Summary
Canadian gangster film with more emphasis on action than plot, but yet the action still didn’t make it exciting.
American Badger is a story about a hitman called Dean, not about a badger. He’s the sort who sticks to what he’s good at (following orders) but doesn’t bother much with thinking, feeling, or smiling. Yes, Dean is the epitome of a two-dimensional action man. Nevertheless, that works for him just fine, until the person he’s commissioned to “take out” is Marcella, a call girl, also known as Velvet, a cam girl. The two click and steadily fall for each other, and life is no longer the same.
Does this sound like a familiar story? It certainly did for me while I was watching it. Strangely enough, writer/director Kirk Caouette made a film with the same characters and possibly similar plot just a couple of years ago. As for American Badger‘s characters, they are painfully stereotypical. Kirk Caouette himself plays Dean, with no noticeable acting quality, and an annoying quantity of monotone narration. Andrea Stefancikova plays Marcella, with just as much nuance as the role requires and more than enough leg.
Caouette’s background is largely as a stuntman and fight choreographer. No surprise, therefore that the fight scenes are executed like clockwork. They are not too bloody, but rather workmanlike, with added slow motion here and there (spraying sweat, etc). They are not especially exciting, though, and even poor old Dean looks half asleep while giving and receiving blows. The background score gets turned up though, as though that is supposed to make the fights exciting.
The main problem – apart from the stereotypes and the done-before story – is that American Badger as a whole was dull. Dean did some talking (to himself and to Marcella), some fighting, and some sex; but somehow it was all pretty pedestrian. Interestingly, there are more stunt performers than actors in the film’s credits, which (to me, at least) says a lot about the filmmakers’ priority.
The European premiere of American Badger will be at Glasgow FrightFest from 6 March. I couldn’t begin to guess why.
