Saturday, February 17, 2007

A Scanner Darkly



I had mixed emotions when deciding whether or not to rent this movie. I had heard a very small number of critics praise it and a horde of others condemning it as an indie that could not live up to its own ambition. I'm glad I rented it. I've watched it twice now. It looks as though it will sneak into my top ten favorites of 2006 easily. I was pleasantly surprised to feel myself entranced in this head trip of a movie. The film is far from perfect, the mark of any movie featuring Keanu Reeves in any capacity. But this is easily Keanu's best performace since The Matrix and perhaps since the beginning of his career. He is able to convince me he's a conflicted drug addict/undercover cop. That isn't necessarily a stretch for his talents, but he fills the role quite well. The real strength behind the movie is its ability to shift from its dark/stoner comedy scenes to its sci-fi cop story. It struggles a bit to keep the authenticity in its sci-fi cop scenes, but the lacking in that area is only apparent to me because the dark/stoner comedy scenes stand out so well. The melding of the two elements makes for an interesting story that I had no trouble surrending my attention to. There are is a lot of talk in the extras from those involved in the making of this movie that speaks of the source material's prophetic nature. Indeed, the paranoia that once was left primarily to the drug addicts and mentally deranged has found its way into reality. There is also an attmept to come up with some sort of condemnation of the costs we pay to try to win the unwinable war against drugs. But I didn't latch onto these themes. The proof was in the pudding. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. I may have used that idiom wrong. But the fun and entertainment is following the lead character and his merry band of addicts around as they lose their minds over and over again. The substance to the film, the sacrifice of Keanu's character, only holds together the other elements. The twist near the end is not surprising, but rather the kind of odd shock when you realize your guess is correct. It also fit the work. I felt the film could have ended on the zoom in on Keanu's coffee near the end (you'll see), but I am not opposed to the end the story presents in the film. I also want to point out how much I enjoyed Robert Downey, Jr. in this movie. It's a piece of loose cannon acting where you can tell Downey really committed to the eccentricities of his character and just ran with it like a sprinter. The animation truly suits the movie, though at times the effect of the beautiful look in some scenes is lessened by the animation's use in drives in the scenes where everyone is just acting stoned and crazy (barring the hallucinations, which really come alive). Linklater crafts a dreary cautionary tale with some old tricks and some new.

***1/2

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