Eventually,
every New Yorker has someone difficult move in next to them. Sometimes they are
perfectly pleasant when you run into them in the hallway, but it is awkward to
hear them scream things at each other, like “being with you makes me feel like
a failure” (right, that one is still hard to forget). Presumably, it would be
worse to have a serial killer in the building, especially if he was the super,
carrying around those master keys. The new maintenance dude at a tony Lower
Manhattan apartment building will indeed start suspecting the worst of the
creepy janitor in Stephan Rick’s The
Super (trailer
here),
which opens today in New York.
Units
open up pretty frequently in this building, but Mr. Johnson, the slimy manager
never has trouble renting them out again, because this is New York. Phil Lodge is
a former cop, but has taken the safer co-super gig, for the sake of his
daughters after his wife’s accidental death. Julio, the other super is a bit of
a player, but okay to work with. However, the profusely sweaty, weirdly
religious Walter is another case entirely. For some reason, the altar-keeping
broom-pusher takes an unnerving interest in Lodge’s youngest daughter Rose.
That makes him an obvious suspect in the recent disappearance of several tenants,
but Johnson is still a dark horse candidate, since several of the victims were
rent-controlled.
The Super initially appears
to follow the playbook of Jaume Balaguero’s stalker-concierge film Sleep Tight, but it takes some extreme
twists down the stretch. Admittedly, it totally ludicrous, but you still have to
have to give John J. McLaughlin’s screenplay credit for its sheer chutzpah.
Even
though he has a serious Max Cady thing going on, Val Kilmer still looks better
than he has in years playing wacko Walter. Maybe its conditioning for the new Top Gun movie. He is also suitably
clammy and off-putting as the mouth-breathing cellar-dweller. TV actor Patrick
John Flueger does not make a particularly strong impression during the first
two acts, but he helps sell the big revelation quite nicely. Paul Ben-Victor is
also amusingly slimy as Johnson, while Louisa Krause has some intriguing
moments as Beverly, a cool tenant and possible romantic interest, even though her
character is basically shoehorned into the film. However, both Taylor
Richardson and Mattea Conforti are impressive as the Lodge sisters, Violet and
Rose, respectively.
Obviously
in retrospect, The Super is inspired
by a certain late 1990s movie other movies often compare themselves to, but it
would be spoilery to say which one, because it actually manages to pull off a
similar trick. There are loose ends laying all about the joint, but you have to
give Rick and McLaughlin their due for trying to do something that is a little bit
odd and different. Sort of recommended accordingly, The Super opens today (10/19) in New York, at the Village East.
