Wanted: Real Reels

Wanted: Real Reels

“Wanted” is a film by Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian director who made a splash with two sci-fi / vampire movies, “Night Watch” and “Day Watch.” I am sure you will see more of his high-energy flixs in the future. The only vampire movie that I could sit through was “Underworld,” and that was because Kate Beckinsale was in it, looking great in tight black togs. Generally speaking, I ignored vampire and horror films. Why? I can’t buy the program. They are an artifice that bore me; it is a fantasy not to my taste. My fantasies run in a different direction.

“Wanted” does not have vampires, but it does have a Fox (Angelina Jolie), vamping up the place. It also has incredible adrenalin rushes, high wire tension, absurdist action, clots of noise, visual dazzle and dizziness, and a car chase with Fox sprawled on the hood of her nifty sports car, with guns blazing, when she’s not driving her red rocket through city traffic. Morgan Freeman is Sloan, the leader of a band of assassins called The Fraternity that has deep roots in the past, with connections to monasteries and ancient, quasi-mystical practices. It’s like a Gurdjieff group gone sour. It’s not hatha yoga; it’s homicidal yoga, which is an oxymoron. A young twit named Wesley (James McAvoy), a timid accountant who suffers from an overbearing boss and panic attacks, for which he scarfs meds by the handful, is brought to Sloan by Fox; he turns out to be the son of great master assassin. Sloan and his cadre of solemn killers help Wesley find his hidden talents by transforming his panic energy into a concentrated form of miraculous energy, until he can ‘fly’ and shoot around corners by an act of will power, just like his father. Okay, dude, that’s quite a trick! It certainly must come in handy in a pinch.

The movie is riding the coattails of Jolie’s celebrity. In truth she has little to do, besides look decorative. She slinks through the action, pretends she’s acting, and looks like a doe-eyed manikin with tattoos. For a split second you see her naked butt—big whopping deal! After that frenetic beginning with the car chase, she becomes a minor character and eye candy in the background. She chalked up another $10 million to support the family and estate in France. Bully for her.

I know many of you out there in movieland will love “Wanted” for all the reasons I dislike it. Let’s call it a generational divide and leave it at that. (It doesn’t always apply as I thought “Juno” was very fine.) Vampire movies and movies like “Wanted” don’t take me anywhere I’d like to go; I forget them as soon as I leave the theater. They are not food that sticks to the bones. So many of the big films of the Summerfest are absurdist fictions full of cheap thrills and fireworks, with papier-mâché characters from the world of comics, with females treated like glazed donuts, and villains who are more laughable than arch. This is Hollywood strutting its stuff. Gimme a break! Where in heaven’s name are the characters I can identify with and who reflect the human condition with sensitivity and insight? Must we leave it to the French, Germans, and others to make those kinds of films? Where are the human stories of people with their feet on the ground, with vision in their heads, and with hearts that are open?