CULT DVD Review

Rampage

Overall: 22%

Feature: 33%

Extras: 0%

Rampage (2009)

So, here at last is my first experience of an Uwe Boll movie. This is the man who can claim to have four films in the IMDb bottom 100 Movies. Now, that’s quite an achievement. Not that I intend to see all of his films, but this is apparently his top achievement. Well, that’s not saying much.

To be fair, it’s not a complete bomb as I was expecting. The film follows a disgruntled youth who goes on a killing spree. He has been secretly buying an outfit made of bullet-proof armour and the day comes where he blows up a police station and goes on a shooting frenzy throughout his small town. The whole reasoning behind the boys’ action is nonsensical. His parents want him to get his own place, a waitress knocks over juice on him and doesn’t apologize and he doesn’t get enough froth on his mocachino. Not exactly material to drive a man to breaking point but the director adds a continuous sound barrage of radio excerpts talking about things like the Taliban and Al Quaeda underneath scenes of the boy sitting around moodily as if violence within the world is an excuse for a man to go on a killing rampage. This is Boll’s attempt at Oliver Stone. Of course, it fails.

The first half hour of the film is torture. The acting is pretty awful in scenes that seem to be improvised. Too often the actors look like they don’t know what they are doing and it limps along like a bad acting class. Meanwhile Boll cuts scenes of the violence that will occur later throughout shots of the moody lead. Then when the violence does take place he inserts cuts from earlier in the film as if he was saying “remember that scene you saw 10 minutes ago, it was important.” If all these jump cuts of bits that happen later and bits that happened earlier were taken out of the film the running time would be 20 minutes shorter. Meanwhile the shaky camera is nauseating, it may work for the bloodshed sequence but for a family talk around the dining room table, less so.

The film really is a violent, ugly mess that whilst attempting to say something political about why people go on a killing spree it has the uneasy feeling of being nothing more than a wet dream movie for sociopaths. The film does have some well shot moments, particularly the build-up of tension in the hair salon and the bingo hall. Also a bit of an unexpected twist arrives late in the film that makes the film seem a little more mature than it is. Overall, it’s a film that those who enjoy going on imaginary killing sprees whilst playing Grand Theft Auto may enjoy whilst the rest of us will bemoan the lack of any real psychological depth to its lead insane character.

Stewart McLaren

Extras:

None.

FEATURE: 33%

EXTRAS: 0%

OVERALL: 22%

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