Shallow Grave (1994)
Starring Kerry Fox, Ewan McGregor
Directed by Danny Boyle
Rated R, 93 minutes


The Player (1992)
Starring Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi
Directed by Robert Altman
Rated R, 124 minutes



WARNING!  SPOILERS CONTAINTED BELOW, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK



These are the two movies I rented this weekend.  After watching 
them both, I felt compelled to write about the two of them at the 
same time.  I did not plan this, and in fact I very well could have 
been comparing 1941 and Charade here (My other two possible rentals 
at the store), or nothing at all.  I have an urge.  This won't see 
print, this isn't a deep theoretical discussion.  It's just movies, 
man.



These movies have a lot in common, but I loved The Player (which 
I have seen once before) and was surprised how much I disliked 
Shallow Grave.  Odd when the movies have the same theme (good people 
commiting bad deeds), and I like the director of the crappy movie.



Not entirely true.  Shallow Grave director Danny Boyle has only 
made four films, and the only other one I've ever seen is the 
incredible Trainspotting (Really my introduction to the world of 
independent film).  He's also made A Life Less Ordinary and The 
Beach.  Never seen them.  1 movie out of 4 (One I liked anyway) isn't 
much of a "fan."  But I do have history with him.



The Player director Robert Altman is A-list, very famous, but 
I don't really know him from a whole in the wall.  I know he's 
directed MASH, Nashville, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, but I've seen 
none of them.  Most movies he's made look rather boring to me.  But 
I love The Player.



The Player is a weird morality play (no pun intended damn you), 
set against the world of a big movie studio in Hollywood (And if 
you're going to do weird morality plays, I suppose Hollywood's as 
good a place as any).  I have no idea if the world displayed in it, 
filled with deceit, incompetence, idiocy, and lunches, is real.  
That is irrelevant, because it FEELS real.  For two hours, you never 
once doubt the validity of what you watch.  If it's made up, then 
the screenwriter (Michael Tolkin, adapting his novel) deserves even 
more credit than I would already give him.



Shallow Grave is also a bit of a morality movie, but I can't 
quite figure it out.  I don't know quite what it wants to say or why, 
and a lot choices in the movie don't make much sense to me.  The 
result is an unsettling, uncomfortable, and often bizarre film.  
If that's what they were going for, bravo.  Frankly, I was just 
waiting for it to end (and nearly fell asleep at another point). 



In Shallow Grave, three roommates and bosom buddies, Alex, David, 
and Juliet, are interviewing for a new roommate.  Everyone who comes 
gets treated to awful, invasive questions, or ones that don't make 
sense.  They basically torture everyone that comes by, and it's 
actually pretty funny.  There's no hint of evil afoot.



A stranger comes along and wows Juliet, and eventually he's 
convinced the rest of the group to let him live there; within 
five minutes of screen time, the trio finds him naked and dead 
on his bed.  They also find a suitcase full of money under his 
bed.  They decide to bury the guy and keep the money.  Big mistake.



So's the idea to put grisly scenes in the movie where you hear 
(but don't see) limb sawing and teeth smashing.  Really, really 
gross.  I suppose the filmmakers are really trying to throw you for 
a loop, the light comedy of the start, mixed with the truly gruesome 
burial scenes.  But it's all wrong for the film, it totally sucks 
you out of the movie and it's very difficult to get back in.



After this the movie gets boringly predictable.  From the start 
its clear the nebbish roommate will be the one who becomes a complete 
lunatic, cause that's what happens in noir movies about nebbishes.  
So that's nothing new.  It's also nothing new when the people who 
want the money come a'calling.  Of course, these characters are never 
explained or given motivations, and they appear several times.  I 
would have at least liked to know their names, or who the roommate 
was, or why he had this money, or what he was planning to do with it.  



The movie gets so weird and depressing and odd, that is becomes 
almost unwatchable, and I really did want it to end.  I always second 
guess my judgment in times like this; am I reading my feelings wrong?
Maybe this is exactly the state the filmmakers want me to be in; 
certainly I wouldn't put it past a movie that its main goal might 
be to confuse and nauseate.  But then I think, there are movies that 
have really weirded me out, but I've kept watching, and didn't want 
them to necessarily end (Memento is both the same and the exact 
opposite; confusing and disturbing, yet consistently fascinating, 
and you never want it to end).



I only finally rejoined the movie in the last few closing seconds, 
on a surprisingly ironic ending, that was the first thing in the film 
I didn't see coming since the opening frames.  But too little too 
late in my opinion.



Switching gears...



The Player is Griffin Mill, a writers' executive for an unnamed 
movie studio.  He's been receiving threatening postcards in the mail, 
and now they're starting to hit too close to home (Showing up on his 
desk without a postmark, stuck to the windshield of his Land Rover), 
so he investigates, and finds a probably suspect, one David Kahane.  
After a meeting that goes poorly at best, a drunken Kahane shoves 
Griffin into a wall.  Completely losing his mind, Griffin attacks 
back, eventually drowning him in a shallow pond of rain water.  The 
rest of the movie Griffin tries to fend off the police, keep his job, 
and bed Kahane's girlfriend.  



As you can see, he's an odd hero.  He's a murderer, a liar, and 
cheats on his girlfriend then discards her, and that's just for 
starters.  Yet, as played by Tim Robbins, there's a certain undeniably 
likeable quality about him.  We root for Griffin when he's 
interrogated by the police.  I didn't do the same in Shallow Grave 
for any of the roommates.



Where Shallow Grave starts funny and goes off the deep end, The 
Player works around the murder scene.  It's certainly disturbing, 
but not mortifying.  I also liked the fact that the film has so many 
subplots that often the plot takes almost a backseat.  There's only 
one thing ever going on in Shallow Grave.  In The Player you're 
watching out for Griff's job, the police, there's the whole element 
of famous cameos to watch for, plus Habeus Corpus, the movie that 
Griffin gets pitched shortly after the murder.  Charting the 
evolution of that film is almost as interesting as Griffin's 
predicament.



The movie is anything but predictable, up to and including the 
ending that is both "Hollywood" and anti-Hollywood.  It's the 
required happy ending, but also a little bit disturbing, given what 
has come before.  I suppose the same could be said for Shallow 
Grave, and while I admit my ears did prick up there for the last 
few seconds, it hardly redeemed the rest of the movie.



So why the discrepancy?  I'm not a fan of the "good movie/bad 
movie" idea, where a film is necessarily good or necessarily bad, 
and that is the be all end all.  Like saying Citizen Kane is a good 
movie, Battlefield Earth is a bad one.  Says who?  Judging film is 
almost entirely film.  You can maybe find a "good" director, but 
even then, so much of it depends on personal preference on style, 
cutting, camera techniques, etc.  



Therefore, I'd rather not say The Player is good, and Shallow 
Grave is bad.  Certainly I liked one and not the other, but you 
could very well feel the opposite (The IMDb viewer ratings are very 
close 7.8 for one, and only a few points lower for the other...I 
won't tell you which is which).  



Maybe it's the subject matter?  Wait let me rephrase, because 
really the subjects are similar, maybe it is the setting?  Perhaps 
my American-pigish opinions find me much more willing to stomach a 
heroic murderer from the good ol' USA than I am to follow three 
Limeys.  Except, I'm not racist, and I like British film and 
especially music.



Maybe it's the blood and gore?  Except gore doesn't disturb or 
upset me typically.  I work at Troma for goodness sakes.  And 
besides, it was the absense of gore that really got to me in 
Shallow Grave. 



So where does that leave me?  I don't really know.  As I stated 
at the top, this wasn't for anything, a review, or an essay, so I 
don't need to make a point.  And all the crap I wanted to get off 
my chest has been expectorated up above there.  So I suppose this 
is the end.



At least you know which to rent next time you go to the store.





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