DVD Review: Flower (2017)

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Centering your film on a whip smart seventeen-year-old girl with a gift for rapid fire one-liners who uses her Deep Throatish oral fixation to blackmail the men in her town is a daring proposition indeed… and doubly so when it’s written and directed solely by men.

Of course, gender alone shouldn't automatically preclude men from telling the stories of young women as some of cinema’s best female monologues and roles have been penned by men.

Still, having your underage lead obsessively draw phalluses and proposition her troubled future stepbrother within an hour of meeting him while comparing her oral sex skills to that of The Horse Whisperer isn't exactly the stuff of John Hughes, even if it does fit in with the confrontational comedic brand of executive producers Jody Hill and Danny McBride, whose work is filled with problematic female characters.

And while all of this might've been okay had we even begun to scratch the surface of the character, aside from obvious daddy issues (including a scene where she tries to seduce and entrap a potential pedophile she'd dubbed a “hot old guy” while wearing a shirt emblazoned with the word “Daddy”) and a few throwaway lines referencing a past shrink, we’re mostly left scratching our heads.

Needless to say, on paper, everything about Flower shouldn't work and onscreen, it nearly doesn't, save for the megawatt performance by Zoey Deutch as the wildly uninhibited Erica. A star on the rise who's been the best thing in a number of projects including this year's Netflix uneven original movie Set It Up, in Flower, Deutch fills the screen with so much luminous energy that she probably saved the half million dollar indie a fortune in lighting costs.

Originally penned by young adult novelist Alex McAulay, Flower was named one on the Black List's best unproduced screenplays back in 2012. Reconfigured over time and co-written by its director Max Winkler as well as Ingrid Goes West co-writer/director Matt Spicer, while undeniably creative, this incarnation of Flower feels like what happens when three different puzzles wind up in the same box.

Despite some bright spots in the performances of not only Deutch but the film's entire supporting cast including Step Brothers costars Kathryn Hahn and Adam Scott (who don't share a single scene here), the pieces just don't fit.

Trading in her after school hobby of sexual blackmail to instead go after a potential predator at night, the film, much like Erica's noble yet misguided quest changes mightily from one scene to the next. Never sure of its approach, Flower has trouble adjusting to its pendulum swings in logic and tone.

While it's an unconventional choice to say the least, the decision to mix Erica's sexual coming-of-age (complete with a wide range of legally and socially unacceptable partners) with busting a sex offender offered Flower's writers ample opportunity to explore Erica's issues in a very real way... at least for a scene or two.

Regrettably more interested in fantasy than reality, as the film continues, Winkler and company attempt a shortcut and drop the ball. Muddying things up during a key sequence where both issues overlap, Flower takes on a sleazily voyeuristic vibe – temporarily turning Erica into an object instead of a three dimensional person. Though this is short-lived, the implausible wish fulfillment of Flower's third act misses the opportunity to set things right.

Bursting with ideas, at ninety minutes, Flower is chaotic and overstuffed. Less hit than miss, just like most flowers need only sunlight and water to thrive, Flower is proof that when you're dealing with serious issues and someone as talented as Deutch, Winkler should've taken a cue from nature, cut out all the excess and used less in order to say so much more.

Of course, a woman's point-of-view couldn't hurt.

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Movie Review: Observe and Report (2009)

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Unfortunately, while deadlines sometimes reign supreme-- Observe and Report is the best recent example of why I make a concerted effort not to review a film for at least 24 hours after I see it. And precisely, it's because-- well, to put it bluntly-- sometimes you need that amount of time to figure out exactly what the hell you've just seen.

Obviously, yes I grant that most of the time it’s fairly easy to exit the theater and make a snap thumbs up or thumbs down judgment but surprisingly despite the advertising strategy that this is an interchangeable, quintessential Seth Rogen comedy-- this is not exactly the type of film of which it’s possible to quickly observe and report, much to the shock of basically everyone exiting the theatre at our recent press screening.

While of course it’s great to be challenged and you have to admire writer/director Jody Hill’s courage to go to the extreme right from its start—I must say that my puzzled reaction hasn’t gone away as only a few days later, I’m still stunned.

For, who would have thought that—similar to some of the more arty fare I’ve taken in this past week at our local Phoenix Film Festival—Seth Rogen’s newest comedy would be this hard to pinpoint? Definitely not this reviewer, that’s for sure.

Yet it was as wildly unpredictable and filled with mood swings as its bipolar disorder afflicted main character as for nearly the first hour, Observe and Report is essentially fall-out-of-your-seat-funny (despite a few rough jolts from left field). However, during its overly long and unspeakably grim finale, it loses the funny in favor of Kubrickian madness as it turns wickedly dark, mean-spirited, overly violent, and bizarrely twisted in its tone to match our lead character’s pursuits following a major disappointment and decision to pull himself off of his required medication.

For, although it's the second film this year to take a look at mall security guards following actor Kevin James’ family-friendly surprise early ’09 hit Paul Blart: Mall Cop-- there is no mistaking Observe and Report for Blart no matter how similar they may appear on the surface.

Additionally, nor is it easy to lump it together with Seth Rogen’s most recent Apatow and post-Apatow box office fare that’s found the extremely busy, incredibly gifted young comical star lending his voice to animated works including Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who, Kung Fu Panda, and Monsters vs. Aliens as well as keeping up appearances as our favorite post-Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell slacker in Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri, and others.

And the reason for this can be summed up in two words or one name-- Jody Hill. Having garnered a cult following and fans in Will Ferrell and Adam McKay who helped bring his debut film The Foot Fist Way into the mainstream, Hill decided that for his follow-up effort which found him backed by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures (the same duo that brought us The Dark Knight and Watchmen), he would avoid as the press release notes “’winking’ at the audience.”

As producer Donald De Line shares in recollection of his earliest meeting with Hill at Sundance which screened The Foot Fist Way, Jody Hill “really wanted to push the envelope... [and] to do something that didn't fit into any one box,” with a film that “pushes the boundaries of what a ‘Hollywood comedy’ is supposed to be. There’s no self-consciousness, no sense of parody about [Observe and Report].”

To achieve what Jody Hill called his goal, “to make films that are dangerous and controversial, even if they offend some people,” he sought inspiration for this work which he wrote with Rogen in mind from one of his favorite films-- Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Wholeheartedly confessing that Observe and Report may in fact “be the only comedy ever made that was inspired by” the film that screenwriter Paul Schrader discussed on its Special Edition DVD as being about “a certain breed of white boy,” who isolates himself-- Jody Hill took the idea of a peculiar lead character who is “in a position of power but... [doesn’t] know how to deal with" it to form the basis of the plot.

Similar to Robert De Niro's character Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Seth Rogen’s character Ronnie Barnhardt is cut off from reality and filled with dangerous delusions of grandeur coupled with a hero complex (or more precisely, an antihero one).

After a flasher starts terrorizing women in the parking lot of his domain—Forest Ridge Mall—the self-important head of the mall security department decides to treat bringing down the exhibitionist “as his call to arms, to greatness.”

Taking it upon himself to throw together a special elite task force that consists of his sycophantic right hand man Dennis (Michael Pena), two gun-obsessed Asian twins (John and Matt Yuan) in addition to a youthful mall security wannabe employed at a mall restaurant—the stakes for Ronnie’s “case” which he likens to something out of King Arthur are raised when the flasher targets his cosmetic counter dream girl, Brandi (Anna Faris).

Having tried to avoid the admittedly creepy and obsessive Ronnie at all costs, the bimbo party girl Brandi becomes yet one other obstacle for Ronnie as he tries to compete against the real police, headed up by hard-nosed Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) when Harrison flirts with and stares a tad too long at Ronnie’s crush.

Instead of working with the police, Ronnie irrationally sees them as his enemy in a strange figurative pissing contest as he tries his hardest to nail not only the perverted perpetrator but a mall robber after the shoe store gets raided during the night. Wasting Harrison’s time by endlessly pointing his racist finger at anyone and everyone including a Middle Eastern employee and a Spanish speaking janitor—when Harrison finally snaps and tells Ronnie that he’d never be able to be an actual cop and should stick to his job assignment to observe and report, Ronnie decides to try and join the local police force.

While it doesn’t take a genius to predict how well that’s going to work as the aggressive and hostile Ronnie engages in one of the most terrifying psychological screenings ever, it’s about this time that Hill drops an endless amount of razorblades into the film that you can only liken to Halloween candy as it deceptively starts like a run-of-the-mill Rogen comedy until the blood begins to let and gush like a horror movie.

While Hill tries to include some brighter spots including a likable but awkward possible flirtation between Ronnie and the sweet born-again-virgin Christian Nell (Collette Wolfe) who always gives him free coffee despite his unwillingness to realize her interest and the film’s greatest scene-stealer in his perpetually drunk, promiscuous, and blunt mother (Celia Weston), much like the funny but ultimately cringe-inducing Foot Fist Way, soon the far-darker yet still cinematically superior Observe and Report takes you into some very uncomfortable places.

These include some ridiculous hard drug use that makes absolutely no sense for the characters, senseless beating of children in the head with skateboards, and a scene that initially looks like a date-rape although the female character who has partied herself into a near coma is given one gross out moment and a line added to prevent us from walking out in the hopes we’ll assume it’s a lucid and consentual encounter (for the record, women still see right through it).

Decidedly, Hill adheres to his own vision for the work 100%-- critics, audience members, and everyone involved be damned-- in a way that definitely takes guts to use your first shot at a big studio film and not play it safe but instead to go all out in a movie that even Rogen admits contains “some shocking stuff” (this from a guy who starred in Zack and Miri and Knocked Up). Despite this, Rogen continues to share his admiration for Hill’s emphasis on “character study.”

While more often than not, I found myself laughing—especially in every scene involving Weston who proves she has the surprise comedic chops that Mary Steenburgen had in Step Brothers—and I enjoyed the concept of irresponsible characters who take their small amount of authority and go wild with it similar to David Brent or Michael Scott in both the BBC and NBC versions of The Office. However, it’s one that I still have a hard time recommending wholeheartedly since there’s just so much about the film that pushes you away to the point that you realize there’s very little about Ronnie's Observe and Report universe to like.

Still, worth it in the end for Rogen fans as he proves his deftness this time as an actor and—coming off the heels of Crossing Over—it’s great to see Ray Liotta return to the comedic territory he aced in Heartbreakers since as producer De Line correctly reveals, “just saying Ray Liotta versus Seth Rogen made everybody laugh.”

Unfortunately, I wish I could say that the film did a better job of consistently doing just that instead of going out of its way to shock and repulse by having had Hill go back and watch his favorite director Scorsese’s ability to move in and out of peril and hysteria sometimes in the same scene (i.e. Liotta’s work in GoodFellas).

Since—much to Hill’s credit—he really had us involved from the get-go in the film’s successful beginning until he began to shove. The pushes were made gently at first more in the realm of the dark humor of the Coen Brothers until we were soon overwhelmingly black and blue, making one realize that Hill’s script could’ve benefited from the way Scorsese has always managed to make us empathize with people whom we probably would avoid in real life in lieu of the rogue gallery of walking restraining order like kooks served up in Observe and Report.

Or, to go a much more lowbrow route, by taking another look at some of the films made with Seth Rogen and realizing that the strength of all of them—even when we’re sickened by some of the visuals is that deep down, there’s a heart buried beneath all of the f-bombs with which we’re far more willing to observe and report with pleasure.

The Foot Fist Way

In the words of Fred Simmons, “Jujitsu sucks”; it’s
time for Tae Kwon Do, or more appropriately
its translation, “Foot Fist Way.”

How does one begin to describe Fred Simmons (played by Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express scene stealer Danny McBride)? From the highbrow evaluation of the man as “the type of blustery, provincial narcissist who is always putting his foot in his mouth and absolutely loving how it tastes,” as Nathan Lee offered in The New York Times to the more straightforward call-it-like-he-sees-it approach offered by Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers who sums him up in two words — “loudmouthed bully” — there’s no way of getting around the fact that McBride and his co-writers Ben Best and Jody Hill have created one unforgettable character in their film The Foot Fist Way.

In my eyes (and I'm sure I'm not alone), he’s the white trash version of Ricky Gervais’ character David Brent from BBC’s The Office. In fact, had Brent been not only real but had a twin from whom he was separated at birth — I’d lay odds on the fact that it would be none other than Fred Simmons.

The self-centered Tae Kwon Do instructor with delusions of grandeur runs a low-level suburban studio and recruits students as “The King of the Demo” in local North Carolina parking lots along with his sycophantic youthful sidekicks Julio (Spencer Moreno) and Henry Harrison (Carlos Lopez). Moreover, Simmons spends most of his time acting in ways that would give Miss Manners a heart attack. With virtually no filter from his head to his mouth, he is also prone — like David Brent — to making extremely unethical and unprofessional requests and comments of and to his students. Whether it’s nearly sending an elderly lady to the morgue after instructing a young man to come at her with all he has since he questions Simmons’ methods, wailing on children, telling one gentleman who balks at the prices that he’s fat and feminine or blaming his sidekicks when he messes up in his routine by addressing their lack of confidence, Simmons is — much like David Brent — the boss from hell still clinging to a championship title won in Vegas years earlier.

After he’s cheated on by his bimbo wife Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic), a woman who defends granting sexual favors to fit in by saying she was as "Myrtle Beach drunk" as their beach-like home décor, Simmons goes off the deep end. And although anyone with half a brain saw the Suzie debacle coming a mile away as she’s fond of wearing skin tight leotards and off the shoulder Flashdance apparel to church, photocopying her “naughty bits” at work and making a ranked list of coworkers who would be the most likely to freak out and go on a shooting spree, we quickly realize that mate-wise, she’s probably the best a guy like Simmons could do.

But that doesn’t prevent him from attempting to play the field such as in an excruciatingly Office-like scene wherein he comes on to one young woman (in a manner similar to Brent) by saying that since he already has all of her personal information like phone number and address, there’s no real need to go through the “weird schematics” of actually asking her out. However, what he fails to realize is that perhaps it wasn’t the biggest turn-on that the married Simmons was the very same man who freaked her into signing up for lessons by discussing that her admiration of yoga and meditation never saved “anyone from a gang rape type situation.”

The film, which is divided up into the admirable, selfless, and peaceful tenets of Tae Kwon Do (which translates literally to “foot fist way”) has loads of fun showing the irony of a man like Simmons who embodies the polar opposite of his teachings. The film is beyond hilarious and even far more so than Napoleon Dynamite, the film to which it’s most likely compared. Yet for roughly the first half, once other subplots begin to overpower the madness of David Brent… er, I mean Fred Simmons and he takes to the road with his intense and possibly psychotic friend Mike (director Jody Hill) to meet their idol, Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (a hilarious Ben Best playing a Chuck Norris/Steven Seagal hybrid), the film loses some of its momentum.

Far better off when it was a martial arts styled version of The Office than as an impromptu road film, the last twenty minutes falls into intense mediocrity during a horrifically vulgar tell-off to Suzie as Simmons literally pisses away their relationship through a superfluous contest montage between Simmons and The Truck. Then — making one rank Dynamite above it for its more consistently funny tone — Foot at least refuses to go out without a fight. Serving up some truly quotable lines—especially from The Truck who makes strange propositions like “Who wants me to see me with my shirt off?” and confronts Simmons’ group with “you think it’s cool to just come into my party and beat up the band?” before admitting that he himself finds it awesome, it will be the type of film to gain even greater cult status when it kicks DVD shelves on September 23.

Proudly using Roger Ebert’s assessment that “children should not be allowed with a mile of this film,” as a selling point in a sticker on the box, the underground, cult comedy hit The Foot Fist Way -- made “for two cents” and “shot in 19 days” — has made its long journey from the Los Angeles Film Festival to theatrical release and DVD distribution thanks to the ardent support of two die-hard fans, namely Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. Their love for the film is so resolute that it’s even the major narrative thread running throughout the hysterical green band version of the film’s trailer they posted on their rousingly hilarious and irreverent website Funny or Die (a.k.a. the more consistently comedic answer to YouTube) that you can see below.

View the Trailer

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

While it will be widely available for rental, director Jody Hill’s movie from Paramount Vantage and MTV Films will be exclusively for sale at Best Buy. Loaded with bonus footage that salvages some of its weaknesses including commentary by Hill and McBride, bloopers, English, French and Spanish subtitles, and 5.1 surround sound, the widescreen DVD also provides twenty extended and/or deleted scenes and an alternate ending for Simmons’ devotees to explore.

While it’s uneven at best, when the film works, it really works, sending you into hysterics by the frankly matter-of-fact and deadpan delivery by a scarily convincing McBride who elevates this film and makes quite a name for himself, leading to future work alongside some of Hollywood’s funniest men in Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express. Although David Brent would be green with envy, no doubt Fred Simmons is proud to keep kicking ass to a much larger audience who will eagerly seek out this little indie that could.