Out of Bounds

First of all I know none of you give even the smallest fuck about 1986’s Out of Bounds, an action thriller starring Anthony Michael Hall (Halloween Kills) and Jenny Wright (The Lawnmower Man).  Second of all I know your time is precious and wasting it on this dumb bullshit will be at best a mild regret.  But I must convey how absurdly strange this picture is.  The safest approach might be what I did with another humdinger of a viewer, Ricochet, which is to rattle off bullet points.  It not only parallels the disconnected nature of the film but is also probably the most efficient method (again, thinking of you treasured reader).  Oooookay:

• We should do a brief plot synopsis, right?  Daryl (Hall) (hah, sounds like the guy from the pop outfit Hall & Oates) travels from Podunk, Iowa to the City of Angels (LA) to stay with his brother but his bag gets mixed up at the airport for one with a lot of heroin stashed in it.  The bad guy wants his drugs back so he kills the brother and his wife causing Daryl to go on the run.  He hooks up with a lady named Dizz (Wright) who he met on the plane ride over and the two scamper all over town trying to find/evade the bad guys and the cops.
• When Daryl discovers his brother’s corpse he grabs a gun he finds on the ground (his brother’s?  the killer’s?  I dunno).  At that moment some poor innocent bastard walks in to let the brother know his septic tank is overflowing.  He spots the gun, the two tussle and Daryl shoots and kills him!!!  I repeat, this wasn’t a villainous character of any stripe.  Just some guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• The cops spot Daryl shortly after fleeing the scene so he hops on the back of a motorcycle, holds a gun to the driver’s head and the two blast away on a wild bike/cop car chase.  Afterward the driver believes Daryl is innocent and commends him for evading the cops.
• In a precursor to Pulp Fiction Dizz works at a kitschy restaurant where they serve menu items such as Buddy Holly burgers and Elvis Presley shakes.
• Dizz is one of the most aggressively 80’s characters I’ve ever seen.  It’s difficult to describe her appearance but she has sort of a bleached tumbleweed for hair, caked on makeup, wears black ripped stockings and in one part an eye piercingly neon yellow super glossy raincoat.  She drives a pink convertible with a zebra skin interior and lives in a multi-colored, mish mosh style house filled with images and trinkets of penguins.
• Hall attempts a soft southerny/mid-westerny accent with disappointing results.
  
• Hall’s hair is distracting.  He sports a borderline mullet that looks unbelievably greasy like he hasn’t washed it in weeks.  Gross.
• I have no fucking clue what Daryl and Dizz are ever doing.  All throughout the film they meet up with the bad guy as if to make a deal of some sort but then they immediately run from him upon first sight.  The same happens with the cops.  They call the police, cops arrive, they run.  Look, I saw this sucker stone cold sober but can’t tell you for the life of me what the protagonists’ goals are or how any of the plot points make any logical sense.  If Daryl is seeking to prove his innocence regarding his brother’s murder then he’s shitting the bed really hard and nasty on that.
• Admittedly the only reason I put this movie on is because I had read that power pop royalty Tommy Keene was in it.  And in fact he does perform “Run Now” in the background at a club where Daryl and Dizz set a meet up with the villain.  It’s an unceremonious affair but still cool to see Tommy in his heyday slingin’ his trademark Telecaster ‘n’ all in an actual movie.  His biggest album, Songs from the Film (unrelated), dopped the same year so this was a promotional move.  Siouxsie and the Banshees also make an appearance at a different club earlier and get more of a spotlight.  Makes sense since they were already firmly established for about a decade at that point.
• The one big kick I got out of this thing is Jerry Levine has a role as a grimy slimy fast talking gregarious drug dealer/hustler guy.  This is almost the same exact character as Stiles from Teen Wolf that he played the previous year.  Therefore I am choosing to believe this IS Stiles and these two pictures take place in a shared universe.  Out of Bounds is so fucked anyway I would’ve welcomed werewolves into the scenario.
• Finally, Meat Loaf shows up for a quick minute as a drug runner pilot who abruptly gets shot during take off.  At one point I spotted someone wearing a Rocky Horror Picture Show shirt so I wonder if that was a coincidence.

As you can surmise this movie is baaaaaaaaad.  It’s not even that entertainingly bad either.  It just made me cranky because nothing adds up.  From the two random dudes going around killing people who we find out at the very end are rogue DEA agents to Daryl outwitting and out-brawling the pathetic villain at every turn.  I mean this asshole simply has some of the worst luck of all time.  Like to the point where I felt a little sorry for him by the end (kinda like the bad guy in The Net).

And because of Daryl’s utter idiocy and reluctance to turn himself him and clear his name he either directly or indirectly causes the deaths of a number of folks and ruins the lives of countless others.  By the time the credits roll he’s committed many crimes he didn’t need to (including murder!) and the cops let him walk away with his arm slung over Dizz as if to say “wow that was a crazy misadventure wasn’t it?”  Arrest him!

I would not recommend Out of Bounds.  The title says it all, leave it there. 

Mish Mash 27 (Eye for an Eye, The Chaser, Mortal Thoughts)

Eye for an Eye

Really what I wanted to point out with this mid level thriller is the villain portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland (Flatliners (2017)).  They make him so goddamn evil it’s comical.  Sutherland plays Robert Doob, a rapist and murderer which you would think would be enough to set the audience against him but the filmmakers take it much further.  He not only smirks and laughs when he gets off for said crimes but he also threatens to rape an eight year old and pours hot coffee on a dog.  Plus he’s just rude like when he pisses on a lady’s lawn and drives like an asshole swerving in and out of lanes.  Sporting a 90’s greaser look with slick pompadour hair, a gross goatee, A-shirt and a long ass wallet chain only puts this sonuvabitch over the top.

As for the film proper it’s not great.  I think they were aiming for a commentary on how the loss of a loved one through particularly violent and terrible means can change even a rich white liberal woman’s (Sally Field (The Amazing Spider-Man 2)) mind about vengeance, the death penalty, vigilante justice, etc.  In other words if you went through a heavily traumatizing tragedy would that alter where you stand morally on the ol’ eye for an eye sentiment.  And while this is definitely a dilemma worth exploring the movie isn’t subtle about who’s right/wrong, who’s good/bad.  As mentioned in the previous paragraph Doob is such a piece of fucking rat shit with the picture leaving zero doubt that he absolutely committed the crimes he’s accused of that there isn’t this gray area for debate.  Sally Field is absolved of any possible crimes she’s flirting with in striking back because we know her actions are essentially justified.  Anyway, that’s how eye sees it.

The Chaser

Late as hell to the party on this one (what else is new?) but yea, amazing.  This is one of those where you don’t wanna know a whole lot going in.  The basic premise is about a pimp whose girls have been disappearing.  He thinks someone is pulling a human trafficking job by stealing and selling them off as sex slaves.  He gets a lead on who might be behind this so he follows up only to find he stumbled into a fucking nightmare situation (as opposed to the non-nightmare world of slavery (*sarcasm*)).  Twists and turns abound with thrills packed to the gills.  I feel I should clarify it’s a cop film with a (sort of) mystery that (sort of) needs to be pieced together.  So if you were thinking it goes in a sci-fi or supernatural direction it doesn’t.  This thing does get pretty damn movie-ish towards the end however with some ridiculous coincidences but that’s easily forgiven because the rest of the story is so well told and the performances are very strong.  I know I’m being stupidly vague but really, if any of this sounds remotely interesting to you check it out pronto.

*Spoiler section for those who need more of a push* I do want to mention that the events in this picture were loosely based on real life Korean serial killer (and possible cannibal) Yoo Young-chul who murdered as many as twenty people in the early 2000’s (there’s a good doc on these crimes called The Raincoat Killer).  And having this knowledge makes the film even darker and spookier.  It adds a layer of reality you kinda wish wasn’t there but at the same time makes the film even more compelling.  This is similar to the early 80’s Austrian slasher Angst where real life and what’s supposed to be entertaining cinema clash in your brain for an uncomfortably mesmerizing experience.

Mortal Thoughts

In the wake of Bruce Willis announcing his aphasia and retirement I decided to finally pull the trigger on Mortal Thoughts which I had been meaning to watch for a long while.  It’s a thriller from 1991 about the murder of Jimmy (Bruce) at the hand of his wife, Joyce (Glenne Headly (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)), and her best friend, Cynthia (Bruce’s then wife Demi Moore (G.I. Jane)).  The entire thing is told via flashback during Cynthia’s police interrogation and while she fully admits to covering up the crime with Joyce we’re given the impression that she isn’t telling the whole story.  The movie’s fine.  Not remarkable but engaging enough that I was interested in knowing what was gonna happen next.  This shit’s right up my alley so I’m a sucker for it.

Anyway, Bruce gives one of the two standout performances (Headly is the other who pretty much shows up anyone she shares a scene with).  It’s unfortunate that his character is an unbelievable major league piece of crap asshole with no redeeming qualities whatsoever but Bruce plays it wonderfully.  He’s constantly angry with Joyce over anything and everything including something as simple as having sugar in stock for his tea.  He goes from zero to a hundred in seconds and starts yelling then getting in your face then grabbing then pushing and he’s just so infuriating.  But again, Bruce parades the scumbaggery in a way that I was invested in the character despite his appalling behavior (including sexual assault by the way).  There’s even a part where Jimmy is high on coke and pills and because he broke the car radio on a previous occasion (off screen) he starts obnoxiously singing “Kung Fu Fighting” and it’s bewilderingly amusing.  It’s always weird to hate a character a great deal but still want to see more of them.  The picture might be worth checking out for Bruce’s work here alone.