Black Devil

I caught this ditty by chance and was I glad I did. It is a film written and acted suited to my tastes. Jonathan Penner was captivating within his mannerisms, gorgeous to look at and a pleasure to see him act. Plot is grand. Everything else too. I am not giving much more away, solely my two opinions, aforementioned and the last: RENT IT if you find it.

"Let the Devil Wear Black" is dark, sexy and smart modern interpretation of "Hamlet". Distinctively noirish, this clever film maintains a fast and steady pace that explores the deep rooted psyches of the main characters. Although the film surely would be characterized as a thriller, the writing and directing are strong enough to justify "Devil" as a character piece as well. Stacy Title's wry sense of humor is apparent from beginning to end. Furthermore, Ms. Title's shooting style, complemented by Jim Whittaker's cinematography, is more imaginative and animated as compared to her previous film "The Last Supper". This film is funny, tragic and engaging. It is truly a gem and not to be missed.

Jonathan Penner returns from the insane asylum to discover his father is dead, and his mother, Jacqueline Bisset is remarried to his uncle, Jamey Sheridan, who's running the properties Penner and mother own. He becomes convinced his father was murdered and that he is receiving signs from him, messages scrawled in chapstick on the mirrors in the strip club.

In short, it's Hamlet updated. It's got quite a cast with Norman Reedus, Brooke Taylor, Mary-Louise Parker, Chris Sarandon, Philip Baker Hall, and Maury Chaykin. And yet I was struck as this wended its way through the plot how uninteresting these people were. With Shakespeare's language, what have you got except a squabble over money and sex between people who are not too bright, and who express complex ideas in simple language not because that works, but because the writers can't manage anything more involved. Is a high body count enough?

One of the few movies completed by female writer-director Stacy Title before her untimely death, this would-be film-noir crime drama has a rather extraordinary cast, including Philip Baker Hall, Jaqueline Bissett, Norman Reedus, Jonathan Penner (Title's husband), Maury Chaykin, Chris Sarandon and Mary-Louise Parker, plus other scene-stealers.

It would be hard to go entirely wrong with such an ensemble, and they bring the better moments to an overly mannered, filmed-in-deep shadow transplant of the bare-bones plot of Hamlet - yes, that Hamlet - now set in the modern Los Angeles underworld. You may want to watch out of idle curiosity; I did.

Jack Lyne (Penner) is the troubled son of the owner of the Pleasure Dome, an upscale (well, slightly) strip-club. His father abruptly dropped dead of a very suspicious cardiac arrest. Jack is dismayed now that his uncle (Hall) announces intention to marry Jack's lovely widowed mom (Bissett). Moreover, it is declared the land on which the club operates, also in the family, is priceless urban real estate, eyed greedily by developers. Could someone have given Jack's father a drug that stopped his heart?

There is Jack's unstable girlfriend (Parker, in the sorta-Ophelia role), longtime pals who are turned into spies and potential killers (the Rosencrantz/Guildenstern equivalents), mystery thugs who show up at strange moments and seem to be Jack's guardians (like... okay, maybe the whole Shakespeare analogy goes off the rails ultimately), out-of-body experiences and a very Bard-like bloodbath in the end. Plus luscious naked strippers. I don't support there was ever a script draft in which Jack's clan just owned, say, a nice Italian restaurant? Or a White Castle?

I also do wish Ms. Title had filmed the whole thing in black-and-white, like a 1950s double-bill/drive-in programmer; then the hardboiled meta-genre vibe might have lifted it above being a basic exercise in mood, artful line deliveries and a tribute to the casting director. I thought that somewhere back in the film-noir heyday somebody, maybe in the UK, did a mob version of Othello (more recently, it appears, Indian filmmakers did), but can find no evidence. Am I misremembering Patrick McGoohan's American '70s hippie modernization Catch My Soul or glimpsing a parallel film universe somewhere?

I find it mildly amusing to read the comments of self-styled critics who derive great satisfaction from their ability to string words together in a quasi-intellectual and wannabe MEANINGFUL fashion....the art-house intelligentsia. Yeah some of us other terrestrials HAVE in fact a working knowledge of HAMLET even to the point of realising that this here little number IS in fact a modernistic, though agreed, unspectacular re-working!

Who gives a flying doughnut if "shooting at night is problematical?" and/or every option available to the aspiring director in charge? Carol Reed in technologically simplistic times came up with THE THIRD MAN, a flick for which "the dark" is synonymous with "mood" and "noir." The problem with this film is not one of inappropriate filming techniques or even the unreasonably slated "script" (let him who is without sin.........etc) it is the fact that you actually have to LISTEN! The film does not sidle up to you and nuzzle your leg saying "Pick me up - aren't I cute?" The characters regrettably are simply unendearing and with all the spontaneity of those from ANOTHER WORLD.

For all that, I have seen way worse than this and despite cranially displaced assertions that barely one scene in its ninety minute run-time might be said to momentarily hold one's attention, there is in fact a film here you just might get something out of, if you TRY! It IS after all just a film, NOT a philosophical dissertation!