A soldier gets
stranded alone in the desert after stepping on a mine that he can't take his
foot off.
I'm a sucker for these "bar challenge" premises. Ideas that sound like something a bunch of drunk screenwriters would boast that they could pull off.
"I can do a whole movie where a guy doesn't take more than 10 steps from a phone booth" (Phone Booth)
"So, this guy gets buried alive. The whole movie is him inside a casket on the phone" (Buried)
"It's one actor the whole time, driving on the highway while he juggles a bunch of personal crises over a bunch of phone calls." (Locke)
"The husband dies on top of his wife while they're having sex. She's handcuffed to the bed and in a remote area. And there's a wold" (Gerald's Game)
None of these are
favorites of mine, but I like the audacity of the ideas. So, as soon as I saw
the trailer for Mine, I knew I had to see it. Armie Hammer steps on a
mine early on and can't take his foot off it without exploding it. His buddy
steps on one too and dies shortly after.
The rest of the movie is Hammer occasionally getting help from a mysterious
local who shows up (and probably isn't a figment of his imagination),
trying to arrange a rescue via walkie talkie without actually knowing where he
is, and fighting off predators at night. It's a lean movie and it still has to
pad its brief runtime. Hammer gives it his all though. It looks like Mine's
directors specialize in films like this. I haven't seen any of the movies, but
the descriptions all have the same "person trapped in an isolated
situation" pitch. I'd expect them to know a few more tricks to keep it
interesting than are on display in Mine. This is a very tough story to
pull off. There has to be something for the actor to play off. The ideas this
movie comes up with don't work that well. The army officer on the other end of
the walkie is designed to not be helpful. The local who is helping him doesn't
make a lot of sense. I felt cheated by how his story ties into the climax of
the movie. I love the idea for the movie. It's why I'm certain to see The
Wall from last year eventually too. The execution is what left a lot to be
desired.
It feels weird
saying this, but I could really feel the lack of budget too. Perhaps it was the
trailers of the DVD for other movies from that studio (I like to watch those
for smaller studios, since it's likely I haven't heard of some of the movies),
which didn't have such limited premises to hide behind. Or maybe is was that in
the moments when a decent budget could've been shown off (the assassination
mission early on, or when the friend hits the first mine), they didn't show
off. This just always felt like I was watching a movie that was trying to hide
its budget limitations rather than embrace them (See: Clerks,
Tangerine).
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment