Pity this film didn’t get a better read by Bunch. It’s a love story to black women, it provokes ideas about what a sanctuary city can be just as Pope Leo pushes hard against ICE, it presents the lawlessness and lethality of badged racism, it’s tender and funny.
It is a fairly straightforward action movie wrapped under current event that only stayed on the surface. I could only treat it as entertainment and not much else. The 2 hour 45 minutes flew by so I attributed to the excellent filmmaking and acting.
Penn's outstanding performance deserves mention, as does Willa's layered significance. Though the Christmas Adventurers are explicitly identified with the Klan—Lockjaw receives the “Bedford Forest” award!—it is also implicitly illustrated to be a not-so-cryptic American fascist cabal. Their final solution for a "clean" murder involves gassing and incinerating their victim. Lockjaw's office is in Suite 55 == “SS”. I cannot help but to associate American SS villain Lockjaw's relationship with his mixed-race daughter whom he wants shot with the actual story of the most famous Nazi SS film villain Amon Göth (portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List) whose own real-life granddaughter is half black and wrote the book “My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me.”
This is the history that struck me watching Willa's character: it's Anderson's representation of how real-life American fascists in power will deal with the complexities of an immigrant and mixed-race society, the same way that German fascists dealt with their own mixed society.
This is an important film with many dark subtleties about our current moment. It deserves its own Bulwark Film Club treatment. And watch it in VistaVision if you have the chance.
Another noteworthy interaction occurs when Willa asks Lockjaw why his shirt is so tight, eliciting Lockjaw’s protest, “I’m not gay if that’s what you’re implying!” This is a character-revealing unsubtle laugh line. But the laugh is also a distraction that conceals a subtler and important allusion.
Lockjaw’s shirt is noteworthy and Willa’s character draws attention to it not because it reveals something about Lockjaw’s sexuality, but it reveals who he is. Lockjaw is wearing black shirt because Lockjaw is an American fascist. Both Mussolini’s fascist paramilitary and Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists were known as Blackshirts. Lockjaw is American fascist blackshirt. That’s why Willa calls attention to Lockjaw’s black shirt.
I’m certain a second viewing would reveal a lot more subtler allusions to fascist history—what is the inspiration of the Christmas Adventures bunker?—and I’m intrigued if there’s any actual allusion to be found with Amon Göth because the emotional and plot connection is already so strong.
Kudos for suggesting that “Days of Rage” can help understand this movie, as it helps explain the radical French 75 group. However, I think your dismissal of the Willa-focused second part of the movie is because you may not have the same appreciation for how threatening black-white sex (“miscegenation”) is to the established order is in the United States. After the introductory sequence on the French 75 that you like ends, it is fear of miscegenation that drives the entire plot forward. Lockjaw at that point starts pursing immigrants as cover for his actual search for Willa, and that search is driven by his friends’ fear of miscegenation (btw, the casting of Tony Goldwyn is beautiful as contrast to his role as President Fitzgerald Grant in “Scandal”). To understand this part of the movie, I suggest you read “Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America.” It directly addresses black-white interracial sex in the United States and puts it in historical context. I suspect that reading that book would make the whole Lockjaw-Willa storyline much more interesting.
Seems to have a taint of Philip Roth's AMERICAN PASTORAL as well. Sometimes, Pynchon only thinks he's funny but isn't much. As for PT Anderson Hard Eight might be his only work with heart. How about someone makes serious films with levity, or maybe just flicks that deliver like The Beekeeper?
Pity this film didn’t get a better read by Bunch. It’s a love story to black women, it provokes ideas about what a sanctuary city can be just as Pope Leo pushes hard against ICE, it presents the lawlessness and lethality of badged racism, it’s tender and funny.
It is a fairly straightforward action movie wrapped under current event that only stayed on the surface. I could only treat it as entertainment and not much else. The 2 hour 45 minutes flew by so I attributed to the excellent filmmaking and acting.
Penn's outstanding performance deserves mention, as does Willa's layered significance. Though the Christmas Adventurers are explicitly identified with the Klan—Lockjaw receives the “Bedford Forest” award!—it is also implicitly illustrated to be a not-so-cryptic American fascist cabal. Their final solution for a "clean" murder involves gassing and incinerating their victim. Lockjaw's office is in Suite 55 == “SS”. I cannot help but to associate American SS villain Lockjaw's relationship with his mixed-race daughter whom he wants shot with the actual story of the most famous Nazi SS film villain Amon Göth (portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List) whose own real-life granddaughter is half black and wrote the book “My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me.”
This is the history that struck me watching Willa's character: it's Anderson's representation of how real-life American fascists in power will deal with the complexities of an immigrant and mixed-race society, the same way that German fascists dealt with their own mixed society.
This is an important film with many dark subtleties about our current moment. It deserves its own Bulwark Film Club treatment. And watch it in VistaVision if you have the chance.
Another noteworthy interaction occurs when Willa asks Lockjaw why his shirt is so tight, eliciting Lockjaw’s protest, “I’m not gay if that’s what you’re implying!” This is a character-revealing unsubtle laugh line. But the laugh is also a distraction that conceals a subtler and important allusion.
Lockjaw’s shirt is noteworthy and Willa’s character draws attention to it not because it reveals something about Lockjaw’s sexuality, but it reveals who he is. Lockjaw is wearing black shirt because Lockjaw is an American fascist. Both Mussolini’s fascist paramilitary and Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists were known as Blackshirts. Lockjaw is American fascist blackshirt. That’s why Willa calls attention to Lockjaw’s black shirt.
I’m certain a second viewing would reveal a lot more subtler allusions to fascist history—what is the inspiration of the Christmas Adventures bunker?—and I’m intrigued if there’s any actual allusion to be found with Amon Göth because the emotional and plot connection is already so strong.
Wait. For a minute I thought Rick Dalton was back in a sequel.
Kudos for suggesting that “Days of Rage” can help understand this movie, as it helps explain the radical French 75 group. However, I think your dismissal of the Willa-focused second part of the movie is because you may not have the same appreciation for how threatening black-white sex (“miscegenation”) is to the established order is in the United States. After the introductory sequence on the French 75 that you like ends, it is fear of miscegenation that drives the entire plot forward. Lockjaw at that point starts pursing immigrants as cover for his actual search for Willa, and that search is driven by his friends’ fear of miscegenation (btw, the casting of Tony Goldwyn is beautiful as contrast to his role as President Fitzgerald Grant in “Scandal”). To understand this part of the movie, I suggest you read “Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America.” It directly addresses black-white interracial sex in the United States and puts it in historical context. I suspect that reading that book would make the whole Lockjaw-Willa storyline much more interesting.
Seems to have a taint of Philip Roth's AMERICAN PASTORAL as well. Sometimes, Pynchon only thinks he's funny but isn't much. As for PT Anderson Hard Eight might be his only work with heart. How about someone makes serious films with levity, or maybe just flicks that deliver like The Beekeeper?