By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Garrulous claptrap: Day Watch (2006, ** 1/2)
(Denevnoy dozor) With Day Watch, Russian writer-director Timur Bekmambetov accelerates the garrulous claptrap of the first entry in his post-Soviet vampire trilogy, Night Watch Imagine the carnage of the climax of Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, but for over two hours. Imagine Moscow laid waste to destruction more nihilist than Roland Emmerich’s 1990s dreams of ruin like Independence Day. Bekmambetov’s visual and storytelling flourishes are beyond baroque, as furiously inventive as Guillermo del Toro, but with less control and lyricism. Yet this slab of magical miserablism, of moral and literal verdigris, also functions as synecdoche of sorts for Putin-era mayhem of a decaying, decadent society of grime, slime and cash, a time of authoritarian chaos that sees the wanton imprisonment and even murder of oligarchs, journalists and motley adversaries? The only answer: burn it to the ground, siege Moscow like a latter-day Leningrad. Another culture, another capitalism: it’s plain that the movie is very Russian, and surely holds more resonance back home with its growls, barks and muttering of dialogue, or the identity of famous guests at a party, and the relentless product placement. (A slightly more esoteric reference: the incomprehensible battle between the two vampire factions is adjudicated by a pair of Andrei Tarkovsky look-alikes who lean on canes with mirroring gestures.) While Bekmambetov repeats his oft-inspired, always amusing play with the English subtitles—a hard knock at a door causes a word to shake; when someone yells “Bastard!” while breaking a plate, the letters shatter—his willingness to be full-tilt incomprehensible may be his greatest strength. The end credit sequence is terrifically bold. (The Russian trailer is below.) [Ray Pride.]