The Rambler

I was one of about 15 people who walked out of this movie during a screening at The Sarasota Film Festival. I give movies a lot of rope to hang themselves and this one hung itself; shot itself through the head and set itself on fire. Oh, wait, maybe I'm flashing back to the movie. BTW...you can't spoil what's already rotten. If you don't have something to say, shut up could be the simple review of this ridiculous piece of junk. The next time I want a similar experience I'll eat a raw egg with shards of glass in it. I can't figure out how two good actors didn't have a sense of the disaster they were part of but I guess you don't know until it's edited.

Who is the rambler (Dermot Mulroney)? All we know is that he has been released from prison and is on his way to his brother's farm. But this is not important -- what matters are all the misadventures he has between point A and point B.

I really wanted to like this movie. The characters are interesting, some of the story is incredibly funny, and it is all-around entertaining. But, unfortunately, the film is completely disjointed. For every good segment, there is a bad segment, and unfortunately the better ones are in the beginning so as the film goes on the viewer becomes less entertained.

Editing might have solved some of the problems, but as a whole I think there is only so much that could be done here... the film comes across as a series of short films or television episodes. And in those formats it might have a strong following. As a feature film, it tends to fail because of the lack of central narrative.

I watched this film last night and had no idea what to expect to be honest. I would normally read a review before I watch but I just played it.

My thoughts. A lot of previous posters try to understand what the meaning to this film is. To me it's very apparent what the meaning is. You know this at the very start of the film and throughout.

This film is very dark in places and although some of the scenes can be regarded as funny they can also be rather disturbing all at the same time.

Watch it if you dare that's all I say. And midnight as another poster pointed out is probably the best time.

I can't picture a single festival screening of Calvin Reeder's The Rambler that wouldn't result in at least half the crowd walking out in revulsion. There's just no way to put it lightly when describing the alienating, severely soul-disturbing kind of sickly atmosphere that hangs over the entire film like a radioactive blanket of surreal dread. The DVD cover barely suggests the beyond Lynchian, out to lunch, bugfvck nuts events which unfold, and instead hints toward a western with vaguely horror themed aspects. Couldn't be more different than that. The conventional elements like plot and the theme of Western are dimly present, shaky railroad tracks for a train that careens straight into the subconscious of bizarro world, some of what we see even too messed up and disassociate for the hardiest of cultist buffs. Few films are able to capture the purely illogical and disjointed feeling of a dream, but this one nails it scarily well. Sentences don't match responses, human behaviour is terrifyingly devoid of inhibitions, events repeat and come out of nowhere, and we really and truly feel lost, removed and detached from any kind of rational thought or action. Now the film doesn't outright announce that it's all a dream, save for a few hints embedded in the story, but it sure felt like one long nightmare to me, evoking psychological feelings which words really can't describe. Dermot Mulroney does a 'Man with no name routine' as a vacant ex con who is released from prison and blows back into his one horse trailer park town. He does indeed have no name, now that I think of it, and is only ever referred to as The Rambler. Upon returning, he finds his volatile girlfriend (Natasha Lyonne) has taken up with another man, and no one seems to want him around anymore. Time to hit the road, he figures, sauntering out into the acrid desolation of the southwest in a dead cool opening credits scene set to Terry Allen's Red Bird, one of my favourite twangy tunes. From there it gets hard to describe, comprehend and stomach. He's off in some John Waters style twilight zone of very unsettling characters, saying and doing things that make little sense and get increasingly shocking and vulgar. A mysterious girl (Lindsay Pulsipher) weaves in and out of the story and seems to be the only one besides him who is remotely coherent. A crackpot doctor (James Cady) shows him an extremely defective device that is supposed to look into people's dreams. There's ugly, misanthropic fiends running all about with nothing to say other than loosely strung together verbal diarrhea, and a constant nauseating film of unease over everything. I've read reviews wailing about how this film has less than nothing to say, and should have shut it's mouth. But that's the point to a nightmare; it doesn't teach, enlighten or otherwise change us in any way other than to give our sense of dread a workout and provoke a cold sweat. Similarly, the film simply is there to scare, to induce the gag reflex and doesn't strive for anything else, and in that sense it's pure, primal and honest about it's intentions. The very definition of not for everyone, this will even put off bands of counter culture cinephiles who scoff at anything mainstream. Deliberately vile, constantly off its rocker and so far beyond the event horizon where bizarre ends and something truly indescribable begins, The Rambler will shake the soul out of anyone who claims to have seen it all. You have been warned.

Yes I am aware what I chose as summary "line". And as you can see I understand how to use the "" to make a point. Now this movie does not make it a secret that it imitates and likens David Lynch. And while there is a certain quality here (the main actor for example, the framing, the quality of the cinematography), the overall attachment is missing.

But maybe that is what makes it great for you. Maybe you can see something in this, that many others can't. I know the phrase has a negative connotation to it, but I mean it without any ill will: good for you. Anyone who can get something out of a movie, cherish that. And while I generally don't talk about the story of a movie, it wouldn't even help in this case. It is not so much about the story, but about the journey ...