JUNE 9 ― As loved and influential as Quentin Tarantino was and still is, the biggest downside to being that successful is the inevitable amount of bandwagon jumping and copycats that follow.
Being in my late teens when Pulp Fiction blew up, I still find it remarkable the amount of Tarantino-esque films that I found on VHS shelves back in the day. Even Wes Anderson's debut film Bottle Rocket was called “Reservoir Geeks” in one of the quotes on the back of the VHS tape!
When the feeding frenzy involves not just indies but also big Hollywood studios, the effect is probably akin to what some music fans call "landfill indie" a few years ago.
There were just too many similar looking (and sounding) products that it got to a point where consumers just flat out refused to drink the Kool Aid anymore, even if some of it was actually quite good.
Defining what a Tarantino-esque film is, is of course not that simple, but I guess it's pretty accurate to say that it will have at least a few of these elements: lowlife characters, lengthy pop-culture tinged small talk, sudden bursts of violence, a kitschy pop soundtrack (and lots of stylish montage sequences set to it) and last but not least, a non-linear narrative structure.
Last year saw two Tarantino-esque films make my 10 favourite films of the year list; Ben Wheatley's super cool and blackly funny Free Fire and S. Craig Zahler's stunningly ultra-violent Brawl On Cell Block 99. And as we're ending the month of May in 2018, I've already come across three new films that fit that Tarantino-esque description to a tee, with two of them turning out to be quite brilliant.
The one dud is Stegman Is Dead, as big a misfire as one of those bad Tarantino copycats from the late 90s, so I don't want to waste my time writing about it here. I'll just write about the other two instead.
‘Lowlife’
The main reason I took a chance on this film is because it's distributed by IFC Midnight, a pretty trustworthy distributor when it comes to genre films. I had never heard of it before, never seen its trailer and have never even read anything about it prior to taking a punt on it.
All I had to go with was that it's an IFC Midnight film and its logline mentioned something about criminals, lowlifes and a Mexican wrestler. And what a fine film this one turned out to be, even though it is director Ryan Prows’ feature film debut.
Spread into four sections titled “Monsters”, “Fiends”, “Thugs” and “Criminals” that nicely define the various different types of characters in this sprawling tale of moral depravity and, ultimately, redemption, Prows does a really fine job of managing and balancing each section even when they’re sequenced in a non-linear fashion.
Seriously, the good guys here would easily be bad guys in other films, and I don’t want to spoil the film by disclosing exactly how they’re bad guys except by saying that there is organ harvesting, human trafficking and vicious murder involved here.
But what makes the film special, in addition to its excellent technical merits, rock solid acting and irresistibly big heart, is the outstanding gore effects and make-up job on display here, which sometimes even reaches the lunatic heights of Brawl On Cell Block 99, a pretty impressive feat for such a low budget film.
In short, this is definitely one of the year’s genre highlights so far, and sure to take its place on quite a few Best-Of lists at the end of this year. Miss this one at your own peril.
‘Us And Them
Another hugely pleasant surprise, this time from the UK, Us And Them is also a striking feature film debut, this time from writer-director Joe Martin.
But unlike Lowlife, which although is quite clearly indebted to Tarantino but ultimately manages to carve its own path, Us And Them is a good, technically excellent film that ultimately remains wonderfully in debt to its forebearers but is no more than that.
In this tale of class warfare, in which a trio of working class young men invade the home and terrorize an upper class family with a banker as patriarch, shades of other films and film-makers always raise their heads at almost every point in the film.
In some parts you’re reminded of Tarantino, others feel like a reimagining of Funny Games through the social justice eyes of Ken Loach, and some will even feel like tricks lifted from the playbook of Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese, and most of the dialogue sounds like Guy Ritchie at the top of his game, which means that Martin steals from the best and even manages to pull it all off impressively.
Make no mistake, I was entertained throughout the film, especially when its lead character is played by the magnetic and charismatic Jack Roth (son of Tim Roth!), also making his feature film lead acting debut.
It’s just unlucky that I caught this one mere days after I saw something as special as Lowlife, which only amplifies how hollow the film is emotionally, no matter how good its technical merits are.
Still, I’ll be keeping an eye out for Joe Martin from now on. If his debut is already this good, then maybe he’ll really come good next time around.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
