Josh Bell
This week’s fringe VOD releases feature erotic longing in Taiwan, political strife in Greece, violent crime across the U.S.-Mexico border, and an action hero who kicks ass from Iran to Finland and back.
In the Morning of La Petite Mort (VOD January 19): This impressionistic drama from Taiwanese filmmaker Wang Yu-Lin is full of inexplicable moments, but it’s best to embrace the mystery and get caught up in the haunting performances and striking images. There are echoes of Wong Kar-Wai in Wang’s story of lonely city dwellers forming a deep romantic bond, but his film also recalls the work of countryman Tsai Ming-Liang, with its minimal dialogue, lengthy scenes of mundane activity, and often startlingly explicit eroticism. The central connection is between impoverished food delivery driver Matsui (Yusuke Fukuchi), who spends his nights squatting in an abandoned building, and melancholy prostitute Ching (Wang Yun-Chih), who engages in desultory trysts with her male clients. In both the main story and an even more baffling subplot about another unlikely pairing, Wang freely mixes naturalism and surrealism, with sometimes jarring sound design and sudden narrative shifts. The result is confounding but often beautiful, just like the lives of its characters. Grade: B
Wanted Man (VOD and select theaters January 19): With noted conservative Kelsey Grammer as co-star and characters spouting right-wing talking points, action legend Dolph Lundgren’s latest project as director and co-writer starts out seeming like a Daily Wire production. Lundgren has a more compassionate worldview than those early moments indicate, although it’s not like Wanted Man has a nuanced or even particularly coherent message. Lundgren’s Det. Johansen is under investigation after an alleged incident of racist brutality, and he’s sent south of the border on a supposedly routine assignment to escort a witness, as a gesture of goodwill to rehabilitate his image. Instead, he’s ambushed and left for dead, with that witness (Christina Villa) as his only ally. Thanks to her help, he learns that Mexicans are people, too, while engaging in some poorly staged shootouts and awkward conversations. Lundgren’s filmmaking is as lumbering and ungainly as his screen presence, both barreling ahead with the same crude clumsiness as his protagonist. Grade: C
Layers of Lies (VOD and DVD January 23): This Iranian-Finnish co-production is more effective as a showcase for the fighting skills of star Ramin Sohrab than as a movie. Director and co-writer Sohrab plays Sam Kashani, a Tehran firefighter who moves to Finland to start a new life away from his PTSD triggers. Five years later, he returns for a visit to Tehran with his Finnish wife Emma (Jessica Wolff), only to end up targeted by a local criminal. Sohrab spends far too much time on the convoluted set-up, just to give Sam the proper motivation for a basic revenge story, after Emma is kidnapped. When Sam is kicking and punching his way through faceless henchmen, Layers of Lies is kinetic and fun, with some inventive action choreography. The rest is a dreary slog, with stilted performances, choppy editing, and a confusing, belabored plot. At best, it’s a solid audition reel for a co-starring role in the next Scott Adkins movie. Grade: C+
Behind the Haystacks (Film Movement Plus January 26): Greece’s official submission for the 2024 Best International Feature Oscar didn’t make the initial shortlist, which was the right call for a disjointed drama that bungles its potential for social commentary. Set in 2015, writer-director Asimina Proedrou’s debut feature focuses on the troubles of one family living alongside the border with North Macedonia. Struggling farm worker and fisherman Stergios (Stathis Stamoulakatos) accepts money from his shady brother-in-law to smuggle Syrian refugees across the lake between the two countries, which predictably ends in disaster. Proedrou shifts back twice to go over the same events from the perspectives of Stergios’ wife Maria (Eleni Ouzounidou) and daughter Anastasia (Evgenia Lavda), but instead of providing greater illumination, the non-linear approach merely omits certain scenes so they can be inserted later. A pivotal act of violence has essentially nothing to do with the refugee situation, making the complex international crisis into just window dressing for a turgid family drama. Grade: C
Bad Hombres (VOD and select theaters January 26; DVD March 12): Undocumented Ecuadorian immigrant Felix (Diego Tinoco) experiences extraordinarily bad luck on his first day in the U.S., when he’s hired for what sounds like an unremarkable construction job. Felix and fellow day laborer Alfonso (Hemky Madera) find themselves pursued by dangerous criminals after they flee what turns out to be a cover-up for underworld murders. Director and co-writer John Stalberg Jr. throws every possible obstacle at Felix over the course of one harrowing day and night, with enough unexpected swerves to counteract the crime-thriller cliches. Madera brings depth to his role as a weary veteran with many deadly secrets of his own, and higher-profile co-stars Luke Hemsworth, Thomas Jane, and Nick Cassavetes make the most of their brief appearances, rather than coasting by in a film that could come off as beneath them. Stalberg never pretends to be making anything other than a stock B-movie, but he executes the familiar beats with style and care. Grade: B-
