FULL FRONTAL review

It’ll be easy for some to dismiss FULL FRONTAL as just pure pretentious film school coffee shop fodder for the pseudo intellectuals bandying about the true essence of film versus video and the inherent soul that one captures and the other misses. You’ll hear some talking about this being pure cinema - how this is what Soderbergh should dedicate his life to, but frankly I feel that while there are wonderful pieces of FULL FRONTAL – it really is a Buffet Film – you know, one of those movies that has a little bit of everything, so you pick what you want and leave the rest. You’ll have a satisfying meal – you might even feel that the scallop potatoes are the best you’ve ever had, but the meat will be a bit dry, the carrots will be sublime and you’ll want a double helping of the Key Lime pie.

FULL FRONTAL has some underlying themes that make it better than most pretentious film school crap (I know, I see pretentious film school crap nearly everyday on video here at the house) – The good out weighs the bad, but it is like a really good filmmaker that has seen DAY FOR NIGHT over and over again, that can quote the film to you in a RAIN MAN sort of fashion, deciding that he’s going to do his DAY FOR NIGHT – but like Johnny Depp’s ED WOOD – he just can’t, no matter how hard he wants to, he can’t make CITIZEN KANE.

Does this mean that this is a waste? A bad pretentious trip? BY NO MEANS. If I’m hard on this movie, I’m hard on it because Stephen Soderbergh is not only one of the most daring filmmakers working today, he’s one of the smartest, brightest, most experimental and challenging creators out there. He’s not just churning the same thing out over and over again. He is that rare filmmaker that can make an $80 million dollar studio film, then turn right around and do something low-budget and completely non-traditional. He’s a filmmaker that doesn’t just repeat what he’s done before, but he’s a filmmaker in a constant state of evolution. Pushing himself and his viewers. One of the key issues with experimenting on film is that you make mistakes – some things don’t work as well as others, but what does work is pure joy because… well it just isn’t something you saw the previous week in a theater near you, but something that comes from a true spirit of artistic expression.

FULL FRONTAL succeeds on many wonderful levels. Going into the film having read an early draft of the script, I knew that Nicky Katt had the plum role and would be the character and the performance that most people would be talking about and hailing as the thing THEY LOVED about the movie.

I knew that the scenes with Catherine Keener’s LEE character doing her Human Resources tortures of the various employees, and specifically the Africa question would play extremely well on screen, and it did.

Upon reading the script, I felt the David Hyde Pierce character of Carl and his relationship with Keener’s Lee would be terrible – also I felt that the sister relationship between Keener and Mary McCormack’s Linda would fall flat – as well as Linda’s blind net date. HOWEVER, I was Waaaaaay Wrong.

Turns out that I loved this work 100%. David Hyde Pierce is who stole the film for me. I had a day, a little over a month ago that played out eerily close to his day, but far far worse. It felt so honest and absurdly scripted, yet real and happening, that watching his character listening to what was coming at him. The circumstances of his shitty day. His reaction to it as it comes, how it played out… Perfect.

Watching Catherine Keener’s Lee going from the smug in control type to the fragile on nerves’ ends woman – GREAT! She did an amazing job here. As did Mary McCormack. In all – this part of the movie was the most emotionally real, the most interesting and the best acted.

Where the film failed miserably for me was in the Blair Underwood / Julia Roberts big time movie biz bullshit part of the film. How did it go wrong for me?

First off, Blair Underwood was completely cock blocked at every possible point by the other people in his scenes. You see, Blair Underwood is supposed to be playing the biggest, most popular Black Actor in Hollywood. Now, had he been playing this in scenes opposite other actors of his (television) status, it might’ve worked, but watching his 15 watt soft bulb charisma next to the 5000 watt Halogen Star Burst of Charisma which is Julia Roberts and even in his teeny tiny moments, Brad Pitt – well, he’s a central character that needed to just melt the screen, that could be the STAR he was playing. Instead, it came across as flaccid and limp and lifeless for me.

He’s a handsome man to be sure, but opposite Julia Roberts in KLUTE hair… The man has no chance to even begin to radiate off that screen. It was like casting Ronald Reagan to play Errol Flynn – ya just don’t want to go there. Ya know? Even worse though… Olivia de Havilland was there… Constantly reminding you that Errol Flynn should be in the movie and not Ronald Reagan. In this case, of course, I’m talking about Denzel Washington. This movie was screaming out loud, “DENZEL, WHAT THE FUCK MAN, GET YOUR ASS IN THIS MOVIE,” every single time that Blair came on screen.

You know you’re in trouble when a guy playing a lighting technician in a scene with Julia has more charisma going on onscreen than your lead opposite her… to underline this though, there is even a moment of self-awareness where Blair’s actor in the movie points out that he feels that his vibe between him and Julia’s actor in the film, just isn’t gelling and how they need to work on it. Is this clever self-awareness? Does calling attention to the films own faults then in turn become a compliment? Personally, I don’t think so.

Ultimately as I watched this film, I wanted every bit of 35mm Panavision work thrown out in favor of every scene shot on DV. The DV had more style, the acting was superior, the scripting of those scenes worked, and the energy was higher.

Now this could be the point of the film, EXCEPT that when the actors are on 35mm – they are playing actors playing acting. It became a parody of itself. And the writing of those scenes were very sub par. On purpose? Could be. However, the real compare and contrast should come when you have solid acting and solid scenes… Instead of shooting the ‘film within the film’ as though it really is trash, shoot great scenes. Have the actors play it like they really would play it in those scenes. It just felt forced and artificial the way it was done here. Here it reminds me of an understated BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN, rather than a DAY FOR NIGHT.

I mean, the brilliance of DAY FOR NIGHT is that not only are the non-film within the film moments poignant and brilliant – but the film within the film is actually a good film. I’d be far more interested in this film if say the movie within the movie was something like… oh THE LIMEY or SCHIZOPOLIS or TRAFFIC or OUT OF SIGHT or KAFKA or THE UNDERNEATH or even his OCEAN’S ELEVEN. Instead the ‘real world’ is the only film in this film that I was really interested in.

This is a film to support, to watch and to discuss. You can’t really say that about most of the films we go to theaters to see. This isn’t just entertainment, there is an awful lot going on in this film to discuss… not all of it good or great, but enough to make the conversation and the trip to see the film worthwhile.