A Time to Kill (1996, Joel Schumacher)

Serious subject matter and the best intentions haven’t stopped Joel Schumacher’s technically adept courtroom drama from toeing the line between moral superiority and reprehensibility. It feels like a step backward from 1993’s Falling Down, which was a more thoughtful exercise in vigilantism and never as certain about its own skewed, self-serving philosophy.

No fault lies with the performers, all of whom exceed the requirements of what are basically cookie-cutter characters, functioning only to facilitate the script’s agenda. Whether or not the guilt falls on John Grisham’s head (the film is based on his novel) is not for me to decide, but any moviegoer who has seen more than one film of the type will predict the resolution far before the nearly 150 minutes expire.

The setting is Canton, Mississippi, a sweat-drenched Southern burg, occupied by both sides of economic and racial dividing lines. One can assume that tension pre-existed in Canton, turbulently roiling up somewhere beneath the surface of a functioning society, patiently waiting to boil over. The rape and attempted murder of a 10-year-old black girl by white assailants is the tipping point, forcing the locals to take sides and prepare for battle.

Incensed with rage and expecting little retribution by local law enforcement, the girl’s heartbroken and working-class father (Samuel L. Jackson) decides to take a stand and assassinate the culprits, involuntarily crippling a police deputy in the process. The only legal representative willing to defend the vengeful patriarch may also be partially responsible for the crime, since the defendant had hinted at his violent ambitions during a previous conversation.

Matthew McConaughey brings a shoot-from-the hip bravado to the inexperienced lawyer, lending a sympathetic ear not offered by most of his social stratum, who are either apathetic, outspokenly racist or an amalgam of both. Despite his best intentions, a subconscious desire for media recognition and financial compensation cloud his judgment and the considerable strain the trial puts on his family and practice are indirectly caused by his own narcissism.

Unfortunately for the American justice system, he’s not the only one with an agenda. The District Attorney, Ku Klux Klan, NAACP and a rich, Ole Miss grad-student all want a slice of the pie, seeing dollar signs and political power between the lines. The level of corruption makes the potential for a fair trial seem absurd and the defense team goes forth, knowing that the deck is stacked against them.

Schumacher does a fine job visually detailing this media circus and its accompanying hysteria, especially in relation to the Klan’s insidious backroom dealings. The opening assault and subsequent transgressions inspire the right amount of anger and disgust, never teetering over the edge into pure exploitation, despite the stereotypically grease-soaked hillbillies that occupy his vision.

His work with the sprawling ensemble cast is also praiseworthy. Managing a dozen big names with unusually small parts is no simple task, but giving each individual a moment to shine speaks volumes about his abilities as a filmmaker.

Sadly, talent with performers doesn’t always translate to storytelling virtues. He and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman focus far more on the personal lives of the involved parties than the progression of the trial, draining the film of much-needed suspense. Equally frustrating are the attempts at generating sexual tension between McConaughey and Sandra Bullock (the affluent scholar). Romantic subplots are perfunctory and cheap, especially when retrofitted into a story too austere to need one.

The only diversion that might have lent complexity to the film would be to examine the perspective of the victim, shining light on the effects of sexual assault and humanizing a character that has otherwise been reduced to a plot point. The problem with shading in the innocent victim is that it might put the film’s tricky morality under a microscope, posing questions about a child’s ability to come to terms with trauma in an environment that legitimizes violence.

A Time to Kill isn’t willing to ask these questions and falters due to this inability to show moral ambiguity. Revenge is an understandable knee-jerk reaction, but justifying murder sets a rather dangerous precedent. Unfortunately, this film isn’t confident enough to examine the cost of vigilante justice, banking instead on sentimentality.

A Time to Kill (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1996)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Written by Akiva Goldsman (screenplay) and John Grisham (novel)
Photographed by Peter Menzies Jr.

Over the Edge (1979, Jonathan Kaplan)

New Granada, Colorado is a “planned" community, a village nestled in the hills, geographically protected from the noise and influence of the city by vacant lots and row after row of cookie-cutter, “ticky-tacky” Colonial homes. It’s slogan, “Tomorrow’s city… today,” is intended as a beacon of hope to those seeking shelter from the woes of urban inhabitance, promising a community segregated from crime, overcrowding and loosening morality. Ironically, its tagline is an accurate representation of things to come, but not representative of a serene family life. It turns out that fleeing the metropolis for a life of suburban ennui doesn’t actually solve little problems, it only magnifies them, spawning a bored army of mischievous teenagers, trapped in a rural prison that offers only violence and drug abuse as a means of release.

Fatigued by joyless days at school and constant police presence at the local rec center, Carl (Michael Eric Kramer) and Richie (Matt Dillon, in his debut) pass the time riding bikes, flirting with girls and desperately seeking adventure. Both are good kids, trapped by circumstance, constantly in fear of running afoul of the aptly named Sergeant Doberman, who hangs the threat of reform school over their heads like a swinging pendulum.

Catching wind of a stolen handgun, the boys manage to wrestle it from its female burglars, take it out for some very unsafe target practice and scare the life out of a local drug dealer turned police informant. Despite the emptiness of their threats and inherent best intentions, lounging on-lookers spy the weapon, forcing the boys to flee town and seek a buyer for their plaything turned bad luck charm.

As anticipated, through anxious and nerve-wracking foreshadowing, the resulting police chase ends in tragedy, forcing the community to come to terms with its teen delinquency problem and inspiring the local teens to lash out at their aloof parents. The adolescents’ ability to organize and work together to inspire fear and promote chaos is both disquieting and remarkable, showing that if nurtured and appreciated, they would be capable of bringing about positive change.

These unattended, private moments shared by the children carry a certain intimacy, accentuated by authentic dialogue and uncharacteristically nuanced teen performances. The photography is just as subtle, carrying beautiful blue-hues and sweeping tracking shots, spanning vast meadows and endless, sun-scorched strips of highway. Even moments of savagery, particularly Carl’s brutal beating at the hands of his enemies, are artfully shot in slow-motion and bathed in atmospheric noise and echoey harpsichord. It’s a tone far more suggestive than expected for the genre, lending an air of tragedy and pathos to an environment of perpetual tension.

Over the Edge culminates with the moment this volcano of hostility explodes, spilling out into full-blown combat. New Granada’s once silent prisoners have rebelled against their captors, waging war against indoctrination into a world of conformity. It’s a futile battle, which the precocious Carl seems to realize in the film’s final moments, but it’s not without its tiny victories. The PTA meeting coup is a brilliant burst of anarchic spirit, catharsis and ingenuity, just reckless and alarming enough to shock the adult members of this community into active parenting.

Over the Edge (Orion Pictures, 1979)
Directed by Jonathan Kaplan
Written by Charlie Haas and Tim Hunter
Photographed by Andrew Davis

Suburbia (1983, Penelope Spheeris)

Suburbia is a desperate vision of middle-class America, hopeless in its obsession with violence and fear of nuclear assault. Writer-director Penelope Spheeris knows the turf well and depicts the catharsis of punk-rock music and teenage anti-authoritarianism with a refreshing subjectivity, circumvented only by her allegiance to characters as oblivious as they are liberated.

Growing tired of his mother’s drinking and paranoid finger pointing, straight-laced comic-book devotee Evan runs away from home, taking shelter in the esotericism of LA’s punk-rock underground, enamored with the studded jackets, sense of freedom and rowdy fraternizing. Mentored by a scene veteran with a spray-paint adorned sedan and chip firmly placed on shoulder, Evan becomes a member of the “T.R.” house, an abandoned Raised Ranch-turned-squat designed for teens too frightened or apathetic to return home.

The “T.R.” kids are part of a reckless subset of crust punks, content to swill beers and steal from open garages, seeing violent conflict as a badge of courage and welcoming confused stares with an erect middle finger. Theirs is an occasionally dangerous and certainly misogynistic way of life, off-set by a strong sense of community and understandable distrust of authority. Only after they’re framed for murder and ruthlessly hunted by jobless vigilantes do we realize that these supposedly aberrant characters are scapegoats, taking the blame of a marginalized middle-class seeking an outlet for their blind hostility.

Spheeris depicts this clash through swift, tense action, favoring authenticity over artifice. Her camera relishes in the cramped spaces and destitution of the squat, lending each scene a sweaty, lived-in immediacy, benefitted exponentially by Timothy Suhrstedt’s uncluttered, symmetrical cinematography. Overlooking a patch of jagged editing or an amateurish transition is a necessity, especially as it caters to the attitudes and fashion of its subject: harsh, reckless and desperate. It’s a befitting milieu, despite the fact that it binds the film to its era like a time capsule, particularly during the unnecessarily long performance footage, which distracts from an already untidy narrative.

In contrast to this slightness of story is Spheeris’ ability to draw complex comparisons, especially between the punkers and their unemployed antagonists. Both disenfranchised and strapped for cash, the warring parties share a distaste for authority, which is ironically lost on them, resulting in continued bloodshed instead of a pooling of resources and redirection of aggression towards the source of their mutual oppression.

Like her cast of characters, Spheeris is just as confused about the identity of this oppressor, taking aim in every direction, firing wildly at capitalism, nuclear energy, consumerism and parenthood, hopelessly longing for a direct hit. Her mode of attack works intermittently, faltering only in its reluctance to make a statement on homophobia, enabling her protagonists to paint gay men as cold, unsavory and dysfunctional.

Passionately sympathizing with one group of outsiders while ostracizing another seems counter-productive, but Spheeris doesn’t want to untangle the contradictory, fascistic aspects of punk-rock ideology. She’d rather take the path of least resistance, narrowing her focus to teen angst and parental neglect, but her depiction of the American suburbs would have been far more compelling if I didn’t just reflect its characters’ fear and ignorance, but challenge it.

Suburbia (New World Pictures, 1983)
Written and Directed by Penelope Spheeris
Photographed by Timothy Suhrstedt

Spring Breakers (2012, Harmony Korine)

Dedicating much of his career to verite-style teen exposé, first-class provocateur Harmony Korine has temporarily taken a break from examining the arcane world of skateboarders and hillbilly delinquents. Stepping up from the underground and onto greener pastures, he’s set his sights on the college set, aiming to unmask the corruption and superficiality behind party culture. His finished product, Spring Breakers, is a hypnotic and kaleidoscopic journey through hell by way of beautiful, overstimulated teen flesh. It’s an exhilarating stunt that satirizes the hedonistic rite of passage that is higher education and looks on in fear at the zombies birthed by blind consumerism.

As subtle as a shotgun blast, the opening moments are the beach party cliché taken to its zenith. Naked breasts bounce in super slo-mo to blaring, repetitive house music. Drunken, beer-soaked frat boys take funnels and bellow at the camera. The fiery sun reflects off the water and sand, giving the images a blinding glow and scorched, sepia tone. It’s a sequence of sheer excess, familiarizing us with new territory and acting as a means of foreshadowing.

Our story begins on a nondescript college campus, occupied by equally archetypal teen protagonists. Three of the four girl team passively coast through class by day and smoke bongs by night, fantasizing about a consequence-free world of boys and booze on the beaches of sunny Florida. Their emotional and conversational abilities are decidedly limited, punctuated only by the occasional song lyric, expletive or sarcastically placed finger gun to forehead.

The group’s moral compass is Faith (Selena Gomez), a sensitive and spiritual Christian, who seems younger than her peers, if only because of a child-like naivety. Despite persistent warnings about temptation from bible study classmates, Faith joins the girls for their spring break adventure, ignoring the disturbing backstory that led to a recent influx of funds (armed robbery!).

With school and the local police far behind them, the dangerous foursome don bikinis like warpaint, prepping for a week of unmitigated carnality. Korine presents the high points of their vacation in rapid fire montage, creating a dizzying blur of waving arms, raised liquor bottles and ravaged hotel rooms.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and our pretty little felons find themselves behind bars following a particularly rowdy, coke-fueled foam party. Crestfallen, they give up on the spring break fantasy, that is, until they are “rescued” by local rapper-cum-druglord, Alien (James Franco), who has bail money in hand and decidedly dicey plans for the next couple of weeks.

The enigmatic Franco brings much needed energy and intensity to the picture, kicking the narrative into high gear the moment he bursts onto the screen, menacingly flashing a smile from behind a mouth plastered with diamond grills. While his emotional piano performance of Britney Spears’ “Everytime” is a bravura surrealistic set piece, it’s the way he obsessively details his possessions that most serves Korine’s argument. Poring over every detail of his wonderland of drugs, guns, and garb, Alien beautifully illustrates how people equate their personal value to their belongings, embodying the emptiness of all involved in the neverending party that is consumer culture.

Korine’s color palette and sound design are just as meticulously coordinated as Alien’s hat collection. Soaking each image in fuzzy pinks and yellows, he chooses colors as artificial as his characters, giving each image the sheen of a gas station Slurpee. Visuals and their accompanying sounds repeat incessantly, appearing and reappearing at random, working as mantras for the characters (“Spring Break Forever”) and forcing a dreamlike state onto the audience. The click of cocked weapons emanates endlessly, signifying a scene change and creating a sense of foreboding that briefly jars us from our trance, just in time for a burst of cataclysmic violence.

We may not share this propensity for violence or ability to dissociate from reality, but as a funhouse mirror image of American consumerism, Korine has drawn parallels between our avarice and the brutality on display in Spring Breakers. What’s most frightening about this cautionary tale isn’t the excessive partying or unprotected sex, but the lengths we’ll go to attain these things, no matter the cost.

Spring Breakers (A24 Films, 2012)
Written and Directed by Harmony Korine
Photographed by Benoît Debie