Skulls braindead
The Skulls 1/2 ( (out of ****)
A film review by Michael Redman Copyright 2000 by Michael Redman
There are certain beliefs that our society supposedly holds as universally true. Being nice to other people is a good thing. Thou shalt not thisandthat.
Then there are those other convictions we secretly live by.
Some of the best films examine our secret dogma and how it affects our lives and relationships with ourselves and others. The more successful movies question the truth versus faith and the complex issues involved. "The Skulls" just takes cheap shots...and does it badly.
The rich and powerful are morally corrupt. Even saints have to compromise to get ahead. Ultimately that turns out to be a bad idea. These simplistic doctrines are at the core of this film. No questions. No exploration. And not much of a story.
Luke (Joshua Jackson) is a poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks turned star athlete and scholar at an unnamed university that looks suspiciously like Yale. He wants to go to law school, but lacks the funds. Until, that is, he's invited to join the Skulls, a secret society.
The Skulls count judges and senators as their members and are an organized good ole boy network. They will do anything for their brothers including providing them with new cars, bank accounts, whores and a career fast track. Didn't George W. Bush belong to one of these?
When one of Luke's buddies shows up dead, he suspects the Skull's handiwork and wants out. In this junior version of The Firm, he is stuck for life unless he can come up with a complex plan to outsmart them.
What goes wrong with this film? What doesn't? The acting is third-rate. Character development is nonexistent. People do things that don't make sense and say things that no human being would ever utter. The cinematography is boring. Luke's plan only works by accident. Even the obligatory sex scene is tame.
Someone should have done a reality check when they were filming this thing. Our financially strapped hero lives in a luxurious suite posing as a dorm room. Remarkably, the plot is somehow improbable and predictable.
The movie features mostly missed opportunities. Luke must turn to his old skills as a petty criminal and enlist the help of techno-savvy friends he left behind. At this point, the audience is filled with false hope that something interesting is going to happen with real people. But it goes nowhere. The scenes are dull and his old friends just disappear never to show up again.
The story doesn't even tell us what the Skulls are really about. Why they hold their rituals in the dungeon of the Rue Morgue. Why everyone and their brother seem to know everything about this super-secret organization. Why they brand future senators with the skull logo on their wrists where everyone can see. Why we should care about anything that happens in this movie.
There is one truth about "The Skulls" that the filmmakers must hope remains secret. But I think I've just spilled the beans.
(Michael Redman has written this column for quite a while and he belongs to societies so secret that even he doesn't know about them.)
[This appeared in the 4/13/2000 "Bloomington Independent", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at redman@bluemarble.net.]
-- mailto:redman@bluemarble.net Film reviews archive: http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
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