Japanese cinema stalwart Takeshi “Beat” Kitano directs and stars in Broken Rage (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video), one of the more bizarre films youâre likely to see this year. Or not see, the critic said with a self-referential flourish thatâs wholly in the spirit of the movie. Kitano is ubiquitous with Japanese crime films, and has acted in Battle Royale, directed and starred in The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi and had a bit part in Johnny Mnemonic, just to name a few titles Westerners might recognize. Now he fronts an hourlong experiment in narrative storytelling where he plays a hitman in two near-identical plots, one a straight drama, the other an over-the-top slapstick comedy. He seems to be making a point here, but what is it, exactly?
BROKEN RAGE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Mr. Mouse (Kitano) has a routine: He wanders into a quiet cafe. The waiter hands him an envelope. Inside is an assignment, with basic details and a photo. He executes the assignment, goes home, burns the note, drinks some tea and gets up the next day to do the same thing. We watch as he brazenly assassinates a gangbanger in a restaurant, then dons a disguise while making his escape. In another sequence, he tracks a mob boss to a workout facility and drowns him in the pool. But Mr. Mouse gets busted by a pair of detectives (Nao Omori, Shogunâs Tadanobu Asano), who offer him a deal â go undercover and help them bust a drug lord, and theyâll drop the charges. Mr. Mouse agrees.
Once this episode concludes, we get a title card: SPIN OFF, it reads. The story plays out with the same basic story beats, except Mr. Mouse smacks his head on the cafe door, bangs his knee on a table and crashes to the floor when the chair breaks beneath him. He gets his assignment, walks into a restaurant and points the butt of his pistol at the gangbanger, but quickly flips it around and does the deed. Then he nearly burns down his apartment. For his next assignment, he picks up a suitcase instead of an envelope, and inside is a small man who resembles Mickey Rooneyâs racist Japanese caricature from Breakfast at Tiffanyâs, and verbally chatters Mr. Mouseâs assignment. He gets arrested and this time, one of the detectives does a sword-swallowing routine.
At one point, the movie stops dead on a blank screen. âRUNNINGTIME FILLER,â it reads before a slew of internet-style negative comments scroll down the screen, tearing apart Broken Rage for being dull and slow and not action-packed enough and obviously low of budget. What the hell are we watching here, anyway?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Is it too goofy to say that the quiet scenes of Mr. Mouse going through his routine made me think of Wim Wendersâ toilet-cleaning man from Perfect Days? Or that the absurd slapstick seems lifted from a Japanese version of Idiocracy?
Performance Worth Watching: Gotta appreciate Kitanoâs deadpan through both chapters of this weird, weird film.
Memorable Dialogue: I feel like undercover Mr. Mouse blurting âHe has a Samsung. I knew it!â is a joke that zings right over my head, but I laughed anyway.
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: The aforementioned isnât the only joke that zinged right over my head. Or maybe the comedy fails more often than not? For lack of a better descriptor, Broken Rage is a rather clunky experimental film that plods through a stripped-down deep-cover plot that lasts about 20 minutes. Itâs generic for a reason, setting up a tonally subversive lampooning of those tropes in the filmâs second part. Kitano has gangsters participate in a ridiculous game of musical chairs, and stages a sort-of Mexican standoff that stretches to ludicrous extremes. Itâs funnier on paper than in execution — it looks cheaply made, and big, dumb, exaggerated bonehead gags take precedence, punctuated with cartoonish sound effects and pratfalls.
Which leaves us pondering the why of Kitanoâs stylistic and narrative dicking around. Itâs a tonal experiment that left me befuddled with regards to any deeper meaning than its undermining of crime-film cliches via gags that might not pass muster with Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. I grinned a couple times, but the laughs never really came, although Iâm willing to chalk some of it up to things being lost in translation (and some of it strikes me as deep-cut Japanese-cinema references). Maybe Broken Rage is simply one for longtime insiders, then.
Our Call: One can admire Kitanoâs intentions without liking â or fully understanding â the movie. But itâs ultimately too nutty for its own good. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Broken Rage’ on Amazon Prime Video, a Deeply Odd Experiment in Tone from Japanese Stalwart Takeshi Kitano appeared first on Decider.
