Passion (2012): The high risk culture of Advertising

Passion (2012)
dir: Brian DePalma

The title of this movie practically screams sex. There is plenty of sex in Passion. But, it's all so dispassionate, that Passion becomes an ironic title.

DePalma, one of the kings of the erotic thriller genre, returns to the erotic thriller after a decade away to create the very cold and distancing Passion, filled to the brim with polysexual ice queens and credulous imbeciles. And, while it is very much a DePalma film, he seems to be lost swimming in the modern modern milieu of corporate backstabbing and high-tech corruption.

Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams star as Isabelle and Christine, two a-list power players in the rough and tumble world of marketing who play the game of mentor/mentee while also besting each other. McAdams, as Christine, is the high-powered account executive who takes the somewhat bisexual Isabelle under her wing to leverage Isabelle's ideas for a new campaign to score a job in New York. When Christine takes charge, fucks Christine's boyfriend, and takes credit for her ideas, Isabelle declares war with the boyfriend haplessly being used as a football between the two.

The main difference that separates Passion from most of the other films of the ilk is that we largely take Isabelle's point of view, instead of the point of view of a male. Passion seems to be a response to the feminist assessment/complaints launched at movies like Fatal Attraction and Disclosure, where powerful women are largely the big scary man-eating criminal who victimizes men in order to move up the corporate ladder. Then, in those movies, the male character, with whom the audience is asked to identify, always defeats the evil intentions of the powerful women in order to restore the patriarchy.

Passion is the male response saying, "well, what if we replaced the man with a woman?" What does happen to the film?

*SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT* Well, the woman we're identifying with ends up as the killer, is the answer. It's never the man that's a killer. The men in Passion are too feckless to care about such trampy bitchy ongoings. But, the woman we're watching kills her mentor in an emotional fit of cold calculation. What does that say about the sexual politics of Passion? Well, the movie is still very much "bitches be crazy." Christine is seen as a cold soulless man-eater who even fucks Dirk, her boyfriend, with a strap-on while making him wear a mask which looks like her. Isabelle is a cold, calculating woman who kills her mentor. Isabelle's assistant is a lesbian who has a crush on Isabelle, and lets Isabelle kill Christine in order to blackmail Isabelle into being the assistant's lover.

The lesson of Passion is that most men who make the erotic thriller genre will still make demeaning movies that mark all women as crazy. Especially old, pervy men, like DePalma.

But, the main problem with Passion isn't its regressive sexual politics, in a misguided attempt to be progressive. That kind of comes part and parcel with the erotic thriller genre. The main problem with Passion is DePalma. DePalma has severe tonal shifts that are as jarring as they are terrible, he indulges in neo-noir style camerawork that frequently seems like a film student is imitating both DePalma and Verhoeven's Basic Instinct, and he spends a huge amount of time in the tense world of high-stakes marketing.

The first two acts of Passion are spent watching Christine and Isabelle try to one-up each other while also trying to survive the emotional devastation that they inflict on each other. It's not just dull, it's boring after awhile. The ludicrousness of some of the humiliation adds to how little we, the audience, actually care about the film. Add to it that little of it ultimately matters in the outcome, and that it seems to go on forever, Passion becomes passionless. All the no-nudity-claused Rachel McAdams in sexy outfits and dispassionate sexings, all the displays of kinky toys, and all the Noomi Rapace having awkward sex and in tight outfits, can't make the ongoings any more interesting.

Ultimately, Passion is a late-era DePalma failure. In an attempt to reclaim his former glory of Dressed to Kill or Sisters, while also very consciously trying to not imitate Hitchcock, DePalma created a brief slog of an erotic thriller. Is it terrible? No. There are far more inept films that exist. But, it's merely serviceable, and coming from the hands of somebody who can be as great as DePalma, that's a shame.

Wise Guys (1986): The Beginning of the End

Wise Guys (1986)

dir: Brian DePalma

By 1986, mafia satires had already started taking off as its own genre. In 1984, Amy Heckerling had brought us Johnny Dangerously, her follow-up to Fast Times at Ridgemont High. We'd already had Prizzi's Honor and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. In 1988, we'd get Jonathon Demme's Married to the Mob. It would be 2 years before we got Scorcese's Goodfellas.

In addition to the cultural milieu, Brian DePalma had already done an iconic 80s mob movie by 1986: Scarface. Plus, in 1987, he'd do the mob movie The Untouchables. Between the plethora of satires already in existance and DePalma's participation in the mob genre, it seems more than a little excessive for Brian DePalma to do a straight-up comedy with Danny DeVito and Joe Piscapo as mob guys. 

The reason I bring up the surrounding films of Wise Guys is that, when watching it 27 years after its release one is left with a very mixed feeling. Some of my thoughts were, "Oh, they're sending up Goodfellas." Which is wrong. While many of the plot points of Wise Guys mirrors the plot points of Goodfellas, Wise Guys came out well before Goodfellas. Others were "Oh God. Yet another '80s mob mafia comedy." Which is totally correct. And, then there is "OMG, Danny DeVito is wearing a wig!" Which, OMG.

Comedies in the '80s tended to have sometimes more sitcom-style feelings to them. They felt smaller, with narrower camera work and more stodgy setups, and that is exactly what Wise Guys is. 

Danny Devito plays a short Italian mobster who gets no respect and his Jewish best friend who is also his sidekick in the business. Both are at the lowest of the ladder, where they get stuck with the shit jobs like grocery shopping, or trying on suit jackets to test for bulletproof qualities. Why? Because they're fuck ups. When they're given the task to go to the tracks to bed $10g on a long-shot horse, they decide to change the bet to a horse they think is a sure thing. Except the fix had in, and now the mob is after them. 

Just writing it sounds so cliche. Even when they go to Atlantic City after stealing Freddy the Fixer's Pink Cadillac, and then booking themselves into an $1100/night suite with his credit card, it just keeps feeling like you've seen it before. And, really, Joe Piscapo doesn't help matters, making it feel almost like a rejected SNL sketch. 

A large part of this problem is the television-style script written by Norman Steinberg and George Gallo. This is George Gallo's first screenplay credit, who would go on to do Midnight Run and Trapped in Paradise as well as the story of Bad Boys. While Trapped in Paradise definitely points to the type of comedy that lies within Wise Guys, it's Norman Steinberg's career that tells exactly what movie Wise Guys is. 

Norman Steinberg started his career with a bang by having a credit on Blazing Saddles. And his next big credit would be the purposefully sitcom-esque My Favorite Year. But, then he did Johnny Dangerously and Wise Guys back to back before diving deep into television with Doctor Doctor. 

Thus was created Wise Guys, one of the least DePalma movies ever to be made by Brian DePalma. Hot off Body Double, Scarface, Blow Out, and Dressed to Kill, DePalma would delve into a comedy that bore almost none of his signature trademarks. Wise Guys felt likemore like a movie for hire than a film that DePalma actually felt passionate about. And, besides next year's The Untouchables, this is the beginning of the forgettable DePalma era that would extend until 2002's Femme Fatale. And, yes, there is a movement to reclaim Snake Eyes, even though it is a largely flawed film.

The main flaw here is that DePalma is asleep at the wheel. He seems baffled by the screwball comedy. Joe Piscapo and Danny DeVito ride ripshod all over the place. DeVito is in a territory of semi-hyper good-hearted numbskull for almost the entire movie, and it seems almost unnatural for him. Meanwhile, Piscapo is just running around as the dimwitted straight man to all this. It becomes almost aimless. The script does DeVito no favors either by not allowing him to be his trademark asshole (which he is amazing at, BTW) until the finale. 

The fact that so many people (screenwriters, actors, maybe even crew) were ported over from Johnny Dangerously also gives this the air of an unnecessary film. Sure, they updated the satire of Johnny Dangerously to the 80s and made it a moron movie instead of a screwball. Also, Wise Guys is not a parody but a straight-up comedy. But, you have the screenwriter and two of the stars (both DeVito and Piscapo) returning from the earlier film, plus several of the co-stars. And, it makes you wonder, "why?"

Wise Guys isn't a terrible movie. It just isn't worth anything. This is a huge throwaway of DePalma's career. What makes it almost interesting is how rote it is, and how it will foretell the extreme terribleness that DePalma would put forward with his misfire The Bonfire of the Vanities.