Sweet Karma - Canada - Directed by Andrew Thomas Hunt
Synopsis: A mute goes on a quest for vengeance when her sister ends up missing as a prostitute for the Russian mob.
I've seen movies at Fantastic Fest that I've disliked much more than Sweet Karma, but I've never seen one I thought felt more out-of-place at the festival than this one. I must've be spoiled by the over-the-top exploitation vibe of the fest, because I kept waiting for Karma, the title character, to go really nuts, delivering a huge, splattery mess of revenge that never happens.
Sweet Karma is a grimy, modest film with just enough strippers, nudity, prostitution, rape, and mobsters to make it marginally more gritty than something you'd catch in the 1990's on pay cable in the middle of the night. The sleazy sexuality outweighs the violence, which is a problem if you're trying to make a revenge movie. Hunt's more confident when he's shooting something titillating, and it keeps Sweet Karma more than a little unsatisfying.
Private Eye - South Korea - Directed by Park Dae-Min
Synopsis: A private investigator and a young medical student end up in over their heads as they uncover a series of murders.
Boyish director Park Dae-Min seemed really happy with the Fantastic Fest audience reaction to his first feature. He has every right to smile--Private Eye is a solid piece of who-done-it storytelling. It's a continuation of South Korean filmmaking trends, where our friends from the East are making Western-style films that deliver the goods. It's pure, old-fashioned movie-making, unfettered from the needs of the American corporate studio system to cross-promote and co-brand.
The lead actors, Jeon-Min Hwang and Dal-Su Oh, are fantastic. They've created a crime-fighting duo that bears the influence of Holmes and Watson, while remaining refreshing. I want more of these two. Park Dae-Min didn't rule out the idea of a sequel. I told him I wanted more than that--Private Eye III and IV, please. Keep 'em coming. If the sequels are as good as this debut, we'll have a couple of new iconic film detectives on our hand. If this sounds interesting to you at all, please check out Moises' review as well. I'm having a hard time here articulating what makes Private Eye work so well, other than to say that it's an exceptionally well-made movie.
Merantau - Indonesia - Directed by Gareth Evans
Synopsis: A spiritual quest, called merantau, leads a young man trained in Silat into opposition with a human trafficking ring.
I usually avoid the martial arts films at Fantastic Fest, for no real reason than I find they're all of a certain quality. At a festival, I go for the bigger gambles--I'd rather take a chance on something that isn't as predictably entertaining as most martial arts films. After Merantau got a lot of buzz after its first screening, I decided to go ahead and take in a showing and see what all the fuss was about.
Mainly, that fuss is about Iko Uwais, and how much of an incredible bad-ass he is. Merantau's story--goody-goody country boy helps a stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold and her orphan brother--is remarkably pedestrian, but, ohmygod, Iko Uwais is amazing. He's deceptively boring as an actor, adequate but not exciting. Once he starts fighting, however, you can not take your eyes off the man. He's fluid and brutal, and the fights are choreographed into long, unrelenting sequences where he takes on opponent after opponent without stopping for one breath.
I think there's a better movie than Merantau awaiting Uwais in his future, but for fans of martial arts, Merantua may very well become a minor classic because it introduces such a major new talent.
The Revenant - USA - Directed by D. Kerry Prior
Synopsis: A dead soldier returns to life as a zombie, but he'll need his best friend to help him stay undead, by furnishing him with plenty of fresh human blood.
I sort of, almost, really like The Revenant. It's a worthy zombie comedy, with an unusual take on the typical alpha male buddy movie. The undead vet, Bart (David Anders), decides to choose his victims with the mis-placed authority of a street vigilante, but his friend Joey's (Chris Wylde) reasons for helping Bart may have less to do with Bart, and more to do with Joey being a chronic thrill-seeker.
The Revenant has a lot going for it. It's funny and gross, it's well-shot and well-acted for a low-budget indie, and it's legitimately weird. The downside is that The Revenant features too much of a good thing--it's a shaggy movie, that often shambles like a zombie through too many repetitive scenes of Bart's street justice and constant feeding.
At the fest, Prior confessed that the film had yet to find distribution. That's a shame, because he's made a slickly professional film that horror fans are really going to dig. I'm hoping he can tighten it up (please, please, please lose the nonsensical, poorly green-screened subway shootout), and get The Revenant into fighting shape so that it can garner distribution. Festival reaction to the film has been strong, and I have no doubt that The Revenant will find a home soon.
Daybreakers - Australia - Directed by The Spierig Brothers
Synopsis: In a society controlled by vampires, a hematologist bucks the authority of the corporation he works for to help a small group of humans develop a cure of vampirism.
I can say this about the Spierig Brothers--they know how to make a fantastic B-movie. Daybreakers is a no-frills excursion into a fascinating, horrific vision of the future, filled with interesting concepts and lean action, and, man, this thing is lean. Daybreakers sets up its world and the conflict in the blink of an eye, then wham-bam-thank-you-Sam (Neill, that is, playing the villain) and it's all over.
Breathlessly paced, it's easily the most satisfying vampire film of its kind since Blade, zooming along so quickly that you barely have time to consider any plot holes caused by the movie's undercooked psuedo-science or timeline. That's the trick with B-movies, distract the audience with just enough cleverness to keep them from noticing that almost all of the thrills are visceral in nature. I can't complain much about a movie this efficient--a near perfect peanut butter-in-my-chocolate junk food blend of action and horror.