It
is the post-apocalyptic near-future or maybe just California today. Cars are
worth killing for and so is just about everything else. Yet the cannibals
living in a nearly deserted trailer park village can apparently get by just by
waiting for prospective food to blow into town. Two desperate brothers will
become the special of the day in Chris von Hoffmann’s Drifter (trailer
here),
which opens today in Los Angeles.
Miles
and Dominic Pierce just got themselves some payback, so they are now on the
run. Unfortunately, the more passive Miles had a hole literally blown through
his hand. Deml does not look like they would have much medical help but they
stop anyway—and they will stay stopped, thanks to the freaky old dude who
punctures their tire. Vijah takes them in out of compassion, but she implores
the hot-headed Dominic to sit tight and shut up. Unfortunately, that is not how
he rolls. Thanks to his blundering, the Pierce Brothers will find themselves on
the business end of some torture porn, before one off them gets served up rare.
Drifter is a horribly
frustrating film, because the first act shows surprising promise, but it soon
craters into a morass of clichéd sadism. The abandoned temp housing and mobile
homes are an unsettling sight, perfectly underscored by Nao Sato’s John
Carpenter-ish soundscape. Tobias Deml sun-drenched cinematography further
heightens the sense of disorientation.
Bizarrely,
it is all undone when von Hoffmann has the pack of flesh-eaters execute the
more interesting brother, leaving the audience to endure nearly an hour of
desensitizing carnage that does not even build up much appreciable suspense.
Halfway through, you will just implore the film to end as soon as possible.
