Weapons

                              Julia Garner                               

Even before it was greeted by popular and critical enthusiasm, I was looking forward eagerly to Ryan Cregger's Weapons. Barbarian had been, not spectacular, but workmanlike, displaying an impressive grasp of film technique for a premier effort. Something to build on. Weapons delivers a quantum leap. Whereas Barbarian was situated in one setting with a predictable three act structure, Weapons opens up with a polyphonic point of view through the prism of dreams and time leaps. It succeeds as a horror film, a character study, and an action film. The chase scenes are the best I've viewed since the last George Miller flick. There is not a false note by the cast, all playing flawed characters in a compelling ensemble: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Benedict Wong, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Amy Madigan.

The small town setting brings just the right whiff of Hawthorne or Stephen King to the proceedings, an evocation of a community besot with a Puritanical veil of doom. Julia Garner's car is even branded with a scarlet legend. This is balanced by its multi-perspective view of modern life which Cregger admitted was influenced by Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. The characters may intersect on the street, but they represent the gamut of society, often pitted against each other in a world of Campbell's soup can consumerism. Weapons is at its weakest when it trumpets its message: Josh Brolin's dream of a silhouetted assault rifle in a film already overly redolent of Sandy Hook and Columbine is overkill. I'm not going to discuss the plot because the film's strength is its bat shit craziness. When the film leaves the rails, it really leaves the rails and the element of surprise is key. Not for nothing do numerous characters mutter "What the fuck" during the course of the film. Weapons has been so popular that, already yet inevitably, there has been a backlash. Some have questioned the film's believability, but, in regards to a film in which a witch ensorcells a town, I think that this is not a rewarding kvetch.

A clue to the film's approach lies in its of bracketed narration by an unknown girl involved in the film's events. She attests that her tale will shine more light on the actual events than the official version. This fits snugly within the film's vision of a paranoid America prone to conspiracy theories, witch trials, and scapegoats. An American artist, be he Nathaniel Hawthorne or Ryan Cregger, must find greater truth in yarns, legends, and fairy tales than there is to be found in the official tally of events. Whatever its currency, Weapons will stand the test of time as a funny and original horror classic.