Eric Packer, a very young and handsome billionaire insists
of having his whole fleet of stretch limos drive him to the other side of Manhattan
because he wants to get a haircut at his favorite barbers which is located in
the slightly salubrious poor neighborhood that he grew up in. The trouble is that so many roads are closed
as the US President is visiting town, and there is also a famous Rap Singer's funeral, and so traffic crawls along at a snail’s
pace and the journey ends up taking the entire day.
In his car, which is like a mobile office, the journey
is constantly punctuated with a series of odd and unconnected incidents. He
gives his new wife a lift whilst he tries (unsuccessfully) to persuade her to have sex with
him (she claims she is saving her energy for her work), so he picks up a hooker
to make out with him instead, and then later persuades one of his female
bodyguards to also put out too. During a
business meeting he is simultaneous having a rectal examination by his
Doctor as part of his daily physical check up (who informs him that he has an
asymmetrical prostate).
The ride takes his Fleet through the angry Occupy Wall
Street protesters who attack and deface the limo, and much to the chagrin of his anxious security chief, Packer gets out of the car to be confronted by publicity seeking
anarchist who pushes a custard pie in his face in the front of
photographers. The constant threats to
Packer that the Security Chief has been filtering through all day, become a
reality as Packer finally meets an aggrieved mad and heavily armed ex-employee who is out for some revenge.
This bizarre and somewhat ludicrous movie is the
latest work from David Cronenberg the Canadian filmmaker who’s best known for
his horrific thrillers. His work is an
acquired taste, and apart from the superb ‘Eastern Promises’ it is not one that
I have ever really appreciated. The
movie starts out promisingly enough but develops into something far too surreal
that makes it nigh on impossible to get any real sense of what all these
incidents add up too, or the subtext of Mr Cronenberg’s script. The menacing threat that runs throughout did get my
interest piqued somewhat and although as the movie drew to an end and my
boredom/annoyance/confusion had set it, the closing scene did impress me
somewhat.
This movie’s redeeming grace is in the caliber of the acting:
’Twilight’s’ Robert Pattinson who plays Packer proves that besides being a very
pretty face, he is also a very beguiling and talented actor. (He actually
replaced Colin Farrell who (thankfully) had to withdraw to make 'Total Recall') The
people who pop in and out of the limo include Juliette Binoche, Samantha
Morton, and Sarah Gaddon: the pie is thrown by Mathieu Armalric and the mad
would-be-killer is played by Paul Giametti.
You really have to be a fan of either Mr Cronenberg or
Mr Pattison to sit through one, and if you can make sense of it all, do
please let me know.
★★★★★★★
★★★★★★★
