I wasn't two minutes into this film, not even out of the opening credits and I could tell that I had started something that I wasn't going to want to finish. It had a very "movie of the week" or "Lifetime presents" look to the film. Unfortunately it didn't get any better after.
I'm not sure what Rourke was going for, but he was using a high pitched and inconsistent southern voice. He wasn't given a lot of lines to deliver (in a script that he wrote), and I was glad about that because everything he said was a mumbling line reading. I felt like this was method acting gone out of control. This was an actor searching for something that wasn't in the script and didn't have a talented enough director to fully bring it out of him.
Walken was the only saving grace of this movie. That is to say that I found his ridiculousness amusing. He at least kept my attention. I am a sucker for Walken's tone and the way he paces words. Listening to him say lines like "Silk shirts in every color of the rainbow" and "all the dinosaurs turned into birds. That's a fact" made me laugh out loud. There are a scattering of other side characters through out the movie. Some get more examination than others, but none of them are ever fully flushed out. Most of them serve little more purpose than to muttle the already meandering plot. I was an hour into this movie and I still had no idea what it was about.
Not being into this film I took a lot of notes about the things that I noticed. Here are a most of them:
The boxing scenes were maybe the worst I have even seen. I am a big fan of boxing movies (one of the reasons I was excited to see this film) but there was no sense of tension or pacing in the setups. They were images of two men hitting each other. There was no momentum build up. In Rourke's last fight there were some inspired slow-mo shots that cut to action outside of the ring that I really liked. But other than that I thought the fight scenes were shot very poorly.
I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about Rourke's character. He can be a shy, gentle introvert and other times he is a dickish antagonizing prick. I typically love a character that is not a one note type, but you have to give me some reason and understanding why there area such polar opposites to his character. And having him stare off into the distance doesn't make for character development. It was never clear what his motives were. If I had known them maybe I could have better understood his pains and misgivings. Actually, as a whole, I felt the same way about the entire movie. One of my notes states "What is this movies aspirations"? I don't like to be manipulated, but I need to feel something.
Speaking of being manipulated, the score for this film is obscene The music in Inception is more discreet. Every time there is a change in the mood of the film (which is way too often) there is a music change. I had a love/hate relationship with the slap bass in this movie. It reminded me of Seinfeld and even more so of Night Court. It was stupid and didn't fit with anything going on in the film, if there was anything going on. I loved it for it's stupidity. Again another unintentional laugh. The same goes for the rain sequence at the end of the film. I have seen some pretty crappy fake rain, but never this bad. They might as well shown us the fans just off camera blowing the rain around.
My last complaint with be about a plot point. Normally I am not one to make a big fuss about certain plot points that don't always make the most sense. Like in horror movies when the kids think they hear something in the woods so they go looking for it instead of running away. But here Rourke's character has been on a loosing streak and he is not taking are of his body. It looks like he will continue to be a 3rd rate fighter. That is until his even more down on his luck (I can tell because his hair is messed up every time we see him) got him a fight against the #1 contender for the heavyweight belt. Now why would a promoter or manager agree to give a schlub like Rourke a shot against the man who could be the next heavyweight champion? It just doesn't make any sense. Maybe if the film was a little better all around I could have over looked this a little easier.
The best I can figure is that Mickey Rourke is a boxing movie fan like myself. I say this because there are elements of many other great boxing films in Homeboy. For example:Walken could have easily been replaced with Voight and Hoffman. The problem here is that a good movie isn't just a mash up of other great films. You can borrow from them, but you need a story to weave them through. This is the brilliance of Quentin Tarantino.
While I was watching this I was tweeting about how long people watch bad movies before they turn them off. A person responded that if she is going to consider them "watched" she must make it all the way through. I agreed, but this film really tested that theory. However, I was glad that I stuck around until the end because I saw something that if it is on YouTube I suggest watching this scene and skipping the rest of the movie. There is a sub-plot involving Walken and Rourke attacking and robbing 3 Hasidic Jews. Rourke backs out at the last minute and Walken is forced to do it alone. His plan involves him dressing up like a Hasid and punching one in the face and swiping the briefcase of jewels from another then running away. A Swiss Watch of a plan if I understand it correctly. Just seeing Walken dressed up with a ZZ Top like beard and Hasid hat was nearly worth the price of admission, but not quite enough. I give Homeboy ★.
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