Indie Spotlight: "RAGE"

Something about getting being behind the wheel of a car brings out the Neanderthal in all of us. As someone that spends anywhere from twenty to forty hours a week driving to visit clients throughout New England I can tell you that it is only by happy accident I have not either rolled my car into a ditch while multitasking to the tune fumbling around on my blackberry with one hand, chugging a Dunkins in the other and attempting to use the Force to steer.   Today while waiting to turn into a parking space I’d been waiting on for over a minute, an elderly woman came –oh-so-close to stealing my spot. I’m not proud to admit this but I’m not one hundred percent sure I wouldn’t have driven to the closet exotic pet store and filled her backseat with ferrets if she had successful outmaneuvered me.

This brings me to a nasty little thriller from writer and director Christopher Witherspoon “RAGE”.  The film owes an obvious debt to  Spielberg’s Duel (an eight hundred pound gorilla Witherspoon tackles head on in hilarious fashion by having two minor characters debate the film in great detail in front of our bemused lead) though it exchanges the behemoth eighteen wheeler for leaner, sleeker motorcycle action.

Meet Dennis (rick Crawford), the most mealy mouthed protagonist you’ll ever come across in a film. Frustrated by his lack of literary success while being financially cuckolded by his wife, Dennis has been reduced to taking a mistress.  Yet despite her proclamations of love and her claim that besides being a Viking in the sack Dennis is Hemmingway on steroids behind the keyboard, Dennis breaks things of out of guilt and sense of obligation to his wife.  Or it could be lingering specter of his mistresses’ own ex-con boyfriend that doesn’t like the idea of his lady being used as Dennis' muse.

Not long after breaking things off, Dennis notices a leather-clad, helmeted biker trailing his every turn. A panicked Dennis is convinced it’s his ex’s boyfriend as their game of cat and mouse escalates from minor annoyances like preventing Dennis from moving through a green light, to causing minor damage to the car until Dennis returns from lunch with his therapist and friend only to discover his break lines have been slashed.

Crawford is fantastic as in conveying the different stages his character goes through with his tormenter. First there’s mild aggravation at being hassled. When the stakes start to ratchet up you can almost see the stink waves of fear rising from him as it begins to dawn that he’s involved in something far more serious than a simple case of road rage. By the midpoint of the film, events have reduced Rick to a bruised and blood soaked puddle, reduced to cowering in shame and terror in the anonymous confines of a parking garage, hoping the Big Bad won’t notice him. Witherspoon has a blast with the simple concept by making a game as to when the viewer will notice the biker lurking in the background ahead of Rick (the man pops up more than Michael Myers or George Lopez billboards in Los Angeles).

RAGE gets nastier as the film progresses, culminating with a home invasion in the third act. The simpler thriller aspects of the film get thrown out the window at this point, and Witherspoon doesn’t pull any punches with the violence that ensues (both figuratively and literally as the end credits aside from writing and directing, reveal he’s the man behind the helmet). There’s a particular nasty and mean spirited assault and rape Rick’s wife that is uncomfortable to sit through. On top of being violated, she has to hear firsthand how Rick had been cheating on her during his meek and pathetic attempt to apologize.

What saves the film from falling apart is the undercurrent of black humor that runs throughout the nastier spells. There’s a moment where the world’s most persistent neighbor bangs on the door long after your average Joe would give up and walk away. When confronted by the biker, the elderly man essentially power walks away as a means of escape in one of the most laugh out loud moments I’ve come across in a while Coupled with the sight of a feeble Dennis skulking about his property with a golf club (it might as well be a wet noodle for all the damage he’d be capable of inflicting with it) and an elderly lady dialing the wrong number for 9-1-1 and you have some comic moments reminiscent of Trent Haaga’s revenge-comedy hybrid CHOP (which I reviewed for Brutal As Hell). There’s also the matter of the final lesson of the film, which serves as a humorous reminder that we could all be a little kinder to one another on the road.

While not a perfect film the limited cast makes for a couple painful to sit through inner dialogue moments from Dennis) Rage is a blast to sit through.  Witherspoon shows that he can shift gears (from thriller to horror to pulpy comedy) without the results being incoherent and jolting. It captures the spirit of low budget 70’s car and revenge thrillers without coming of as a homage (another nice way of saying uninspired) experience.