He Was a Quiet Man (2007)
Review by Noel
“He was a quiet man…”- Almost stereotypically heard (usually by a neighbor) after a psycho is found with body parts of his family in his basement/refrigerator/lunchbox/briefcase/underwear or after he unloads some buckshot into a roomful of schoolchildren or is found to have an extensive Celine Dion collection (on CD AND DVD…a true sign of madness) or is found to be the one person who actually bought that Special Edition of Alone in the Dark that I see littering the shelves of my local Best Buy (seriously, when did THIS fucking movie NEED a special edition? Unless one equates the word “special” with “retarded”…then it’s kind of understandable).
Other variations on this hackneyed sound-bite ready phrase are “He didn’t talk much,” “He seemed like such a nice guy,” “You didn’t think he would ever do something like this” or “He’s Eric Roberts” (he’s currently living on little sister Julia’s couch…which is better than squatting in someone else’s car).
Christian Slater plays such a quiet man in the movie strangely enough titled He Was a Quiet Man.
Christian Slater plays Bob. Bob is not very garrulous. Bob is you’re typical office Morlock you see in Dilbert comic strips and movies like Office Space.
Bob talks to his fish.
His fish talk back.
Bob fantasizes about shooting his office coworkers in what seems to be a daily ritual. Problem is…Bob has a loaded gun locked in a special drawer. You get the feeling he’s just a broken pencil lead’s length away from turning fantasy into reality but—
Someone equally disgruntled beats him to the punch and begins plugging away at coworkers. Yes, it’s Columbine for the water cooler groupies.
And through a series of happy accidents (happy for Bob…unhappy for the people who got killed), Bob uses his gun on the 3-pieced suit assassin…and is lauded as a hero.
But being fans of horror and the off-center in general, you know that things won’t be hunky-dory for Bob forever. Sure, he’s got a new job (as VP of Creative Thinking), a new company car, office suck-ups, money, a boss (William H. Macy) who can’t help but want to keep him happy and…
…The office hottie (Elisha Cuthbert) whose life he saved…but is now confined to a wheelchair.
That’s where I’ll stop because to say anymore would ruin the relative surprise of the movie…
What works about He Was a Quiet Man:
1.) Christian Slater- Broken Arrow (1996) and Hard Rain (1998). Honestly, those are the last things I’ve even HEARD of Slater being in that are even worth mentioning, and those movies aren’t that good. Well, there was that boring John Woo movie Windtalkers, but the less said about that, the better. Still, he’s always been an interesting actor even with that too-obvious Nicholson thing going and everyone I know (including me) loves his performance in Heathers, and I’ll have to admit Pump Up the Volume is one of my favorite inspirational movies of all time (I was in high school when it came out, and it spoke to me- I had a radio show in college, a bad one, and I stole dialogue straight from Happy Harry Hardon). But Slater nails Bob. Yes, he’s quiet. Yes he’s mousy. And yes he has that undercurrent of unease about him, but the beauty of his performance is that you can perfectly see how others might not feel him threatening…
If you look at the deleted scenes in the DVD you’ll see a direct nod to Jack Torrance in The Shining.
2.) Elisha Cuthbert- her best onscreen work. Seeing her in shitty mainstream movies like the House of Wax remake, The Quiet, and especially Captivity, you wouldn’t think she’d be able to pull something like the paraplegic Vanessa off. It’s not a pity-the-girl-in-the-wheelchair performance, but one layered enough that it surprises you even as you love and hate the character.
3.) A non-graphic but sufficiently violent shootout.
4.) The best karaoke rendition of “Midnight Train to Georgia” ever…punctuated by a…colostomy bag. Yes, you read that right.
5.) In a small role Sascha Knopf (giving the only decent performance in Death by Engagement), icily nails the role of the office cunt Paula (“You just dissed Paula Metzler…you really ARE badass”) Those of you who work in offices…there’s a Paula in every one.
6.) The ending- Who can explain what happened? I can’t. Not after the first viewing anyway…and that is a good thing.
7.) Goldie the talking fish (“The Bitch lied.”).
What doesn’t work:
1.) The movie’s really not that scary, and the thriller aspects it purports are few and far between, but there’s rarely a moment when the audience is comfortable or when they can say, “I know what’s going to occur next.”
2.) This is a minor quibble and I only have it because I went to school in LA (Go USC…), but there’s a scene in what’s supposed to be the “most expensive restaurant in LA”…and I’m sorry, no decent LA restaurant looks like a low budget movie set. It actually looks like the storeroom of the most expensive restaurant in LA.
Overall, He Was a Quiet Man, is eerily effective in taking us into a psyche of an ordinary man who just goes ordinarily nuts anchored by career-best performances by Christian Slater and Elisha Cuthbert.
My advice if you know a Bob in your life: kill him before he kills you, because he’s the insane one…not you. You’ll thank me later.
Available from Amazon
Popularity: 2% [?]
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