 A FilmExposed Film Review |
 Dir: Tom Shankland, 2008, USA/UK, 104 mins
Cast: Stellan Skarsgård, Melissa George, Selma Blair, ASHLEY WALTERS, Tom Hardy, Sally Hawkins
The feature debut from British director Tom Shankland, WΔZ is a UK/US noir horror hybrid, with star Stellan Skarsgård and DOP Morten Søborg (of Pusher trilogy fame) adding a little Scandinavian exoticism. Detectives Eddie Argo (Skarsgård) and Helen Westcott (George) work in one of New York’s toughest gangland precincts. As cops, they appear as much bystanders as enforcers, with Argo and his cohorts cynically, and most probably corruptly, standing back as the criminals go about their business. This awkward peace is compromised however, by the appearance of a string of horribly mutilated corpses. Some of these bodies - of the local gangsters and those close to them - have the title equation carved into them. After some rather baffling scientific explanation, we learn the meaning of the mark: a systematic examination of the selfish gene. Succinctly, how much torturing would it take for you to kill the one you love?
Shankland’s film of fellow first timer Clive Bradley’s script deals with some rather weighty philosophical and moral issues: of the rational and genetic basis of altruism, even the very nature of love itself. It is this central question (primordial predetermination or human feeling?) that shifts an otherwise pedestrian and rather unpleasant crime drama into fertile ground. With pop Darwinian musings de rigeur in these Richard Dawkins influenced times, the equation at the heart of WΔZ offers plentiful food for thought. The objectionable character of many of the victims, combined with the disclosure of the killer’s motive (witnessed in a particularly horrible flashback) establishes a moral relativism that enriches and deepens the fast-paced investigation narrative.
The film’s dark themes are mirrored in the murky photography. Søborg’s Hi-def camera captures the mean streets of New York in a manner all the more remarkable for the fact that the majority of the shoot took place in Belfast. Shankland’s direction is pacey and confident. If at times the film appears to be a little too self-consciously placing itself within the Se7en (1995) model, WΔZ at least partially succeeds in delivering a digital equivalence to the downbeat 70s crime thrillers the makers so obviously admire.
Skarsgård’s chain-smoking Argo appears at first to be the simple epitome of gruff, but revelations pertaining to the detective’s surprisingly complex emotional links with peripheral characters offer the actor room to deliver an unexpectedly affecting final reel performance. In support, Melissa George has frustratingly little to do as the rookie female cop thrown into the oppressively macho and misogynistic boys-club surrounding. At first, you fear the presence of Ashley Walters in the seemingly minor role of police informer may have had more to do with securing UK Lottery funding than anything else. But such cynicism is allayed when his character Daniel becomes integral to the film’s twist dénouement. That Walter’s manages to turn such an ostensibly daft plot shift into something actually quite genuine, and even moving, is testament to this young British actor’s talent.
Much has been made of a so-called ‘torture-porn’ cycle of films gaining popular currency in our post Abu Ghraib environment. Although the makers deny any affinity to films like Saw (2004) and HOSTEL (2005), it is against such work that the film will be inevitably compared. Seen in this light, WΔZ offers a surprisingly sensitive addition that, whilst not quite transcending the type, at least provides a stylish and thought provoking deviation. |
