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Pastimes : Books, Movies, Food, Wine, and Whatever -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bonnuss_in_austin who wrote (532)	8/22/2001 4:29:56 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 51717

When I was at the video store yesterday I noticed they were selling It's the Rage- and I asked them if they rented it, and they didn't. So I bought it. Have you seen it? I give you the following review. IT'S THE RAGE (2000) A comedic look at our obsession with guns with a delicious madcap performance by Gary Sinise. *SILVER Guns. Why do more and more average people feel they need them? Why do more and more average people use them? Through a cross-section of today’s urban life-styles, It’s the Rage uses comedy to explore our growing fascination with guns and its tragic consequences. At a time of heated debates about what our right to bear arms means, this film sets the stage for a closer look at the deeper human dimension of the gun issue. Ultimately, guns don’t kill people. People kill people. But, as this film illustrates, people with guns do it so much more easily, even accidentally. With a bold, sophisticated, and humorous touch, It’s the Rage dramatizes the intricate social and individual conditions that have transformed guns into tools of immediate conflict resolution and mystical personal power. The script written by Keith Reddin based on his play rallied a power ensemble cast under the guidance of an accomplished theatre producer and first time film director James Stern. Joan Allen plays the central character Helen who is awakened one night by gunshots. She finds her husband Warren (Jeff Daniels) looming over the body of an intruder he shot. Humorous panic buffers the initial shock, but the horror escalates when Helen realizes the intruder is Warren’s long time business partner. The incident shatters the already rocky marriages, and Helen abandons her upper scale home. Warren glosses over the event and breezes through the police investigation with his lawyer Tim (Andre Braugher). Tim is abhorred by Warren’s trigger-happy delusional personality, but he too soon faces the power of gun-ownership when his lover Chris (David Schwimmer) gives him a small, engraved pistol as a gift. In a delicious twist, Tim, a wealthy black professional living with a jealous “artsy” gay man in an elegant flat, starts having an affair with a blonde bimbo (Anna Paguin), whose in-and-out of prison brother (Giovanni Ribisi) is ready to shoot anyone who crosses her. Helen meanwhile becomes an assistant to the childish and lonely high-tech billionaire Mr. Morgan (Gary Sinise). Mr. Morgan’s head is splitting with migraines caused by the information overload, and the laser-guided semi-automatic in his desk drawer is dangerously too close to his cracking psychology. Mr. Morgan’s previous assistant Tennel (Josh Brolin), a man of weepy sweetness and delicious naïveté dreams of fame as a film director, but ends up as a video store clerk who falls madly in love with Annabel, the blonde bimbo. Thus, the connections of sadly and comically flawed individuals of vast social differences are heightened by the presence of guns. When and why those guns are drawn may invoke memories of the Frontier days, but the issues that are resolved with gunfire only indicate that, despite our more civilized appearance, we are just as incapable of addressing our emotional subtext as we have ever been. Amidst the accomplished cast, Gary Sinise pulls out all the stops in a breathless performance that sheds the brightest light on the issue the film raises. In his loveless, isolated, childishly indulged, and immature life, he is buckling under the weight of impersonal technology that provides every type of distraction, but cannot give the slightest pleasure of an authentic human exchange. The frustrations that mount in fruitless communication with the seemingly self-absorbed, disinterested world eventually erupt into rage that is easily quenched with guns. In a sense, each character struggles in the void of disconnection, and most cannot be saved. The ensemble cast is captivating in the range of personalities they cover. However, their personalities are static. We don’t really have the satisfaction of seeing them change and grow in their understanding of who they are and why they do what they do. The humor emerges from the intertwining of discontent and idiosyncrasies – both as strengths and weaknesses. We may laugh, but there is insufficient depth to really move us to emotional or intellectual understanding. With cinematography and set design enhancing the outer and inner world of each character, along with irony that takes the edge off, we cannot help being draw into the complex challenges that confront our right to bear arms in the evolving but still explosively fragile humanity.