Anchorage ’14: The Lookalike

Joe Mulligan has to be the nicest movie drug dealer since Mel Gibson in Tequila Sunrise. He is about to start courting Mila, who is deaf and has one prosthetic leg. Sadly, she has even worse problems to deal with, not including Mulligan. Their romance will be complicated by some dodgy narco-wheeling-and-dealing in Richard Gray’s The Lookalike (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 Anchorage International Film Festival.

Mulligan and his brother Holt must be the two whitest guys in New Orleans. Salt-of-the-earth Joe only took up dealing to pay off their old man’s gambling debts. In contrast, his younger brother is a coke fiend and basically all-around pond scum, but in a way that is supposed to be endearing. Having finally cleared his father’s debts with Vincent, the family loan shark, the more mature Mulligan has tendered notice to his former employers, Bobby and Frank. They seem surprisingly cool with it, perhaps because they have a bigger deal to worry about.

For some reason to be revealed later, their retiring supplier is willing to turn over his business to them if they can arrange a night with Sadie Hill, a presumably ordinary civilian. The deal is all arranged until some last minute re-negotiating leads to Hill’s unlikely death. Obviously, they need a dead ringer—someone like Lacey, the cokehead who somehow became romantically involved with the irresponsible Mulligan. Anyone can tell this is a bad idea, but Holt has his own debt with Vincent to repay and Joe needs cash to finance his prospective cooking show (yes, really). It is a dream that would give him the respectability to pursue Mila, who also happens to be a concerned friend of the missing Hill.

In the years between Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, an indie crime film like Lookalike used to be released nearly every month. They all had hip urban characters who are secretly interconnected in ways they never realized and periodically do shocking things to keep us on our toes. Lookalike is a lot like those films that are like other films, but at least Gray keeps the energy level up and screenwriter Michele Gray skips the self-referential indulgences. Since it is ostensibly set in New Orleans, one might also hope for some distinctive local jazz, but no such luck.

Maybe he is not exactly terrific, but somehow Jerry O’Connell is engaging enough to maintain viewer attention. He also develops some surprisingly effective screen chemistry with Scottie Thompson, quietly overachieving as the fate-challenged Mila. In contrast, Justin Long, the Mac Guy, is aggressively annoying and problematically light weight as unreliable Holt. At least John Corbett and Steven Bauer get with the program, hamming it up just enough as the villainous partners. Frustratingly though, The Lookalike criminally underutilizes Luis Guzmán’s Vincent.

The Lookalike is dark and reasonably diverting, but nothing a genre fan has not seen done more stylishly dozens of times before. While it has already had its New York run, it may very well see some more festival and specialty attention following the announcement the Grays would write and direct the American remake/reboot/re-conception of Takashi Miike’s Audition. Right, good luck with that. It’s not like the original made a strong impression. For now, The Lookalike is just sort of okay, but there are probably worse ways to spend a winter night in Alaska. For cult fans of Guzmán and Scarface’s Bauer, it screens tonight (12/6) and tomorrow (12/7) as part of this year’s Anchorage International Film Festival.

In the Blood: Gina Carano Misplaces Her Husband

You would think two recovering addicts would go to a tightly controlled “Club Med” environment for their honeymoon. Instead, the Grants visit the most corrupt island in the Caribbean. They stay on the wagon, but even more serious problems develop. When the new Mr. disappears, the new Mrs. will unleash all her street-fighting skills to find him in John Stockwell’s In the Blood (trailer here), the newest vehicle for MMA star Gina Carano, which opens this Friday.

Ava’s father Casey was an original hardcase, who taught her how to fight good and hard. Even during her strung out days, following his untimely demise, she could take care of her would be predators. She cleaned up when she met the well-heeled Derek Grant in rehab. His father is not exactly thrilled with their union, but has stopped fighting it. Aside from a little dust-up in a club, their honeymoon is all very sweet and romantic—until the zip-line accident.

Unfortunately, that is not even the worst of it. Mysteriously, the ambulance carrying Grant to the central hospital never arrives with the patient. Of course, the fat and lazy police chief is happy to shift suspicion onto his ex-junkie wife, finding a receptive ear in old man Grant. Determined to find her husband, Ava Grant sets out to give the Jack Bauer treatment to every lying witness and corrupt cop in her path.

In the Blood is a pretty straight forward martial arts programmer, but it maintains Carano’s viability as an action star. There are several down-and-dirty fight sequences that nicely showcase her chops. She also gets nice support from a colorful cast of supporting characters, including Luis Guzmán and Danny Trejo (who kills it in his final scene). It is also impressive to see Stephen Lang continues to get rougher and tougher with age during his brief flashback scenes as dear old dad. As a Twilight alumnus, Cam Gigandet does not inspire much confidence, but he manages to scratch out some okay chemistry with Carano.

For genre fans, In the Blood could be considered the rough equivalent of early Van Damme films. The plots were never extraordinary, but they were serviceable enough to build up his credibility as an action star and a romantic lead. In the Blood serves the same function for Carano, even with its unfortunate and potentially spoilery title. Stockwell does an okay job framing the action, but he is no Isaac Florentine, let alone a Dante Lam or Wilson Yip.

Still, Carano delivers on her end. She has screen presence and chops. In the Blood will not take her to the next level, but it will keep her existing fanbase engaged and ready for more. Enjoyable as a quality B-movie with serious MMA aptitude, In the Blood is recommended for genre enthusiasts when it opens this Friday (4/4) in New York.

The Caller: Drop the Landline

In established horror movie tradition, Mary Kee’s threatening calls are coming from inside her own apartment. The thirty years in the past thing is a neat trick though. While never explained, viewers should just go with the cosmically crossed line set-up if they can find Matthew Parkhill’s The Caller (trailer here) opening at a theater near them this Friday.

In the process of divorcing her abusive stalker husband, Kee needed a new apartment fast. What he found was a seedy but spacious pad in a building with an endearingly lazy super and a dark past. As soon as she moves in, an unstable older woman starts calling Kee’s landline looking for her boyfriend Bobby. In addition to her galloping jealousy, the voice calling herself Rose Lazar seems to think the year is 1979. Although that is obviously crazy talk, it appears Lazar is in fact causing things to happen in the past to mess with Kee in the future.

Fixated on Kee, Lazar turns homicidal, starting with deadbeat Bobby, allowing her to assume the fateful apartment. However, Kee’s prospective new lover, John Guidi, is convinced it is somehow all part of her ex’s sick schemes. Still, as a math professor and trekker, he very considerately supplies the film’s underlying theory of time distortion.

Time travel broadly defined is like the great white whale of genre filmmakers, who more often than not only end up with a blender full of narrative mush. However, if you buy into the basic premise, the internal logic of Sergio Casci’s screenplay holds up rather well. Matthew Parkhill, a Sundance alumnus with Dot the I, also steadily cranks up the tension quite adroitly, balancing Lazar’s supernatural menace with the very real and present danger represented by her ex-husband. Frankly, this is a surprisingly scary film.

Considering The Caller also boasts cast members of Twilight and True Blood, it is something of a puzzler that it is not opening wider this Friday. Rachelle Lefevre from the Stephenie Meyer franchise is quite convincing and grounded as the time-tormented Carol Kane, establishing some pleasant romantic chemistry with Stephen Moyer, probably best known for the Charlaine Harris series (though he does not look very Italian as the first generation Guidi). As a further genre bonus, cult actor Luis Guzmán (Carlito’s Way, etc.) also appears as George, the super who knows too much.

Of course, The Caller cannot withstand rigorous logical scrutiny, but such pedantry would prevent viewers from enjoying a wicked little horror-thriller. The Puerto Rican locations, though not intrinsic to the story, also add atmosphere and texture to the proceedings. It might be relatively unheralded, but this is a seriously creepy film, definitely recommended when it opens (somewhere) this Friday (8/26).