The Blackout (1997) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

The Blackout (1997) is another of Abel Ferrara's films, complete with his usual photographic pyrotechnics, and with his usual lost soul seeking redemption, but this film isn't even close to interesting. It had a European release, but went straight to Vid in America. It stars Matthew Modine as a famous actor who is addicted to booze and drugs. He comes to Miami to try and patch things up with his beautiful girlfriend, Annie (Béatrice Dalle), but she has lost interest in him. She is acting in a video film for nightclub owner/wannabe porn king Dennis Hopper. He meets a waitress, also named Annie (Sarah Lassez), and takes her to meet Hopper.

I guess Tuna's C- must be the correct rating. I hate the friggin' thing enough to give it an E, but I guess some people may think it is a sexy noir thriller or something. I don't know. It does have a lot of flesh, and it's technically excellent, so I guess we have to rate it a C- as an erotic thriller, although I don't know what it is supposed to be. I think it is meant to be some kind of psychological examination of guilt, kind of a hip guttersnipe version of Hitchcock. I do know that it never got a theatrical release in the USA, and it took more than three years to get it to home video, so I'm not the only one who thought it was a weak offering.

Of all the movies that are supposed to have a "surprise" at the end, this must take the trophy as the least surprising.

Here's the set-up. Modine plays a famous actor who is a chronic alcoholic and drug abuser. He went on an especially bad binge out of anger and frustration when his girlfriend got an abortion without telling him. It's obvious that he was obsessive about her, and she didn't love him at all. When he wakes up, he seems to be missing a day of his life, and his girlfriend has disappeared. He is afraid, based on his mood at the time, her disappearance, and his nightmares, that he killed her.

On the very night when he had a blackout, he had a one-night stand with another woman, a waitress who was awed by her chance to fuck a star. His friend (Dennis Hopper) is making some kind of documentary porn film, and thought it would be dramatic to take that waitress and dress her up in a wig to make her look like the girlfriend, then film Modine's reactions. To make things even stranger, the waitress has the same name as the girlfriend. She even has it on her name tag!

OK, now how surprised do you think you will be by the ending? Do you think you can figure out what really happened that night? I had it in - oh, a second, give or take, after Hopper put the wig on the waitress, and at that time nobody was even dead yet! Then I had to watch the remaining however many minutes before the film finally revealed the obvious - the girlfriend only fled to escape his obsession, and he killed the other chick in a drug-induced haze, probably not even knowing she was only the other chick. 

In other words, if you take Hopper's speech and apply it to the film, it might be more appropriate.

Abel Ferrara has made some fairly good, albeit bleak films, like Bad Lieutenant and New Rose Hotel, and some really, really, really bad films like Fear City. This particular one is visually impressive in many ways, is probably his best technical achievement, and has its own unique aesthetic sense, but is otherwise in the Fear City category.

It is sleazy. The characters are unbelievable. The plot is telegraphed. It tries too hard to be arty. It condemns every nook and cranny of human nature. In other words, it is very much a piece of pseudo-arty Eurotrash, except that Ferrara happens to be an American.