Exit 8 (c) NEON
Film: Exit 8
In Cinemas
Our hero in the newest NEON horror movie, Exit 8, is only referred to as the Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya). At the start of the film, he feels like a lot of us who live in a big urban city (his is Tokyo), going through the same routine every weekday—getting on a crowded subway to go to a 9-5 job—which you can see is taking its toll on him. So, it’s not surprising he doesn’t realize he is soon alone in the faceless, sameness hallways trying to make his way out of the station through Exit 8. But he is stuck in a loop, and only after he reads a plaque in the hallway does he realize what he needs to do to get out: Notice the anomalies. There are doors, subway ads and lockers, a photo booth, and an unresponsive walking man (Yamato Kochi). Each time he walks the loop, he needs to notice if anything changes in the hall. If this feels like a video game set-up, it is because Exit 8 is based on the first-person RPG genre, officially known as The Exit 8. There’s no real story to the game, but director Genki Kawamura and co-writer Kentaro Hirase give the Lost Man characteristics like asthma, an ex-girlfriend who is in the hospital and a lot of apathy. The film also switches perspectives to another character (something the game never does) and adds other players like an effective Naru Asanuma as The Kid. I thoroughly enjoyed what’s essentially twitch gameplay turned into a film. Kawamura is a master of suspense and time, and while there are jump-scare moments, I wouldn’t really call it a horror movie. Ninomiya is the perfect everyman here, and he has the audience’s support from the get-go. It is repetitive and some might find it exhausting, but I had a lot of fun, and Exit 8, with its obvious use of the circular “Bolero” from Ravel in its soundtrack, stands out as something unique and quirky, something you can’t say for many movies in cineplexes nowadays.
Normal (c) Magnolia Pictures
Film: Normal
In Cinemas
Actor Bob Odenkirk must be as surprised as anyone that his career path has led him to be an action star. Usually he plays nebbish but amiable characters (as in Better Call Saul and on Broadway in Glengarry Glen Ross), and indeed that’s how we see Ulysses at his temporary motel home in Normal, Minnesota, where he has taken a temporary job as sheriff of the town after the death of the last lawman, before the election of the new one. Normal, as its name implies, is just a nice small-town community, and Ulysses seems to fit in, is embraced by his goofy deputy (Billy MacLellan) and the mayor (Henry Winkler). Only when there is a bank robbery does Ulysses find out the town’s secrets, including why there is a huge supply of firearms at the station. That’s when the new Odenkirk construct enters the film, the one we saw in the hit film Nobody and its sequel, and that is a badass action hero who, thanks to director Ben Wheatley, seems to revel in the over-the-top violence and gore he encounters, in the same vein of a Quentin Tarantino or John Wick film. In fact, the film Normal most resembles is the John Wick spin-off from last year, Ballerina, which has a third act very similar to this one’s second act. The problem with Normal is the whole “everything including the kitchen sink” approach of action violence. Some supposedly major characters expire early, which the screenwriter seems to think is hysterical. There’s also bookend scenes that include Asian actors that feel random, but I’m glad to see some Asian faces get screentime. Odenkirk is adjusting to his late-in-life career change admirably and is the only reason to watch this blood-drenched exercise.
The Christophers (c) NEON
Film: The Christophers
In Cinemas
It’s been 14 years since director Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement from directing films, and in those 14 years, he has directed 15. None garnered as many Oscar nominations as Erin Brockovich and Traffic (although his Behind the Candelabra for HBO received many Emmys Awards), but some are certainly very enjoyable (Black Bag, Logan Lucky) while others fall under experimental failures (The Laundromat, Unsane). The Christophers, his latest film, falls under the former category, although there’s a lot of extraneous plot that muddies the fun. Not unlike the recent Oscar-nominated short, A Friend of Dorothy, in which octogenarian Miriam Margulies befriends a young, black, budding actor looking for direction, Ian McKellan’s elder Julian Sklar, a world-renowned painter, finds kinship with Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), a fellow painter who has lost her way. Their meet-hostile come about after Sklar’s adult children (James Corden and Jessica Gunning) hire Lori as their father’s assistant, which Sklar thinks is their way to spy on him and the rumored second set of paintings in his acclaimed series, The Christophers, the subject of which is the ex-lover he was obsessed with. Everything surrounding the painting is a bit of a slog, with the whole “who owns art” question not well explored. But what is explored nicely and with care is the relationship between the two painters, and how creating art is maddening but also necessary. McKellan and Coel (who created and starred in the TV series I Will Destroy You) are both playing almost unknowable characters, where their stubbornness and unwillingness to accept help would have made the film unbearable if both actors didn’t give the parts a bit of a spark in their eyes that may hint at motives and past trauma. Like most Soderbergh movies, there is a kind of a heist element here (like Ocean's Eleven and Kimi), but except for one major flashback moment, he doesn’t do his usual “you saw this scene earlier in the movie, but you didn’t see this sleight of hand.” Thankfully, the sleight of hand here are the actors, and it’s worth the watch.
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