DANGEROUS MEN (1984 / 2005 / 2015)

Filmmaking is the most communal artistic medium there is. The impassioned spend years watching and studying films, then attending film schools, and then striking out on their own and working on guerilla-style film sets just to hone their craft. And when everyone comes together, bringing their own specific expertise--whether it be writing, cinematography, or editing--a film happens, and it's through everyone's combined efforts that such a thing were possible.

The opening credits for Dangerous Men prove that everyone's been doing it wrong, as it proudly displays the names man that helped bring Dangerous Men to fruition:

A John S. Rad film.

Created and written by John Rad.

Original music, songs, & lyrics by John Rad.

Producer: John Rad.

Executive producer: John Rad.

Directed by John Rad.

A joke surely made a hundred times by now, that opening credits list perfectly sums up Dangerous Men: Rad. Rad all over. Rad through and through. Every inch of film, every stick of production design, every B♭on the keyboard is pure, 100%, unfiltered Rad. But you'll somehow realize this before a single Rad ever flashes on screen, because you'll already have witnessed the title--DANGEROUS MEN--roar onto the screen, only to crash into each other and explode. Following this, you will know there was only one man capable of creating what you are about to witness. Neither David Lean, Howard Hawks, nor Martin Scorsese, literally, could have ever made Dangerous Men. 

If you clicked on this review already having heard of Dangerous Men, then you likely know the backstory of the very complicated and unorthodox production. Entirely self-funded, auteur John Rad shot portions of the film when he had the money to do so. When there was no money, there was no film. The shooting just...stopped. As you can imagine, this approach made the shoot last just a little longer than usual--like, 22 years longer.

Do you know what happens over the course of 22 years?

EVERYTHING.

Actors quit; technology upgrades; "plots" can become lost over the haziness of time; calendars (seen prominently in the background) can say 1985 in one scene, and 1994 the next.

Haphazardly rewritten to conform to the changes that occur over time (like, say, a lead actress who quits after becoming injured on set), Dangerous Men's plot makes very little sense. Characters are introduced and then completely forgotten. Other characters are introduced at nearly the end of the film and somehow become essential catalysts to the resolution of the conflict. Even Wikipedia, which knows everything about everything, has no fucking idea how to explain it: "The plot of Dangerous Men is somewhat unclear, and changes abruptly towards the middle of the film."

Dangerous Men has something for everyone: unsexy sex scenes, terrible karate, ageless fathers, wet kissing, buttcrack knives, badly obscured accents, repeated attempted rape, childish/murderous bikers, tedious strangling, the line, "sweet like cake!"; multiple scenes of knee love; a stabbing-murder sequence shot entirely from the point of view of the human ass; an inadvertently sociopathic heroine; endless scenes of a naked British man dancing in the California desert; poor, poor, poor...just, the poorest acting; funky, upbeat, joyful synth scores used for scenes of rape, stabbing, murder, or, you know, whatever; zero-hour appearances of albino villains; inescapable scenes of belly-dancing; near-cunnilingus; and so so so much more.

Dangerous Men is completely incompatible with the art of film criticism. There'd be no point in calling out the horrendous acting, writing, directing, etc., or the numerous continuity errors, when you're dealing with a film that feels like a fever dream. It doesn't matter that shot composition is worrisome, or that the movie is clearly comprised of multiple film grades, when there are literally instances of actors reading their lines from on-screen scripts, or the same punch sound/"agh!" yell is used fifteen times in a row between two different characters during a fight scene, or the avenging heroine is obviously holding a boom mic almost-but-not-quite out of the shot, even pointing it back and forth to whomever is speaking at that moment. Critiquing Dangerous Men is like going to PetSmart and complaining that it's a shitty zoological exhibit. It's like licking the inside of a Chinatown dumpster and wondering why you feel so ill. Dangerous Men aims a nuclear-propelled rocket at a planet called "Merely Satisfactory Filmmaking" and falls short by thirty million light years. Dangerous Men trails in every election poll except the one called "Hilarious Tits and Stabbing." Dangerous Men shows up to your mother's funeral in Crocs and board shorts, but you honestly don't care because you LOVE Dangerous Men. Someone once tried to battle Dangerous Men with nothing but hyperbole, at which point hyperbole was added to science books as an official unit of measurement.

Dangerous Men can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop. Ever. 

Being that Dangerous Men was shot in chunks over the course of 22 years, some portions of footage look better than others. As you can imagine, the look and integrity of the film gradually improves as it plays on, being that it was shot in mostly chronological order. There are also signs of your usual mistreated footage--print damage, marring, speckling, etc. There's even a cigarette burn or two, which will serve as your befuddling reminder that, yeah, this fucker actually played in a theater. Along with that, the audio on this thing...it ain't great. If someone is sitting in a quiet room, dialogue is clean and clear. If someone is outside on the beach, say, getting almost-raped, or stabbed to death, dialogue is likely muffled by exterior elements, like crashing waves or steady winds. In the film's opening scene, set in a restaurant, all audio has been completely removed between dialogue exchanges, which also contain your usual amount of restaurant ambiance. The very very repetitive and tonally inappropriate synth score by (you guessed it) John Rad can also overwhelm dialogue at times. To summarize, Dangerous Men is capable of offering any kind of consistency when it comes to how it looks or sounds, but seriously, who gives a shit? You didn't even know this thing existed until a month ago, and now you're going to complain? 

For years now, people have asked me, "Why do you love bad movies so much? What's the point of watching something bad...on purpose?" Films like Dangerous Men are my answer. And it needs to speak for itself. If you're a bad movie connoisseur, run--don't walk--to the phone in your hand probably right now and order up this bad boy. You will not be at all disappointed.

Dangerous Men is now available on Blu-ray from Drafthouse Films.

THE FP (2012)

For a filmmaker, attempting to manufacture a cult film is a fool's errand. To even try is just as disingenuous as those claims you see from film critics hailing a newly released movie as an "instant classic." No one filmmaker can knowingly create a cult film, and no one film critic can hail a movie as an instant classic. Time, only, will decide if one particular film is worthy of either title.

The FP just might have broken both of those rules in one dope move. 

Conceived and executed by The Trost Brothers (Jason and Brandon), The FP is destined to go down as the most unique film of 2012. I can honestly say I've never seen another film like it, and I absolutely love when I get to say that.

Jtro (Jason Troust) and his brother, Btro (Brandon Barrera), live in a not-too-distant future where underground games of Beat Beat Revolution (a recreated version of the popular arcade hit Dance Dance Revolution) are not only prevalent, but have become the way for gangs to claim dominance over a territory. Hordes of young people gather together in smoky, neon light-filled basement warehouses and watch as two challengers go head-to-head, pumping their legs and twisting their bodies to the roaring techno bouncing off the concrete walls; and when our characters speak, they do so using the most extreme street Ebonics not heard since the days of the NWA. Exclamations of "Oh snap!", "Whack!", and "YEah!! [sic]" flash on the screens during the dance challenge, either encouraging or dissing the dancers' moves.

If you're thinking this concept is ludicrous, that's because it is. And our filmmakers know it is. But that doesn't mean they aren't in on the joke. And wisely, they play this concept as straight as possible. When I tell you that the movie is flat-out hilarious, it's not because there are "jokes" throughout its running time...because there aren't...because the entire movie is the joke. Lines of dialogue like "I challenge you to a beat-off!" or "Dance with your mind, not your feet!" are spoken with the straightest of faces. And the audience who watches from the sidelines as two challengers hit the dance mats for a game of BBR aren't laughing at our characters, because what they see unfolding before them isn't an arcade game, or a joke, but a way of life.

Inexplicably, the entire movie is one absurd allegory of the Civil War. Two gangs, the 248 (the good guys from the north part of Frazier Park) and the 245 (the baddies from the south) are vying for dominance of the FP. The secret "training" headquarters for the 248 is mentioned as once being used in the Underground Railroad movement. The 245 is led by L-Dubba-E (aka Lee, aka Robert E. Lee, general of the Confederate Army). His lesser soldiers wear Confederate soldier hats and proudly display flags of the same. Allusions to Abraham Lincoln are made throughout the film. What it all means I couldn't say, but it's oddly appropriate to see something so historically significant, important, and realistically scary as the Civil War woven through such a strange tapestry of dancing and urban slang.

One smoky night, Btro and L-Dubba-E challenge each other to a game of BBR, and the match grows so heated that Btro literally dies on the mat, sharing an absurdly touching moment with his brother before descending to that big techno club in the sky.

Jtro glares at the heavens as he vows, "I'm never playing Beat Beat Revolution again!" and sets off to a life of isolation as a lumberjack.

But there are people from the FP who haven't forgotten about Jtro, and they beg him to return to his roots and help them regain control of their hometown from the 245s.

A visually impressive amalgamation of other films like Rocky, 8 Mile, The Warriors, and even Mad Max, The FP immediately grabs your attention with its off-kilter approach, and once it does, you are drawn into this peculiar world almost effortlessly, simultaneously laughing at the strange characters and their strange way of life, but also rooting for the boys from the 248 without even realizing it.

Jason Trost as Jtro has the hardest job as the lead character. He has lost his brother, and so he is a broken man; however, the other characters surrounding him are by contrast dynamic and quirky, energetic and bizarre. They have the ability to mask their own understanding of how silly their film is with their own idiosyncratic performances. Trost, however, remains dour for most of the movie, repeating the most ridiculous of lines while remaining stoic, calm, and disenchanted. The FP depends on his performance to work, and so it does.

Special mention must be made of Art Hsu and his manic performance as KC/DC. He remains energetic from the first minute until the last, serving as MC over all the BBR challenges and badly singing a profane version of the National Anthem (not so much of the United States, but of Frazier Park). He shares one particularly amusing scene where he explains that L-Dubba-E has come into ownership of the FP's sole liquor store, but refuses to sell its booze, forcing people to look to meth to satisfy their addictions. In a teary-eyed monologue, he explains that without booze, there are no bums, and because there are no bums, there is no one to feed the ducks...and so the ducks stop coming to the FP. "And what kinda town ain't got no mothafuckin' ducks?!" he demands through his tears. Hsu is not only the heart of The FP, but the catalyst, as it is he who retrieves Jtro from his lonely life and convinces him to come back and fight for all that the 248 have lost.

Lastly, The FP has perhaps the greatest final shot of all time.

Produced by the folks who brought you Paranormal Activity and Insidious, The FP is brought to you by Drafthouse Films, the infamous Texas-based movie theater who have for years hosted special screenings of films new and old. The FP marks another release by their relatively new distribution banner, and if it's just a taste of things to come, I look enthusiastically forward to their new venture.

The FP begins a limited theatrical release beginning March 16. To see if it's playing in your city, or for more info on the movie, go here.

Grade: A+