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serai.
OK, I'm gonna talk about Day Zero now. Not a full review, just a gathering of thoughts.
Oh boy. Where to start?
OK, I guess I'll jump right in.
I hated this film.
A lot of people don't want to hear that, I know. It's a Serious Film about a Serious Subject! It stars Edgy Serious Actors! We get to see Elijah's skin! How can I hate it?
Well, because it's a fundamentally dishonest film. It stacks the deck by pretending to be something it's not. This is not a sympathetic, compassionate film, not by a long way. This is a film that punishes people for not agreeing with its central point of view - that violence is a noble thing. And it brings that point home in ways that are so clumsy, so transparently partisan that I'm insulted at the implication that I would swallow that hook.
At first I liked the film. It's well shot, capably acted, looks good, feels good in a technical sense. But a little at a time, things began to look askew to me, and didn't stop snowballing until I couldn't help yelling at the screen.
Obviously, my way into this film was through Elijah's work in it, and that is exactly where the trouble started. I instantly disliked the way his character is presented in this film. Not him, but his presentation. Elijah's work was fine; the eye that looked at him wasn't.
Aaron occupies a place in Day Zero that I see in films now and then, and almost inevitably, it's a place that's there because the writer and/or director don't know how to convince the audience of their point of view, so they fall back on a form of character abuse. In this case, it's presenting a person as so hopelessly at sea in the world that nothing he does can ever be taken seriously. He is physically, socially and sexually immature, for a start, but that immaturity is never balanced with an inner life, so all we see is the bumbling. Even at home alone, he has no redeeming qualities - he's a writer who isn't writing, a little mouse hiding in his little hole. His one accomplishment turns out to be a complete ripoff, for gods sakes. (That was larding it way too thick, in my eyes, and actually made me angry.) And of course it goes without saying that try as he might, he simply cannot get laid.
By the time the third act started, the fact that Aaron was played by Elijah was the only thing he had going for him, and that annoyed me. It always annoys me when a character is given so little dimension in such a transparent way, because clearly Aaron is there to be a foil for the other two, who are the real story of the film. Little Aaron just exists to show us how completely awful the whole draft thing is, and what consequences can come out of just threatening someone with the kind of crazy death that happens in Iraq. He is never given depth, any inner dimension, and that's really sad because Aaron could easily have been the soul of the film. He is, after all, the most likely of the three of them to die (a point this heavy-handed movie never misses a chance of hammering into your head), and thus could have given us some very deep insight into the effects of dragging unwilling participants into that kind of madness.
But no. He's played for laughs, again and again, and then he's played for crazy weird laughs, and then somewhere in the third act the movie suddenly wants us to care about him. Kinda. Because let's face it, even though Aaron is clearly losing it big time, seeing Elijah trying mightily to be Travis Bickle is just ludicrous. He isn't scary for an instant, and come on, you agree with me. When has any of us ever really believed that he could pull out a .357 and blow somebody's head off? That harmlessness been his basic persona for years, and the occasional Sin City aside, it's still his persona. He's sweet and kind and decent, and this glowering mirror-shaded baby-Jack thing just looks like a Halloween costume on him. But I digress.
Aaron's manipulation ties into the main failure of this film, and why I hate it. Clearly, the filmmakers' sympathies are with the taxi guy, can't remember his name. Despite being an uneducated lug who habitually solves problems with his fists, his viewpoint is the one given the upper hand in moral terms. He's the one trumpeting the war values of honor, revenge and don't-be-a-pussy, and holds the other two not only mistaken but in contempt, even though he claims to be fond of them. And here's how I know the film is dishonest and partisan: he's the only one who is allowed to have a viewpoint and to keep it with integrity without being punished.
That's fucked up. Nobody else is allowed to have a different opinion about the war that is both honorable and leads to a good outcome. Any attitude other than agreement leads to tragedy and painful circumstances. The lawyer guy doesn't want to go, and clearly has deep-seated moral reasons, perfectly sound ones that the majority of this country hold, and yet he is not allowed to keep those reasons. In the writer's view, his reasons are trumped by the fact that the taxi dude once saved his ass from a beating ten years ago and went to juvie for it (all without being asked, of course), and somehow Lawyer Dude is supposed to pay for that for the rest of his life, very possibly with his life. Maybe so, bub, but as Don Corleone once said, that is not justice. Of the three, one guy is eager to go and die, the other two definitely don't want to, but one way or the other they all gotta die, because...what? Men are supposed to die? Only pussies live? They couldn't figure out how to end the story?
Back to Aaron. (See how he's the only one whose name I remember? Tells you something, since my memory is usually very good on details like that.) So by the end of the film, the story has painted him into a wannabe psycho corner, wants you to think he's gonna open fire in a crowd, yaddayadda, but then does a complete left turn. In a spectacularly amateurish gotcha, the film catches two birds with one net: it makes its topical comment in a painfully clumsy way and it gets rid of a character who has become too difficult to manage in the short time the film has left. Aaron had CORPSE painted on him from early on, and (I hate to keep repeating this, but...) that is the worst kind of audience manipulation. That leap off the building is Aaron's only reason for existence: to show that a draft would not only mean soldiers' deaths, but could also drive draftees to crazed behavior and suicide. Duh.
Let's be clear that I'm just as annoyed about the treatment of Lawyer Guy. Here's a man who's smart, extremely capable, has a great life and has decided the war is not his beef. As I said before, the majority of Americans have migrated to that point of view, so he's not a traitor or a quisling or a stooge anymore - now he's us. That's a problem for the filmmakers, and no mistake, because the majority of the audience is not going to side with Mr. Morally Righteous anymore - we're siding with the guy who wants to live, thanks. So the film forces the issue by making his life into something clingy and slightly creepy in a way - or at least the film wants us to think so - something that is keeping him from Being A Man. Something he must shed in order to See Clearly. I just...argh.
I suppose a word is in order about Taxi Guy. He didn't start irritating me until he began to get pushy and unpleasant. At that point I wondered why the hell these guys, who were clearly out of his league, wanted to hang around with him. (We found out why with Lawyer Guy, but I still don't get why Aaron put up with him.) The whole thing with the girl was making me yell at the screen. I mean that literally. Tell her, you jagoff!! came from my lips more than once. He's a selfish, oafish character whose morality comes off the back of cereal boxes, the kind with the football players on the front. He's just as one-dimensional as the rest of them, in fact. And yo, how exactly do you expect me to have even the slightest sympathy for a guy who finds his much smaller and weaker friend stranded in a dangerous environment in the middle of the night and just drives off and leaves him there? And what am I supposed to make of a film that does the same thing? (We never do get to find out how the hell Aaron got home.)
The film had other problems too, chiefly the muddiness of the editing. As well as the aforementioned abandonment scene, there's the ending. Did the other two guys know what happened to Aaron? Did his death influence either of them in any way? Because the film gives you no indication, Aaron is once again diminished even further. Oh well, he's gone, let's get to the real point. There are a number of other places in the film where I found the editing irksome, where some vital bit of information clearly got left on the cutting room floor, and that's just way too clumsy for me. It felt like the editor had gotten too close to the material and wasn't pulling back and seeing it from the point of view of an audience that didn't know all the stuff in the bits we'd lost. Bad editor, no biscuit!
In the end, the reason I hated this film is the same reason I hate E.T. I can't stand being considered an idiot, and both films are so supremely clumsy and obvious in their button-pushing that rather than win my sympathy, they just piss me off. Is that how dumb you think I am? is my conclusion every time I see a film like this. When you're dealing with this kind of delicate web of issues and viewpoints, finesse is called for, as well as respect for your characters. The commentary has to live behind the story, make itself felt from within the audience's mind, not wielded like a club to stun us into agreement. That's just bad storytelling all around.
Oh, and I really can't stand Chris Klein.
Okay, so it is a review. Once I start I can't stop; so sue me. ;)
OK, I'm gonna talk about Day Zero now. Not a full review, just a gathering of thoughts.
Oh boy. Where to start?
OK, I guess I'll jump right in.
I hated this film.
A lot of people don't want to hear that, I know. It's a Serious Film about a Serious Subject! It stars Edgy Serious Actors! We get to see Elijah's skin! How can I hate it?
Well, because it's a fundamentally dishonest film. It stacks the deck by pretending to be something it's not. This is not a sympathetic, compassionate film, not by a long way. This is a film that punishes people for not agreeing with its central point of view - that violence is a noble thing. And it brings that point home in ways that are so clumsy, so transparently partisan that I'm insulted at the implication that I would swallow that hook.
At first I liked the film. It's well shot, capably acted, looks good, feels good in a technical sense. But a little at a time, things began to look askew to me, and didn't stop snowballing until I couldn't help yelling at the screen.
Obviously, my way into this film was through Elijah's work in it, and that is exactly where the trouble started. I instantly disliked the way his character is presented in this film. Not him, but his presentation. Elijah's work was fine; the eye that looked at him wasn't.
Aaron occupies a place in Day Zero that I see in films now and then, and almost inevitably, it's a place that's there because the writer and/or director don't know how to convince the audience of their point of view, so they fall back on a form of character abuse. In this case, it's presenting a person as so hopelessly at sea in the world that nothing he does can ever be taken seriously. He is physically, socially and sexually immature, for a start, but that immaturity is never balanced with an inner life, so all we see is the bumbling. Even at home alone, he has no redeeming qualities - he's a writer who isn't writing, a little mouse hiding in his little hole. His one accomplishment turns out to be a complete ripoff, for gods sakes. (That was larding it way too thick, in my eyes, and actually made me angry.) And of course it goes without saying that try as he might, he simply cannot get laid.
By the time the third act started, the fact that Aaron was played by Elijah was the only thing he had going for him, and that annoyed me. It always annoys me when a character is given so little dimension in such a transparent way, because clearly Aaron is there to be a foil for the other two, who are the real story of the film. Little Aaron just exists to show us how completely awful the whole draft thing is, and what consequences can come out of just threatening someone with the kind of crazy death that happens in Iraq. He is never given depth, any inner dimension, and that's really sad because Aaron could easily have been the soul of the film. He is, after all, the most likely of the three of them to die (a point this heavy-handed movie never misses a chance of hammering into your head), and thus could have given us some very deep insight into the effects of dragging unwilling participants into that kind of madness.
But no. He's played for laughs, again and again, and then he's played for crazy weird laughs, and then somewhere in the third act the movie suddenly wants us to care about him. Kinda. Because let's face it, even though Aaron is clearly losing it big time, seeing Elijah trying mightily to be Travis Bickle is just ludicrous. He isn't scary for an instant, and come on, you agree with me. When has any of us ever really believed that he could pull out a .357 and blow somebody's head off? That harmlessness been his basic persona for years, and the occasional Sin City aside, it's still his persona. He's sweet and kind and decent, and this glowering mirror-shaded baby-Jack thing just looks like a Halloween costume on him. But I digress.
Aaron's manipulation ties into the main failure of this film, and why I hate it. Clearly, the filmmakers' sympathies are with the taxi guy, can't remember his name. Despite being an uneducated lug who habitually solves problems with his fists, his viewpoint is the one given the upper hand in moral terms. He's the one trumpeting the war values of honor, revenge and don't-be-a-pussy, and holds the other two not only mistaken but in contempt, even though he claims to be fond of them. And here's how I know the film is dishonest and partisan: he's the only one who is allowed to have a viewpoint and to keep it with integrity without being punished.
That's fucked up. Nobody else is allowed to have a different opinion about the war that is both honorable and leads to a good outcome. Any attitude other than agreement leads to tragedy and painful circumstances. The lawyer guy doesn't want to go, and clearly has deep-seated moral reasons, perfectly sound ones that the majority of this country hold, and yet he is not allowed to keep those reasons. In the writer's view, his reasons are trumped by the fact that the taxi dude once saved his ass from a beating ten years ago and went to juvie for it (all without being asked, of course), and somehow Lawyer Dude is supposed to pay for that for the rest of his life, very possibly with his life. Maybe so, bub, but as Don Corleone once said, that is not justice. Of the three, one guy is eager to go and die, the other two definitely don't want to, but one way or the other they all gotta die, because...what? Men are supposed to die? Only pussies live? They couldn't figure out how to end the story?
Back to Aaron. (See how he's the only one whose name I remember? Tells you something, since my memory is usually very good on details like that.) So by the end of the film, the story has painted him into a wannabe psycho corner, wants you to think he's gonna open fire in a crowd, yaddayadda, but then does a complete left turn. In a spectacularly amateurish gotcha, the film catches two birds with one net: it makes its topical comment in a painfully clumsy way and it gets rid of a character who has become too difficult to manage in the short time the film has left. Aaron had CORPSE painted on him from early on, and (I hate to keep repeating this, but...) that is the worst kind of audience manipulation. That leap off the building is Aaron's only reason for existence: to show that a draft would not only mean soldiers' deaths, but could also drive draftees to crazed behavior and suicide. Duh.
Let's be clear that I'm just as annoyed about the treatment of Lawyer Guy. Here's a man who's smart, extremely capable, has a great life and has decided the war is not his beef. As I said before, the majority of Americans have migrated to that point of view, so he's not a traitor or a quisling or a stooge anymore - now he's us. That's a problem for the filmmakers, and no mistake, because the majority of the audience is not going to side with Mr. Morally Righteous anymore - we're siding with the guy who wants to live, thanks. So the film forces the issue by making his life into something clingy and slightly creepy in a way - or at least the film wants us to think so - something that is keeping him from Being A Man. Something he must shed in order to See Clearly. I just...argh.
I suppose a word is in order about Taxi Guy. He didn't start irritating me until he began to get pushy and unpleasant. At that point I wondered why the hell these guys, who were clearly out of his league, wanted to hang around with him. (We found out why with Lawyer Guy, but I still don't get why Aaron put up with him.) The whole thing with the girl was making me yell at the screen. I mean that literally. Tell her, you jagoff!! came from my lips more than once. He's a selfish, oafish character whose morality comes off the back of cereal boxes, the kind with the football players on the front. He's just as one-dimensional as the rest of them, in fact. And yo, how exactly do you expect me to have even the slightest sympathy for a guy who finds his much smaller and weaker friend stranded in a dangerous environment in the middle of the night and just drives off and leaves him there? And what am I supposed to make of a film that does the same thing? (We never do get to find out how the hell Aaron got home.)
The film had other problems too, chiefly the muddiness of the editing. As well as the aforementioned abandonment scene, there's the ending. Did the other two guys know what happened to Aaron? Did his death influence either of them in any way? Because the film gives you no indication, Aaron is once again diminished even further. Oh well, he's gone, let's get to the real point. There are a number of other places in the film where I found the editing irksome, where some vital bit of information clearly got left on the cutting room floor, and that's just way too clumsy for me. It felt like the editor had gotten too close to the material and wasn't pulling back and seeing it from the point of view of an audience that didn't know all the stuff in the bits we'd lost. Bad editor, no biscuit!
In the end, the reason I hated this film is the same reason I hate E.T. I can't stand being considered an idiot, and both films are so supremely clumsy and obvious in their button-pushing that rather than win my sympathy, they just piss me off. Is that how dumb you think I am? is my conclusion every time I see a film like this. When you're dealing with this kind of delicate web of issues and viewpoints, finesse is called for, as well as respect for your characters. The commentary has to live behind the story, make itself felt from within the audience's mind, not wielded like a club to stun us into agreement. That's just bad storytelling all around.
Oh, and I really can't stand Chris Klein.
Okay, so it is a review. Once I start I can't stop; so sue me. ;)
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no subject
Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2007 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2007 10:11 pm (UTC)Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2007 02:06 am (UTC)To me, Jon's character wasn't so much about being completely gung-ho for the war--though he agreed with it, it was more "what the hell else do I have to live for, anyway? May as well have some purpose". Whatever purpose he wanted to fulfill is his own. And whether we agree with the war or not, both sides of the coin were shown at the party-fight scene. The overzealous supporter of the war (who happens to be blasted out of his mind), and the snobby againsts-its... of which there are plenty. I think the fight also shows that Jon's (going by actor, can't remember his name in the film) violence is sometimes out-of-control, but hey... I was a dork in school, constantly teased, but when I became friends with the 7th grade classes' psycho and a six-foot tall Polynesian girl, no one messed with me. I wouldn't doubt that Aaron became friends with him, that reason being a small part of it. It happens.
I went into this film expecting it to be totally against the war--but I saw the other side of the coin, and I actually appreciated it. As much as I hate this war and want Bush to fry, there are people with all the best and noble intentions towards the war in Iraq, and FOR Iraq. We can say that it's wrong, but we can't tell them to shut up. That's the beauty of this country... it works for both sides. I want to SEE the noble side, even if I don't agree with them.
As for Aaron, I actually found it to be genius. Let everyone think it's all fun and games, then BAM. People were chuckling over him until the very last moments--when he jumped, there was a surprised, resounding gasp. It makes one think back on everything, and realize how truly fucked up he was. Given a little more insanity, I could've been him--easy.
Not trying to change your mind, but thas' just my two cents.
*Edit: I can't stand Klein, either. I liked his character, but it was hard to get past the snobby jackass he'd played in 'Here On Earth'. He steals Josh's character's girlfriend. Poor Klein... I just can't do ya, man... ;)*
Re: Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2007 10:10 pm (UTC)Re: Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2007 10:22 pm (UTC)But I still say that Klein bugs me. Have I said that? Oh God. He bugs me. LOL.
Re: Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Friday, December 21st, 2007 05:33 pm (UTC)Re: Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Friday, December 21st, 2007 08:20 pm (UTC)Re: Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Friday, December 21st, 2007 11:55 pm (UTC)Re: Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 12:03 am (UTC)Edit (just cos' I wub him): see Mozart and the Whale. It'll change yer mind. ;)
Re: Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 01:10 am (UTC)Mozart and the Whale. Isn't that the film where he plays a retarded kid? If so, not interested. I've very rarely seen any actor do well at that - too much "look at me, I'm GOOD, give me an Oscar!" involved in those films.
Re: Here be spoilers, for those thinking comments are safe. ;)
Date: Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2007 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2007 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 06:03 am (UTC)A lot of my reactions are similar to yours; I think the script and the direction make the characters much shallower than they would need to be to give this movie the gut-punch intensity the director seems to hope for. Unlike you, I liked Dixon (Berenthal's character) the best of the three, if only because his character is developed sufficiently to be interesting to me. In particular, his interactions with the landlady's little girl give him a depth the other characters lack.
Much of what bugged me about the script is unrealistic assumptions. Unlike any of the actors playing the characters, and probably unlike the director himself, I *remember* the mechanics of the actual draft quite well; I had family members drafted during the height of the Vietnam war. And the thing is, even in wartime, being drafted doesn't mean an automatic path to the front lines, *especially* for somebody like an experienced lawyer. Both Aaron (with his Master's degree, presumably in journalism) and the lawyer, whose character's name escapes me, would almost certainly have been offered service options other than the sort of I'm-gonna-die duty over which they both obsess. If their considerable mental strife occurred because they were loath to serve in a conflict that they found morally repugnant, it would have been one thing; but the lawyer's primary concern was losing the career, wealth, and status he'd worked to achieve, and Aaron's was fear of inadequacy, expressed as a fear of being killed in action.
The bit about Dixon's father being a Korean War veteran annoyed me, too. The Korean Conflict ended in 1953, and while it's *possible* that a veteran of that action could have a son Dixon's age, it would have been far more reasonable to have him be a Vietnam vet. It's not a huge deal, but it's another example, to my way of thinking, of sloppy accuracy regarding the country's military history.
I also found a lot of the character's responses to their angst to be stereotypical to the point of absurdity; in particular, the lawyer going into a gay bar and picking a fight struck me as completely ridiculous. I disliked the "what's the worst thing you've done" discussion; I didn't think it advanced the plot or the character development at all, and like you, I found Aaron's confession galling (partly because if rewriting a folk story is plagarism, Shakespeare oughtta be in jail, along with 2/3 of the rest of respected classic authors).
I also found the editing to be sloppy as hell. When Aaron gets his tattoo, Dixon has just told somebody that he has to report in less than a week; yet when the three guys meet again the day before they report, Aaron's shaved sideburns and beard have grown back (about two weeks' worth, by my estimation). Plus, a tattoo like that would take well over a week to heal and un-scab. The trailers did a countdown: Day 25, Day 20, and so forth; I think the movie itself would have been more effective arranged around such a countdown; it would have given it a better structure and avoided jarring juxtapositions like the the one above.
The script also left a lot of danglers that could have been tied up more neatly. For example, it seems incongruous for Aaron to jump if his list includes "serving with honor." But it would have been easy and clean, from a storyline perspective, for him to do those ten shots of whiskey and then accidentally-on-purpose take a few too many of those sleeping pills his shrink prescribed for him. What's the point of introducing those things if they have no relevance to the story?
The movie's purported theme of "What would YOU do?" is compelling and thought-provoking, but I don't think the movie as presented addressed that theme very well. That said, I think each of the actors did a very credible job with the material given him, but even stellar acting can't redeem a hackneyed script.
Thanks again for your insights. I'll be curious, as more people see this movie, to see if others share our disappointment.