Dogs Eat Dog

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2000 Oscars, Amores Perros is the month's most highly acclaimed new release. It also carries the strongest precautions. The movie, a debut for Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, tells three stories. The first is about sibling rivalry, marital abuse, and a dogfighting ring; the second, about a married man who has an affair with a supermodel; and the third, about a killer-for-hire driven to realize what a monster he has become. All three stories are powerful tales about the wages of sin. But most critics are cautioning audiences that the first and the third story include grisly scenes of bloodied, injured, and dead animals. If you are a dog-lover, be warned.

At Christian Answers, Jim O'Neill sees the dueling dogs as "a metaphor of the savagery that dominates modern culture. These bloody games take place in decayed buildings and in abandoned swimming pools, once images of modern cultural dreams." Despite some weaknesses, he says, "Amores Perros is a cinematic tour de force and a chilling cautionary tale of the price that must be paid for excess. There is no overt Christian message here, but the warning that no sin goes unpunished is inescapable."

The film provoked comments from Nick Alexander, a contributor to the eGroups OnFilm discussion. He admits, "this film is not for everyone," but adds, "There's an ethical payoff to each of the sins committed in the film. I found the movie wonderfully profamily, prolife, and antiviolence. I would dare say that this film asks the same questions as [Krzysztof Kieslowski's] The Decalogue, though in a Pulp Fiction-esque storyline." Alexander's sense that Amores Perros presents a world where morality matters is also echoed by Roger Ebert in his Chicago Sun-Times review: "[Iñárritu's] characters are not the bland, amoral totems of so much modern Hollywood violence, but people with feelings and motives. They want love, money and revenge. They not only love their dogs but desperately depend on them. And it is clear that the lower classes are better at survival than the wealthy, whose confidence comes from their possessions, not their mettle."

While the human beings treat each other with shocking insensitivity and malice throughout the film, audiences seem more distressed by suffering canines. When I attended the film, some viewers left during the first act and did not return. It made me wonder—why could viewers (including me) watch the cruelty between the human characters without blinking, yet we turned away when dogs bit each other? Has moviegoing numbed us to the sight of human suffering? If nothing else, the film alerts me to my failing sensitivity by showing me how I react to a sort of violence I am not accustomed to seeing in newspapers, television crime dramas, and movies. Indeed, I once reacted similarly even to the sight of a gun in the hand of a villain. (I explore this question further in my own Looking Closer review.)

While art can portray violence in responsible and important ways, viewers (and I'm preaching to myself here) should be careful to think seriously about the severity of human evil when it is presented either in art or in any other form. Excessive exposure to violence may well harden even compassionate hearts. And yet, while I cannot recommend this movie to most viewers due to its harshness, I also cannot condemn it. Stories told as passionately as these can be strong medicine, reminding viewers of where the smallest sins, even well-intended, can lead.

The Claim adapts The Mayor of Casterbridge, an 1886 British novel by Thomas Hardy, to the post-Gold Rush Sierra Mountains, where the city of Kingdom Come is governed by a kind lord named Daniel Dillon (Peter Mullan). What unfolds in this town is a story of money, tangled love affairs, and sins returning to haunt the sinners.

J. Robert Parks of The Phantom Tollbooth saw the movie well before it opened. "It's one of the better movies I saw last year," he reports. "The film's two major themes, love and money, are both rich ones, and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce mines them both, exploring their nuances and how one influences the other. Interestingly, The Claim finds more passion in lucre than love. Though there are two different love triangles, the film spends just as much time exploring the corrosive effects of wealth and its potential loss." Parks gives great praise to the cast: "Though Wes Bentley and Milla Jovovich get top billing, it's [Peter] Mullan's immersion in a man who realizes what he's lost that is most compelling."

Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times also praised Mullan's performance among the film's other assets: "A movie like this rides on its cinematography, and Alwin H. Kuchler evokes the cold darkness so convincingly that Kingdom Come seems built on an abyss. Like the town of Presbyterian Church in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, it is a folly built by greed where common sense would have steered clear." Brian Miller's Seattle Weekly review is a mix of applause and complaints: "[Director Michael] Winterbottom does render the frozen pioneer outpost with nice period detail, but the clumsy dialogue portends events and encapsulates character rather too easily. Still, the flawed Claim has its cathartic power. And like a certain famous old monarch raging on the heath, Dillon's ultimate loss of kingdom and family is heartbreaking for its tragic inevitability."

In his review at Salon.com, Charles Taylor first praises the source: Thomas Hardy. "It's a fair question how an author whose stories are so fatalistic … so unrelenting and harsh, can also give so much pleasure," he writes. "Hardy … doesn't hover in judgment as much as stand on level ground with his characters, observing them, understanding that none of us is exempt from such failings and sins." He goes on to praise the film adaptation: "The Claim does justice to Hardy even though it works in a very different tone. What links the movie most securely to its source is the sense of fate that hovers over the proceedings … you feel that inexorable movement toward catastrophe that hovers over Hardy, even as the film proceeds in its own style."

Those seeking something less brainy had unsettling plenty in alternate fare. Sylvester Stallone's racetrack picture Driven inspired more than one critic to re-name it Drivel.

The U.S. Catholic Conference's critic was one of many to give the film low marks: "Fueled by lame dialogue, the predictable tale of rivalry and romance is notable only for director Renny Harlin's competent action scenes of racing mayhem." Movieguide reports: "Driven's classic premise might have delivered truly great redemptive entertainment if certain annoying cinematic distractions had been avoided. Harlin's annoying racing montages, hackneyed car race track master shots and excessively loud rock music score undermine scriptwriter Sylvester Stallone's efforts." The same reviewer was bothered that "there is no mention or reference to the God of the race track." Preview posts: "Slow motion crashes and driver's-eye views of the race may attract race fans but others will wonder how Stallone got financing for this soap opera on wheels. Off-track interactions between these one-dimensional characters give the audience little to do but snicker at supposedly serious moments." Preview also cautions parents: "Few obscenities are heard, but strong profanity, some sexually suggestive dialogue and ample displays of scantily clad females further cheapen the ride and earn a 'quite objectionable' rating."

Movie Parables' Michael Elliott commented, "With so much attention focused upon the proliferation of NASCAR deaths, a racing film which seems to relish in the spectacular crashes it can manufacture via its CGI technology seems almost macabre … certainly ill-timed. Too much emphasis on disintegrating cars, fiery crashes, and spectacular stunts was made at the expense of developing interesting characters and relationships."

At The Dove Foundation, Holly McClure had a different experience, and calls the film "a realistic racing movie enthusiasts will appreciate. Every male 13 and up will enjoy the speed factor and the female audience will enjoy watching the male drivers wrestle with their need for speed and an important woman in their life." She also confesses, "I probably enjoyed it more, because my teenage son kept whispering, 'Mom, this is a good movie' all the way through and claims he wants to go see it 'a couple of times' with his friends."

In the mainstream media, critics seemed to agree with the naysayers. Sean Axmaker of the The Seattle Post-Intelligencer writes, "There is no dialogue here, only a series of speeches that deliver motivations, agendas and themes in capital letters. Furiously cut to the constant throbbing beat of the DJ club mix score, manipulated with distracting computer-generated noodling, filled with bravura high-speed car wrecks so stylized they become an abstract spectacle, Driven has all the dramatic resonance of a video game." Ebert sums up his review, "Driven is a movie by, for, and about the Attention Deficit Disordered."

Town and Country may remind you of a movie that was made several years ago. That's because it was made a while ago, and has been mentioned as "in-the-works" for so long that most assumed it was a total disaster. (It wouldn't be the first time that a Warren Beatty project took a very long time to reach screens, only to fall apart upon arrival. Remember Ishtar?)

Sure enough, this account of the extramarital affairs of an architect named Porter (Beatty) isn't getting laughs. In spite of a stellar cast that also includes Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Jenna Elfman, and Garry Shandling, most critics are asking why the film was released at all. Having agreed on that, they have a wide variety of theories on why the film fails.

"Although it generates a few chuckles, making a comedy about adultery may be one reason this film took so long to market," says Preview. The unnamed critic explains, "Romantic comedies of the past used encounters mistakenly interpreted as infidelity to get laughs. But infidelity and failed marriages are not all that funny. Seeing people ruin their lives, hurt their wife and kids, and jeopardize their careers is tragedy, not comedy." Michael Elliott agrees: "Town & Country breaks no new ground and has no deep insights to make regarding male/female relationships. Knowing that adultery will destroy the trust and unity that two people have built over the course of a marriage is something of a no-brainer. The actions taken by Porter are those of a totally selfish, unthinking man who has not bothered to consider the high cost of giving in to temptation. Scriptures almost beg us to consider our ways and look at the whole picture before acting upon a decision that once made, can never be unmade."

The U.S. Catholic Conference comments that the film "cannot escape its weak story line, shoddy editing, and lack of narrative continuity while feebly attempting to show the negative effects of infidelity." Dick Rolfe at The Dove Foundation is disturbed by the ethical implications: "The moral to this immoral tale is that roaming men are sorry for their sins—when they get caught—unless they are gay, in which case they are liberated. I was especially disturbed by the permissiveness of the parents as their children invited bedmates in with impunity. All in all, this movie should have remained on the shelf where it was for two years."

Mainstream publications paraded out the negative reviews. The Vancouver Courier's Peter T. Chattaway refers to the lateness of its release: "The film shows all the signs of fatigue and resignation that you might expect from a crew that just wants to get the movie over with. Charlton Heston buffs, at least, can look forward to his cameo, in which he bravely sends up his image as a psychotic gun-toting homophobe. But for the most part, the film plays like a joke with no set-up and no punchline." Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum sums it up: "Not interestingly odious, not particularly harmful, not excitingly embarrassing, not cultishly screwed up. Just coarse, clunky, jerry rigged, and—worst of all—not funny."

The other star-studded comedy opening this week did not fare much better, especially among religious media critics. One Night at McCool's follows the Rashomon pattern, in which three individuals tell different versions of the same story. In this case, we have three men obsessed with the same woman, Jewel (Liv Tyler), who manipulates and takes advantage of their affections.

Phil Boatwright at The Dove Foundation found nothing to like: "This heavy-handed sex farce is filled with dopey, unlikable characters and not much else. Most of the humor rests on crude and sometimes deviant sexual activity, while the rest of the humor is drained out of a poor soul whose life is destroyed by a psychopath with one aim—owning a home, anybody's home." Preview objects to many elements of the story, including yet another portrayal of a Catholic priest as a sexual deviant: "Catholics will certainly object to the portrayal of a priest who drinks communion wine socially after dumping communion wafers out of the chalice. He also seems to get vicarious thrills out of the sexual confessions." Movieguide has questions about the plot: "Jewel's motivations are never really fully explained beyond her lust for material goods. One is left wondering why she just doesn't become the trophy wife of some rich millionaire." "Every major character in this film operates out of lust," writes Michael Elliott. "The men lust for Jewel and Jewel lusts for material possessions. As the Scripture promises, when lust is in the picture, sin isn't going to be too far behind. Bottom line: There's not much that is 'cool' about One Night at McCool's."

The U.S. Catholic Conference forcefully objects to the film's ethics: "In addition to its casual disregard for human life, director Harald Zwart's strained film condones the femme fatale's actions by allowing her to sidestep accountability." But Roger Ebert actually argues that Jewel isn't responsible for her devious deeds: "She isn't an evil woman; she's just the victim of her nature." Yikes. Imagine where that line of thinking could lead.

Next week: That Mummy is back, critics respond to Liv Ullman's Faithless, and more.

Jeffrey Overstreet is on the board of Promontory Artists Association, a non-profit organization based in Seattle, which provides community, resources, and encouragement for Christian artists. He edits an artists' magazine (The Crossing), publishes frequent film and music reviews on his Web site (Looking Closer), and is at work on a series of novels.

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