Knights of Badassdom

Knights of Badassdom - Dir. Joe Lynch (2014)

Knights of Badassdom started gaining buzz when it premiered its trailer during a panel at Comic-Con 2011. The majority of attendees had no awareness of the indie film though some ears perked at the presence of fan favorites like Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), Danny Pudi (Community), and Summer Glau (Serenity). The footage received a rousing reaction from the exact demographics the movie was hoping to hit. Unfortunately, Knights has been sitting on the shelf until now thanks to Entertainment One, who are releasing it on DVD & Blu-ray. Disagreements between director Joe Lynch and the producers over final cut led to the delay. After viewing Knights, I'm not so sure if Lynch's version would have been a significant improvement.

Knights is set in the world of LARPing that's Live Action Role-Playing for the uninitiated. Friendly folks do battle in a medieval fantasy world with a little help from some foam weapons and a wealth of imagination. Joe (Ryan Kwanten) used to be a LARPer as well as a master of Dungeons & Dragons. He once gave Ronny Kwok's (Jimmi Simpson) paladin a serious case of demonic syphilis. Nowadays, Joe is an aspiring musician, specializing in doom metal, while working a day job as an auto mechanic. That's not enough for his girlfriend, Beth (Margarita Levieva), who wants a boyfriend with some iota of ambition. Joe gets dumped in humiliating fashion and copes by getting stoned with his best friends Eric (Steve Zahn) and Hung (Dinklage). He awakens the next morning in armor and finds a horde of LARPers preparing for the Battle of Evermore.

Joe reluctantly joins in, but the games become far too real when Eric unknowingly reads from a magical tome with actual supernatural origins. Eric summons a bloodthirsty succubus that looks exactly like Beth and starts killing LARPers one by one.

One of the problems with Knights is Ryan Kwanten. It's not that the Aussie actor gives a bad performance; he's perfectly fine and feels like a natural fit. However, his character is one of the least interesting in the picture and he doesn't have the screen presence of his co-stars. When you're in there with Peter Dinklage, you need a load of charisma just to stand out. Dinklage (who also served as an executive producer) is one of the highlights as he essentially parodies Tyrion Lannister. He's brash and extremely enthusiastic about the whole venture. Zahn and Jimmi Simpson, as the fussy gamesmaster, are also quite funny in their supporting roles. Glau joins the fray as the guild's lone female, Gwen, who started LARPing in order to look after her cousin Gunther (Brett Gipson), an Ivan Dragon lookalike who remains in character 24/7.

You can't fault any of the actors, many of whom are in the movie far too briefly, for Knights being something of a slog. The story starts off promisingly enough, but loses traction at the midpoint. It's as if screenwriters Kevin Dreyfuss and Matt Wall just ran out of material. So, we wind up with repetitive sequences in which nothing of important actually happens. There's also an awkward blend of horror and comedy where the filmmakers are clearly inspired by Evil Dead with the goofy humor of Renaissance fair speak. At least, Knights treats its subjects with respect and never truly ridicules the subculture.

Considering the limited budget, you would think those involved would be more innovative with the gore and special effects. Instead, they rely on chintzy CGI that doesn't look at all convincing and a final act monster looks absolutely ridiculous.

Knights of Badassdom was an eagerly anticipated release, but when the time came the movie failed to deliver. Not even the winning cast is enough to elevate the lackluster material into a film worth recommending.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Saint John of Las Vegas

Saint John of Las Vegas - Dir. Hue Rhodes (2010)

Next to Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi has to be my favorite character actor ever. His unconventional facial features and unique inflections make him stand out from the majority of actors working today. He's had so many memorable roles: Fargo, Reservoir Dogs, The Big Lebowski, Ghost World, and a dramatic turn in last year's The Messenger. No matter how bad a movie is, you can at least depend on Buscemi to be entertaining. Never has he had to work so hard to make such subpar material work than with Saint John of Las Vegas.

Saint John marks the feature debut of writer/director Hue Rhodes who took inspiration for the movie from Dante's Inferno. Buscemi plays John Alighieri, a former compulsive gambler now working as a claims adjuster for an insurance company in Albuquerque. He's engaged in a relationship with perky co-worker, Jill (Sarah Silverman), who has an infatuation with smiley faces and is carrying on an affair with their boss, Mr. Townsend (Peter Dinklage).

After bucking for a raise and a promotion, John winds up being sent on the road to investigate the claim of a stripper named Tasty D. Lite (Emmanuelle Chriqui), who lives outside of Vegas. She was supposedly left confined to a wheelchair with a neckbrace following a rear collision with another car. John is paired up with a veteran investigator in Virgil (Romany Malco). John is apprehensive about all this because he fears he will fall back into old habits the closer he gets to Sin City. While on the road, John and Virgil encounter all sorts of oddballs, such as a nudist colony of gun toting cowboys and a carnival worker (John Cho) sealed inside a flame-retardant suit. His scenes are as witty as the film gets to referencing Dante. No one can help the poor guy until the incendiary rig he's hooked up to, which engulfs him in flames every few minutes, runs out of fuel. Ironically, all he really wants is a cigarette.

Saint John has a hard time focusing on what it wants to be. The beginning of the movie has potential to be an amusing work place comedy ala Office Space due to the eccentricities of John and his co-workers. However, the rest of the film unfolds as a derivative indie road movie. The run-ins with all these strange characters are supposed to suggest the various Circles of Hell described by Dante, each one representing Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, etc. This is all well and good, if not for the fact that there is no flow in the story. The plot feels like a series of random vignettes tied loosely together without any sense of cohesion. There's not a strong enough character arc to carry the audience through the journey either. It's all just quirky for quirky's sake.

It's a credit to Buscemi's wealth of talent that he's able to make Saint John vaguely watchable. Peter Dinklage and Sarah Silverman are also very good in their supporting roles. Buscemi's sourpuss act contrasts well with Silverman's sunny disposition. But, they aren't enough to make Saint John of Las Vegas worth your time.

Rating: * ½