D: Matthew Modine. Matthew Modine, Lisa Blount, John Hurt, Bruce Dern, David Keith, Lisa Marie, Kevin J. O’Connor, Julie Newmar. (Two Left Shoes)
Don’t let the cryptic title fool you into thinking this is some new Harminy Korine-level weirdness. It’s merely a standard indie pic, the feature debut of Matthew Modine, who stars and wrote the script with an uncredited Todd Field.
Modine plays Johnny, who gets out of jail and gets a job as a mechanic working for Bruce Dern (excellent in an understated role). He’s not all that thrilled about seeing his father (Hurt) who abandoned him at a bank job several years ago, though he quickly hooks up with his brother James (O’Connor), whose life has just led to more small crimes and a cloying, stupid girlfriend (Marie). After James knocks out Johnny’s parole agent/friend from High School (Keith), the two are forced to make a run to Tijuana. To get back, of course, they’ll have to pull one last job: the robbing of a bullfight arena.
Modine’s direction is bland, vaguely likable, and completely unmemorable. He seems to be trying to get a mid-70’s drive-in road movie feel to the thing, a la Macon County Line, and casting Dern, Keith, Hurt, and (in a bit part) Julie Newmar is a good start. Unfortunately, the script doesn’t have realistic enough to pull off a more hard-boiled tone. Johnny himself is a pretty dull character, and his brother (O’Connor gets a hefty chunk of the screen time) is so irritating that you just can’t want until the inevitable climax to watch him get blown away. The interplay between Modine and Hurt is quite good, but we never really get into Johnny’s head, nor do we ever understand why he doesn’t just leave all of these negative people behind.
What was already a sub-par flick is made infinitely worse by the role of Lisa Marie. It’s not her fault that the role is poorly-written; she never comes off as anything more than a dumb teenager who ruins everything by doing stupid things for no reason. However, she adds no defense against the common argument that she shouldn’t act in anything but Tim Burton films by her grating line readings that make you wonder if she actually speaks English, and her emoting, which amounts to shouting, smiling, posing and staring. It’s hard to feel sympathy when she finally gets kidnapped towards the end, in fact, I was gleefully looking forward to watching this bothersome bitch get some much-needed electro-shock therapy.
Modine is a talented actor, but it’s obvious he’s not all that accustomed to handling their actions. The blocking is terribly stiff, and when combined with the mostly-static camera movements, the first two-thirds of the film end up being paced like a wet slug. While the action does pick up in the final third, it’s not enough to make the first part worth sitting though.
The title, incidentally, refers to a story Johnny’s brother told him as a kid as a rationale for theft. The film contains neither dogs nor rabbits.