Comic Book Villains

(2002)
Ah, indie cinema raises its head again, and I get ensnared mostly on the strengths of having Donal Logue in the cast (hes rarely been in anything great but hes always reliable as a performer). This movie, told from the point of view of Archie (DJ Qualls), a young comic-book collector, chronicles the story of the feud between the owner of Archies favorite comic book store, Ray (Logue), a guy who loves comics, lives for them, and a couple, Norman and Judy Link (Michael Rappaport and Natasha Lyonne), who run a comic store as an investment. Its no secret which side Archie is on, but another customer, Conan (Danny Masterson) stirs up trouble between the two one day when he lets slip that a major collector in town has died and left his vast and pristine collection behind. Both Ray and the Links visit the mans old mother (Eileen Brennan) to try to convince her to sell them the books, which represent a value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Things get nasty, as the old woman wont sell, and the war begins. Its fairly typical indie cinema everyone is a little bit weird and greedy, and the person we are supposed to root for, Archie, is a basically good person who rejects the values of greed and tries to be nice for its own sake blah blah blah. What starts out as an interesting take on some geeks quickly sinks down into a morality play, and not a very entertaining one; greed is bad, yeah, we get it. You didnt have to waste ninety minutes of my life to explain that one. The performances are for the most part okay. Qualls is fine, if a little mousey, and Danny Mastersons role, while small, is perfectly handled. Logue goes a little over the top, but hes still pretty good, and Brennan is perfect as a mother who cant get over the death of her doting son. Cary Elwes has a small role, miscast as a tough guy. Both Rappaport and Lyonne play their characters to the hilt, but they are saddled with some of the worst writing in the story and are both really unlikable, particularly Lyonne (I usually find watching her perform the visual equivalent of rubbing sandpaper on my thighs). Though not a particularly strong film, the characters of the Links are particularly odious and hurt the movie far more than they help it. What really turned me off was the final message of the film, which saturates itself in geek culture for an hour and a half and then does a switcheroo and says that really its better not to be a geek. I thought indie cinema was about embracing the oddballs, outcasts, and losers, not ostracizing them. Weve come a long way in our treatment of geeks for the most part the most successful movie of all time is uber-geekfest Avatar but some people will never stop wanting to be cool, I guess. Well, they can go to hell. In the meantime, skip this film; the few entertaining tidbits arent worth the rest of the draggy crap. November 23, 2010