Shadowboxer (2006) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

The New York Times summed it up like this:

“Shadowboxer,” a gaudy thriller saturated in sex and violence, is an extravagance that leaves you with your mouth hanging open — partly in admiration of its audacity and partly in disbelief at its preposterousness.

How do you think this sounds:

• Half of the movie is like Pulp Fiction - cavalier, glib movie gangsters doing movie gangster shit with an utter disregard for human life or dignity.
• The other half is like Magnolia - people with intense emotions who spend a lot of time thinking about the meaning and value of life, and reflecting upon how their lives have been affected by the events of the past and the nature of their families.

It sounds pretty damned weird, if you ask me.

It gets weirder. Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. play partners in the assassination-for-hire business. To begin with, they seem like two of the least likely hitpersons on the planet, but it's much weirder than mere appearances, so fasten your seat belts. First, they are mother and son. Second, they are also lovers. Third, mom is dying of cancer. So it's your basic intergenerational, interracial, incestuous, dying assassins movie.

I know what you're thinking. "Not another one of those!"

The couple goes out on a multiple hit, and everything goes as planned until they come to the final target, a gangster's wife who is nine months pregnant. The psychological complication of the situation is caused by Mirren's cancer. Mirren simply can't bring herself to make the kill. Being so close to her own death, she is reconsidering her former estimation of the value of life. She commits to saving the mother and baby in much the same spirit shown by Roy Batty when he saved Deckard in Blade Runner's classic "tears in the rain" scene.  In fact, the wife's water breaks just as the assassins enter her bedroom, and Mirren actually ends up midwifing the baby.  Gooding and Mirren then must take the new mother and her baby away for safekeeping, since it was the woman's husband who hired the hit. The assassins tell their gangster client that his wife is dead and buried. Of course, the wife can never again be seen in public since the rabid gangster would kill all of them if he knew the truth, so the four of them head far out to the countryside, where they assume aliases and become an odd family unit for many years, even after Mirren's death.

You can probably guess that they will not continue in blissful suburbia forever, but I can take it no further. you'll have to get the details of the denouement as you watch it.

Critics didn't know what to make of this film, which was just released to theaters a month ago. The people who like movies like Pulp Fiction found this one pretentiously draggy during the philosophical portions and the emotional family scenes. The critics who like movies like Magnolia were grossed out by all the explicit sex and violence. For example, Stephen Dorff, as the insane mob boss, kills one guy after ramming a broken, jagged pool cue up his ass. Dorff later shows off an erect penis after being interrupted in coitus. Cuba Gooding has several nude scenes, including a hot and tender sex scene with Helen Mirren which ends with him blowing her brains out with a revolver while she climaxes. (It's an act of mercy. She's dying painfully.) Moviegoers were as dumbfounded by the tone-shifts as the critics, and the film never found a theatrical audience.

Y'know what? I like this film. I would have liked it more if it had been filled with daring female nudity instead of man-parts, but I still liked it.

It is over-the-top and surreal and more than a bit mad, and the Stephen Dorff character is a completely unbelievable one-dimensional villain, but the film works for me, despite or because of those elements. As the Times pointed out, the extravagant action may impress you or make you laugh, but it won't bore you, and it's difficult to predict. Furthermore the film's emotional manipulation is powerful and skillful enough to generate the responses it hopes for. This is the first film for director Lee Daniels, but he shows complete command of the material, and has no problem shifting from family drama to outrageous black comedy to lurid sex and violence. His musical selections include such diverse elements as tangos, waltzes, hip-hop, and romantic faux-classical. His sets are opulent and gaudy. His production values are lush, and his shooting locations are chosen with an eye to the off-kilter. And the man's love for Philadelphia and its 'burbs is evident in every frame. The only real negative is that the dialogue isn't very original or punchy. Gooding almost never speaks, and the women are given rather mundane verbal work, so it's up to Dorff to provide the crackle, which he does in his own wild way.

Nice to see Cuba Gooding deliver such a strong, silent, subtle character. Few people will ever get to see the commitment he made to this part, but I saw it and salute him. He's been down on his luck, and I hope he starts to draw better hands as he pursues his comeback.