CRUEL INTENTIONS
**/**** Image A+ Sound A- Extras A
starring Ryan Phillipe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair
written and directed by Roger Kumble
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PAYBACK
**/**** Image A Sound A
starring Mel Gibson, Maria Bello, Gregg Henry, Lucy Liu
screenplay by Brian Helgeland and Terry Hayes, based on the novel The Hunter by Richard Stark
directed by Brian Helgeland
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by Bill Chambers SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. The Mel Gibson revenge movie Payback and the teen romance Cruel Intentions have a surprising amount in common. For starters, they each represent the mainstream's idea of a subversive night at the movies. Both films centre unapologetically on bastard antiheroes–if Payback and Cruel Intentions were intended as escapist entertainments, and I believe they were, then something like the "Quake" and "Doom" videogame mentality has invaded Hollywood filmmaking: Let's spend the evening staring at a disposable world through the eyes of a misanthrope.
Unfortunately, Cruel Intentions, inspired by the Choderlos de Laclos novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, lacks the courage of its convictions. Ryan Phillipe stars as Sebastian Valmont, a pampered rich kid who puts his Roadster on the line for a chance to sleep with his new stepsister, the equally spoiled Katherine Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar). All he has to do is successfully seduce Virgin Queen Annette Hargrove (Witherspoon) and he can put "it," in Katherine's words, "anywhere" he wants. (Annette's published an article in SEVENTEEN about taking a vow of chastity.) Meanwhile, Katherine sets about exacting revenge on an old boyfriend through the naive Cecile (Selma Blair, a comic find), his current squeeze, but for all her gullibility, Cecile's love life is more complex and uninhibited than anybody realizes. Suffice it to say, tangled webs are weaved; the rapid turnover of hookups and breakups in Cruel Intentions isn't actually that far-fetched, though the obscene wealth on display gives everything a "Dynasty" tang.
Yet, in paraphrasing Dangerous Liaisons for young adults, some impact is lost to the emotional immaturity of the characters. Marquise De Merteuil's comeuppance, in both the book and previous filmed adaptations, is the stuff of Greek tragedy; it's the end of an era. When Katherine's secret junkie-whore lifestyle is publicly exposed at the end of Cruel Intentions, making her radioactive and likely to be expelled, it's just schadenfreude 101. Kumble is generally unable to do for the material what Baz Luhrmann did for Romeo + Juliet, i.e., pare it down to its essential themes while retaining the subtext. (Cruel Intentions has only banal things to say on the subjects of cheating and gossip-mongering, two staple behaviours of teenhood that really aren't that alarming; "Don't be a mean person" is the film's bland message.) Perhaps Kumble should not have admitted publicly that he wrote his adaptation in 12 days. It shows in the story's superficiality.
Phillipe is another problem. Physically, I can think of no other young actor better suited to the role of this cad. (Certainly, he's a closer match than Colin Firth was in Milos Forman's fizzless Valmont.) But Phillipe's Sebastian seems less an expert in seduction than in the art of badgering–he begs or demands sex when he should seduce his prey. It might be another area where youth is getting the better of archetype, but Phillipe is a timid thespian who delivers his clunky dialogue in a whiny monotone besides, and one can only conclude that the women this Valmont sleeps with are too smitten by his appearance to mind the inflections in his voice. Heck, I have a straight male friend who melts at the sight of a primped Phillipe. (No, it's not me.)
Payback and Cruel Intentions were recut to sweeten the bitter aftertaste left by their respective unrepentant protagonists. I think it was a bigger mistake to monkey around with the latter–Mel Gibson's got an image to protect, after all. On the other hand, Sebastian is now such a putz that Phillipe's performance grates. As the character attempts to atone for his sins, I couldn't help but think his remorse was disproportionate to his crimes of acting on his hormonal impulses. (It's to make us swoon at the reformation of a bad boy.) The movie is skittish about the cruelty of his intentions, which is where this distinctly European morality play is at its most Americanized. Sebastian doesn't even attempt to claim Katherine's "prize" in the theatrical version–that would be conduct unbecoming of a leading man.
Cruel Intentions has its virtues, too, though. Blair is so winningly strange she transforms a human chess piece into so much more, while Witherspoon anchors another film with seeming effortlessness. And Gellar's stronger as a femme fatale than one would assume–it's a rare treat for us "Buffy" fans to see her looking glamorous (and in broad daylight, no less; those vampires she slays on TV only come out at night). The filmmakers have dolled her up as Jackie O. in a corset, and it works. On that note, the picture's costuming, production design, and cinematography are all top-notch. DP Theo van de Sande, who also shot last year's Blade, is incapable of an uninteresting-looking interior. I found myself resenting Cruel Intentions while simultaneously enjoying it because Les Liaisons dangereuses transposed on a modern setting does hold promise. (Even by boosting Sebastian, et al. to college age, it might feel less like the earnest pap put on annually by high-school theatre students everywhere.) But it's a concept that has yet to ripen in its current form.
Maybe it will improve with repeat viewings, as Payback does. Gibson's Porter–Donald Westlake's Parker under one of his many Hollywood pseudonyms–is a professional thief shot and left for dead by his wife (Deborah Kara Unger, in a too-brief cameo) and slimy partner (a typically brilliant Henry) following a big score. As the bullets are being removed from his corpse, Porter miraculously springs back to life. The walking dead, as far as his enemies are concerned, he makes it his mission to avenge his would-be murder and reclaim his share of the loot. (In a running gag, Porter, who is vindictive but principled, demands only what he's owed ($70,000), but everybody assumes he's after the full $130,000 haul.) Working his way up the food chain, Porter encounters several other one-named villainous cretins like Fairfax (James Coburn, all crisp white hair and teeth) and Carter (Kris Kristofferson, who has brown hair), the kingpin of the operation.
The novelty of seeing a big movie star mercilessly dispatching criminals wears off quickly a) because the bad guys are mainly differentiated by their coifs, and b) because Mel's shtick doesn't evolve from act one. He's the Terminator stranded in a plot without a sci-fi hook to keep us transfixed once the initial sadistic thrill is gone. (It's apparent that Mad Max trilogy scribe Hayes co-wrote Payback's screenplay: Porter is, like Max, a deadpan tourist in a violent world–and similarly invincible.) Payback could have been called Playback: it's almost a 102-minute loop of the same short sequence. (Mel: "I want my money." Bad Guy: "No." Mel shoots. Villain dies. Mel meets up with his hooker friend (Maria Bello). Second verse, same as the first.) What was the appeal of this for Gibson? Does he, as someone who's always had a bit of a martyr complex, see Jesus parallels in Porter's miraculous resurrection?
Payback has a gritty, metallic look that also becomes monotonous; its bleachy cinematography would be more at home in one of those bleak urban psychodramas that come out of England every couple of months. (Director of Photography Ericson Core should have been fired early on for adding a good ten years to Bello, so va-va-va-voom in Permanent Midnight.) A big part of the problem is how poorly it all compares to John Boorman's Point Blank, the first adaptation of this material and one of the most stylish films of the 1960s. Moments resonate, however, to the point that I was anticipating and equally rewarded by them on a second viewing. These include any scene involving "Ally McBeal"'s Lucy Liu as a dominatrix who's never off duty, and the climactic toe-torture sequence, a trashy but effective way to humanize our stoic hero. (Porter gets the stigmata and comes back to life in the wrong order so that Mel can suffer for our sins per usual.) The payoff of said sequence is cleverly foreshadowed.
Perhaps someone as experienced with antagonists-as-protagonists as Tarantino–look what he did with the similarly hero-free botched-robbery tale Reservoir Dogs–could have taken Payback to the next level. The movie cross-pollinates the conventions of pulp fiction (women are duplicitous and the cops are even worse) with the conventions of cheesy TV crime dramas (the plot is clearly This Week's Inconvenience) while transcending neither. It's well-paced and diverting but also repetitive and pointless.
THE DVDs
Cruel Intentions is presented on DVD in a Collector's Edition that puts some other deluxe sets to shame. First off, its picture quality is so detailed and rich that I've awarded it an A+ video rating. Presented in 1.85:1, 16×9-enhanced widescreen and full-frame on the same side of an RSDL disc, the film, on a 32", properly calibrated television, looks flawless in either incarnation. The quasi-gothic sets, dappled by sunlight so bright these could be fancy interrogation rooms, are eye-popping here. Note that the "standard" option presents a little more information at the top and bottom of the frame but less on the sides. Cruel Intentions' 5.1 Dolby Digital mix is, predictably, not very active. There is neglible activity in the rears throughout, while the LFE channel is rarely put to use. (Fortunately, the souped-up version of Placebo's "Every You, Every Me" that opens the film does fill the room.) Dialogue is easy to discern and never competes with the music or effects for attention.
I had a fun time exploring the disc's supplements. For starters, there are six deleted scenes accessible from the main menu (all but the last of which is introduced by Kumble himself) that suggest a badder, bolder Cruel Intentions is sitting in a vault somewhere. (I had a good, hard laugh at the sight of a Blair in a bathtub wearing a shampoo-suds beard, a moment so brief and amusing I fail to understand its omission.) Additionally, there are two documentaries on the making of the film. The first is a straightforward, 8-minute infomercial, while the second, called "Creative Intentions: Finding a Visual Style", is a 21-minute chat session with behind-the-scenes talent. Mostly, Sande and co. do a lot of back-patting and rehash much of what is said in the feature-length commentary, but in a more formal manner.
About that yakker: it's a free-for-all, and a new person seems to join in every five minutes. Kumble, producer Neil H. Moritz, Sande, costumer Denise Wingate, production designer Jon Gary Steele, composer Edward Shearmur, and co-producer Heather Zeegen all chime in with anecdotes, some of them so quietly I suspect that all seven people shared a single mic and fought for space in the recording studio. I grew very tired, very quickly, of Kumble telling us how naive he was going into pre-production, how he'd never shot a film before in his life, not even a home video, and so on and so forth–it's the type of self-effacement where you're fishing for compliments–but I did enjoy the camaraderie between this motley crew. Some of their stories are disheartening. For example, Hiep Thi Le, who portrays Katherine's Chinese maid (it's a non-speaking part), was the star of Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth! Talk about a downward career trajectory.
Additionally, Columbia TriStar offers up the much-welcome companion videos for "Every You, Every Me" (sadly, not in 5.1) and Marcy Playground's "Coming Up From Behind." The terrific theatrical trailer (in DD 2.0), whose credits contain a curious misprint (John Ottman did not compose the score), plus cast and crew bios round out the package.
Technically, Payback looks almost as good as Cruel Intentions does on DVD. Core's cinematography has been faithfully reproduced for the small screen. I've read reports of people turning up the colour at home, which is a mistake: This film is supposed to look muted and blanched, and boosting the saturation will only smear the image. (If only blue didn't dominate the palette–what a clichée.) The darkest shots never go muddy, as they would in a lesser transfer. My sole complaint is that Payback's blood-red titles are almost indecipherable. The film is letterboxed at 2.35:1 and enhanced for 16×9 displays
Payback sounds great in DD 5.1. There is a definite left-right stereo split and liberal usage of the surrounds, particularly during the Triad (?) gunfight and boxing match, where the bell is localized to the left rear speaker. The explosions lack the pronounced bass of Ronin's, but they're loud, at least. From the disc's main menu, one can access the trailer as well as a featurette on the production that woefully ignores the behind-the-scenes strife between Gibson the producer-star and Brian Helgeland, the fledgling hyphenate. Still, it's nice to see an extra, any extra, on a title from the Mountain. Payback doesn't really deserve the royal treatment, anyway.
- Cruel Intentions
98 minutes; R; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced), 1.33:1; English DD 5.1; CC; English subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Columbia TriStar - Payback
102 minutes; R; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English Dolby Surround, French Dolby Surround; CC; English subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; Paramount
