Don't know if you've heard of the movie Green Room. It came out about five years ago. Could be called a horror movie or a thriller. More than a little claustrophobic.
Here's the basic premise. An impoverished hardcore band are on tour in their van. They drive to a college town in Oregon for a college gig, only to find out that it's been cancelled and all they're getting is a minuscule kill fee. The college radio man who was promoting them feels remorse and sets them up with an alternate gig. It's in a secluded spot, a hangout for the "boots and braces" crowd, i.e. White Power skinheads. They make the interesting choice to start their gig with a cover of the Dead Kennedys' "Nazi Punks Fuck Off," but that's not where their problems start. Rather, things get hairy for them when they witness the aftermath of a murder and get confined to the titular room, with a growing understanding that the skinheads don't intend to let them walk away.
I don't want to get too far into this issue, but the prevalence of violent white supremacists has been exaggerated by the media in recent years, leading to greater polarization and some questionable decisions in general.
So it's interesting to note, and perhaps to its credit, that politics and race aren't really the driving force of the drama in Green Room. In theory the antagonists may hate any number of ethnic minorities. Their leader Darcy―played by Patrick Stewart with a world-weary gravitas and a truly bizarre accent―makes a couple of offhand racist references. But primarily he's a gangster, and his followers are violently loyal hoodlums. The Ain't Rights, as the band are known, are white themselves. Bassist Sam makes mention of guitarist and lead character Sam being Jewish, but this could be a joke. In any event he shows no outward sign of being anything other than generically Caucasian. And despite their tweaking the crowd with their song selection, they don't want to get into a political beef, just get enough money to buy gas to get home. It's just that they're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All of which is to say that Green Room is less topical and more timeless than you may have heard. It's also pretty damn violent, so be advised.
2 comments:
Not only have we heard of this movie but we actually watched it a year or so ago. Considering the elements you noted I'd say your review is more than fair for what is really pretty much a standard b-movie. While it was good that the director attempted to give each of the characters at least a hint of humanity a big problem for me as I remember was that none of the band members were very likeable so I didn't really care what happened to them. Then again I guess it's traditional for characters in horror/slasher type movies to be generally stupid.
I can understand your willingness to see the topical nature of the film and in retrospect I'd agree with the points you raised. My feeling is that they began with a good idea but never got around to raising the level of tension and instead relied too much on elevating your dread about who would get done in next.
As I recall from events of the past year the most violent exhibitions were brought about by young white Antifa 'demonstrators'. Did you know they actually tore down the elk statue in Portland?
Well, on one level it's probably good that you don't really care what happens to the characters. Most of them are on a one-way trip to nowhere good. Even the band's drummer, who seems to be the best-suited to be the hero of an action movie, gets done in pretty quickly. It's probably true that they have something of the traditional horror movie idiot in them, although the dumb moves aren't as obvious as they'd be in a Friday the 13th movie.
The topical elements mostly turn out to be coincidental. The horror/thriller parts of the story are diverting, at the very least. Judging from its depiction in this movie the hardcore scene isn't much different from when I was 18, although I never went to a club as secluded or scary as this one.
Antifa are one of those topics I didn't bring up because I didn't want to get sidetracked. I'll just say that it's pretty shocking to me that their name has bamboozled so many people into thinking they're just generically against fascism. And that's a pity about the elk statue. It made the city nicer.
Post a Comment