What THE FLOCK Is Richard Gere Doing With Andy Lau!?

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. Excellent question, and this review should answer it for you:

Hi, Harry, Quint – or whoever intercepted this e-mail. ;) Greetings from a small country far, far away. I have recently watched an apparently little-fanfared movie titled “The Flock”, with Richard Gere. The film is the latest work of director Wai-keung “Andy” Lau, who, I am ashamed to say, was previously known to me only as the director of “Infernal Affairs”. If the quality of that trilogy and “The Flock” is anything by which to judge him, then I have to watch more of the man’s output. I was surprised not to see any reviews for it yet on AICN, and then I found out that, apparently, you will not be seeing this film in the US for several more months! Well, once you do get a chance – see it. A word of warning, though: if Joel Schumacher’s “8 mm” warded you off, if you didn’t like the effectiveness of Paul Schrader’s “Hardcore”, you should probably steer clear of this film, too. “The Flock” reminded me of that duo, as well as of a little PC game named “Condemned: Criminal Origins” – and, to some extent, of the legendary draft script of “Suspect Zero”. No, not the dead rat wrapped in celluloid that ended up on the screen, but the bleak, realistic, psychic-bullshit-free screenplay that Moriarty reviewed a few years ago – and of Paul Schrader’s rewrite that I did read and that, I imagine, is far closer to the original, though probably watered down. That is, of course, not to say that “The Flock” is derivative of any of those works – but if you enjoyed them, or even any one of them, then you might consider giving Gere and Lau a try. This is not an easy or pretty film, and definitely not a feel-good one. It’s deliberately seedy, somber and, I suppose, it would be considered too depressing by the so-called mainstream audience. (Especially, I think, in the US. Frankly, I’m not expecting it to do well at all in USA – in fact, I pretty much expect it to share the fate of “The Pledge”.) Anyway… Richard Gere plays Erroll Babbage, an employee of the Department of Public Safety, whose job should consist mostly of regularly checking what registered sexual offenders are up to, and trying to find out something about the scores of missing people who may have become the predators’ prey. And that he does… but he also goes beyond that. Far beyond. As we first see him, he visits a paroled perp to, apparently, ask him a bunch of standard questions, write down the answers and go home. It looks like a standard, dull, lifelike scene, an interview performed by an utterly disinterested clerk only so that he can fill out another paper form and be done for the day. In fact, since we soon find out that Babbage is literally weeks from retirement and might as well stop working already, it’s even more obvious that he doesn’t care much, right? But then… Babbage begins asking the man strange questions. “Have you had sexual thoughts?”, he asks, throwing the guy off. “When you look at this girl”, he says, showing the man a skin rag, “what do you think of? Do you think of… holding her down?” As the man starts breathing heavily and perspiring with excitement, Babbage suddenly slaps him. Erroll Babbage is not the guy who couldn’t care less and who only waits till the 8 hours have gone by. Step by step, we learn how much he does, in fact, care: soon, when he comes across a scummy, smug, pimpish guy who abuses a lost girl utterly devoid of any self esteem, he punishes the man. But not with paperwork, no: in the night. In an alley. With a tire iron. It sounds clichéd, but it works. Gere makes it work. He is extremely devoted, completely immersed in the role, unafraid to give it 100% of everything that he has. I cannot recall seeing a genuinely realistic and memorable vigilante with a badge in any film for quite a few years, but Gere embodies one. I have never had anything against him, but I’ll confess that before “The Flock” I have never really thought that much of him, either. Previously, if asked about him, I would probably say that he’s okay and that I really liked to dislike his character in “Internal Affairs”. (I wonder, by the way, if some executive’s association between “Internal Affairs” and “Infernal Affairs” was the reason why Lau was paired with Gere? Regardless, it worked out extremely well) and even if I were asked about, say, some truly fine actors whose last names begin with “G”, I would probably not name him. But… after seeing “The Flock”, the name “Gere” would probably be the first name that I’d utter. Sure, this is most likely because I am still vividly recalling the film – and Gere’s performance – but even then that, in itself, says something about his role. And he plays a good guy here. A tormented and deeply flawed good guy. And doing memorable villains well is supposedly easier, the actors always say. See, Babbage is obsessed. He is haunted by an old case of a pair of vicious serial killers, who essentially are fictionalized versions of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. The man is, in fact, named Paul, and the name of Homolka’s movie ghost is Viola Jerrod. And, somewhat like their real counterparts, Paul was executed, but Viola was paroled and released. She was, after all, overpowered and forced to do the evil deeds by her husband, “as much a victim as all those dead girls”, to (mis)quote the film. Now, before Babbage goes off into his “golden years”, he wants to find a missing girl named Harriet, who, he suspects, might be somehow tied to Viola. Since, at the same time, he needs to train his future replacement Allison, played by Claire Danes, they set out to find the girl together, or at least learn anything about her fate. Babbage also tries to take the time to show Allison how to care, how not to disassociate – and how to spot the truth behind people’s masks. Only… Allison starts suspecting that maybe Erroll’s obsession pushed him too far, that maybe he has become the stalker and predator, a vampire never willing to let go of people who, perhaps, sinned once but now truly want to rebuild their lives after paying their debts. Babbage’s other co-workers – and his supervisor – have suspected that for quite a while, too, and, as we find out, that is one of the reasons why his retirement is, in fact, not his own choice. Yes, you can easily guess who actually is right, but that does not mean the anxiety is not there. Gere never loses his devotion to the role, not for a moment. There is a great scene in the first twenty minutes of the film where a sleazy barfly hits on him, as he’s obsessively checking and circling articles on missing kids and young people in a newspaper (that is his only pastime.) He is already nervous before he even notices her, and her attention makes his tension grow with each second. Gere is absolutely convincing here: his fidgeting, his quivering lips, his more and more awkward speech, his use of the phrases from his perp interviews, concluding with the suddenly blurted out “Have you used any aliases in the period of the last six months?” that leaves the woman aghast… perfect and perfectly convincing. Speaking of sleaziness, the film oozes it – but, as strange as it may sound, in a positive sense. I also felt that was the case with “8 mm” and the rest of the gang that I named earlier: sleaze with a point and to make a point. The sleazy atmosphere was very intentional, very topical… and it worked very well. We are introduced to the pits of society, we see the ugly sewers that hide in every big city under that thin coating of golden paint that’s called civilization, and we meet a whole menagerie of characters scummy enough to make it right onto the pages of Andrew Vachss’s novels, from predators hanging outside schools with cameras in their hands and lecherous smiles on their faces, to purveyors and creators of… amputee porn. And not only porn. (This, by the way, we find out in an underground bordello that makes Eli Roth’s warehouses look like summer cottages by Canadian lakes.) By the way – we do find out what the title means. That’s just a trivial remark, but personally, sometimes I find myself looking for the origin of a movie’s title after it ends and I’m not sure I see the right one. Not so here, and in fact it’s not even open for interpretations: Richard Gere actually spells out the title’s meaning at one point. Although, to be precise, I actually saw “The Flock” under a different and somewhat immaterial title of “The Wells Case” – that is how the Spanish release that I saw was named (I’m from Poland, though) – but, back to the point… What’s bad? I was annoyed by the “modern movie” gimmicks – roughly every minute, there is either a quick cut, a speed zoom, sometimes complete with the stupid “whooosh!” noise, or those annoying quick “flash frames” and short washed out / overlit close-ups, taken from post-2000 Asian horrors. Especially that last gizmo is used too often. True, Lau was born and raised in the Asian Cinema neighborhood, but that shouldn’t be a reason to overdose on obnoxious techniques – or to overuse flashbacks, which he also seems to enjoy throwing in when just narration would (and sometimes does) work better. But, technique-wise, here’s the good news: thankfully, he did not try to do what certain directors do these days and show that he learned the word “visceral” and what he believes it to mean, by filming every action scene in unwatchable shake cam. The camera is mostly steady throughout the movie. But those other dumb MTV tricks hurt the film considerably, and all the time I kept thinking of how much better it would have been if it had been filmed the way that, say, “Dirty Harry” was filmed. (And how horrible “Dirty Harry” would have been with shake cam and quick zooms, but that’s another story that we’d better save for the inevitable remake.) Since watching “The Flock”, I read up on it a little, and it seems that some scenes may have been shot or reshot by another director, but I think those lousy tricks are so numerous that, sadly, they had to be Lau’s choice. The third act is, unfortunately, a bit messy and the movie loses the steam in it. In its final minutes, it almost sputters. That act definitely could have used some editing; it still held me immersed, but not as strongly as the rest of the film managed to earlier. It also has a rather bizarre and prolonged scene that many will instantly call “torture porn” (or perhaps “mad lesbian torture porn”) but which, I felt, was there for a purpose rather than to have violence for violence’s sake only (unlike, for instance, similar content shot by, say, Rob Zombie… yeah, I couldn’t resist!) The ending seemed, unfortunately, a bit tacky and formulaic, and it was followed by a short and unnecessary monologue – pretty much a “now let’s sum the essay up with one sentence that sounds confident and a quote from that philosopher whose name we better not give” kind of a conclusion. Plus, personally I would prefer a somber score played over the ending credits, rather than the popcorn song that was played… but then, the film would have probably needed a composer a little keener in delivering truly memorable music than the man who did score it, Guy Farley. Unless, of course, it was the director’s choice to have an unobtrusive score that keeps the somber mood but does not stand out – in that case, my apologies to Mr Farley. Still, none of that spoiled the film for me, although the editing gimmicks did stain it. And if you’re willing to give a deliberately dreary, uneasy picture a chance, I’m sure you could easily find plenty of films far worse than “The Flock”. Mind you, it’s not revolutionary, but it is a good addition to that small “seedy underbelly of the world” niche. Oh, and since earlier I mentioned Andrew Vachss, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lau catches the eye of some executive thinking of adapting Vachss’s books, should “The Flock”, by some chance, do well. Because as far as all mainstream post-2000 movies go, “The Flock” is so far the one that reminded me of Vachss the most. I feel Lau deals with dour atmosphere and difficult subjects well enough without going over the top to tackle the Burke novels. (But if he actually gets a Vachss project, here’s a plea from me: please lose all those “modern” editing and filming tricks!) If you choose to use this, you might as well call me Mr Vess. (Not Vachss! :) I “talkbacked” under a different nickname, but recently had trouble with logging in using it). As for other talkbackers, you may call me “Plant”. :) (Seriously, though, I really was taken in by this film.)