I was going to take the time to talk about "The Town" and how it was the best movie I have seen all year. I was going to carefully construct an analysis that followed the career of Ben Afleck and try to research exactly what it was that transformed him into one of those campy actors to a top tier director who is riding the wave of an early Martin Scorsese. But to paraphrase a great man, what do you ultimately learn from studying a GOOD movie? You just learn how to copy and emulate their styles. A bad movie on the other hand teaches you so much more as it instructs you on what NOT to do - that, and making fun of bad stuff is far more entertaining.
For those of you unaware, there is a little something floating about the airwaves of Americana called the "M. Night Groan"; this little phrase is attached to the seemingly world wide phenomenon that has audiences all across America either: groaning, laughing, or booing at the mention of Mr. Shyamalan's name when it appears on the trailer for his latest movie "Devil".
When I went to see "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" I saw the very same trailer in theaters and sure enough when M. Night's name hit that enormous black screen, boldly projected at us in bright text, I was bearing witness to the birth of something far more powerful and influential than I knew. A part of me twitched and the corners of my mouth began to rise to form a snarky half-smile, and before I could contain my own glib emotional denouncement of M. Night's work the audience let out with a very audible mixture of disapproval.
I was relieved, I had my faith restored in the rest of the movie attendees. No longer was this hatred I had been building up for years isolated to a few radical fringe groups, it was now catching on like a plague. The world at large was seeing the same flaws and imperfections with Shyamalan's movies that us snooty film heads have been rallying against since the second half of "Signs".
Imagine how shocked I was to then go home and discover a week later that this rejection of Shyamalan's name was blowing up all over the place. Even "College Humor" caught wind of it and made a video detailing the mass hatred directed towards the once brilliant mind who brought us "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable". Something was rotten and I needed to figure out what had happened, what was causing this rapid decline in the quality of his films? Was hubris involved? Most likely, but I think it stems from something deeper, something that I can see slowly make itself whole in the film "Devil".
Before I go any further, it should be stated that M. Night's involvement in the film "Devil" was supposedly very hands-off; he only wrote the original story and produced the thing as part of his "Night Chronicles" or whatever this trilogy of Twilight Zone inspired movies is called. That means another person was sitting in the director's chair for this one, and more shockingly another person penned the screenplay based on M. Night's original work. So is it truly fair to hold this film against Shyamalan and blame its weakness on his shortage of creativity? I'll say yes.
Here's the thing, I don't buy into the fact that Mr. Shyamalan ONLY wrote the original plot. When watching the movie the very dialogue and pacing of many of the written elements of the film seem to carry a heavy burden of Shyamalan influence. Me thinks that perhaps M. Night had his hands in the cookie jar for this one helping to write a lot of the translated work as it transitioned from rough brain storm to 80 page, ready-to-go, script. All the typical trappings are there that we associate with the modern Shyamalan: clunky dialogue, ridiculous twist, and themes that revolve around the ideas of redemption and revelation.
The worst part of all this is that I actually think Shyamalan is a very skilled person when it comes to the creative art of film making, but his talents do not lie in his ability to tell a good story. His strength stems from his uncanny ability to direct a scene. Even in his most atrocious movies (this years "Last Airbender" comes to mind), he manages to set up some really impressive shots that compliment his visual style as a director.
Problem is, M. Night does not see himself this way, he desperatly clings to the notion that he is a top tier story teller. Maybe its his passion to write original stories and share them with the world but at this point most of us have stopped caring. Somewhere in the beginning of his career we helped bolster his ego by claiming he was the next Hitchcock and would grow on to become this force of suspenseful horror. What we discovered was that he was actually just a one trick pony obsessed with trying to shoe horn in one insane plot twist after the next.
Sadly, his pride has now become so super inflated that he has unwittingly found himself on a harsh and desperate road. There is no going back at this point, Shyamalan must walk a painful path to make it out of the briars but he has to move forward in order to do so, possibly hurting himself along the way.
Someone who is not afraid to challenge his authority needs to tell him to step away from film and try something else. "Devil" itself is a movie that belongs on television as a 45 minute "Master's of Horror" episode. He needs to bite the bullet and accept one of two things: A. he may not have what it takes to make successful films or B. just direct and have no say in the story.
So M. Night aside, why is "Devil" so bad? Well, its just boring.
By its very structure, "Devil" happens to be a "bottle film" sort of like "Panic Room", "Phone Booth", or the new Ryan Reynolds vehicle "Buried". These films can work, but in order to stretch them out beyond television run-time standards and take them to the big screen it needs a strong focus on character, which "Devil" does not have. The actors are passable, but nothing about any of their performances truly stands out. Again, going back to the television thing, if this were something I could watch for free on TV it wouldn't be that big of a deal. However, this just happens to be at nearly an hour and a half and require its audience to generously shell over 11 clams. That is not acceptable.
You definitely feel the length of this film at times and it simply doesn't have enough going for it to sustain or justify its feature film presentation. What's worse is that it throws some downright silly ideas at you, courtesy of a hyper religious child-like moral compass crammed into a stereotypical rosary/crucifix toting Mexican. These uncomfortably horrible goofy moments are stupid but not present enough to elevate the film to that much so coveted "So bad its good" achievement.
I could also go on in great detail about the moral message that this film tries to shovel down our throats about redemption and the purpose of the devil, but I won't talk about it since I realize that this blog is already running a bit long as is. I will say that the idea of the Devil has always been something that has baffled me and its presence in this movie causes even more confusion as it stresses some absolutely bizarre incomprehensible logic that makes forgiveness ultimately pointless and spotlights god as the biggest jerk in the cosmic ocean.
Unlike "The Happening", a film that is an unintentional work of comedic genius, you should skip "Devil". Is it the worst movie M. Night has ever attached his name to? No, in fact its several steps above some of his previous work, but it is the most boring. Avoid this one at all costs, seeing it is a sin and you don't want none of that hanging over your soul with the way this film portrays El Diablo.
Go see "The Town"!
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