Havoc – Unrated

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B     Extras: C-     Film: C+

 

 

Anne Hathaway decides to shed her “good girl” image in Barbara Koppel’s Havoc (2004), with a story co-written (with Jessica Kaplan) and final screenplay by Stephen Gaghan (Traffic) about a young Allison (Hathaway) who is bored with her solid, peaceful, family life and parents who are not totally connecting to her.  She hangs with her pier group, fellow suburban white teens who are such fans of Hip Hop that they Rap, speak and live it to the extent that they would appear to think they are “ghetto” and some would say outright Black.

 

The actors offer enough ironic distance that it is not mockery or bad imitation, but that these teens just naturally have absorbed all of this through the filter of pop culture of the day.  With that out of the way, Bijou Phillips is her best friend somewhat rehashing performances from Bully and other risk-taking roles, but lands up repeating herself one too many times.  Of course, the young ladies are fine hanging with their high school boyfriends, including all the parties.  Things are upped when they start to become involved with some far more streetwise Latino teens who are up to criminal operations.

 

At that point, the film runs into stereotypical territory, even if the idea of male street gangs is not fiction.  However, in the form they are presented in by award-winning director Barbara Koppel, she and the writing do not draw out those Latino characters as much as they need to for this film to go further.  The result is eventual predictability after dozens of teases about “bad news” between those butting heads in a Hip Hop culture that sees violence and angry arguing as an acceptable way of life or the only solution to problems.

 

Obviously, Hip Hop as a genre offers much more, but that aspect of it has taken over to its detriment and that extends to the films on it.  Those in African American studies may be horrified that no African American characters are here at all if the point is to show who was responsible for the music in the first place, while others will be relieved and even amused for all the wrong reasons that non-Blacks are having all kinds of troubles as the music plays in the background and various character Rap and talk street.  It also reminds one that most Whites are very ignorant of the culture, which is part of the point of the film and the reason the lady leads get into trouble.

 

Whether the film lives up to its title is another story, though it could be argued that the narratives problems do more so than the content of the story.  The biggest twist here is could Koppel, a female director, draw out a Feminist variant of the same old story.  Unfortunately, she is too matter-of-fact with the screenplay to achieve anything beyond it and the result is more of a documentary approach that straightjackets the female roles in odd ways (they are independent enough of the men to be themselves, still want men, have some control, but are far from able-bodied in any new or interesting sense) that do not help the film at all.  The biggest problem may be Kaplan’s work.  She wrote the Luc Besson-produced The Dancer (2000), which never made it to the United States and shares much of the same narrative problems this film has.   Even with a good cast that includes Michael Biehn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Laura San Giacomo, Raymond Cruz, Sam Bottoms and Mike Vogel, this film never works out.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is solid as it should be for a new film, as shot by cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau has good color, detail and limited tricky camerawork.  The film was a Dolby Digital release, but this DVD adds a DTS 5.1 track with a Dolby Digital 5.1 track.  The DTS is just better enough to notice and the score by Cliff Martinez is not bad, but this good composer (The Limey) can only make so much of the material.  Extras include DVD-ROM/on-line features, a trailer for this and other New Line titles.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo