Until the last Fast & Furious film comes out, the last time to see Paul Walker in a film that makes its way into theatres is going to be this weekend’s Brick Mansions. It’s a remake of the French film District B13, an action film that had a limited release in the states a decade ago. It had a small budget and apparently made enough money to justify a sequel of slightly lesser quality. It never got a third film, as the second finished things off, and it really didn’t need a sequel either. The first was enough and I’m shocked it took a decade for a sequel to get made.
It’s the Parkour version of Fast & Furious, which is why it oddly enough makes sense that Paul Walker would star in it. The fact that he’s in the role of the undercover sent in to make friends with a crook with a heart of gold isn’t a surprise, either. Walker always had a niche role of being an undercover cop sent into the heart of mob; it’s the one he played the most in his career.
Between that and of the twenty-something actor as a high school/college student you could swear that bulk of his filmography revolves around these two types of roles. He had a ton of other roles, and some were somewhat interesting, but Walker is most famous for playing an undercover cop. Brian O’Conner. It’s the one he did more than any other as Fast & Furious wound up becoming the franchise that allowed him to do other films like Hours. Walker never was nominated for an award of note, of course, but he was a working actor of note.
That counts for a lot in this economy.
He and Vin Diesel wound up becoming emblematic of the modern movie star: unable to bring in audiences on name alone, they wound up being tethered to franchises that did. Furious was what they did to gain enough collateral in Hollywood to do what they wanted. Much like Chris Evans and Captain America they weren’t famous or known for being actors … but for playing characters. They were the modern movie star prototype, forced to use a familiar character and familiar franchise to gain enough leverage to do what they wanted to do during free moments in their schedule.
But the one thing about Walker, and his career, keeps coming up in conversation and in my mind when I begin to think about Brick Mansions. And I can’t get it out of my head.
It’s not the departure from the more French stylized action film into a more American one, either, but that bears some discussion at a later date. District B13 was an action film for the art house set, not for mainstream movie goers. Brick Mansions takes the general conceit of the French film and adds the expectations of a North American action film.
You can’t translate a foreign action film into an American one without some changes.
It’s not a bad thing, either. If Brick Mansions was a shot by shot remake of District B13, only set in Detroit, it wouldn’t be all that interesting. You can just throw in your copy of the French film and turn the English audio track on. It’s kind of hilarious because they have distinctly British accents and they’re talking about being Frenchmen … which amuses me as an American for no good reason. It’s just a humorous oddity, I suppose.
First, look at the trailer for the French one. Fairly generic but pulsating, sells you on crazy action and wildness for the most part.
Now the American version of it. This is more of a generic action film being looked at to spawn a franchise but probably designed to be a one off in case it doesn’t succeed. Or, you know, one of the stars dies before it comes out in theatres.
The American one is more personal for the characters as it’s a personal vendetta by Paul Walker against RZA. The French one is more impersonal, about saving people. It’s a distinctly American trait in action films to have a villain for whom the hero has some sort of personal grudge against. Other countries do it, of course, but we do it so often that it’s kind of normalized. It’s odd for a hero to save the day against some evildoer without having a personal grudge for an American hero, much less so for a foreign one.
It’s an interesting thing for American action films in that almost all of them have to have some personal score to settle. That’s interesting in and of itself … but another thing comes to mind when discussing this film, potentially. When people go to watch this and give their thoughts … how do you handle the Paul Walker question?
What’s the Paul Walker question? It’s whether or not to actually call his usual awful, stiff, Keanu Reeves wannabe acting style for what it is … or to not completely crap all over it considering his death wasn’t all that long ago. Since he can no longer defend himself is it still ok to point out how he adds virtually nothing to nearly every film he’s in? Or do we have to just kind of smile and odd about it?
It’s something I find interesting because we’re now seeing the final works of Walker come out after his death instead of before it, like many other actors. It’ll be the same with Philip Seymour Hoffman, as well, but Hoffman has an Oscar and was one of the great talents of his generation.
Walker was a slightly older version of Channing Tatum, nothing more, with the same level of awful acting but a physical appearance that earned him plenty of female fans. There’s nothing wrong with it, as well, as there are plenty of actresses with the same appeal and who manage to get roles in films because of it. Blake Lively has managed a whole career out of being insanely attractive and profoundly untalented.
It’s the one thing that’ll be interesting to see this weekend, with Brick Mansions coming out as Walker’s second to last film to be released into theatres. Will anyone point out Walker’s kind of stiff, monotone acting style as being detrimental? Or will it just be ignored out of some sort of “respect” in the same way we did for Elizabeth Taylor?
Walker’s unlike Philip Seymour Hoffman in that even if Hoffman’s last couple of films were terrible, and he was especially terrible in them, he has an established body of work that showcases how great of an actor he was. Walker had an inexplicably popular career as an actor and by all accounts was a genuinely decent human being. In a Hollywood where it seems even the most great seeming people turn out to potentially be predators he was by all accounts one of the good guys.
But with two films left before he bows out as an actor, as opposed to his bowing out in life, our ability to be objective about him is up in the air potentially.
James Gandolfini’s final film was about what could’ve been in his post Sopranos career. There’s always the speculation of what the career act that followed his career as one of television’s greatest characters could’ve been. There’s a historical curiosity to his life ending so soon because of what could’ve been.
We know what would’ve happened with Walker; he’d have rode the Furious franchise out until it ended and then kept on with similar types of films for a while. He’d have his “Simple Jack” moment, where he tried to be serious and we all laughed about it, and then he’d find his way into a mentor type of character actor niche for a while. And he’d eventually be subject to some VH1 show called “When The Fast and the Furious Ruled The World” that teenagers in 2030 would laugh at.
The filmography of Paul Walker is complete and now, that we’re in the final lap of a fairly pedestrian career, can we still remain critical in spite of his fairly recent death?
Stuff for General George S. Pimpage, Esq
The Book Thief was laughably bad. Read my review of it here.
Travis breaks it down, box office style.
My latest column for Inside Fight right here on the last UFC on Fox card.
And now on MMC … we talk about being yourself.
If you want to pimp anything email it to me with a good reason why. It helps to bribe me with stuff, just saying ….
A Movie A Week – The Challenge
This week’s DVD – Sixteen Candles
You have to feel bad for Michael Schoeffling in one aspect: he walked away from acting before he was a faded has-been taking small, insignificant parts. For a while he was the Channing Tatum of his time, nothing more, and now he makes furniture for a living. Kind of an interesting descent from Hollywood stardom for a one time teen heart throb, I think, but it’s what makes Sixteen Candles such an interesting part of cinematic history. Michael Schoeffling essentially crafted an iconic part that has persisted over the years despite it not being a great performance and him not being all that good of an actor.
With ten films to his credit, this being one of them, he gave two performances that were essentially immortalized. The first was as Kuch in Vision Quest, a great archetype of the best friend role in teen films. The film itself is the high water mark of amateur wrestling films so far, which isn’t very high, but it’s something I suppose. The other is that of Jake Ryan, the prototypical high school crush that has persisted in cinema for nearly 30 years.
It’s why Sixteen Candles has remained a mainstay of the coming of age genre for so long; it tapped into that essence of angst so well and gave us a number of standards by which we hold every film in the genre. And Jake Ryan is still that standard by which the boyfriend character in many films is judged against.
He’s the sort of cinematic “dreamboat” that endures the test of time.
Sam Baker (Molly Ringwald) is about to turn 16 and no one is acknowledging it. Her older sister is getting married, the grandparents are in town and Sam is kind of invisible. She’s crushing hard on Jake Ryan (Schoeffling), the most popular kid in school … and he doesn’t know she exists. That is until a sex quiz she takes winds up in his hands … and a wild night before the wedding turns her whole world upside down.
Throw in a wild foreign exchange student and you’ve got some shenanigans happening of the highest order. Seriously … Dong is such a great character and this scene kills me every time.
Sixteen Candles holds up because John Hughes, for a fleeting moment in time, was able to capture the one thing about adolescence that few filmmakers have been able to: teenage angst. He was able to capture on film the awkwardness of teenage years in a tangible, palpable way. It’s why the films he made about teenagers dominate discussion of his filmography as a director … and the ones that weren’t (sans Planes, Trains and Automobiles) don’t get discussed all that much.
Hughes managed to capture that moment in time in a universal, profound way.
It’s why his films have managed to keep finding audiences on DVD and on television despite their relative age as coming of age stories; he tapped into that essence and draw out everything he could’ve. They may be time capsules because of everything involved, from the music to the clothes and the slang, but they still have something that makes them relevant in the modern world.
It’s why of all the 80s films to get recycled I’m still surprised this hasn’t been adapted for a new generation. With Footloose being marginally successful as a remake one would think this would be a property worth exploring again. Even a near shot by shot remake, updated in the modern world, could be interesting on a number of levels.
Strongly recommended.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 tall boys of Red Fox and community college co-eds with low standards at the Fox and Hound
Brick Mansions – Paul Walker and the other guy from District B13 remake that film to take down RZA. Apparently Wu-Tang Clan is something to mess with after all … the song was wrong. Who knew?
See It – The original was a solid action film and there’s no harm in remaking it.
The Other Woman – Some guy is throwing a bone in Kate Upton, Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann. Apparently that makes him a bad guy and they all team up to ruin him.
Skip It – This looks just … awful.
The Quiet Ones – A teacher in the 1970s (Jared Harris) goes out to prove the supernatural doesn’t exist or something. It apparently does … and attacks!
Skip It – It’s a horror film and has been getting reviews all over the place. Usually that means it’s not all that good.
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings his trademarked irreverence and offensive hilarity to Twitter in 140 characters or less. Follow him @ScottSawitz .
