Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Though it is technically the end of the spring anime season, the summer heat is currently reducing my cat to a sad puddle, and I am not faring much better myself. I have been attempting to beat the heat by preoccupying myself with essential anime viewing, and have so far made it just over halfway through Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. The show has been an interesting watch so far, more educational than fully entertaining, but certainly a worthy sort of education. Watching Nadia, it is easy to see elements that Gainax would reiterate in Neon Genesis Evangelion, but also hard to believe how they jumped from this show’s proudly rudimentary characterization to the thoughtful interrogations of its successor. I’ll have more thoughts on that when I finish, but for now, let’s burn through a fresh selection of films!
First up this week was Hit Man, a recent feature directed by Richard Linklater, starring Glen Powell as mild-mannered philosophy professor and part-time undercover officer Gary Johnson. When Gary gets the chance to play a would-be hitman in order to extract criminal confessions, he turns out to be an absolute natural, taking great care in designing bespoke hitman disguises for each new target. However, trouble arises when his latest hitman identity “Ron” ends up convincing his target Madison (Adria Arjona) not to pay for her husband’s murder, leading to further embroilment in Madison’s life and an eventual question of where Ron ends and Gary begins.
Hit Man is an absolute fucking delight, a charming time at the movies starring actors who are clearly having the time of their lives. Powell in particular is a revelation here; he actually co-wrote the screenplay alongside Linklater, and his joy in adopting an array of hitman disguises is palpable and contagious. I would happily watch a full film’s worth of Powell pretending to be variations on Patrick Bateman and Leon the Professional, but Hit Man actually offers far more than that. Gary’s deceptions end up spiraling into a delightfully thorny conspiracy, offering the sort of sardonic yet gripping crime escapades you might expect from the Coens on a lighter day.
The film and Powell himself skip lightly through increasingly trying obstacles, as Gary revels in the satisfaction of sculpting a happier self while his vengeful partner attempts to catch him in a lie. Powell and Arjona exhibit a chemistry and carnal intensity that feels all too rare in modern cinema, while the supporting cast of Gary’s police associates offer a splash of peanut gallery jibes and deadpan police procedural gags. Hit Man is the definition of a proudly light film, a crime caper overflowing with fun ideas and enthusiasm both in front of and behind the camera. Absolutely recommended.
We then screened Don’t Say Its Name, a horror film produced by and starring a largely Native American cast, centering on the supernatural consequences of a wrongful death. After anti-mining activist Kharis Redwater is killed in an apparent hit-and-run, workers associated with the W.E.C. Coal company begin falling victim to a mysterious, seemingly invisible assailant. Investigating the case, police chief Betty Stonechild will eventually discover there is more to this string of killings than she might have imagined, grappling debts to the past and the tribe’s future as she hunts down the culprit.
Don’t Say Its Name is a largely effective exercise in economy, banking on its vivid rural photography and particularly nasty kills to elevate a fundamentally humble production. Some of the performances can be a little shaky, but the gambit largely works; you really get a sense for the texture of this community, and the push-and-pull of old traditions warring against modern necessities adds richness to both the character journeys and the supernatural threat. The ultimate reveal of the killer is a bit of an aesthetic letdown, but the journey there is full of distinctive character moments and gruesome punchlines. It’s not a must-see, but worth a watch if the premise or setting seem alluring.
Next up was Fighter, a film my housemate pitched as “Bollywood Top Gun.” Hrithik Roshan stars as ace fighter pilot Shamsher “Patty” Pathania, working under CO Rakesh “Rocky” Jai Singh (the ever-reliable Anil Kapoor) and alongside helicopter pilot Minal “Minni” Rathore (Deepika Padukone). With tensions rising as an extremist front challenges the Indian-Pakistani border, Patty and his fellow pilots engage in death-defying stunts in order to ensure peace, and ultimately face off with the nefarious bloody-eyed mastermind Azhar Akhtar.
Fighter is an exuberant, action-packed ode to the Indian Air Force that had me radicalized and fist-pumping well before the halfway point. There are plenty of the shirtless slow-motion pans and sonorous flight sequences you’d expect, alongside a healthy portioning of landlocked combat sequences reflective of director Siddharth Anand’s prodigious action experience. Roshan and Padukone are both obviously gorgeous, and Kapoor is as dependable as ever juggling military duty with personal loyalty, offering at least a veneer of structural coherence to a film fundamentally driven by a passion for dudes doing jet stunts.
It’s raucous, it’s reliable, and it’s eager to please; Fighter is an exuberant anthem of righteous combat, a gleeful celebration of context-bereft good guys fighting nefarious bad guys. Turn your brain off and let your heart sing; if you’re not cheering by the time Roshan parachutes from an exploding plane in order to punch evil in the face, you are clearly watching it wrong.
We then continued our journey through the One Piece films with number five, The Cursed Holy Sword. Unfortunately, this may well be the weakest entry in the entire collection, lacking either the carefree brevity of the first several films or the genuine artistry of the later era. Instead, it attempts to do the impossible: invent a fresh history for Roronoa Zoro, and ask us to give a damn about it.
In One Piece proper, Zoro’s character primarily demonstrates the importance of balance within a larger group dynamic. He is calculating, slow to speak, and utterly dedicated to his responsibilities as first mate, meaning he’s rarely the source of significant friction within the Straw Hat crew. This suits him perfectly as the bombastic Luffy’s right-hand man, as a foil for the often superficial Sanji, and as the strong silent type within a crew otherwise defined by larger-than-life personalities.
However, all of these qualities that make him slot so well into the Straw Hats also mean he can’t really carry a film on his back. Zoro’s personality is fairly one-note so characters like Robin and Usopp have room to be complex; he’s not meant to have these sorts of divided loyalties, and attempting to infuse him with a new backstory only draws him further from the place where his character shines, the context in which his straightforwardness is valued. As a result, Zoro’s personal conflict in this film rings false, and with little else to recommend it in terms of storytelling or animation, The Cursed Holy Sword finds itself the first One Piece film I wouldn’t recommend even as a background watch.
