and the Nazi meth dealers in GR), and the surviving children are taught to hate and internalize these family rivalries (Macon Blair's character, the young boy at the end of BR; the attack dogs bred to assault those their owners/family commands them to).

I'd say more about the acting if there was anything to really mention. The Stewart stunt-casting was nice, but he's almost wasted. You very evidently get glimpses of a really detestable screen villain, but there's just not enough of him being truly loathsome, insidious and evil. He's well-contained evil who plans and is mindful of the logistics, but he almost needed a few big growling scenes. He's always so put together and never gets his big, shouting monologue. His dropping the n-word was a cheap shorthand. Macon Blair is real good in this, because his quiet mumbling - which made him such an unlikely protagonist in BR - is perfect for the nebbish "general manager" of the operation who just wants to keep things together and not get hurt. The moment the tides turn, he's done. "I'd rather go to jail." He's not an ideologue; he's a sniveling guy doing his job.

This was a better, quicker movie than BR. It wasn't as clunky and has considerably more mainstream-crossover potential (save for the lack of stars and the grotesque gore) than BR, but I don't think I liked it as much. Still, it's real good.