Freaky Tales

 

Pedro Pascal

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's Freaky Tales shows flashes of personality, but, ultimately, is too derivative for its own good. The film, in part, was inspired by the song "Freaky Tales" on the album Born to Mack by Oakland Hip-Hop icon Too Short. Set in 1987, the film unfolds in four interconnected chapters, all set in Oakland and Berkeley. An aspiring rap duo gets to perform with Too Short while punks in love battle Nazi skinheads at punk venue 924 Gilman street. A loan shark (Pedro Pascal) has one last job while the skinheads make the mistake of crossing Golden State Warrior star Sleepy Floyd. I was living in San Francisco in 1987, so I did feel a pang of nostalgia watching this paean to the neglected East Bay. I even got to see punk luminaries Flipper, and many lesser lights, at Gilman street during this era.

The locations are well used and the songs selected by Raphael Saadiq, whose discography I commend to all, are expertly chosen even when they are not by East Bay artists. The acting is all over the place. A lot of the younger performers are amateurish. Ben Mendelsohn, an actor I usually like and who has collaborated before with the directing duo, offers a one note snarl of a performance. Perhaps the fault lies in his character, a corrupt police detective who is so evil that he has spawned the lead skinhead (Mom, per usual, is absent from the flick). There are too many societal ills lumped in his character to make him believable. Pedro Pascal, an actor whose work I have never really cottoned to, is the most soulful thing in the film.

The picture is an obvious labor of love, stars and East Bay icons like Tom Hanks, Tim Armstrong, Too Short, and Marshawn Lynch all make cameos, so I salute the directing duo for trying something heartfelt instead of succumbing to Captain Marvel 2. However, the structure, playfulness with time, and use of a diner as an important setting are all too reminiscent of Pulp Fiction. I've enjoyed films that drank from this well (like Things to Do in Denver When Your Dead), but Freaky Tales crosses my personal Mendoza line because it has little to add to the Tarantino template except for its setting. As with Quentin, having the heroes smite evil doers seems more like wish fulfillment than catharsis.