$2.50 Reviews: Rampage (2009)

[Marter]

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$2.50 Reviews:
Rampage
<img height=400>http://i29.servimg.com/u/f29/16/09/70/40/poster32.png

Rampage is a film that fails not because of its content, not because of its action and not because of its actors. It fails because of the story, and the way that the main plot is set-up. The film attempts to have us sympathize with the protagonist, but unfortunately fails at doing so. In failing to accomplish this task, the rest of Rampage falls flat.

[Img_Inline width="275" height="177" Caption="Nice suit." Align="left"]http://i29.servimg.com/u/f29/16/09/70/40/rampag10.jpg[/Img_Inline]

The film opens up with the day-to-day life of one Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher). He's a 23-year-old still living at home with his parents. He's trying to save money so he can go to college. His parents have decided to tell him that he needs to find a place of his own. And the man making his coffee at the local shop can't get it right. And the person serving him chicken at a fast-food restaurant spills it on him. And his boss won't give him a raise. All of this happens on one day. I can see how that could upset someone.

His answer to all of life's stresses is simple: Kill everyone. He makes a suit of armor, puts on a paintball mask, gets a whole lot of ammo for two semi-automatic weapons, and decides to go to town. Literally. He goes into the middle of town and starts shooting at everyone in sight. This is how the majority of the film goes, with him moving from place to place, either shooting or sparing the people who are there. That's just about all that the film does, and it gets tiresome way before the 85 minute runtime is up.

There are a couple of reasons that watching a man shoot-up an entire town for the better part of an hour gets boring. Firstly, any attempts to characterize the shooter fail in the first 20 minutes. Yes, he has problems, but his problems barely compare to those in far worse situations. He deals with his anger by shooting people. Secondly, there isn't much variety to his killings. He shoots people, there are a couple of explosions, and that's it. You can make the claim that it's more realistic this way, but it can't carry the energy that it tries to establish early on.

[Img_Inline width="275" height="190" Caption="Lots of bodies in this film..." Align="right"]http://i29.servimg.com/u/f29/16/09/70/40/rampag11.jpg[/Img_Inline]

Of course, watching one man murder an entire town is a notion that is going to appeal to a lot of people. You get stressed out, and just want to watch some murder occur. I can't completely wrap my head around wanting to murder a large group of innocent people, but I suppose that's something that you could conceivably imagine doing. Maybe as a form of stress relief? It's better than actually going out and doing something like this, I suppose. And if that's what you want, that's what you get with Rampage.

What would have been nice would have been the opportunity to get into the head of our killer, Bill. We get a little bit of his reasoning behind his killing spree, but nothing about what was going through his head during it. He does occasionally stop and have a chat with his soon-to-be victims, but makes little indication as to why they're about to become riddled with bullets. This could have been the film's saving grace, as it would mean that the failed attempt to make us sympathize with the lead wouldn't have mattered as much. I mean, this is an interesting lead character, and his mental state is something that would have been fun to explore.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if looking for depth in a film such as this is a fair thing to do. It plays out more like an action film that wants to be edgy by showing the murders of hundreds of innocent people, and I don't think it ever attempted depth. It probably would have been better if it had, but asking it to do something it doesn't want to do is like asking a dog to play the piano. Not an impossible request, but one that is very unlikely to happen.

[Img_Inline width="275" height="159" Caption="I wonder how an adaptation of 'Rampage' from Boll would work..." Align="left"]http://i29.servimg.com/u/f29/16/09/70/40/rampag10.png[/Img_Inline]

I suppose mention of the acting would be the only real praise I can give Rampage. Brendan Fletcher actually does a fair job as the sociopathic serial killer, or at least, he better be a sociopath, or he played his character wrong. No remorse or emotion is shown during the killings, and if the character was supposed to show some, then there goes the one praise I could give the film. That's why you remove your mask in these types of things, right? So you can let the audience see your emotion, or lack of it?

In the end, Rampage ends up being an entirely pointless experience that there is little reason to subject yourself to. That is, unless you are the kind of person who likes visualizing the death of hundreds of people, all shot dead by one man who has seemingly endless ammunition. If that's the case, then go nuts, because you'll probably enjoy Rampage. For others, it gets boring fast, and without a sympathetic lead or other reasons to care, you'll end up wanting to turn the film off around the 100th death.

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[superbatranger]

The fact that Uwe Boll still makes movies escapes me. I think I'll give this one a pass.

 

[Marter]

The fact that Uwe Boll still makes movies escapes me. I think I'll give this one a pass.

I'm kinda glad that I haven't seen any of his other films.

Although I probably should someday, just so I can see if they're really as bad as people say. XD

 

[tigermilk]

Could it be... A film worse than 'Death Wish' (Winner 1974), it looks like a strong contendor. Although it may fall short in the fascitic stakes, the uncomplicated misanthropic tone as opposed to the unpleasent prejudice of the Death Wish films.

 

[Therumancer]

I'll be blunt, I never watched this movie, because it was pretty much summarized to me as "an inferior rip off of "Falling Down" with a higher bodycount". It's on Netflix I believe and while I 'get' the central premise of the movie, I just haven't ever been all that exited to watch it since nothing has ever convinced me that the summary above is wrong.

To be honest with you, I think the problem is specifically that you fail to empathize with either the character or the situation. In "Falling Down" they don't have that large a body count, or number of incidents, but each specific situation is one where anyone where someone who tells you they DIDN'T wish they could do that is probably lying to you. It was pretty much a sort of social commentary on... a lot of things. Of course to be honest Michael Douglas didn't actually kill all *that* many people when you get down to it.

The movie "Law Abiding Citizen" covered some similar territory as well, but it was framed more as a criticism of the legal system, and pretty much failed in the last act when they started trying to explain things and wrap things up. In part the movie failed I thought because they did such a good job of painting an "epic fail" sign on the legal system in the situation the movie was about that I don't think they ever really convinced me that it was a good thing when the "bad guy" is brought down.... at least for the purposes of the movie so to speak.


In "Falling Down" they start out by not explaining what's up with Michael Douglas in paticular, and let the situations speak for themselves for a while... which was an interesting way of framing the story and it worked. The problem with "Rampage" is that it probably suffered from Uwe Boll's problems as a director, where he should have started with the killings, and then eventually went back to what started them and have the police sort of come to a realiation that yes, the guy is a psycho (obviously) but he's a psycho that sort of has a legitimate point. This is why it's such a powerful thing at the end of falling down when

Spoiler

Michael Douglas and the cop square off, Michael Douglas just having wanted to see his son one last time. They both draw, Michael Douglas wins, soaks the cop with a squirt gun and winds up taking several real bullets, having intended to end his own life. In the context of the movie it was a very poetic way to end it, and made the point the movie was getting at beautifully

Ah well, I'm rambling. Basically, if you even thought "Rampage" was worth seeing, try watching "Falling Down" for an example of a movie that does the same basic thing, except does it right.

-

Aside from movies, I also wanted to adjust the central issue of "making society pay" for someone's misfortunes. It's a common motive for certain spree killings, and something that I'm surprised is not the subject of more movies. The few movies I've seen with "psychopath vs. society" that have actually examined the issue (remember I haven't seen Rampage) make some pretty profound points about the whole thing.

To put things into perspective, the very fact that you will say "this guy has no right to kill innocent people" is part of the problem, and in a lot of respects justifies the act. It's all about human empathy, the average person being willing to let someone be constantly crapped on and pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and at the most saying "I'm glad it's not me". How many people have you gradually mocked, dismissed, or stepped on? You might say "I didn't do anything to that guy", but at the same token when you saw him in trouble, or knew he was being wronged did you do anything FOR him either? The basic motive of "if I'm going down, or am going to be made to suffer like this, I'm taking these smug bastards with me" isn't totally unsympathetic when you look at it objectively. Of course this does very much get into the whole idea of concept of revenge vs. justice, and then into the question of how does one get justice when there is no mechanism for it in an almost totally detached society.

There is no way your going to sit there and say "you know, this guy who just shot 30 people is absolutly right, it should happen more often" but at the same time when you examine cases like this and want to ascribe fault, the term "revenge is a dish best served cold" comes to mind. The act was that of vengeance, and the people on the receiving end were those who wronged someone without even realizing it... a good movie on the subject can make EXACTLY those kinds of thoughs go through your head, and that is pretty profound while at the same time being disturbing.

To bring things a bit more into reality I'm going to leave off on TWO incidents that are similar on some levels to these kinds of movies.


#1: Columbine: In more balanced analysis of Columbine and what brought it on, a lot of attention is paid to the fact that the kids involved didn't just shoot randomly, they were very specific in who they targeted. These kids were also nerds who were being routinely tormented by the people on the receiving end, with the school system choosing not to properly employ policy to stop it. Where most schools and mainstream society have chosen to demonize the shooters, it's done so by way of not wanting to address the actual issues within the school system that caused this. Every once in a while, the very valid point that if the school system had not been allowing this kind of thing to go on, it never would have happened is raised. What's more, and perhaps even more disturbingly, the same things continue albiet with even more pressure being put on the fringes due to overreactive security measures being taken against those who even hint that they might be considering violence.

It's almost a textbook example of this kind of movie/message in real life, albiet with the authorities in question refusing to learn the lesson, meaning that the tradgedy was for nothing and we're probably going to see the same exact thing continue to happen until the school system finally realizes the problem isn't kids with violent thoughts, but the fact that a group of people can only be stepped on for so long while society and the system intended to protect them refuses to do anything.

It's a case where all sides, the shooters, the victims, and the school system are equally wrong. Saying the shooters were more wrong than the other sides probably isn't even correct.


#2: Heemeyer and the mighty Killdozer.

Once an internet Meme of sorts, this one really happened. The bottom line was that some guy who was a master mechanic wound up in a dispute with the town and big business over some land. Basically he wound up agreeing to sell some land he owned for a quarter of a million dollars until he realized how much money the development (a concrete factory) was going to be making and how valuable the land was at which point he raised the price to a million (there was no contract, just negotiation). The town, which wanted the plan, pretty much used zoning laws to force him to give up the land, and also engaged in a campaign of harassment against him for demanding his rights as a landowner. He tried to get help from his neighbors but was basically told "tough luck". The guy's muffler shop was also blocked in by the concrete factory when it was finished, hurting his business.

So to make a long story short, he went into his garage, armored up a bulldozer, put all kinds of weapons on it, and then welded himself inside (knowing he was going to die inside of it). He then took the newly constructed "Killdozer" and proceeded to demolish the town. The wrecked like 13 buildings, people who sided against him and helped his land be stolen, the concrete plant, the town hall, the house of the judge, a rival business owner, and all kinds of people who had basically abused the system to steal from him and engage in a campaign of harassment. He was eventually stopped, but it wasn't the national guard (who were involved and couldn't block the thing), it was when the treads of the Killdozer fell into the basement of one of the buildings he was demolishing.

In other words this was "Rampage" except for real except, he didn't kill anyone (except for himself) he just demolished the town. Albiet he DID have a few weapons mounted on the thing, and had no real problems with killing people apparently, it's mostly that most people upon seeing a heavily armed Twisted Metal reject heading in their general direction tend to run.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heemeyer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbG9i1oGPA

They made a big deal to try and keep this under wraps as much as possible and downplay it (though by the news footage above you can see they kind of failed, but still far less people know about this than probably should) and to carefulyl dismantle the Killdozer to avoid people from taking souveniers due to what it symbolized.

The question arises in a case like this, as to whether the guy was wrong. I mean the system didn't just fail, it was the enemy. Nobody gave a crap because it didn't affect them. You can say there is no excuse for this, but at the same time you can't say someone should have to take that either, if it was YOUR property, you probably wouldn't just lay down and take it if you had an option (which this guy demonstrated he did).

The point here being that again, the "innocent" people who suffered collateral damage as opposed to just the town hall, concrete factory, and other places, can be argued to not be all that innocent simply because of their lack of involvement. By doing nothing they didn't take a neutral position so much as contributing to this guy being wronged through their silence or refusal to get involved. One thing people have a problem with in real life is that in many cases there is no "I don't want to get involved" there is only a "I'm on this side", and lack of action by default puts you on that side. If someone was stealing YOUR land and your neighbor said "oh well, sucks to be you, but I don't want to get involved" and thereby prevents you from stopping the land from being taken, he's actually on the other side even if he personally doesn't see it that way (viewing it objectively).


The point of this rant is more or less that while "Rampage" by all accounts sucks, I think your a little too dismissive of the issue it's trying to address. It would probably be more fair to say it probably did so badly. That's one of the reasons why I mention the real life incidents that inspire movies like this. Those incidents are F@cked up, no doubt about it, but people rarely bother to look beyond the "crazy" to what actually motivated them, which in a lot of cases, isn't really all that crazy.

At any rate, I haven't even touched on the whole movie, but I really do recommend trying "Falling Down" it will probably make you think about this stuff a little better than either Uwe or myself could. "Law Abiding Citizen" is good for the first two acts, and then starts to fall apart. In short it's pretty much about criminals who kill this guy's family, but get away with it because they cut a sleazy deal with the legal system. Unfortunatly this isn't just some normal guy, and rather than turning into Batman or Charles Brosnan from "Death Wish" he decides not only to deal with the criminals, but the judges, lawyers, and other sleazebags in the legal system who cut the deal. It's kind of about how the legal system as it actually works is as bad as the criminals are.

 

[Tdc2182]

There was a video on YouTube of Uwe Bole (Boll, whatever his name is) defending the movie.

He actually tackled what was wrong with Hollywood nowadays. I mean this move still is a complete mess, but yeah.

 

[emeraldrafael]

When I saw the title, I thought this was about the game rampage.

and as usual, as soon as I saw boll's name, I was disappointed This doesnt even sound like a good film. I mean, you'd have to do a lot more then just have a bad day that most people fix with having a cigarette to make you sympathetic to a person just going out and killing a bunch of people.

especially in a world where getting shot on the street at any point is something of a scary reality.