Saw Odd Man Out, an Irish noir film about an IRA member who goes missing/on the lam after a botched robbery. The film is interesting. It's got a good sense of the sinister outside of society, where people close their doors and don't want to get involved. It put me in mind of war films or Holocaust films where the smallest things mean life or death. In such a domestic setting, women seem to feature more prominently, whether they be betraying the protagonist by calling the police or helping them by patching them up.
The film proceeds like an action-y Hitchcock film until we get about halfway through, when a homeless man and a raving drunk artist show up and the film veers hard into camp. It's a very strange departure which ties in thematically, but we move from realism into broad, Dickensian fantasy. Then again, the main antagonist to the film is a handsome cop who carries a walking stick and uses it to tip up people's chins so he can look into their eyes. Shades of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds.
Although it also has a hefty helping of weary Irish melancholy, the film is very fun in a lot of ways. Like war films, there are many near escapes which are always fun to watch. Once the message of the film is theatrically declaimed, a lot falls into focus, but the ride up to that point is twisty and interesting and strange.
No comments:
Post a Comment