Joe Carnahan Has No Clothes

Just to clarify, the title of this blogpost is a reference to "The Emperor has no clothes", but I would never call Joe Carnhan the emperor. Let me explain.

I recently saw Joe Carnhan's The A-Team, and while it wasn't terrible I couldn't help but thinking, "What happenned to the serious filmmaker in Joe Carnahan? The one who made Narc?"

It's becoming increasingly clear that Narc was just Carnahan's prestige bid so he could make action fluff like the A-Team and the visceral mess that was Smokin' Aces. After watching the A-Team, it occured to me that he's a grittier, American Guy Ritchie--and I don't mean that in a good way.

There are other filmmakers I can think of who have not delivered on their promise.

The first one that comes to mind is Richard Kelly. Obviously, I think Donnie Darko is a great film. It's original in both tone and content and is superbly well-made. Southland Tales is... not. There have been many theories as to why Southland Tales was such a failure. Yes, the film was packed with too many ambitious ideas for its own good. But that's a cop-out, as if one is trying to say that somewhere in Southland Tales is a good film. There isn't. It's cryptic, time-travel-themed plotlines could never rise above their own muck, and at the end of the day the casting was adventurous to a fault. I haven't seen The Box but I didn't hear good things.

Terry George is another filmmaker in this vein. Remember Hotel Rwanda? That was a terrific film. Brilliantly acted and with directed with great sincerity by George. What happenned with Reservation Road, a hopelessly muddled domestic drama that at the end of day was a collection of tragic cliches.

At this point, it's almost redundant to mention the Wachowski Brothers, but I will. Why? Because the Matrix is more than just a great film. It's a mindbending, groundbreaking, visually dazzling, transcendent sci-fi action film and one of my favorite of all time. The two sequels on the other hand are bad. Just bad. To say the series lacks a satisfying conclusion is beyond understatement. To put it simply, the Wachowski Brothers became too mired in the fathomless depth of the questions their films raised, the Matrix Reloaded and Reservations was the result.

Finally, there's Sam Mendez. This may surprise some people, but I haven't been impressed by Sam Mendez' post-American Beauty career. Road to Perdition was high on production value, but startlingly low on compelling characters; Jarhead was a mess of post-modern ideas on warfare that never led to anything. And I have to say, I didn't love Revolutionary Road. It was HIGHLY STAGEY--and by that I mean theater-like to a fault--and the themes were trite. Oddly enough, his best film since American Beauty may be the very entertaining Away We Go (and I certainly didn't think that was perfect).