adamk-2

My wife and I both have our roots in Poland, or what used to be part of Poland, both dating back to the pogroms, so I thought that this film might resonate with us, but in the end it totally fell flat. Eisenberg plays Eisenberg, tightly wound and neurotic, while Culkin plays a manic-depressive version of his character from "Succession", dialling up the obnoxious, smart-mouthed, self-righteous crassness to 11 and presenting a character who, in any real world, would have gotten tossed out of the tour group within the first day. The scene in front of the monument memorialising the Polish uprising was particularly jaw-dropping ("Hey, everyone, let's upend the solemnity and tragedy of this memorial by playing and posing as soldiers around it!") and it trundles on as the cousins bicker and smoke dope and cry and reflect and then it just...it just ends. I actually sat up and went, "Wait, was that IT?" A real damp squib that had so much potential, but obviously needs a better script and cast to pull it off. A crashing disappointment.

There's a serial killer on the loose in New York City and Kevin KIine, playing one of those endearingly eccentric geniuses that you only come across in these type of films, is an ex-cop inexplicably called back to the force by his brother, the police commissioner (Harvey Keitel). Because only he, apparantly, can solve this crime that has baffled all the police and criminologists for the past year. But he has baggage. Of course he does.

Crikey, this is bad.

Misguidedly marketed as a whacky comedy the film is tonally all over the place and overloaded with plotting that doesn't go anywhere (there's something about a scandal, a cancelled cheque and Kline's affair with his brother's wife, played by Susan Sarandon). The script, by John Patrick Shanley, is surprisingly awful, calling on characters to yell and bluster at each other a lot, while Kline's rogue detective ponders, gets the mayor's daughter (who just happens to be best friend of the most recent victim) to instantly fall for him after a strategic meet cute at the Central Park ice rink. Keitel looks miserable and bored, Susan Sarandon is completely inessential, Rod Steiger as the mayor does his patented ham bit and Danny Aeillo, as a police captain, yells and swears a lot. Oh, and the late great Alan Rickman is here, too, as an artist neighbour helping Kline out on the case (and who luckily happens to be a computer whiz) with absolutely no authority whatsoever. There's a lot of unconvincing and irritating "quirk" laid on along with exposition and quantum leaps of logic, climaxing in a final chase scene that's played for slapstick laughs, which is just tiresome. Given the amount of talent gathered here, it's a crashing disappointment and jaw-droppingly bad.

I approached "Longlegs" assured by critics that it was one of the most "terrifying" films ever. I found it, to say the least, a crashing disappointment, and have watched scarier Ingmar Bergmann films.

Lord knows, I welcome strange, I welcome unsettling, I welcome disturbing, I relish atmosphere, but "Longlegs"....well, I expected to be on the edge of my seat, but spent pretty much all of it slumped on the sofa, stunned by its soporific trudge, as if everyone had been knocking back cough medicine beforehand, and even poured it into the camera, suffusing everything in a dull, sepia tinge. Maika Monroe, as a psychic(!) FBI agent, acts as though lobotomised, while Nicholas Cage tries to counter this by going completely over the top, white faced, gibbering, screaming. He's buried under so much make-up, however, that it could be any actor, desperate to make his mark and hysterically overacting in an attempt to get noticed.

This is "Silence of the Lambs" done stupid but trying hard to look smart. A Pyrrhic triumph of style over substance.