'Funny Games' lacks poignancy of original
With his haunting "Cache," Michael Haneke seemed like the Teutonic Hitchcock, creating a thrilling, darkly disturbing masterpiece about a man futilely trying to flee from his past.
It was jolting, vital and a thing of astounding visual prowess. Which makes it all the more disappointing to see him sharply regress with "Funny Games," a literal hack job that finds the talented writer-director lazily returning to the past.
A shot-for-shot remake (he even uses the same sets) of his 1997 German-language rant against American movie violence, the new (and not-so-improved) "Funny Games" is more an exercise in gratuity than an indictment.
Of course the same nagging questions surrounded the original "Funny Games." Was it the satire Haneke intended, or was it merely a disingenuous indulgence by a hypercritical filmmaker? And are we to admonish ourselves for accepting as entertainment the brutal torture of an innocent family?
Yes and no. In the decade since the original "Funny Games," Haneke has yet to figure it out, so how can we?
Violence, of both the physical and mental variety, has been Haneke's constant companion, which leads one to believe he might be trying to clear a guilty conscience by using the silver screen as a makeshift confessional.
Who is it, though, that he seeks atonement (or approval) from? Who knows? Perhaps it's us, the American filmgoers. We flock in record numbers to bask in the latest movie fad, "torture porn" - make the victims squirm, beg and grovel before literally lowering the hatchet on their skulls. And Haneke seems only too happy to oblige, presenting us with a wholesome upper-middle class family about to crash head-on with a pair of budding Charlie Mansons well versed in Chaucer and torture.
They enter eerily wearing white gloves in an obvious dig at Hollywood execs who take no responsibility for the consequences of their movies, like say a "Natural Born Killers," which allegedly inspired the Columbine Massacre.
The wholesome, clean-cut appearance of the two young captors, played superbly by Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet, only adds to the effect, instantly stirring memories of those Sunday school classes that taught us the devil always takes a pleasing form.
Never once do the boys raise their voice, always remaining creepily polite, even as they commit their vile acts, or "games" as they call them, on 10-year-old George (Devon Gearhart) and his parents (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) inside what the family thought was its impenetrable gated summer home on Long Island.
The ensuing events transpire over a 24-hour period, but it always seems like time is standing still, as the abuse and humiliation escalate. You keep waiting for Roth's milquetoast dad to quickly grow a pair and transform into a domestic Rambo to smite his family's effete captors.
Watts seems like an over-30 scream queen in the film; Haneke wastes little time finding an excuse to strip the sexy actress down to bra and panties. This from a director who insists he loves Watts as an actress. If that's true, why does he make her behave so stupidly at every turn? Is her naiveté supposed to be representative of Americans who see violence as something that only happens to others?
You'd like to think so, but so much of the rest of "Funny Games" is so contradictory to that thought that Haneke simply comes off as yet another sexist director out to reduce women to vulnerable sex objects.
Sadly, that will be the film's drawing card, the chance to see Watts in her skivvies. But look a little more closely: It's actually Haneke who's been caught with his pants down.
Grade: C
Rated R. "Funny Games" contains terror, violence and some language.