Bradley Cooper stars as a man running from his shady past in the pre-WWII American heartland. He hitches his star to a traveling carnival where he quickly works his way up the ranks from roustabout to sideshow barker. He falls in love with Rooney Mara, who does an electrocution show, and figures out a way to make it even more sensational. Cooper also steals an act from an aging mentalist (David Strathairn) and he and Mara leave the carny life behind to do a high-end psychic act for the dinner theater crowd.
Up to this point, Guillermo del Toro’s noir-infused sideshow drama has worked in fits and starts. It’s when the plot takes a 180 and Cooper hooks up with a crazed shrink (Cate Blanchett) to bilk a millionaire (Richard Jenkins) that it all comes tumbling down. Although Blanchett really sinks her teeth into the villainous femme fatale role, Cooper seems sorely miscast throughout. You never quite buy him as the shady carny, nor as the debonair mystic. Maybe that was intentional as he lives his life going from one sham to another. Since so much of the movie hinges on characters being taken in by Cooper’s charm and appeal, it just doesn’t work if the audience doesn’t buy what he’s selling.
Even in a noir thriller, there should be some sort of thrill for the audience to see the plot in motion. Even if the filmmakers fail to pull the rug out from under us, we should at least enjoy seeing the rug being pulled out from under the characters. Here, there’s no such thrill. It all just kind of lumbers to its obvious, predictable conclusion. I guess you could call it inevitable. If film noir has taught us anything, it’s that you can only run so long before your shady past catches up with you. However, Cooper's eventual comeuppance falls a little flat. It’s almost as if del Toro was letting him off the hook easy. I mean we just spent two-and-a-half hours watching this guy get over on just about everybody. We should at least see the knife twisted once he gets what’s coming to him.
The cinematography and production design are lush enough to keep your attention during the plot’s more interminable moments. You can also savor seeing del Toro regular Ron Perlman popping up as a grizzled carny, and Willem Dafoe puts in a memorable turn as the sleazy carnival owner. While it’s all nice to look at, without a strong central performance, it lacks the engine to really make for a crackling thriller.
In fact, I’m kind of dumbfounded how it got nominated for all these awards. I guess the Academy is still infatuated with del Toro after The Shape of Water. Whereas that movie had the unmistakable fingerprints of a master at work, this one seems like it was more of a product of obligation rather than inspiration.
No comments:
Post a Comment