Agent Dale Cooper's Horrific Version Of The Odyssey: How David Lynch Thrilled And Disappointed Twin Peaks Fans!

The Good: Most of the acting, A lot of good direction, Moments of engaging plot, Basic concept
The Bad: The end (seriously, way to piss on your legacy, David Lynch!), Drifts and tangents that go nowhere, More information undermines the strong concept . . .
The Basics: Twin Peaks returns for a long-awaited third season to bore, confuse, delight and ultimately infuriate the fans of the beloved, surreal series.


I admire an ambitious concept. I truly do. And it is hard to argue anything other than the idea that David Lynch is one of the reigning masters of ambitious concepts. David Lynch has a long history of making television shows and movies that demand attentive, engaged viewers. So, when David Lynch publicly confirmed that Twin Peaks would be returning to television for a third season - after being off the air for more than twenty-five years, the reactions of the die-hard fans was more of an indifferent, "we know; you told us it would be back around this time in the last episode!" than the enthusiasm some might have anticipated.

The third season of Twin Peaks, somewhat commonly known as Twin Peaks: The Return because all of the episodes were called "The Return Part X," was an ambitious concept and David Lynch met a number of serious challenges in executing the season that he had more than twenty years to conceive and tinker with. At its core, Lynch described the new season of Twin Peaks as The Odyssey for Agent Dale Cooper and it was widely reported before even the first episode aired that Lynch wrote the entire series as one massive script and then broke the story up into the episodes. That is an ambitious idea . . . and it shows in the execution of Twin Peaks Season Three. In fact, the episodes themselves often hold up much poorer as individual episodes than the season holds up; the sheer volume of detail and callbacks throughout the eighteen-episode third season of Twin Peaks virtually begs for a single binge viewing by an audience that is alert, engaged, and able to handle a lot of screaming.

Conceptually, David Lynch had a Herculean task in creating a third season of Twin Peaks. Since the very end of the original Twin Peaks (reviewed here!), viewers who invested in the concept of the show had plenty of time to accept the sad reality of the show's protagonist. Agent Dale Cooper was trapped within the ethereal abode of evil known as The Black Lodge, while a doppelganger of him - possessed by the ultimate evil entity Bob - was free on Earth. Within (what used to be) the series finale, Agent Dale Cooper was told that he would be trapped in the Black Lodge for twenty-five years. The thing is, for all of its faults, the second season of Twin Peaks was constructed pretty solidly in terms of its lore about the Black Lodge and some of the concepts pertaining to it. The Black Lodge was not, in the original Twin Peaks simply a place; it was a place that existed in physical reality only in specific times. So, right off the bat, David Lynch was somewhat hamstrung by his own concept; given all of the established information of the original Twin Peaks, saving F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper should have been a matter of his doppelganger being returned to the right place and time to push him back into the Black Lodge and Agent Cooper escaping at that time.

There is, alas, not much of a television show in that. So, David Lynch threw out his own book; in the new rendition of Twin Peaks portals are all over the fucking place. In fact, from the moment Agent Dale Cooper manages to escape the Black Lodge through one of the many, many other exits that manifest, the attentive viewer has to ask, "Why the hell did Dale Cooper wait twenty-five years to leave through one of these other exits?!"

Twin Peaks Season Three picks up with Agent Dale Cooper right where Season Two left off. Dale Cooper is in the Black Lodge and the twenty-five years have passed and he has aged. He encounters Phillip Gerard (the one armed man) and The Arm, who encourage him to take an alternate route out of the Black Lodge, noting that Dale Cooper's doppelganger did not return to the Black Lodge. Bob, still in Cooper, has become a crime lord who is doing everything he can to avoid returning to the Black Lodge and he has managed to avoid his old friends from the F.B.I. by using a laptop from a long-missing agent. When Agent Cooper manages to make it to our plane of existence, Cooper is in a car accident and incarcerated, which puts him on the radar of F.B.I. Deputy Director Gordon Cole, Agent Albert Rosenfield and their protege, Agent Tammy Preston.

Dale Cooper, however, has not managed to simply return to our plane of existence. He is insensate in the body of Dougie Jones, who has a wife, son, prostitute and gambling problem. In Jones's body, Cooper is deposited at a casino in Las Vegas where he wins a lot of money by following stimuli from the Black Lodge. While Dougie's wife, Jane, strong-arms Doug's debtors, Dougie is sent back to work at an insurance company where Dale Cooper manages to point out insurance irregularities to his boss and get on surprisingly good terms with the mobsters who run the casino. While Dougie is hunted by assassins hired by Cooper, Cooper manages to get released from prison, survive one of his compatriots attempting to assassinate him and avoid other attempts to get dragged back into the Black Lodge using technology from that place and ethereal beings who heal him whenever he is mortally wounded.

While Agent Cooper slowly asserts himself and Cooper cuts a swath of carnage across the U.S., Rosenfield and Cole enlist Diane to help them figure out just who Cooper is. And in Twin Peaks, Margaret (the Log Lady) sets Deputy Chief Hawk on a search that clues him into the idea that there are two Coopers and that the case of the long-missing F.B.I. agent is soon to be resolved!

The third season of Twin Peaks has its highs and lows, but for the most part it does tell one long, somewhat absurd, story with a bunch of nostalgia-driven tangents thrown in. One of the greatest limitations of the third season of Twin Peaks was that David Lynch had to tailor the story around the actors who were still alive, still acting, and still interested in participating. To his credit, Lynch got actor Everett McGill to come out of retirement to play Big Ed Hurley again. It's nice, it's very Twin Peaks and, sadly, it is entirely unnecessary.

Unfortunately, Michael Ontkean could not be persuaded to return to Twin Peaks for the revival. Within the narrative of the third season of Twin Peaks, Ontkean's absence as Sheriff Harry Truman is explained and not prohibitively conspicuous (there is a lot going on in the season!), but for fans of Twin Peaks, Lynch pushing the project along without his participation becomes a tonal unforgivable sin. One need not rewatch much of the original Twin Peaks at all to see that the lifeblood relationship of the series was the one between Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry S. Truman. They had a relationship built on mutual respect, professionalism and a shared desire for the truth that made them bond quickly. Twin Peaks had tons of relationships that were, essentially, soap operatic connections between the characters, but Truman and Cooper had a bromance long before the term was ever coined!

Within the third season of Twin Peaks Sheriff Harry S. Truman's absence is glossed over with medical excuses delivered by his brother, Sheriff Frank Truman, who has taken over the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department. Frank Truman is played quite well by Robert Forster, who manages to be the least-obtrusive new addition to the Twin Peaks cast (for those keeping score, Chrysta Bell breaks out in Twin Peaks Season 3 as Agent Tammy Preston, but David Lynch uses her frequently for window dressing and there are several scenes where Bell seems to be trying desperately not to look like she is a supermodel playing an F.B.I. Agent . . .).

The third season of Twin Peaks is fundamentally two narrative streams - the story of Agent Dale Cooper, Cooper (Bob) and the law enforcement officers that are figuring out the long-cold case of the missing F.B.I. agent (Chief Hawk and Agent Cooper's former F.B.I. colleagues) and a series of nostalgia-driven scenes that pertain to Twin Peaks. Indeed, most of Cooper and Agent Cooper's narrative occurs well outside the Washington state town of Twin Peaks . . . and much of the drama within Twin Peaks has absolutely nothing to do with the dual-Coopers' narrative.

The second narrative track includes scenes with Norma Jennings (who is franchising the RR Diner), Shelly (who is still working at the RR Diner and has a troubled daughter), (former) Dr. Jacoby doing a podcast, Nadine Hurley listening to that podcast, and (eventually) Audrey Horne popping up to indicate that she suffered a psychotic break. There is a high nostalgia aspect to the Twin Peaks scenes involving the cast from the original - Norma Jennings has an opportunity, she changes her mind, she and Big Ed get a delightful happy ending, it's cute to see and it offers some minor catharsis for two characters who did not spend a lot of time at the narrative forefront of the original Twin Peaks. Similarly cute is the lone appearance of Andy and Lucy's son, who was named after the bird who witnessed Laura Palmer's murder and provided the sheriff's clues. The scene with Wally is dull as hell, but hardcore fans will find it cute that Lucy and Andy named their kid after the bird. Ironically, Jerry Horne being lost in the woods plays into the main narrative more directly than almost all of the other tangent storylines.

And the nostalgia storylines are not all thrilling or happy. Shelly and Bobby had a relationship, it burnt out, and they now have a cocaine-abusing daughter who shoots up a door. Shelly and Bobby's daughter is a distant tangent storyline that gets dropped mid-season as it appears part of Cooper's agenda is keeping drugs flowing into Twin Peaks High School, but that fizzles out after Cooper is captured in South Dakota. Those who love Audrey Horne will be excited when she eventually pops up in the narrative . . . until they follow the clues back and realize that after leaving the Black Lodge, Cooper raped Audrey while she was in a coma following the bank explosion and the ass hole hellion who has been running around killing people and beating up others, Richard Horne, is her son and she likely went crazy as a result of that abuse.

To the credit of David Lynch, Twin Peaks Season Three contains some explanations for the evil in the woods in the form of nightmarish, surreal divergent scenes that show how the entities from another place interacted with the Earth, seeding both Bob and Laura Palmer into the mix. Also to Lynch's credit, if he was going to break his own wheel, his cheats were pretty clever. Phillip Gerard prepared for the battle between Dale Cooper and Cooper, seeding manufactured people like Doug Jones (and another, far more spoilerific one) onto Earth to be a part of Agent Cooper's escape hatch. The second doppelganger gets explained, but the Doug Jones storyline is initially irritating, especially given that Jane Jones does not seem to stop to notice what the audience immediately observes; that Doug is simply repeating the last thing said to him. Lynch even insinuates that there is another person attempting to leave one of the alternate realities the same way that Agent Cooper is (i.e. by using a back door from The Other Place and replacing a manufactured doppelganger already on Earth), in the form of a prisoner at the Twin Peaks jail who exhibits the same repeating trait as Doug Jones. But, like so very many plots in the third season of Twin Peaks, that is not actually resolved and is unceremoniously dropped before the end of the series.

The third season of Twin Peaks is an investment for fans of Twin Peaks. So little of the third season occurs within Twin Peaks that viewers have to watch a lot of the season and take on faith that the show is going somewhere. Twin Peaks Season Three meanders, but it does return to Agent Cooper and his struggle to return to Earth after twenty-five years sitting on his ass in another dimension. The faith viewers place in David Lynch is justified in the seventeenth episode of the season . . .

. . . and then utterly shat upon in the season finale. Without any spoilers, Twin Peaks Season Three climaxes an episode before its end. The final episode of the series proves in the first few moments what most viewers will easily suspect coming out of the prior episode and then it turns the entire series upside down. And not in a good way. David Lynch had an audacious storyline for the third season of Twin Peaks, but its resolution is one of the most insanely conceived, poorly-executed finales that one immediately suspects will be one of the episodes fans of Twin Peaks watch the least. Seriously, watch up to the end of the seventeenth episode and you'll be happy. If you have a hankering to watch the final episode, go back and watch the second season episode of Twin Peaks with the "Miss Twin Peaks" Pageant. You might say, geh! This is terrible; whatever is in the eighteenth episode of the third season of Twin Peaks cannot possibly be this bad. You would be wrong. It's like David Lynch said to himself, "I hate every one of my fans and I want to not just undermine my classic Twin Peaks, I want people to think of how I end this season and make it hard for them to ever want to watch any part of the series again." Yeah, the end of the third season of Twin Peaks was enough to drag the entire season rating down by at least a point. Why? Because a season review is about how the whole story holds together and what it does and says. With one episode, David Lynch makes the viewer forget about the annoying, surreal tangents, the mysticism, the pointless added characters, the beloved classic characters, the essential struggle between good and evil, the delightful quirks of Twin Peaks and just get a sour taste in the mouth and a headache that cannot be cured by coffee and cherry pie.

All that said, Kyle MacLachlan is amazing in the third season of Twin Peaks. Straddling three roles with an effortless quality, MacLachlan makes viewers care about Agent Cooper once again and feel genuine emotions for him. When MacLachlan plays Dougie needing to go to the bathroom (having forgotten such basic things), it is painful to watch - expertly performed by the actor. Similarly, MacLachlan manages to make Cooper a stone-cold villain that raises the level of tension every time he appears on screen.

The supporting cast of Twin Peaks Season Three is good, but the highest praise should be reserved for the late Miguel Ferrer. Ferrer plays Albert Rosenfield and the magic of his performance is that Albert has mellowed considerably over the twenty-five years, but Ferrer plays him in a way that the viewer never once doubts they are watching Albert at work. Given that an acerbic quality and angry deliveries were the hallmark of Albert in the original Twin Peaks, it is no small feat to reinvent the portrayal of the character and make him feel like the same old guy!

Fans of Twin Peaks who were waiting for the event to be complete and for a final analysis before watching will want the bottom line. It is this: Binge watch the third season of Twin Peaks. Find one day you can devote to it, watch episodes one through seventeen and stop there. The event is worth it . . . up to a point and David Lynch rather politely gave a clear point where the season stops being worth watching.

For a better idea of exactly what this season entails, please check out my reviews of the specific episodes at:
"The Return Part 1"
"The Return Part 2"
"The Return Part 3"
"The Return Part 4"
"The Return Part 5"
"The Return Part 6"
"The Return Part 7"
"The Return Part 8"
"The Return Part 9"
"The Return Part 10"
"The Return Part 11"
"The Return Part 12"
"The Return Part 13"
"The Return Part 14"
"The Return Part 15"
"The Return Part 16"
"The Return Part 17"
"The Return Part 18"

6/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Audrey Horne Returns!!!!!!!! "The Return Part 12" Brings Back A Twin Peaks Favorite!

The Good: Audrey Horne returns, Character development, Good performances, Plot threads are decent, Surprisingly funny, Ties together a number of previously incongruent moments
The Bad: One or two bits that still feel pointless and disconnected.
The Basics: "The Return Part 12" has most of the past Twin Peaks being smart in an episode that has almost no Kyle MacLachlan!


Twin Peaks returning to television has been a truly mixed blessing. The idea that the show might wrap up the twenty-five year old mystery of "what the hell happened after Agent Cooper was lost in the Black Lodge and Bob, with Cooper's face, made it out into out world" was a compelling one. But the concept has had an execution that is much more crowded than it is direct. Unlike the original Twin Peaks featuring disparate plotlines that did not have anything to do with Laura Palmer's murder, the incongruent elements of the new Twin Peaks seem widely unattached to the main plot. Viewers are further isolated from the original Twin Peaks by the fact that much of the action in the new season of Twin Peaks does not occur within the town of Twin Peaks.

"The Return Part 12" picks up after "The Return Part 11" (reviewed here!) and it continues the story with greater focus on answering the questions about the alternate planes of existence that Dale Cooper disappeared into. "The Return Part 12" takes a long time to get back to Cooper, but there is the sense in many of the scenes leading up to his appearance that people are working toward finding him or understanding what truly happened to him.

At the Mayfair, Gordon, Albert, and Tammy have wine and Albert informs Preston about Project Blue Book's end. Tammy is offered a position on Gordon and Albert's U.F.O.-related task force before Diane heads to the meeting. Diane is deputized by Gordon with the potential that she might learn the truth of what happened to Agent Cooper. In Twin Peaks, Sarah Palmer freaks out at the grocery store, claiming people are coming and in the trailer park, Carl exhibits compassion on one of his residents by releasing him from next month's rent.

Sheriff Truman visits Ben Horne and tells him about his grandson's hit and run. Horne takes financial responsibility for Miriam's treatment and laments his loss of his childhood bicycle. Albert meets with Gordon again and the two try to figure out what Diane is involved in. Cooper's assassins take out the warden. And Audrey takes to task the man who is supposed to find Billy.

"The Return Part 12" has a strong science fiction beginning. Dale Cooper, it turns out, was part of a top secret FBI task force pertaining to the Blue Rose Task Force, an investigatory body looking into U.F.O. cases that were unsatisfactorily investigated during Project Blue Book. Twin Peaks has had a pretty strong fantasy undertone to it when it was not a literal forensics drama or melodramatic soap opera, so the turn into explicit science fiction is an intriguing twist.

The inclusion of Diane into the Blue Rose Task Force seems like a thematic nod back to the Bookhouse Boys in the original Twin Peaks (when Agent Cooper was able to accompany the secret society). Gordon including Diane in the task force seems like a case of "keep your enemies closer," though and Gordon and Albert play it cool with Diane in a way likely to excite fans. It is refreshing when the follow-up scene comes up to see that Gordon and Albert are actually on top of things - especially given how Gordon usually appears like a bumbling moron.

Equally exciting to fans is how Benjamin Horne evolves in "The Return Part 12." Benjamin Horne spent the original Twin Peaks as a schemer, then a man suffering from a nervous breakdown before getting his skull cracked in. Apparently, all that horribleness left Benjamin a better person because in "The Return Part 12," he is contemplative, responsible, and he recognizes the horrible nature of his grandson immediately.

David Lynch takes his time with drawing out his scenes in "The Return Part 12." Gordon's date taking her time to leave is distractingly long. "The Return Part 12" is particularly melancholy for its moment with David Lynch looking sadly at Miguel Ferrer and it would be completely unsurprising if an eventual commentary track reveals that Ferrer told Lynch on the day of shooting this scene that he was ill (Ferrer died only a few months ago, before the first episode of the new Twin Peaks aired). The moment is especially poignant now and it is tough not to watch that portion of the episode and choke up.

But then "The Return Part 12" takes a right turn as Sherilyn Fenn pops back up as Audrey Horne! Fenn is part of a scene that answers a number of questions about previously incongruent elements in the new Twin Peaks season and fills in huge gaps in Horne's story. Fenn leaps upon playing the adult Audrey in a compelling way that still has the sarcasm and anger of the young woman she once played and the odd balance of dramatically advancing and maintaining the character is expertly handled by Fenn.

"The Return Part 12" finds just the right balance between answering questions and raising new one, progressing the story and continuing the mysterious feel. While there are still elements of the new Twin Peaks that feel forced for their weirdness - the exit of Gordon's mistress standing right out - most of the episode works incredibly well and fleshes out the story magnificently.

For other works with Grace Zabriskie, please visit my reviews of:
Santa Clarita Diet - Season 1
The Judge
The Grudge
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
Twin Peaks

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Twin Peaks - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the temporally displaced season of the surreal show here!
Thanks!]

9.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Twin Peaks At The Midpoint: "The Return Part 9"

The Good: Good performances, Moments when the plot moves forward
The Bad: The episode itself has very little actual plot, No thematic development, Continues to prioritize mood over sensible story and character development.
The Basics: "The Return Part 9" moves characters within Twin Peaks toward understanding what happened to Major Briggs and Agent Cooper . . . even if very little actually occurs within the episode.


One of the tough aspects of considering something that is considered a cult classic is that the overall body of work often overshadows the blemishes, speedbumps and absolute dogs of a work. To wit, Twin Peaks has a somewhat legendary status in the annals of modern television, but objectively viewed, the second season of the show (reviewed here!) had a long stretch between the identity of Laura Palmer's killer being revealed and the final arc with the Black Lodge filled with episodes that were just turds. There are few people who would stand in defense of the plotline surrounding Nadine getting amnesia or Lucy having the relationship with the pretentious jagweed who came to town. The whole Miss Twin Peaks contest was a long trainwreck up until the actual event, which became the important pretext for Earl Windham to abduct Anne and put him on a collision course with Agent Cooper. My point is that Twin Peaks had some real dogs and it is hard to go back to Twin Peaks after enduring one of the terrible episodes. "The Return Part 8" was a horrible episode and it made it very hard to want to sit down to "The Return Part 9."

"The Return Part 9" picks up after the one concrete plot element of "The Return Part 8" (reviewed here!), which was the newly-escaped Dale Cooper driving away from the jail with Ray, then getting shot by Ray. After that, the episode descended into a surreal nightmare that seemed to vaguely explain how Bob was manifested on Earth and how Laura Palmer was (possibly) divinely conceived. "The Return Part 9" is a lot more literal than its predecessor.

Cooper wanders down the dirt road away from where he was almost killed the night before while Gordon Cole and his team fly back toward Philadelphia. Cole learns about Buckhorn, South Dakota and the case involving Major Garland Briggs. Rerouting the plane to meet with Lieutenant Knox in Buckhorn, Cole learns that Cooper has escaped the prison. Cooper restocks his arsenal and tasks Gary and Chantel with killing Warden Murphy. In Las Vegas, the police interrogate Dougie's boss before Dougie and Janey leave and the police are stymied to find that prior to 1997, Dougie Jones does not appear to have any records at all. They assume that Jones is a part of Witness Protection, but Detective Fusco (D. Fusco, as it turns out, all the Detectives are named Fusco) uses Dougie's obsession with coffee as a chance to get a set of prints and attempt to get a DNA sample.

The police capture Ike and arrest him for attempted murder. Meanwhile in Twin Peaks, Hawk, Truman and Briggs visit Garland Briggs's widow, who informs them of a message from Garland. The Sheriffs are given an artifact from Betty. At the morgue in Buckhorn, Cole, Albert, and Preston investigate the headless corpse that is supposed to be Major Briggs. After the coroner shows the trio a ring found in Briggs's stomach, Cole insists on speaking to William Hastings - the man accused of beheading Briggs. In Twin Peaks, Bobby shows the sheriffs how to open the device left by Garland and inside it is a map and directions and times. Preston learns from Hastings that Hastings went to an alternate dimension where he met with Major Briggs and she is surprised when Hastings correctly identifies Briggs from a photo array.

Despite being generally more straightforward than "The Return Part 8," "The Return Part 9" feels very much like Twin Peaks as it stops the primary narrative in its tracks to include a scene that features Lucy and Andy arguing about which chair they are going to buy for their house. And David Lynch includes a scene where Dougie simply stares at a wall and the American flag for about a minute. Fans will understand that the angles of the stripes and the red of the woman's shoes when she walks by are reminding Agent Cooper in Dougie's body of the Black Lodge, but within the episode that is not at all clear.

"The Return Part 9" is nice in that the characters people recognize from Twin Peaks actually begin to progress . . . even if some of the direction is very much the result of exposition. Bobby Briggs is told that his father saw him becoming a Deputy, even though he was nowhere near that place when Twin Peaks ended twenty-five years ago. Johnny Horne pops back up for random screaming and running into a wall and Jerry shows up long enough to fight with his own foot, but the idea that people are tuned into the alternate realities that exist in Twin Peaks is refreshing to see. In fact, "The Return Part 9" might be the most time in an episode spent to date featuring law enforcement officials actually investigating Agent Cooper and Major Briggs's disappearances. Briggs foresaw events and managed to leave messages that only Bobby would understand, which is pretty cool. Finally, viewers are being rewarded with the idea that someone knew when and where to be to try to rescue Agent Cooper from the Black Lodge.

The new characters begin to get some additional layers as well. Diane got a text message from Cooper and Agent Preston is clearly very intimidated by Diane. Chrysta Bell has a weird role so far in Twin Peaks, but "The Return Part 9" gives her a chance to shine as Preston. After playing the role with very uncomfortable body language, Bell is given the chance to play very serious when Preston interrogates Hastings. It is in "The Return Part 9" that Bell is given a satisfactory opportunity to make Preston seem like a credible FBI agent in a way that she simply was not given enough opportunity before.

"The Return Part 9" is another star-studded episode of Twin Peaks that manages to get big actors for comparatively minor roles. Tim Roth has a brief appearance as Gary, an employee of Cooper's in his illegal dealings. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Chantel and Lynch keeps the camera at such a distance that she is barely able to be recognized! Ashley Judd returns to the narrative as Beverly Paige for pretty much a "blink and you miss it" role. Matthew Lillard returns finally as William Hastings and Lillard is actually wonderfully credible playing Hastings as a sad sack.

"The Return Part 9" finally starts to shift the burden in Twin Peaks from re-establishing the characters and settings (which the first several episodes did very poorly) to trying to tie it all together better. So, Benjamin Horne has a scene that feels remarkably soap operatic, but given that there are now firm times and places in Twin Peaks where actions are about to happen - thanks to Garland's note - the viewer is left with the reasonable assumption that the sound Horne and Paige hear at the Great Northern Lodge is somehow tied to what is coming. Unlike the original run of Twin Peaks, the revival does not seem to be developing several storylines - there is not, for example, the contrived plots involving ownership of the saw mill that had nothing to do with Laura Palmer's murder. Instead, there are extremely disparate locations, but everything seems to be building toward one plot surrounding Agent Cooper and his exodus from the Black Lodge.

Ultimately, "The Return Part 9" does what it can to redeem the mess that was the prior episode, but it feels very much like interstitial tissue. Very little actually happens and there is truly nothing about the episode that stands out. When considering "The Return Part 9," I realized for the first time how much the new season of Twin Peaks is hinging on the pay-off. Twin Peaks Season 3 is building toward something. One assumes that Bob's arc is to maintain control of Dale Cooper's body and Dale Cooper's arc will culminate in some attempt to fully escape the Black Lodge and return to life; the long process of getting the two main characters to a resolution will turn on how effectively those character's journies come to a head. But it is in "The Return Part 9" that viewers are likely to feel like the process is slow-going and not compelling enough to fully justify the emotional investment viewers are making. Despite being far better than the prior episode and satisfying in that the pieces are moved on the board, "The Return Part 9" feels very much like what it actually is: a tiny fragment of a story, as opposed to a complete work in and of itself.

For other works with Tim Roth, please visit my reviews of:
Selma
The Incredible Hulk
Dark Water
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Twin Peaks - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the temporally displaced season of the surreal show here!
Thanks!]

4/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Poor Barry Doesn't Quite Fit Anywhere!

The Good: Good performances, Decent direction
The Bad: Tone, Aimless plot, Mediocre characters
The Basics: Barry somewhat vaguely explores the pressures Barack Obama faced as a young man when he moved to New York City to study at Columbia University.


As the sun sets (literally) on the Obama Administration, I realized that I had not watched any of the films (there were at least two released in 2016) based upon the life of Barack Obama. I think I had avoided watching films like Barry before now because I wanted to avoid my instant outrage if the art presented the Barack Obama character as a liberal firebrand (those of us who pay attention to politics knew from the beginning that he was far more of a centrist than a liberal). But, considering that I watched the mockumentary Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie (reviewed here!), I figured I ought to watch something that seriously attempted to present Barack Obama. I went with Barry, which was a Netflix Original Film released about a month ago.

It is important to note that this review is for Barry, as it stands on its own as a film; not the actual life of Barack Obama. As such, any commentary I make regarding this film is based entirely upon what appears in the movie, not anything to do with the actual historical persona of Barack Obama. While Barry might be based upon events in the life of Barack Obama, I make no assumptions as to knowing what aspects are real and what are not; the film is categorized as a drama, not a biography. As such, references from this point on the "Barry" or "Barack Obama" refer to the fictionalized version from the film Barry.

So, when I write that Barry Obama (he only goes by Barack for a single line at the end of the film) was an aimless youth who seemed to bring more conflict into his life than was inherent in his surroundings or in the people he encountered, I mean entirely that the Barry of Barry is so burdened.

In August, 1981, Barry arrives in New York City with a suitcase and a letter from his father, whom he only met once. After spending a night on the street, he tracks down his coke-using, womanizing friend Saleem and shortly thereafter gets squared away at Columbia University. In one of his classes, Barry meets Charlotte, a young woman who is charmed by him and takes him out dancing one night. The two start dating and hanging out to watch political events on television, though Barry makes a point of playing basketball and shopping from street vendors in Harlem.

Barry becomes conflicted when he learns that PJ, a young man he plays basketball with, also goes to Columbia. Soon, Barry finds himself torn between hanging out with Charlotte and learning about how people like PJ grow up in government housing. Barry seems very happy with Charlotte until he brings her to his neighborhood and later accompanies her to a wedding.

If the plot description to Barry seems like it descends into a rather vague, mushy description, such is the problem with the film. Barry is a character study, but the character is plagued by the issues he brings with him and it is hard to invest in the character. Barry is happy with Charlotte and Charlotte accepts him and actually loves him for his charm, intellect, and kindness. Barry, however, seems unwilling to commit because he does not know who he is. Barry makes ethnicity an issue in the relationship in a painfully inorganic way; he feels like he does not fit anywhere, so he makes himself not fit anywhere.

On the plus side, Barry illustrates very well how one's upbringing does not determine their outcome. Barry is aimless and does not know what he wants or what he believes; viewers know that this young man eventually becomes the President Of The United States Of America. While there is an obvious gap of years between the events of Barry and the historical person Barack Obama becomes, Barry is useful in implicitly illustrating that aimless young people can find their way.

Also well-executed in Barry is the acting. Anya Taylor-Joy is a scene-stealer in Barry as Charlotte. Taylor-Joy emotes well - especially in the scenes where her co-star, Devon Terrell plays cool and conflicted - and has moments where she explodes with charm. Jason Mitchell continues to illustrate the range that made him a powerhouse performance in Straight Outta Compton (reviewed here!) as PJ. Mitchell might be relegated to a supporting role, but he makes the most of it, reminding one instantly of a young Terrence Howard with the subtlety of his portrayal of PJ. Avi Nash easily steals the award for "Best Barack Obama Impersonation" in Barry as he effortlessly transitions from his Pakistani-English accent to a flawless impersonation of the future President!

Devon Terrell is good as Barry. Terrell has remarkable physical control to portray Barry in ways that are both new and awkward - characterizing well a youthful, pre-political Barry - and measured. There are moments, especially late in the film, where Terrell sets his jaw and those who have watched Barack Obama in debates will find it instantly familiar.

While Barry features nicely a character who walks into a world surrounded by smoking, drinking, and drugs, the film fails to make him compelling or engaging by the way it neglects the intellectual half of the character's development. There is a single scene, very early on, where Barry is in a class and participates (there is a later scene where Barry is in a lecture and walks out). The viewer is supposed to understand that Barry is smart by the fact that he reads a couple of books, got into Columbia at all, and dismantles the rather facile argument of a militant black street preacher. Barry fails to compellingly illustrate an emotional and intellectual conflict within the character; instead, Barry is characterized as a young man suffering deeply from father issues who applies an ethnic motive to everything he encounters.

That makes for a less compelling or universal narrative and a remarkably unsatisfying character journey for the title character, even if it is presented in a way that delivers a consistent mood of youthful uncertainty in an impressive way.

For other Netflix exclusive films, please check out my reviews of:
Clinical
Spectral
True Memoirs Of An International Assassin
I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House
Mascots
ARQ
XOXO
Tallulah
Special Correspondents
The Fundamentals Of Caring
The Ridiculous 6

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Hunger Matrix Mess: Divergent Is A Poor Amalgamation Of Better Ideas.

The Good: Effects are fine, Most of the acting is convincing-enough
The Bad: Dull plot, Listless characters, Ridiculous setting
The Basics: Despite serious conceptual problems, Divergent is watchable . . . even if it is not very good.


For all of my issues with the film Divergent, which will follow, I wanted to start off with a positive note from the Credit Where Credit Is Due Department. For all of the problems with Divergent, it has singlehandedly revitalized the Teen Fantasy Literature Turned Movie Genre. Since the end of The Twilight Saga (reviewed here!), the genre has been flooded with movies and the only one to reliably continue the trend of making blockbuster films was The Hunger Games (reviewed here!) and its sequel. Despite other films, like Beautiful Creatures (reviewed here!) and the recent Vampire Academy (reviewed here!) film adaptations containing many of the same elements that made earlier teen lit film adaptations successful, none have captured the imagination of their audience – and, more importantly, a broader audience – since then.

Until now, with Divergent.

Only, I am at a loss as to figure out why. Divergent is yet another dystopian future where people live in servitude to an oppressive regime and only teenage characters seem to be able to save the world by trying to topple the oppressors. There’s the obligatory love plotline and everyone in the thing is too damn good looking to live in a world that is otherwise as unclean as the sets and setting demands. But on top of all that, Divergent is just so damn predictable! Anyone who loves film, has seen any films of a similar ilk and has a working brain will be able to call almost all of the direction of Divergent as soon as each new element is introduced. In fact, the only seemingly original aspects of Divergent, which is like The Hunger Games minus the bloodsport, seem heavily lifted from The Matrix (reviewed here!). Yes, the mindwiped, centrally-controlled zombie army that appears in the last act bears a striking resemblance to the concept of the Mr. Smith character (or other Agent characters) from The Matrix. As it always behooves me to, it is worth mentioning that I have not read the book upon which Divergent is based.

Following a great and terrible war that has decimated the human population, the remnants of society are living in the remains of Chicago, which is protected from unnamed threats outside by a massive fence. Inside the city, humans now live under a strict caste system based on a combination of birth and personality (most of the population stays within the caste in which they are born, though everyone has the choice of which caste to join when they come of age). Outside the farming caste and the truthful Candor faction, there are three relevant factions within normal society: the selfless Abnegation faction (who are so giving that they are the only ones who are trusted to run the place, despite there being a caste that is built around unwavering honesty and one has to wonder how the farming group is not considered selfless), the intelligent Erudites, and the Dauntless who are so brave that they are given the job of policing the city and its borders and keeping everyone inside safe (though their entrance into the film is a raucous tribute to parkour, which is hardly a great example of law abiding behavior). Those who flunk out of the tests needed to train in the various Factions end up factionless as the derelicts of society. Those who show multiple aptitudes and refuse to play along with the government’s long con can escape the system and join the rebel Divergent Faction, which seems to be causing trouble, though none is specifically detailed in Divergent. So, that’s the troubling world of Divergent, where apparently the people stop counting to five or they just can’t wrap their heads around the fact that there are, de facto, seven Factions.

Beatrice Prior and her brother have come of age and they are to be tested to determine which Factions they will join. They come from the Abnegation faction, whose leader Marcus is mired in rumors of impropriety that threaten the Faction’s dominance over the other groups. When Beatrice is tested to be sure her aptitude is for the Abnegation caste, her tester is alarmed when she shows aptitudes for multiple Factions. She is a Divergent and her tester warns her not to rock the boat by revealing herself. The next day, the Prior family shocks the assembled population when Beatrice’s brother, Caleb, chooses to join the intellectual Erudites and Beatrice decides she’s going to be a Dauntless. She backs up her first bad decision by volunteering to be the first Dauntless initiate to jump blindly into a pit (which is presented as far less brave and far stupider than one might hope). Befriending Christina and changing her name to Tris, Beatrice joins the Dauntless and discovers it mostly means getting her ass handed to her by a bunch of people who are a lot more aggressive than she is.

Tris endures and she takes tutelage from the mysterious Dauntless trainer, Four, who is older but still age-appropriate to get her thunder rolling. As Tris slowly works her way out of the bottom of the leaderboard to remain in the Dauntless when the training is complete, she gets warnings from Four, her mother, and the leader of the Erudites, Jeanine, who all have an inkling that Tris does not truly belong with the Dauntless. Despite all that, Tris manages to pass her tests. She does so at the exact time that the Erudites finally make their move on the government. Using the Dauntless, who become mind-controlled pawns for the Erudites (believing they are being given a tracker), the society is menaced by Jeanine and her gun-toting thugs. Immune to the programming, Tris, Four, and the small cadre of Abnegation citizens they rescue must overthrow the killers and brilliant people in the city to restore order to society.

Divergent is one of those movies that is not unpleasant to watch, but the more one thinks about it, the more it completely falls apart. In fact, this is a painfully easy film to nitpick to death to the point where it would be hard for fans of the books to not sit and admit that the whole premise is so painfully flawed as to be ridiculous. The nitpicks range from the huge – if the purpose of the factions is to insure order and the natural flow of society, why is the aptitude test a subjective experience that is administered by a (fallible, corruptible) human being?! – to the easily-overlooked sensible details that make no rational sense as presented in the film; Abnegation citizens are supposedly so selfless that they are only allowed a few moments in front of a mirror each day. We see Beatrice use a spoon to look at herself; why aren’t all Abnegation citizens given silverware that is powercoated or enameled to be opaque instead of reflective, to avoid just such a cheat?! The first question, though, is problematic and it becomes more so as the movie goes on; various tests involve Four watching Tris’s thoughts and dreams and interpreting them (yea, psychoanalysis by a soldier!). These scenes work great on a metaphoric level, much like the cave scene in The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!), but they become incredibly problematic on a literal and filmmaking level (they kill the film’s pace each time they come up and foreshadow all of the film’s potentially audacious moments) each time they crop up after the initial test.

The concept of the factionless class makes no real sense either; what is the point of a caste system if you can flunk out of it?! Divergent is set in a world that does not make rational sense. That undermines the film from the outset.

On the character front, it is equally hard to get into Divergent. The moment the concept of Divergents are introduced, it seems obvious that Beatrice will end up as one of the special multitalented outcasts (farbeit for Hollywood to make a movie where the protagonist is an Untouchable with absolutely no marketable skills in their society). But Divergents seem like they would, rationally, be a super-caste, as opposed to outcasts and Tris and the other main character who utterly unsurprisingly turns out to be a Divergent as well are played as more-than instead of other-than, which makes one baffled about how this society has been maintained for a hundred years. The thing is, Tris is entirely unremarkable. She does not seem particularly smart, strong, compassionate or anything, save in one exercise where she illustrates three-dimensional thinking that makes a more powerful implicit anti-military statement than any other in the film (the militaristic Dauntless Faction is not made up of great thinkers, which means that even their most fearless generals and tacticians should have nothing in the way of tactical/strategic knowledge the way the Erudites would. So, yes, Veronica Roth and the writers who adapted her novel seem to be implying that “military intelligence” is a complete oxymoron in the world of Divergent).

So, Tris is boring, Four is generically good-looking and likes Tris for no particular reason, Caleb is supposedly smart but gulliable, and there are far more Divergents passing for members of factions than anyone knows. Throw in the generic sidekick, Chris, and the random psychopath lackey, Peter, and you have a film.

That said, the acting is fine (if unremarkable). It’s nice to see Ashley Judd getting work again and as Tris’s mother, she has the chance to remind viewers how well she can dominate a scene. Her character’s short arc is memorable only in that it gives Ashley Judd the uncommon opportunity to play a leader character. Miles Teller is good as Peter; there’s not a hint of his redneck hick character from Footloose (reviewed here!) in his performance of the angry and unsettling Dauntless soldier. But the leads are mediocre at best; Shailene Woodley has no real on-screen presence as Tris and Theo James could have been swapped out with virtually any other Hunky McGoodlooking actor of his generation without losing anything.

So, while the success of Divergent at the box office is already encouraging the studio to make the third book into two films and might just get some other films based on teen fantasy literature greenlit for production, it’s hard to make the argument that continuing the trend based on the strength of this film is actually a good thing.

For other works with Ray Stevenson, please check out my reviews of:
Thor: The Dark World
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Thor
The Other Guys
The Book Of Eli
Rome

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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At Least It’s Not “Home Alone In The White House:” Olympus Has Fallen

The Good: Decent performances, Attempts at character/character development, Effects/tension.
The Bad: Increasingly absurd and predictable plot
The Basics: Shakier than many might want to admit, Olympus Has Fallen is engaging . . . so long as one shuts off their brain.


Sometime, admittedly, a work suffers in my estimation because of when I encounter it. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is true. In the case of Olympus Has Fallen I feel less bad about my bias. My wife and I have been watching Babylon 5 (reviewed here!) nightly and that show features a cast of characters who tend to have a sense of personal ethics and a backbone. One of the themes of the show is the value of sacrificing the individual to service the greater good. Apparently, the writers of Olympus Has Fallen either never watched Babylon 5 or did not embrace the themes.

It’s too bad, because Babylon 5 is quite a bit smarter than Olympus Has Fallen and I spent much of the film waiting for one of the characters to make things easy and thus defuse the entire situation. Up until the film’s last ten minutes, a perfectly reasonable solution to the hostage situation the film focuses on was for any one of the four relevant hostages to sacrifice themselves and thus effectively neuter the hostage-takers. In fact, the President makes things more dangerous for the members of his staff whom he encourages to surrender!

At Christmastime, the American President, Banjamin Asher and his family are headed to an event when their motorcade is attacked and the first lady is killed. A year and a half later, the secret service agent (Mike Banning) who was blamed for failing to protect her is eager to return to White House Security. Asher has the South Koreans to the White House to talk about the growing nuclear threat from North Korea. At that time, the White House is attacked and in securing the President and his guests in the subterranean bunker below the White House, the President and Secret Service inadvertently lock themselves in with the masterminds behind the attack. The North Korean terrorist Kang, who had worked with the U.S. as a South Korean diplomat to carry out his acts of terrorism and the traitorous American, Forbes, take the President, Defense Secretary and others hostage in order to get the codes to a nuclear weapons deactivation system known as Cerberus.

While the President holds out against torture and allows his brutalized staff to comply to protect them, the Speaker Of The House, Trumbull, is elevated to the Presidency to deal with the current crisis. Even as Kang and his forces work over the staff for the Cerberus codes, Banning infiltrates the wreckage of the White House to find the President’s son, Connor, to prevent him from being used against the President. As the effort to save the hostages and avert all-out war with North Korea comes from Trumbull’s apparent willingness to accede to Kang’s demands to remove U.S. troops from South Korea and the Pacific, Banning acts as eyes and ears inside the besieged White House.

The tragedy of Olympus Has Fallen is not that it depicts an incredibly brutal series of events (there is no entertainment value to watching Melissa Leo’s Secretary Of Defense McMillan getting brutalized), it is in that most of it is entirely avoidable based on a single act of sacrifice. But, more than that, on the character front, none of them are presented as being smart enough to realize that. Olympus Has Fallen features the obvious and familiar dichotomy of politicians being spineless jerks who fold and are generally unprincipled and only soldiers, secret service officers, etc. (who have a decidedly more militaristic bent) can hold out against violent adversaries. Accepting the conceit of the Cerberus device, which had the activation codes split up among four people, it makes perfect sense that either all four people would never be allowed in the same place at the same time (much like one of the members of the Cabinet being kept away from the State Of The Union Address in order to protect the line of succession) or, barring that, the moment one of the four people with the codes realizing what Kang had planned to commit an act of sacrifice.

So, I was a bit disappointed.

To be fair to Olympus Has Fallen, the film did not take the most obvious plot progressions it could have. I kept waiting for, late in the film when all else had failed, Banning’s partner, Leah, to get abducted and thus force him to stand down. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Still, most of Olympus Has Fallen progresses in an obvious and pretty brutal way.

What is better-than-average is the acting. Gerard Butler is credible as Mike Banning and he, predictably, gets through the action sequences exceptionally well. More than that, he actually displays his charisma (which I usually refer to as “alleged charisma”) in the early scenes of the film, making the character seem likable and smart enough to be a credible secret service agent. To his credit, Dylan McDermott – who as recently as five years ago would have been credibly up for the role of Banning – plays Forbes with a character-appropriate level of dispassion and conniving, never hinting that he could have been the film’s action hero.

Rick Yune is decent as Kang, though he plays the most horrible version of a patriot. Kang is calculating, but comes in with a plan and an efficient demeanor which Yune plays perfectly. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Melissa Leo as McMillan. Leo’s performance is difficult to watch as her character is pretty horribly brutalized by the terrorists. It’s impossible not to watch Melissa Leo in Olympus Has Fallen and not have one’s stomach tighten in disgust; so realistically does she portray getting tormented. Aaron Eckhart is appropriately presidential in his bearing as President Benjamin Asher.

But, I suspect the reason Morgan Freeman is getting so much high praise for his performance in Olympus Has Fallen is that, in the role of Trumbull, he seems anything but Presidential. It’s hard to imagine Morgan Freeman as not being commanding, powerful, confident and smart enough to lead the free world, but he makes Trumbull uncertain and shaky at the beginning and the performance is a wonderful one because it goes against any number of other performances we have seen from Freeman (or interviews with the actor himself).

Still, it is not enough to save Olympus Has Fallen from “average” territory. Go in with low expectations and it is fine, but for enlightened folk, it is a much harder sell.

For other works with Melissa Leo, please check out my reviews of:
Flight
Red State
Welcome To The Rileys
The L Word - Season Two
Hide And Seek
Homicide: Life On The Street

5.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Come Early Morning, I'll Still Be Sleeping

The Good: Acting, Moments of character
The Bad: Pacing is far too slow, Tone, Dull plot, Characters are hard to empathize with
The Basics: Sadly, this film's pace and lack of genuine plot so rob it of entertainment value that I fell asleep twice while watching this, despite the performances.


If you've never heard of Come Early Morning, join the team! This independent film, released in 2006, did not receive a lot of mainstream attention and after watching it, I think the reason it might have not received much critical attention either is that the audience may still be asleep. Released on DVD with no apparent extras (at least not on the Widescreen side of the disc), this indy film drew me in by the fact that it was written and directed by Joey Lauren Adams. Adams impressed me with her performance in Chasing Amy (reviewed here!) and I thought picking up this DVD would be a nice way to support her career.

Lucy Fowler is a self-loathing boozer who spends her Friday nights getting drunk, engaging in casual sex and trying to sneak out of whatever bed she ends up in the morning after. That's her choice, based on years and years of baggage and parental modeling. One day, following a bar fight where she erupts at a woman who slept with her father, Lucy meets Cal Percell, a pretty decent guy who wants to treat Lucy well and runs into her typical roadblocks. Encouraged by her friend Kim, Lucy returns to Cal after their first date to try to develop a relationship with him, though she finds the prospect frightening and weird.

I, sadly, found the film more boring than anything else. Paced so slowly that a snail moves faster, Come Early Morning is excruciating to watch less for the establishment and development of the characters and more for the utter lack of plot. This film, written and directed by Joey Lauren Adams has a similar "therapeutic musing" quality to it as Running With Scissors without the crazy characters. The result is that the film lacks a genuine sense of character development and catharsis and instead belabors the miserable life of the protagonist far beyond the viewer's ability to care and interest in her story.

Yes, in the end the big problem with Come Early Morning is that the viewer is unable to empathize with Lucy. She is caught in her own mental traps and inhibitions, broken by the example of her mother and father and surrounded by people who treat one another poorly. The tagline on the DVD said something about how "you can't love another until you learn to love yourself" and here the movie has some serious problems living up to the hype.

Lucy begins the movie fairly comfortable in her rut and it's unclear why she breaks out of it at all for Cal. Cal treats her the same way as the men we presume were jerks to her in her past; he gives her attention, takes her home at the end of the night and they have sex. Just because he wakes up in the morning as she's leaving and drives her home, she seems to turn her world around for him. It doesn't jive. But more than that, Come Early Morning never truly sells us on the idea that Lucy doesn't like herself at the beginning. In some of the earliest scenes in the movie, she is reaching out to her estranged father and visiting her mother in a nursing home.

But even taking this amount of time to analyze the film is a stretch for me; I didn't care. How do I know how little I cared about Lucy and her character journey? I fell asleep while watching Come Early Morning. Twice. In the day time. That's how boring the film was, how uninspired the character journey of Lucy Fowler was. And, remember, I was looking forward to this film.

What saves this from absolutely dismal territory is the acting. Ashley Judd gives a decent performance - certainly better than the last movie I saw her in, which was Twisted - that is depressing and always in character. Gone is her trademark smile and the enthusiastic light in her eyes. No, on this outing she is dead-eyed and dull, which is a stretch of her talents that she pulls off quite well.

The film is backed with equally good actors who are actually acting. Laura Prepon (known as the assertive Donna from That 70's Show) is mousy and shy, Stacy Keach is paternal and kind as Owen (a far cry from his loud, angry role on Titus). Jeffrey Donovan is adequate as the "aw, shucks," down-home good ole' boy Cal.

But none of them sell me on watching this film again and it's tiresome and dull to watch. I wish it were not, but outside one or two lines, the actors showing up and performing well within their roles is all that Come Early Morning truly has going for it.

For other works with Ashley Judd, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Tooth Fairy
Twisted
Frida
Someone Like You . . .
“The Game” - Star Trek: The Next Generation
“Darmok” - Star Trek: The Next Generation

3/10

For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Abysmal Thriller That Is Lacking In Psychological Horror Is Anything But Twisted

The Good: Moments of Samuel L. Jackson's performance, Ultimate resolution
The Bad: Acting, Characters, Most of the plot, Neatness of all the pieces coming together
The Basics: In a truly terrible psychological thriller that is anything but thrilling, Ashley Judd runs around investigating a series of murders she may have committed, but the audience doesn't care about.


When I sat down recently to watch the thriller Red Eye, I was marginally excited about the movie because of the presence of actor Cillian Murphy. When I came across Twisted today, I was surprised to find a movie with Samuel L. Jackson that I had not even heard about. Then again, as an episode of Family Guy noted, there was a time Samuel L. Jackson was in everything. Sadly, Twisted failed to sell itself even with the accomplished actor as one of the three leads.

Jessica Shepard has just been promoted to homicide detective in San Francisco, despite her use of force on a recent suspect. Her foster father, the police commissioner, John is proud of her, but sends her to the department shrink anyway - a necessity in most cases where there is significant violence or trauma. Shepard attends, joins the homicide squad and meets her new partner, Mike Delmarco. Her first case is finding the killer of a man who she recently had anonymous sex with. She believes that there will be more victims and her hunch soon proves correct as another past partner turns up brutally murdered. As the body count grows, Shepard begins to become more and more concerned that she might be capable of the grizzly murders and she sets to finding the killer, even if it is herself.

Twisted fails almost right from the beginning because of the premise it expects the audience to accepts; Shepard is the daughter of a former police officer-turned-serial-killer working under the guy who partnered with him and who brought him down. And who was his father. Medical shows more often than not get it right with issues like this where a doctor cannot have a family member as a patient. Parents who have children who are cops are usually forced to work outside the jurisdiction of the parent.

But then there are those other, more pressing character conflicts. Shepard is an excellent cop, but she leaves work each night, gets completely drunk, has anonymous sex and blacks out. Or she simply drinks so much she blacks out. Under these circumstances, why wouldn't she stop drinking? Or better yet, why doesn't the department relieve her when she comes up as a suspect? Sure, the movie answers that question, but it's a feeble answer and none of the major characters challenge the stated reasoning.

There's an even simpler set of options; when she becomes a suspect, why don't they give her an ankle bracelet to wear and put her under house arrest? Or even just put a police tail on her. That last option is the most simple, direct and logical one for a precinct to do and given how often the Internal Affairs Department popped up on NYPD Blue, it's astounding that they don't show up here when a police officer is the prime suspect in a series of murders.

But that's why Twisted does not work. It's asking the viewer to stomach a lot of pretty ridiculous assumptions. At least when I write that one possible interpretation of the movie is that writer Sarah Thorp wants to illustrate some real negative consequences of having promiscuous, anonymous sex; her script utilizes Shepard's sexual promiscuity as a character weakness to be exploited and a reason that she begins to degenerate into madness. No free love for Thorp! I'm not into that sort of thing, but in the case of Twisted, it just seems like such a convenient scapegoat to brand Shepard with.

Unlike Shepard who has something that can be looked at, analyzed and debated none of the other characters have any real character. Shepard's new partner, Mike, is completely flat and his place in the movie revolves almost completely around Shepard. Similarly, Shepard's new police adversary in Homicide, Becker, is just a "type" - the antagonist figure. As for John Mills, Shepard's foster father, all of his motivations are simply stated at the end, with no true and genuine development throughout the movie. Instead, he simply explains to Shepard and the audience why he took in his dead partner's daughter.

It's not enough of a role for even Samuel L. Jackson to save and he doesn't. Twisted is an example of a role that even a great actor cannot do anything with. As a result, Jackson adds no flare or charisma to John. His entire time on screen, he is simply reciting lines and his performance feels like that.

Other performers suffer as well. Camryn Manheim illustrates none of the genius that she exhibited on The Practice with the bit role she has as a lab technician. In fact, she might not have even gotten out of her chair for the role. Andy Garcia, who play's Shepard's new partner, Mike, is very flat in the role. Director Philip Kaufman could have saved some money and used Ray Abruzzo and gotten at least as good results.

But much of the movie rests on the shoulders of Ashley Judd, who plays Shepard (and looks a lot like Nicole de Boer in this film!). Judd disappoints, adding no flair to Shepard. Her character's sex is dull and Judd looks bored throughout those scenes, but even worse, her affect is terrible when her character begins to make the connections and comes to believe that she might well be a killer. Judd fails to emote and she is certainly not empathetic as Shepard, making much of the movie unbearable to watch.

The best part about this DVD experience was also one of the most simple; when the disc booted up, it gave me the option of watching the previews or going to the main menu. Unlike most discs lately which simply launches into the previews, this one gives the viewer a choice. I should have cut my losses while I was ahead and simply watched the previews and skipped the feature. You need not make the same mistake as I!

For other works with Ashley Judd, check out my reviews of:
Star Trek: The Next Generation - “Darmok”
Star Trek: The Next Generation - “The Game”
Someone Like You
Frida
The Tooth Fairy

1.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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