Ealy shines in scrappy ‘Jacob’s’

This news has been read 6110 times!

Rosenthal’s head-trip thriller falls short

Jacob’s Ladder

It’s understandable that someone would want to remake “Jacob’s Ladder”, Adrian Lyne’s 1990 head-trip thriller about a Vietnam veteran haunted by fragmentary nightmare visions. I was far from alone in finding the original to be an overwrought but rather thin “psychological” horror film that was more punishing than pleasurable. And it wasn’t exactly a hit, grossing just $26 million in the US. Yet it’s easy to see why “Jacob’s Ladder”, over the years, became a bit of a cult movie. It has some astonishing bad-acid-trip imagery (the Francis Bacon-meets-FX quivery heads, etc), and consumed late at night it conjures a certain random hallucinatory relentlessness that anticipates the throw-demons-at-the-wall-and-see-if-they-stick scare-cinema tactics of the digital era.

That’s why you’d expect a remake of “Jacob’s Ladder” to come out of the glossy megaplex fear processor, the one that gave us all those remake/sequels to “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, “The Thing”, “The Ring”, “The Evil Dead”, and other sensational contempo horror milestones. With a filmmaker like James Wan or Kiyoshi Kurosawa or Sam Raimi at the helm, it could have been, if nothing else, a state-of-the-art mind-f–k.

Instead, the new version of “Jacob’s Ladder”, directed by David M. Rosenthal, is one of those low-budget, no-atmosphere indie productions that has lurid utilitarian lightning, outdoor scenes that look like they were shot in the back alleys of Toronto (I’m not saying they were – just that they feel that way), and a lurching stop-and-start rhythm. You can forge a decent drama out of elements this scrappy, but not necessarily a film like “Jacob’s Ladder”.

In the new version, when Jacob Singer (Michael Ealy), a trauma surgeon who works at the Atlanta VA hospital, sees visions that echo the ones in the original film (phantoms on the subway, worms under his wife’s skin, one of those sinister vibrating heads), the visual effects aren’t bad, but they aren’t lavish enough to conjure the momentary tingle of dread that Adrian Lyne did. In the 30 years since “Jacob’s Ladder”, a lot of hallucinatory bat-house imagery has passed under the bridge. A few token, pasted-in fear shots won’t cut it.

But if the new version falls flat as midnight-movie spectacle, it’s at least built around a promising idea of inner hell. Jacob keeps getting hints that his brother, Isaac (Jesse Williams), a casualty of the war in Afghanistan, is actually still alive. Then, in a subway tunnel, he finds him. Jacob, married to the tough but tender Samantha (Nikki Beharie), with an infant son, has the “perfect” life. Whereas Isaac, haunted by his wartime experiences, is falling apart. He appears to be a victim of HDA, an experimental drug approved by the government to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, only the side effects are such that the drug causes more trauma than it cures. We brace ourselves for a rotely “paranoid” anti-government conspiracy movie (which is what the original “Jacob’s Ladder”, beneath its imagery, basically was).

Dream

The new version, though, actually wants to be more of a head trip. It’s not just that Jacob keeps seeing things; it’s that his entire life may be an illusion – a dream he sheds as the movie goes on. At a certain point, “Jacob’s Ladder” starts to feel more like a cut-rate version of David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”, a tale in which the ultimate nightmare is waking up inside a new identity. Michael Ealy acts this out with an existential fear that’s vivid and convincing. Yet even here, the essential scrappiness of the film remains. The new “Jacob’s Ladder” plays like a half-hearted sketch of the movie it could have been. Given that, I’d say that it might actually not be a bad idea to remake “Jacob’s Ladder” again, only this time with a genuine update of the creepy-freaky imagery, as well as a story that, at last, does it justice.

Also:

LOS ANGELES: Cut off Russell Crowe in traffic at your own peril!

That’s the takeaway from the first look at “Unhinged”, an upcoming thriller that stars the Oscar-winning “Gladiator” actor as a man who takes road rage to frightening new levels. Crowe appears in the Solstice Studios release alongside Caren Pistorius, who portrays Rachel, a mother who hits the horn at the exact wrong moment. In the first look image, Crowe smolders with the fury of a thousand Maximuses.

“The mark of a great film is one that both entertains and sparks conversation,” director Derrick Borte said. “I believe, in a very terrifying way, ‘Unhinged’ does exactly that.”

Production on the film wraps on Sunday in New Orleans. “Unhinged”, planned for a third quarter 2020 release, marks Solstice Studios’ first production since launching last October. The studio aims to produce between three and five movies per year, with most films carrying budgets between $20 million and $80 million. It also plans to co-finance or acquire another two to three films annually and will be at the Toronto International Film Festival looking for movies to buy.

“Unhinged” co-stars Gabriel Bateman and Jimmi Simpson. The screenplay is by Carl Ellsworth (“Disturbia”) with Lisa Ellzey (“Warrior”) producing.

Borte previously directed “American Dreamer”. Crowe recently appeared as Roger Ailes in Showtime’s “The Loudest Voice” and will next appear in “True History of the Kelly Gang”. Pistorius’ credits include “Gloria Bell” and “Mortal Engines”. (RTRS)

By Owen Gleiberman

This news has been read 6110 times!

Back to top button

Advt Blocker Detected

Kindly disable the Ad blocker

Verified by MonsterInsights