'That Time of the Month' is my girlfriend's invention. Once a month she will be here spitting out her views on whatever she feels like, be it video games, music, movies, comics, etc... Very happy to have her!
Slaterocalypse: That Time of the Month- He Was a Quiet Man (2007)
Written by: Brandy Serra
To get this thing going, I'm just gonna
put it out there that it astounds me how many people have not seen
this flick. Although it is much later in Slater's career, and he has
definitely muddied his name a bit between his 80's/90's reign of fame
and this particular foray, it is still every bit as much prime
Christian awesomeness (I'll delve into that in a bit more exacting
detail later on). I just want you all to know upfront why I was so
gung-ho on tackling this bit of wonderful: to convince all of those
on the fence and those in the dark of one thing – they should be
goddamned ashamed of themselves for not yet enhancing their existence
with He Was A Quiet Man.
****SPOILERS: light spoilers contained
within, but acknowledging that I am in the minority having seen this,
they are maintained at an extreme minimum. As I play out a loose
description of this flick, please understand that everything I reveal
is all contained within the first 20 minutes of the movie (roughly)
and it's really just to dicktease you into watching it. Also,
everything I reveal will be ruined for you on the IMDB synopsis
anyway.****
He Was A Quiet Man was really
surprising to me. When Brobocop first found the flick and started
describing it to me, I was a bit hesitant to invest a night of my
life on it. We had a stack of movies taller than I am waiting in
line for our attention, and at this point in time, Slater was more on
a downward swing. I wasn't much enthralled with what he might have
to offer in a starring role of an independent movie. Hearing Elisha
Cuthbert was in it peaked my interest a slight bit more, but again,
she hadn't been up to anything of note and it wasn't enough to
convince me. At the time, I was ignorant to most directors, so
knowing Frank Capello (who also wrote it) was behind it was
(unfortunately) impertinent to me. Finally, the words of Eric
insisting he had heard it was, on the contrary, quite good persuaded
me to give it a shot.
The film starts out with scenes of a
quiet suburban street, credits announcing all of those correlated,
with a VO of Slater talking about how the progress of man isn't
really progress at all. How, back in the day, men did what had to be
done, righted wrongs without a worry of legal consequences, and how
now you have to trudge through the system to deliver any sort of
“justice.” Except he does it way more eloquent 'n shit, as
Slater is known to do. Seriously, this guy is like a fucking VO
messiah, am I right? He's always so insightful about the society
around us (and yet to come, fucking seer) in so many of the roles he
assumes, it makes me wonder if writers are like “Slater's doing
this flick? Well, we'll let him write the VO bits” or if they know
he is the voice they want to carry their words. Anyway, while his
words progress, the scene on the street unfurls, revealing several of
the fine 5-O pulling up to a house on the street, tromping up to the
front door, and putting keys in the lock. They turn the knob and
open the door toooooo.....
(dun, dun, dun!)
The first real
scene in the movie: an intense close up of Slater's eyes. I'm
convinced this is to let you know he is, in fact, Christian Slater.
He has extremely unmistakable eyes. Any girl worth her 80's/90's
cred can identify Slater by his eyes in any line up; hopefully most
guys can, too, though they may not admit it. As you see the whole
character of Bob Maconel, it looks like it could be Christian
Slater's uncle, not Slater himself. He isn't so unbelievably not him
that it's astounding or shocking, but it did take a moment for my
senses to register who I was looking at. Bob Maconel is a fucking
nerd. Not a “cute and awkward but you still want to know him”
nerd (a la Pump Up The Volume),
but a “downtrodden, outcast, hated on big time, borderline creeper”
nerd. See here:
Bob
Maconel is not just a fucking nerd, but he is a fucking nerd on the
brink of losing it entirely. In the scene where we first meet Bob,
he is at work in his tiny, pathetic cubicle, working at his shitty
ass job, and he is about to goddamn snap. He's loading bullets into
a gun, counting them out and assigning which number bullet goes to
which hated asshole in the office, sweating like a whore in church,
shaking all over – he's clearly unstable. However, he is a man on
the edge, not a man over the edge, and after his reverie is
interrupted, he unloads the bullets and stows them and the gun back
in his desk, waiting.
Roundabout
here, we are introduced to Venessa Parks (Elisha Cuthbert). May I
just say that even though I don't usually go for blondes, I love the
shit out of Cuthbert. I loved her in 24
from the moment she walked on screen, and even though she's never
been extremely well known or had much work, she's always been
extremely hot. Anyway, as I prefer brunettes, my prayers were
answered when she struts on screen in He Was A Quiet Man as a hot ass
brunette. I can never see her as a blonde again. Apparently, Bob
agrees with me because he's practically creaming his jeans, err...
khakis, just because she's walking through the room. Yup, Bob's got
it bad for the hottest bitch in the office, a woman he could clearly
never have. Such is the woe of nerds.
As the opening of the movie unfurls,
we see more of Bob's life. Besides his job being shitty, his entire
life is shitty. His neighbors are bitching at him about his unkempt
lawn, all that awaits him at home are some boring ass pet goldfish
(which he imagines are talking to him, another indicator of his lame
life), he eats shitty microwave dinners, watches shitty television...
This guy's life sucks out loud. He has an extremely boring
cookie-cutter type home with sparse furnishings that look like some
half-blind old lady was his interior decorator. He has a bunch of
handwritten notes on his fridge stating “you may ask why I did what
I did”, reinforcing to us that he is a nudge away from the great
act, and mostly prepared to take action. Whenever he is in his car
traveling to or from work – 'cause those are the only outings he
embarks upon – he is driving at a snails pace while all other
traffic around him is flying by. This is a wonderful idea of some
genius on the crew (I'm guessing the DP), as a metaphor of how life
is passing him by, how he always feels left in the dust – a step
behind everyone else. He is truly an outsider. He takes the shit of
some asshole, Parker (Jamison Jones), without saying a word of
rebuttal. He is entirely submissive to the wills of those around
him. He even indulges the neighbor bitching about his nearly
jungle-like lawn by telling her he might get to it (though his
demeanor tells you he certainly won't). There is a slutty bitch at
the office, Paula (Sascha Knopf) who threatens sexual harassment on
him, and he mostly gets embarrassed and stalks off. Besides loading
the gun and assigning the bullets, he also pretends to demolish the
building on every lunch break; these items are a daily routine.
As
the tension builds, Maconel finally gets the courage to fire his gun.
He is a man over the edge, and he finally decides to take action.
However, some other downtrodden jerk decides he's went over the edge
first and starts plugging all the people in the office unfortunate
enough to be around, right before Bob gets the chance. Maconel rises
out of his cubicle and they talk about what's happened for a bit
before Bob has to take action and blows away his fellow nerd and
psycho in arms with every bullet loaded in his revolver. This single
act catapults Bob into a life that is an enigma to him – everything
about his existence changes, as he becomes an unintended hero who
halted a maniac and saved the lives of his remaining coworkers. All
of a sudden, all the ladies want him (bitches!), all the dudes want
to be his friend (assholes!), and he gets a sweet ass job with all
the perks (fuckers!).
While the bullets were flying, sweet,
sweet Venessa was grievously injured, inheriting a life of
dependability on others and totally limited living. Who was once
beautiful and thriving is now a worthless lump, and she fucking hates
Maconel for saving her. The one person whose attention he actually
clamored for is now the only person he knows who wants nothing to do
with him. Then, like a typical high class bitch, she flips her coin
and decides she needs his help. He is a hero, after all, so he can
save her, too, right?
Here I will cease my rundown and let you
know that for chrissakes you should have this shit waiting on Netflix
streaming as soon as you're done reading this. Don't worry, kids,
we're almost there.
Now there isn't really a lot of violence
in this movie, as far as horror fans go. There is the one intense
scene where people are getting wasted in the office but even there it
kinda pulls punches. The cursing and sexual references definitely
abound. There is only one topless scene (with stunt tits, letdown!),
and a few mommy business suit cleavage shots going on, so if you like
that kinda thing you'll be intrigued. It does scrape an R rating,
and I believe that is mostly due to the fact of the subject matter,
and the cursing could almost rival my sailor mouth for an hour and a
half of drunken ranting. I said almost.
In my opinion, Slater
gives one of his best performances in over a decade. He is so tuned
in to this role, it's almost like he fucking time traveled back to
the early nineties and picked up his career peaking self and brought
him back to '07 to shoot this film for him. Even if he didn't do
that, he definitely reached across time to his former self and got in
touch with his prime time acting. He never misses a step; each scene
is flawless, his dialogue delivered perfectly, his emotions portrayed
beautifully. You know
Bob Maconel because of Slater's commitment. Cuthbert is a hot little
vixen, sexy and in control of what she wants and exactly how she is
going to get it. If you've ever seen The
Girl Next Door,
where she portrays a porn star (still no nudity, dammit Elisha!),
she's exudes the same sexual confidence, but in a business suit
instead of slut clothes. William H. Macy is a favorite of mine and
regretfully does not get enough face time in this bit. He plays the
mega boss of the office and inserts some conflict into Bob's new
life, though not quite an antagonist. Bob is really the antagonist
and protagonist of He Was A Quiet Man, as he wars against himself.
The rest of the supporting cast is all spot on – there are no weak
parts in this film. Everyone is on point, right down to the
assholiest and the most insignificant parts.
Besides the
aforementioned genius shots I accredited to the DP, I just want to
say this movie is shot so fucking gorgeously. Even when people are
just walking around or talking to each other, the shots are done in
such a way that it draws you in. To accompany the wondrous visuals,
the orchestrated musical score that they put along to this movie is
spot fucking on. I just eat up orchestrated scores, they are so
subtle and yet enamoring. The composer here nails it, accurately
putting emotion into music. I've never heard of anything else the
guy is attached to, and most of them are made for TV movies. Go
figure.
So, avid readers, while you enjoy Slaterocalypse this
week and think “Fuck, I should revisit Heathers!”
or “Damn, I haven't seen True
Romance
in years!”, maybe you should also be considering the idea of “Shit,
I should really check out He
Was A Quiet Man”.
'Cause you fucking should.
-Brandy Serra
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