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King of the Ants (2003)

http://www.mosaic-entertainment.co.uk/

Dir: Stuart Gordon

Sean Crawley (Chris McKenna) is plodding aimlessly through life with no ambitions and little interest in the future.
One day while half-heartedly doing a painting job he meets Duke (George Wendt) whose come to fix the electric.
The two start chatting and Sean tells Duke he's like something exciting to happen in his life as so far nothing has and nothing probably will.

When Sean finishes for the day Duke says he will be in touch if he can come up with anything.
Sure enough Duke phones and arranges a meeting with an associate named Ray (Daniel Baldwin, "Homicide: Life on the Street") who has a job for him…an exciting job.
He is told to tail a City Council Accountant named Eric (Ron Livingston) and report everything he does.

So Sean watches and follows and becomes increasingly drawn to Eric's Wife, Susan (Kari Wuhrer "Eight Legged Freaks").
When Eric meets with a TV reporter Ray gets mad and one night drunkenly asks Sean to kill the man. Sean, with sweaty reservation and the promise of $13,000, agrees.
Now with excitement and purpose in his life at last, Sean tricks his way into the man's house and brutally smashes his head in

On finally meeting Duke to get his money Sean is told the murder was Ray's crazy, drunken plan and that he will not be getting paid and must skip town. When Sean refuses Duke throttles him and warns him to leave and, laughing at Sean's show of defiance, he compares him to a little insect…a worthless little Ant
But Sean won't back down He informs Duke he has a file on Ray and if anything happens to him it will go to the Police.

An inflamed Duke kidnaps Sean and with Ray and two henchman, Beckett (Veron Wells, "Mad Max 2") and Carl (Lionel Mark Smith), they take him to Ray's isolated ranch.
There he is informed that he will be tortured. He will either tell them where the file is, or they will cause him so much brain damage (via, it turns out, daily beatings around the head with a golf club) he'll become a vegetable so neither him or his file will be a problem anymore.

But Sean still won't speak, and so the torture begins.
A whole world of pain, and madness opens up as the days of terrible abuse go on and on. But instead of breaking Sean undergoes a shocking and deadly psychological metamorphosis.
And fate has another trick up its sleeve…..

 

Director Stuart Gordon will forever be 'the Re-Animator" guy', and although a few of his films have been good (the underrated "Dolls" and "The Pit and the Pendulum" and the cult favourite "From Beyond") too many have been sadly indifferent ("Robot Jox") or simply ignored.
And sadly this, his latest offering, has not provided a "Re-Animator" style commercial breakthrough as it went straight to video in America and the UK after only a handful of festival screenings.

But does it deserve this fate? Well no, it does not. Although far from a triumph there is much here to hold the interest and much that is a breath of welcome fetid air to the normal films that come from Hollywood nowadays thanks to the plot line.

The script by Charlie Higson (from his novel, though the film moves the action from Britain to America) is strong on ideas, if a "fuck" filled cliché with it's dialogue, and is pretty complex in it's structure, and as such genuinely keeps you wondering what will happen next.
And anyone who's only familiar with his writing and performing in cult BBC TV comedy sketch program "The Fast Show" will be surprised with what Higson has created here.

Nothing in the movie plays out as you assume it's going to. Higson completely turns the lead character around from not only what he was at the start, but even from what he became during the murder.
Sean is an aimless drifter, then a ruthless selfish killer, then a hard-nosed business man, then something else entirely as the cold hearted premise behind the movie's (perhaps rather misleading) title is revealed.

Sean is at once the hero, the villain, the victim, and often a complex mixture of them all.
Higson give us a lead character who suddenly becomes something entirely new as each phase of the film passes.
This is a novel idea and makes a pleasant change, but it could also throw the audience off, and this is probably why (and the fact Gordon directs the many dialogue heavy scenes with very little energy) the movie has found it hard to find a general audience.

Performances are good with Wendt obviously relishing the chance to get as far away from the loveable 'Norm' of "Cheers" as possible (it was Wendt's liking of the novel that pushed the film forward into production) and is suitably cold blooded, even if he has little to work with.

Baldwin does the routine bad guy turn and it's solid if nothing special.
The more interesting characters are Beckett and Carl.
Carl goes through the hideous tortures with a carefree abandon, while Beckett (a nice subtle turn by a now bearded Wells that is a far cry from the melodramatics of his character's in "Mad Max 2" and "Commando") simply goes along with it all yet never takes part in the beatings and is obviously torn with what's being done to Sean.

Wuhrer does a good job with a character that plays only a small role through most of the film before events take a turn for the unexpected.
And it has to be said she does a very good job switching between the grieving widow and Mother to the fantasy sexual partner, crazed dominatrix and huge mutated Queen Ant, that eats it's own shit, while appearing in Sean's deranged, pain filled nightmares.

With the complex lead that appears in almost every scene of the film, McKenna was given a tough job. And he does well at making Sean at once likeable and horrible, handling the madness of the character with a laid back precision. Sean is never the crazed loon or the teen horror party psycho. The madness here is deep and only manifests itself intermittently, as Sean tries to justify and live with what he has done and latterly what he's become. Wanting to welcome it with open arms yet pushing himself not to as he struggles to make amends.

The violence in the film is a mixture of the brutally realistic, the grotesque and the blackly comic.
The murder of Eric is abrupt and nasty, with a disturbing climax that foretells the cranial/brain trauma that will befall Sean.
Sean's beating is mainly a quick cut away as the club smashes into his head, but the shocking content here is the ever increasing damage done to his face as the beatings go on and Sean staggers around dressed in only in grime encrusted underwear. It's drawn out and it's as unpleasant a torture as you will find in any kind of mainstream movie.

Effects wise the film is hit and miss. As are some of the ideas.
A savage decapitation of a frozen body is well handled and suitably grotesque, and Sean's facial make-up for his injuries is excellent.
But the Queen Ant nightmare is another thing entirely. Taken from the novel it may indeed work on the printed page, but in the film the visual representation owes more to the rubbery off the wall creations of FX artists 'Screaming Mad George' ("Society" especially comes to mind) than anything remotely credible and is such a bizarre idea anyway that it sticks out from the rest of the movie.
The shitting and eating scene may illicit the appropriate groans of delighted disgust…but it's far too much of a crude joke 'event' to work in the film's basically realistic (if rather over the top and fantastical in it's plotting) premise.

Surprisingly the main problem though is Gordon's lacklustre direction.
For someone who has stated his interest in the novel's ideas and execution and how he thinks the film itself could be his best work, he instills little life into the whole project and only leaves the performances, the violent set pieces and Higson's unusual story line to actually carry the movie along.
The screenplay has a lot of ground to cover and much to reveal and everything in the film is important to the plot and the structure, and yet the lack of energy due Gordon's pacing makes the movie seem way too long and drawn out.

So in the end we have a freakish idea highlighted nasty violence, bizarre set pieces, solid performances and a complex lead and plot structure. And if ultimately the film, despite all that material within it, is lacking any real energy there is still much to 'enjoy' here and it's certainly a refreshing change from the mainstream Hollywood norm.

 

Distributor 'Mosaic Entertainment' pulled off a real scoop with getting "King of the Ants" into the UK market before it had even raised it's head in America. And luckily they have done the film justice with a nice anamorphic transfer, a solid 5:1 sound mix and a small, but perfectly formed, bunch of extras. The highlight of which are no less than two commentary tracks: One from Gordon himself and one from the ever enjoyable Charlie Higson. Lots of gossip and information is spread between the two tracks and, when added to the likeable 'Making of..." featurette, you have all the information you could ever want on the project.

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