film

The Bag Man (2014)

Late 90’s surrealism meets mid-90’s crime flick with polarizing results.

Note:  Grayed-out sections of text represent possible spoilers.  If you see an interruption of text that looks like the following, (this represents possible spoiler text that will appear grayed out until the cursor is placed over it) then this means a potential spoiler is hidden underneath.  To view the text, simply hover over the area.  Try it now with the preceding area.

One of the many joys of parenthood is being able to accept those wonderful little presents that kids bring home from school – colds. A particularly nasty one has had me laid out for the last few days, and though I was eager to dig into my abundant stash of video games for our old-school themed Retroary, I simply found all the bright colors incompatible with my congestion-induced headaches.  And so, I turned to dozing and sniffling in front of more passive TV-based entertainment: movies.

One of the few that I managed to stay awake through was the relatively new feature The Bag Man.  In years past, A-list names like Robert DeNiro and John Cusack virtually guaranteed an entertaining and well put together film, but these days, that just isn’t the case.  Many of the industry’s heavyweights from the 80’s and 90’s have all but faded from view, and only a very modest and highly inconsistent cadre of actors from a new generation have come to replace them.  Indeed, films as a whole are declining in artistic merit, and TV is gaining ground, year by year, as the premier artistic vessel.  The serialized nature of storytelling is becoming a cultural phenomenon; even the most successful films of the last decade have been pieces of a larger story, i.e. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, The Avengers, etc.

Call me old fashioned, but I still like my movies to pack a singular punch.  With long running storylines evolving over several years as opposed to the 90 to 120 minutes we get in a film, the focus shifts from the story to the characters.  Discussions begin to revolve around a character’s actions and whether or not these actions are becoming with what we’ve been given so far.  Don’t get me wrong, I think this level of characterization is admirable, but it does manage to undercut a lot of the symbolism that we used to see strewn throughout film.  Films have a very limited time in which to make an impact.  And while this does involve a degree of characterization, it must also rely on shortcuts like symbolism and allegory if it wants to do more than tell a story.

I’m veering off topic a little here, so let’s bring it back to The Bag Man.  It starts off in a very Lynch-ian world, a la Lost Highway or Mulholland Dr., with a certain surreal quality.  There is no outside world, everything feels a little “off,” and many situations and/or conversations are almost absurdly comical.  Early on, the film does a great job of establishing its own dream-like reality, especially with seemingly nonsensical elements such as the one-eyed pimp and his midget partner, the exceedingly bizarre motel manager, and the fact that Cusack’s character is shot twice in the same hand in two entirely different situations.  The surrealism peaks during the emergence of the crooked police (featuring Dominic Purcell of Prison Break in a scene-stealing role) with scenes that begin to evoke the hyper-violent crime films of the 90’s and early 2000’s, particularly The Way of the Gun and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn.  

The story, if that’s what you can even call this string of incidents, revolves around a hitman/bagman (Cusack) carrying out a job for a powerful crime boss (DeNiro) and a slew of mishaps that ensue.  Cusack’s character is tasked with retrieving a bag, checking into a motel, and waiting for the arrival of his employer.  He is repeatedly instructed not to look in the bag, a plot point seemingly directly lifted from Pulp Fiction itself.  As we near the conclusion, the mysterious nature of the bag’s contents draws almost verbatim from the climax of Seven. With such obvious “borrowings” from the films that The Bag Man so desperately tries to imitate, it draws undue comparisons instead of maintaining a clear sense of individuality.  Had the focal point been something more original, I think we’d be left with a much more satisfying story.

As we watch what we assume to be the simple task of acquiring the bag, it would seem that the entire universe is working against such an end.  Virtually everything that goes wrong can, leading to an episodic second act where Cusack’s character confronts “the girl” (Da Costa), the alleged FBI agents, the pimps, the motel manager, and the crooked cops.  Things spiral out of control in a darkly comic fashion (somewhat reminiscent of Fargo), and although I’m not sure what I expected from the ending, I did hope for something a little less conventional than the multiple “Mexican Standoff” situations that arise between and among Cusack, DeNiro, Da Costa, and the bodyguard.  What was probably meant to be tension instead comes off as bad screenwriting, especially considering several irrational decisions made by the characters during the final showdown.

Despite the lackluster finale, it’s the epilogue that really puts the nail in the coffin.  Had the film ended with the conclusion of the third act, it would’ve at least retained its dreamy tone and mood.  Instead, for the sake of a rather inconsequential plot twist (and perhaps a director cameo), an extraneous denouement is tacked on to the end where we exit the realm of the otherworldly motel and enter into a lawyer’s office, in a big city, and in broad daylight.  It’s all in stark contrast to the empty and dark wasteland that houses the rest of the movie, and it really doesn’t fit.  It’s a sour note that doesn’t gel with anything else we’ve seen, and although it presents the audience with a “startling revelation,” the way in which the events unfold render this point fairly moot; whether or not we know the information contained in the epilogue has zero bearing on any future or past events nor does it have any effect on our understanding of the events.

In general I’d consider myself pretty flexible when it comes to what I’d consider a “good movie.”  Like most astute movie fans, I can understand what constitutes “good” within a particular context.  A few great films can surpass genre conventions, but for the most part we all learn to judge movies against others of their ilk and not against every other film ever made.  Compared with many other low-key releases featuring A-list acts that have trickled out in the last few years, The Bag Man is decent enough.  Unfortunately, the memory of similar films remains too fresh in my mind and it’s hard to look at The Bag Man without seeing a trace of some other movie.

As I’ve harped on previously, I really enjoy the offbeat atmosphere established throughout the first half of The Bag Man.  The quirky characters, mysterious motives, and nightmarish setting all draw the audience into this lurid world, and not having the complete picture spoonfed to us from a silver platter makes it even more interesting.  However, I don’t think the director had a clear objective in sight – I don’t think he knew where this film was going or how it was going to get there.  There is such a marked shift in tone from the second to third acts, and it feels unnatural and incomplete, like two different versions of the same film are spliced together.

The Bag Man doesn’t get a wholehearted recommendation from me, but a less demanding (or perhaps less sentimental) viewer may derive more overall pleasure from the flick.  At the very least, it’s a mildly interesting throwback to a time when the criminal underworld was artistically glamorized, and it certainly does a better job of entertaining than recent efforts such as Killing Them Softly and Out of the Furnace.  

Written by The Cubist