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Yes, Hilton is good. She garners strange sympathy as Sweet, the spoiled little rich girl ... |
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Sweet Shilo is all Nathan (Head) has in this twisted dystopia (which looks like a lush cross between Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge! and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Dragonwyke ... with maybe just a touch of Tod Browning's Freaks for good measure). Nathan is a devilish drone for an evil medical empire called GeneCo, owned and operated by the greedy Largo family, which is headed up by rotten-to-the-core Rotti Largo (Sorvino).
It's Nathan's job to repossess the internal organs from transplant patients who would have died, had it not been for what they thought was GeneCo's generosity. But the price is steep, the contract is ironclad, and the interest rate is a real killer. Not only do the genuinely needy fall behind in their payments, but so do some of those cutting-edge socialites who replaced their old, out-of-fashion hearts and lungs with pretty, pink new ones. If they can't pay up, Nathan opens them up.
And did I mention ...? Nathan's the good guy. There are a few truly gruesome, yet grand-guignol styled, over-the-top, repossession scenes—in an early one, Head growls out a driving rock monologue and does a dance of doom with an unwilling deadbeat who, after his death, becomes Nathan's harmonizing hand puppet.
Nathan's the protagonist because he himself is a puppet of sorts: once a do-good doctor and surgeon-savior, he was lied to and blackmailed by Rotti, forced into become the "Night Surgeon" repo-man, hiding his immoral alter ego from everyone, even his own flesh and blood. But when he's given the order to repossess Blind Mag's incredible, one-of-kind kaleidoscope eyeballs, he draws the line: not only is she his daughter's heroine, but unbeknownst to Shilo, she is Shilo's godmother.
As her dad wrestles with his conscience, Shilo rebels and runs away with a magnetic underworld figure known as GraveRobber (Zdunich, reprising his role from the stage). With a multicolored mane and a foxy physique, GraveRobber is the object of drug-addled affection for many a young lady, as it's he who peddles the illegal anesthetizing drug known as zydrate. Zydrate can only be extracted from the brains of the recently deceased, so as he skulks in graveyards, he observes and comments on the misdeeds of the living. Rotti's plastic surgery-addicted daughter, Amber Sweet (Hilton), is one of his best customers.
Everyone's machinations are leading up to the big climax at the Genetic Opera, a carnival event where Blind Mag will be giving her final performance.
Where do I sign?
Director Darren Lynn Bousman, best-known for his super-successful Saw sequels, first became aware of the Repo! story in 2001, when he directed a live stage version of it. He always wanted to make a feature-length film of the futuristic parable, but it wasn't until the 10-minute short he made in 2006 (starring Michael Rooker and Shawnee Smith) that a studio could be convinced of its big screen potential. The mere 8.5 million budget and digital cinematography is augmented by great, and frankly refreshing, talent.Who would have known, judging from Bousman's previous bloody bows, that he could make so much out of so little? Surely the acumen of the disparate yet capable collective cast helps, but it takes someone with a lot of chutzpah and a clear vision to bring them all together so cohesively.
Most of the cast have musical backgrounds—Brightman, once the wife of Andrew Lloyd Webber, is a Broadway sensation; Vega starred in the stage version of Hairspray; Ogre is the lead singer of an industrial rock group called Skinny Puppy; Moseley fronts an eclectic band, Cornbugs, with Bucket Head; Hilton has a few albums out; and even Head created a stir with his Bowie'esque belt-outs in the 2001 musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, entitled "Once More, With Feeling."
What's more, they can all act. The cast is so large, it's impossible, given this forum, to give each and every one of them a shout-out, but: Yes, Hilton is good. She garners strange sympathy as Sweet, the spoiled little rich girl who's obsessed with wealth, praise and beauty and eventually becomes more than just the sum of her (new) parts.
The lyrics tell the story. All of the songs are originals, written by Smith and Zdunich in a spirited mix that in some ways brings to mind the soundtracks of other gaudy musicals like the aforementioned Moulin Rouge!, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but also Ken Russell's Tommy and Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. As you would when going to see a concert, it's a good idea to have already listened to the CD so you can anticipate your favorite tunes and already know the words and story. (But it's not essential; the first time I saw Repo!, I hadn't heard a single song from it, and I enjoyed it immensely.) All this sound and fury must be contained, so kudos go to David Hackl for his sumptuous, gothic production design, and Joseph White for his color-saturated, vivacious cinematography.
Repo! is not without its problems. Given the limited budget and short shooting schedule, some tired old standbys had to be resorted to (flashbacks in antiquey silent moviola / cameo / black-and-white style, plus some delightfully drawn, but out-of-nowhere comic-book illustrations which are used to fill in the considerable back story). I wonder why the flashbacks were not somehow incorporated into the animated billboards that flood the city's skies, or even Shilo's book of bug drawings? While the viewing experience may not be as seamless as it could have been with infinite funds and oodles of time, those are just minor quibbles.
While I did not, I will concede that the mainstream audience might find the prose too purple and the plot too turgid. Repo! is definitely out there in the sci-fi stratosphere, like Philip K. Dick on a tab of Timothy Leary's acid ... but if you can dig it, join the GraveRobber and his fiends when the movie opens in limited release on Nov. 7, 2008.
I adored this movie, and pretty much knew I would from reading about it even before it began filming. But it's not for the hard sci-fi traditionalist. Nor is it, as the adverts are hinting, for the typical Saw movie horror maven. Repo! The Genetic Opera is unlike anything that's gone before, so if you want to see the movie predicated on those expectations, you might need to adjust your attitude and open your mind prior to plunking down your credit card at the box office.
-Staci
