Gothika (2003)

Gothika: * out of ****

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. Screenplay by Sebastian Gutierrez. Starring

Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Charles S. Dutton, John Carroll Lynch, Bernard

Hill and Penélope Cruz.

by Andy Keast

This movie is the cinematic equivalent of a party guest switching a ceiling

light on and off, laughing at himself. Leave it to this film to be set almost

entirely in a mental hospital and have absolutely nothing to do with mental

illness, but instead make the psychotic behavior of it's characters the result

of ghosts, hauntings and possession. The visual sensibilities of Mathieu

Kassovitz's "Gothika" are distilled from the most creatively bankrupt efforts

of most music video directors. The screenplay is stuck in the Middle Ages,

obeying the prime directive of all overcooked Hollywood product: be violent and

titillating enough to please adults, and at the same time simple enough for

even the most distracted child to understand. Here the awfulness attains a

kind of brilliance.

Halle Berry is badly miscast as a psychiatrist, perhaps one of the most

embarrassing and unintentionally funny roles since Elisabeth Shue pretended to

be a nuclear physicist in "The Saint." She struggles through lines that must

read like the textbook to an intro to criminology. This, apparently, is what

happens after she wins an Academy Award and her agent encourages her to ask for

22 million on her next picture. She, Penélope Cruz and Robert Downey Jr. move

through a ridiculous "thriller" plot, laced with clues that are placed so

clearly and obviously in plain view, so as not to confuse the most indelibly

stupid audience member. Meaningless set pieces are crafted, where cameras

sweep and dolly like mad without any thought behind the function or purpose of

their respective scenes. To say nothing about the character played by John

Carroll Lynch, whose role somehow manages to be both a plot hole and an

extraneous *deus ex machina.* What is an actor like Bernard Hill doing here?

And that is only the beginning. Matthew Libatique, a gifted cinematographer,

has somehow been whored into setting a new record for Highest Number of

Flickering Lights in a Movie. Everything -*everything*- flickers in this film.

The poster should've come with a warning label for people with epilepsy.

There is that ancient staple of all modern horror films: the flickering

fluorescent lights, which are somehow able to stop flickering and then begin

again on cue. There are several scenes of strobe-effect lightning, accompanied

by prop people dumping god knows how many thousands of gallons of movie rain on

beguiled actors. The flashbacks flicker on and off as well, in (yawn) music

video montages underscored by snyth and digitally-altered screaming. Even

headlights flicker. The movie apparently inhabits the same universe as "The

Matrix" or "Underworld" or the Highlander films: The Land of Perpetual Night,

where there are never any scenes during the daytime and it's always raining

-although you won't see anyone wearing sunglasses indoors (that would've been

enough to throw me over the edge into permanent cerebral damage). I can't

offer any explanation for the recent obsession with whiplash photography and

editing except for an old standard: shorter audience attention spans that have

been enflamed by masturbatory trifles such as video games and MTV, and the

resulting urge to be bulldozed by stimuli. Advice to would-be filmmakers: it's

a movie, not a casino.

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X-RAMR-ID: 37570
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1271573
X-RT-TitleID: 1127443
X-RT-AuthorID: 9883
X-RT-RatingText: 1/4