"The Crazies" (2010) Breck Eisner remake of George Romero's thriller
Ed Augusts
afternoon, March 9, 2010.]
This starts out like something we might have seen before. Fairly small
town out on the Plains. Small town characters including an average
sheriff and his deputy. Ordinary, every-day folks and families!
Couldn't be less threatening if we were in Derry, Maine, at the happy
start of yet another Stephen King story. But no, this is not S.K., it
is Breck Eisner's remake of a bloody George Romero movie from 1973,
and it will get more murderous than a King novel before it's through.
Many are saying this remake beats Romero's much-appreciated, if highly
politicized, original. This one has 71% right now on the "Rotten
Tomatoes" tomatometer, versus 20 points lower for the original. (If
you Google it, call this one "The Crazies (2010)" otherwise you'll get
reviews of the Romero original, which might be a tad confusing.
So here's what's up!. Rural Heartland story. One reviewer says
"Kansas", but the movie mentions "Iowa". But no matter where it is,
gee, this looks familiar! First name basis for everyone. Happy,
small-town America. Then, a familiar town character wanders, as if in
a daze, albeit a thoughtful daze, out onto the baseball field during
a game. Which wouldn't be quite so bad, except he's holding a
shotgun. With nobody standing between him and the teenagers except
Timothy Olyphant as the town sheriff. He's not very communicative,
but most of the people who become crazy in this film aren't big
talkers. He's even less communicative when he's dead. He is the first
of a few people who start acting a little strangely. Just a few!
Then, after being a little dazed, they do a few quirky things, like
set fire to their homes with their wives and kids locked inside, and
ramble around with pitchforks looking for captive audiences.
I didn't quite catch how the sheriff, who has a pregnant wife, Radha
Mitchell, the town doctor, gets the brainstorm that something lethal
may be in the water supply, other than the fact that a large plane is
found in a nearby lake, a plane that was never even reported missing,
i.e., it's almost certain that it must have been carrying some wacky
virus or lethal genetic bomb. The drums full of some kind of
'resurrection fluid' in "Return of the Living Dead" come to mind.
Well, there just may BE something in the water, and "The Crazies" have
been drinking it. But the poisoned water and the crazy people aren't
what the Sheriff, his wife and friends, need to worry the most about.
The real terror comes from On High, as high as the satellites fly, and
not just from a crashed airplane. Our enemies, overseas and abroad,
will love the way 'The Crazies" portrays the morality of our loveable
military command. (Remember, folks, it's just a movie!) The annoyance
of scenes that break into the on-going drama by invoking military and
political big-shots, never take place in this movie, never! Not that
we can see. Which is a good thing, because the film organically
follows the action and takes us along for the ride. Good screenwriting
decision!
And great cast! The two main stars, Timothy Olyphant and Radha
Mitchell are ably assisted by the "is-he-going-wacko-already-or-not?"
Joe Anderson as the deputy. C'mon, now! What deputy sheriff in most
films and TV movies, Sci-Fi channel, Lifetime, etc., does NOT go wacky
at some point? But Anderson takes the role and runs with it, and
escapes the cliche of being nothing more than the expendable deputy.
These three leads act-out their more or less doomed parts in a
believable, realistic way. Whom can we say is doomed in a movie any
more than we all are, one way or another, in real life? Sooner or
later, we're all kind of doomed. (That's why we should all make a
movie!) There's a fourth cool actor (I feel like I should apologize:
I always feel like calling a woman an actress), She's Danielle
Panabaker, the deputy's girl, but she doesn't get as many lines, and
ends-up swept off her feet and then just hanging around, as Hitchcock
might have said.
The thrills in "The Crazies" are above-standard. It's also the little
touches, things you may not have seen before, that make this thriller
special:
* A rural carwash. I didn't quite 'get' this. A carwash in a barn?
Maybe its used for tractors or cows.
* An absolutely huge, NOT QUITE empty truckstop on the Interstate.
* A knife that looks like it really goes right through a hand... and
he's the relatively lucky one!
* As many dead bodies piled up as you'd see in a concentration camp
movie. This 'effect' must be going around; there was something very
similar in "Shutter Island".
* Some kind of perilous farm equipment, in neutral, all lit up inside
a barn late at night.
* Being strapped to a gurney as someone is going around killing
everyone who's strapped to a gurney.
* A countdown like from Cape Kennedy or the Nevada desert. Maybe "The
Atomic Kid" with Mickey Rooney..
You don't get stuff like that in ordinary movies about the Plains and
Prairies, not even in the "Wizard of Oz". -----Ed Augusts
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