Here are two shorter reviews of films we saw and then quickly forgot about at the still ongoing Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. Given the space we’re giving these films, you can guess that we didn’t like them, but these aren’t just two random, not-so-memorable films. They are united and find common ground as films that squandered intriguing, original premises and got lost in their overreaching ambitions.
“Accident” — This is probably the first and last time we’ll ever say this about any movie, but damn, we wished this film was more like “Final Destination.” The story follows Ho Kwok-fai (aka The Brain, played by Richie Ren) an assassin-for-hire who, with his usual crew of assistants, will murder people for contract and make it look like a totally random accident. For a price. As the great opening sequence shows us, a routine traffic jam finds their target on foot a block away from his car, dead after a plate glass window, itself dislodged from a Mouse Trap series of events, falls from a second story window and kills him. Seemingly a victim of bad luck, however every step of their target’s journey was calculated and carried out. So, sounds like we’re gonna follow this assassin and his rag tag crew as they go about setting up some elaborate accidental deaths, right? As awesome — and yes, “Final Destination”-esque — as that might’ve been, instead we get stuck with a tedious psychological thriller.
You see The Brain believes that a rival assassin is trying to rub him out; made all the more confounding because The Brain has gone to great lengths to keep his identity secret. He starts obsessing and worrying he’ll get thrown in jail and put his family in jeopardy, so he moves into the same building as the person he believes is spying on him to try and stay a step ahead. What results is a fairly pedestrian tale of a man losing his grip on reality and questions of fate and pre-determination sort of get put into play. We wonder why director Pou-Soi Cheang even bothered with the whole “accidental assassin” angle; he only really gets one sequence (the opening one) out of that spin and for the of the film, we waited for another crackerjack one to appear. It didn’t. As a result the film is a bit lopsided: the opening assassin bit doesn’t come anywhere close to what the final film will play out like, while later deeply psychological stuff barely registers. How much more interesting this film could’ve been if it had lightened up and really went full throttle setting up improbable death scenes or had really focused on the deep psychological scars of its lead. “Accident” ends up being a poor middle ground of both with not enough action and/or psychological depth to make it worthwhile. [C-]
“1” – Though director Pater Sparrow earns some sci-fi cred for basing his film on the legendary Stanislaw Lem book, “One Human Minute,” that’s where the accolades end as the resulting film is a dull, messy exercise that mistakes a purposely enigmatic and confusing narrative for depth and profundity. The story takes place in a not-too-distant future where a book called “1” suddenly appears on shelves everywhere, and more shockingly, contains every statistical information from birth, death, sex and everything in between from one minute of human existence. The workers at a bookstore, where the book first mysteriously turned, up are held for questioning by the Reality Defence (yeah, subtle is something this film isn’t) who try to figure out who and how so much data was compiled. Yeah, it dips into dreams and consciousness, and the film looks very good, but it’s a muddle of pretentious ideas and a plot looking for a direction to go in. And to make sure that he drives his point home, Sparrow puts big bold text on the screen more than once that reads ARE YOU AWARE OF YOUR EXISTENCE. Well, we were aware of our existence for every second we sat through the tedium of “1.” But that said, we do have to say, the film had a great opening credit sequence. [D+]
