Abel Ferrara

  • Ms .45 (1981)

    Ms .45 (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) At first glance, Ms. 45 does look a lot like an exploitation film. How else would you call a film in which a young woman is raped twice in the same day, then turns to violent vengeance against arbitrarily picked men? And yet, and yet—this is a film from iconoclast director Abel Ferrara and while it does play by the extreme codes of 1970s-style exploitation thrillers, it’s also trying to say something about the nature of vigilante films. Our heroine is not righteous; she’s insane. The murders turn less and less justifiable with time. People around her notice something is up. It doesn’t end well for her. I wouldn’t necessarily call Ms. 45 an exploitation film critique (by the end of it, we’re thickly back into lurid exploitation) but it is a commentary. Ferrara certainly knows what he’s doing in transforming 17-year-old Zoe Tamerlis from mute seamstress to avenging angel and then, thanks to a Halloween party, a sexy nun gunning down every man in sight. Despite the violence, it ends up being better than expected, and easier to watch than some of the films it takes inspiration from, such as Death Wish. It has a distinctive style, and at 80 minutes is just long enough for it to make its point and leave. I wasn’t expecting to like Ms. 45 and you can argue that I still don’t, but at least I respect it more than many similar films.

  • Body Snatchers (1993)

    Body Snatchers (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2019) I have now seen four different film versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers —1956, 1978, 1993, and 2007, and they each have the singular distinction of being worse than the previous one. I saw the now mostly forgotten 1993 version out of a sense of completion, but I can’t say I’m feeling fulfilled now that I’ve seen it. The problems start early with Body Snatchers, as a moody teenager’s voiceover opens the film with a soliloquy more at ease in an overdone coming-of-age drama than a full-blown horror movie—it’s a strong cue about the film being aimed explicitly at teenage audiences rather than tap into universal paranoia. Then the script makes a dumbfounding decision to set the story on a military base, completely undercutting the suburban (or urban) this-could-happen-anywhere anxiety that made the reputation of the earlier entries. The parallels between pod people and military rigidity isn’t as clever as the screenwriter thinks, and the result plays safely at a remove, defanging a lot of the innate terror that such a scenario should have. To be fair, there are a few things I do like about this version—director Abel Ferrara usually knows what he’s doing, and Meg Tilly is pure sexy evil here. But as for the individual components that I liked (the shrill shriek, the big-budget military hardware and explosions, the special effects depicting the pod people taking over) all seemed to have been taken from other better movies. A muddled ending that seems to rescue disaster from the jaws of victory is a further irritant. Within the context of its handicapped scope and repetitive nature, this Body Snatches does OK, but it falls far short out of the best versions of the story.

  • Bad Lieutenant (1992)

    Bad Lieutenant (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) In retrospect, Bad Lieutenant is so successful that it almost seems inevitable. If I’m going to put together a thriller in 1992 about a spectacularly corrupt NYPD policeman, of course I’m going to have Abel Ferrara as the director. Of course, I’m going to have Harvey Keitel as the corrupt cop. These choices feel as obvious as having cameras, lighting or catering on set. Ferrara captures filth and degradation like few others, and as Keitel goes around the city abusing his authority, excessively gambling, doing hard drugs and staying ahead of his bookie, it all feels like a carefully controlled nightmare. I don’t usually react well to grime and corruption, but it seems so, um, heartfelt here that it seems more acceptable. Ferrara muse Zoe Lund has a single but striking scene here, and Keitel does fantastic work, especially as his characters takes small steps toward redemption. I don’t usually go for dark and depressing films (of which this is clearly one), but I tolerated Bad Lieutenant better than most because it actually commits and believes not only in its character, but in his subtle redemption arc. I’m still not going to re-watch this for fun any time soon, but that too is a good review in its own way.

  • King of New York (1990)

    King of New York (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Anyone wondering if there’s a movie with 1990-vintage Christopher Walken as a kingpin in nighttime New York City can rest easy, because King of New York exists. It may even be a good movie: under the stylish glare of director Abel Ferrara, this is a film chiefly concerned about style over substance, going through familiar plot points with some messy energy. Walken is reliably terrific here, playing a crime lord fresh out of prison with ambitions that may not survive long in the city he’s coming back to. Almost immediately, rival criminals and the police have him in their sight, and it can be difficult to distinguish the illegal tactics between both sides of the law. The protagonist here is painted in a tragic light, a victim of circumstances who “never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it”, seeking redemption yet too noble (or something) to survive in the harsher Manhattan that evolved while he was behind bars. The mythologization of the character living large and indulging in hedonistic excesses may account for much of King of New York’s enduring popularity as a crime classic of its era, but a bit of perspective shows the limits of Ferrara’s approach. The film isn’t as profound as it seems to be, for instance, and the ending drags on far too long after an intermittently interesting plot progression. There’s a lot of posing here and while that may help build the film’s pretension, it falls apart more readily the moment you don’t believe in the style without the substance. Walken has the benefit of being supported by a cast that includes early appearances by many name actors not yet having fully defined personas, including Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Steve Buscemi and Wesley Snipes. King of New York is not unpleasant to watch on a pure style and attitude level, but it’s certainly uneven, and can become annoying if you don’t buy into the whole gangsters-as-heroes nonsense.

  • The Addiction (1995)

    The Addiction (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, June 2009): It goes without saying that a horror monster is seldom “just” a horror monster, but Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction takes things to a conceptual extreme by cramming vampires in a film chiefly about addition and the philosophical implications thereof. Pretentious? Very much. Intriguing? Definitely. Shot in stark black-and-white, The Addiction features a number of notable names (including an unusually fetching Lily Taylor, and a scene-grabbing cameo from Christopher Walken) and an improbable number of soliloquies that, stripped of their pretentiousness, still manage to deliver a number of fascinating ideas. The vampire here is a junkie who has managed to blame others for his addiction, and whose appetite is only matched by self-loathing. As horror, it’s generally lame (although there is a vampire feeding frenzy late in the film), and yet there’s no denying that The Addiction is a lot more worthwhile to watch than any half-dozen cheap vampire movies.