Wild Side (1996)

Donald Cammell's opus, Wild Side, is a tornado, a hurricane. Wild Side is the essence of emotion in film. Cammell's film compels you; it over comes you with passion, both with fury and sexuality. When all hope in film is lost, when you feel that nothing interesting is being made, a movie like Wild Side comes along and redefines all your ideas of genre, acting and film Alex is a bank executive who, after some troubles with money, becomes a high-price call girl. She falls into a sexual triangle with a big money investor, his wife and an undercover FBI agent. Bruno, the investor, is played by Christopher Walken, who was basically born to act in Cammell's films. In one of his most intense performances, Walken is an electrifying current of visceral energy. He is so engaging on screen I actually felt relieved when he wasn't around. The acting in the film is brilliant, which I attribute largely to Donald Cammells directing, but none of it comes close to the performance given by Walken.The film is filled with flowing steady cam shots, muted flashbacks and colored dissolves that work so perfectly you are suddenly sucked into a David Lynch style world without the disorientation or confusion. What Cammell's does in the film is hard to put into words because no other director can do it the same. The film feels dirty, it feels sick and your left with a hangover of sexual tension that will burrow in your brain for days.An interesting side story to the film, after Cammell showed his film to the executives they were horrified. They re-cut the film (from 111 to 96) and released their cut version. After Cammell saw the cut he committed suicide in front of his wife. His wife said the bullet from his gun was not fatal at first and he asked his wife to bring a mirror so he could watch himself die. Cammell sounds about as intense as they come and we love him for it. Fortunately a Directors Cut was released a few years later and it's outstanding. Wild Side was the last of four films that he made.

Evil money launderer Christopher Walken calls for a $1500 hooker (Anne Heche) who is actually a banker during the day. FBI undercover man Steven Bauer (posing as Walken's assistant) blackmails Heche to cooperate with him in the hopes of bringing Walken down. Of course he also has plans to bring Heche down too (he doesn't tell her that though). Soon Heche meets Walken's super-sexy wife (Joan Chen of "The Last Emperor" fame) and they become infatuated with each other sexually. Walken plans to use Chen as the fall-person so he can leave the country for good with all his money. Tangled little web teases and tantalizes, but ultimately this is a total destruction. The film is cheap (in more ways than one) as most of the filming locations are motel rooms, bathrooms, restaurants and house kitchens. The screenplay goes more towards the soft-core realm than it does toward "Pulp Fiction" or "The Usual Suspects". Totally unsatisfying as Walken's unintentionally hilarious bad guy routine tires fast, Bauer's stupid muscle-bound cop/thug routine bores fast and the two ladies do their best to hide their lack of talent by getting naked together fast. All this is to no avail though. British director Donald Cammell (who had a career where his best work were specials about the music group U2) committed suicide shortly after this film was completed. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).

Well practically, actually it's a film called 'wild side', but it should have been a porn film, then it could have excepted it's ridiculous plot, overpowered characters and cheesy soundtrack. unfortunateley we were just left with two hours of confusing cinema and a few soft porn shots that didn't satisfy anybody. Saved from being dire by some great acting (especially by walken) and some good camerawork. Overall though, not very good.

The following comments are based on the Tartan DVD entitled "Donald Cammell's Wild Side", also referred to as the director's cut, though it was produced after his death. I made the mistake of initially thinking this was a plot-driven movie while watching it, and only later realised it was intended to be character-driven. Cammell and his wife and co-writer, China Kong, bamboozle us with a convoluted plot about laundering vast sums of money, computer viruses etc, but all this counts for little. The real focus is the tangled relationship between the four main characters, and especially between the two women - Anne Heche's bank employee/callgirl Alex, and her lover Virginia played by Joan Chen. The scenario treats both female characters sympathetically, in contrast to the two men - Bruno, the unbalanced, crooked high financier, menacing and whining by turns; and Tony, his equally unbalanced but cruder bodyguard/undercover FBI agent, played by Christopher Walken and Steven Bauer respectively. Walken convincingly portrays a man who has so lost touch with reality that he can only communicate by playing a role, and usually playing it badly. It isn't clear whether Bauer is imitating Walken's acting style, or his character Tony is imitating Bruno's persona; either way it emerges as over-acting but without Walken's charisma. If in terms of the characters the women are treated more fairly than the men, the same cannot be said about the movie's treatment of Heche and Chen as actors; they suffer much the same sexploitation as the actresses in a soft porn film. Overall, the film has curiosity value, and the photography is superb; but there is little else to commend it. However, a good reason to rent the DVD is because it contains Cammell's long-lost amusing short, The Argument, set in superb Utah scenery.