No. 253 : The Rapture (1991)

 

The Rapture at the IMDb

 

This is a strange offering that is part swinger party and part religious brainwashing. I’m not sure what the target audience was, but it would make for a pretty narrow demographic.

Mimi Rogers, who is excellent throughout, stars as Sharon, a bored phone operator who gets her thrills through having sex with random couples, along with her sleazy boyfriend. One of these couples includes David Duchovny, and the two start a relationship on the side.

Sharon is aware of some co-workers talking about God and seems to laugh it off, but one night at 3am she shoves David (who has the excellent character name ‘Randy’) out of bed as she needs to change the sheets. Well, we’ve all been there. She decides her whole life is dirty and she needs to find God.

 

We get other clues along the way that she may not be a total nut, such as a vision she has of a pearl, having first seen it on a swinger’s tattoo. She joins a religious sect centred around ‘The Boy’, a wise child who tells them that God will be back in five or six years. Kind of a loose arrangement, it would seem. Mimi is totally bought in at this stage even going so far as to offer religious direction to people ringing her for a phone number. She seeks out now former love Randy, who is also a lost soul, and the two get back together.

 

We jump forward six years and learn that God has yet to show up, but at least he told Randy to ditch the mullet. They all eagerly await the Rapture with the now teenage ‘The Boy’ telling them it’s this year for sure. Shouldn’t have used Evri for the delivery, I guess.

Tragedy strikes however, when Randy is killed in a workplace shooting, leaving Sharon alone with their annoying daughter. Randy's death only affirms Sharon's beliefs and she decides that her vision of Randy in a photoshop window is enough to send her to the desert to await the big moment.

 

Once again, God is delayed. I’m sure he must be at the baggage carousel by now. Sharon decides that she’ll speed things up by shooting her daughter, as you do. The once friendly policeman, who clearly needed better safeguarding training, arrests her and sticks her in a cell with another God botherer. Unfortunately, Sharon has given up on God as he let her shoot her own daughter – free will anyone?- so when the rapture does arrive, she’s not onboard.

The Rapture is a bit low rent with some horns and people on horses and more smoke than an 80's rock video. We do get overlaid hoofbeats and those who accept God are sent on their way with a mechanism somewhere between ‘Star Trek’ and Thanos. Sharon, who refuses to forgive the Almighty, is left in purgatory – will she proclaim her love for God or will she hang about in the dark for all eternity?

 

I quite enjoyed this film but I wasn’t totally buying Sharon who went from carefree slut to pious worshipper to then outright denier in the three acts. Her initial conversion seemed a bit urgent with little in the way of doubt seen before she decided that she was right and that everyone she’d previously scoffed were on the ball after all. Mimi was great although a bit more modest at first as she held the bedsheets tight to her chest in the bed scenes. Later on she was a bit more of her carefree self. I see this film was made around the time she split from Tom Cruise so maybe that was a factor. The film poster makes the production look like a sex romp, so no doubt there were a few disappointed cinema goers when this was released!

 

The whole endeavour was clearly low budget, but I liked the almost Ray Bradburyesque conspiracy with people muttering away about their visions in the background. It gave the film a sense of unease and I wasn't sure if we were going to find redemption or mental illness at the end. Believers were found in all sorts of places and it was fun when Sharon gets pulled in by her boss for God bothering the callers before he reveals he’s seen the light himself!

 

There are large portions of the film that seem like a recruitment video for the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Sharon was all over the place with her conflicted mental states. It was however a decent ride and offered a few questions, albeit with no real answers - if you want answers, I'd recommend 'This Is the End'.

 

THE Tag Line : Praise Be! 64%

No.252 : The Animal (2001)

 

The Animal at the IMDb

Reviewing a Rob Schnieder film is pretty much an object lesson in futility – you know it’s going to be rubbish with a few cheap laughs, but let’s do it anyway.

This one dates from his golden period where he crapped out a couple of Deuce Bigalow films along with ‘The Hot Chick’ and ‘Stan Helsing’. Rob isn’t much of an actor so he relies on mugging a lot and crowbarring in as many fart jokes as possible. At least he can’t be touched under the Trades Descriptions Act, as you are served up pretty much what you’d expect with each outing.

Here Rob plays Marvin Mange a police evidence clerk who dreams of emulating his late father and becoming a fully-fledged police officer. He has failed the vital obstacle course the previous four years and pissed his pants during his last attempt. To add to his troubles, he gets grief off John C Reilly’s Officer Sisk who is a pumped-up alpha male, and no respect from his field trip school children.

He does have a couple of friends in a thinly drawn (the irony!) character ‘Fatty’ and in Miles, a black man who thinks everyone is being nice to him to atone for 400 years of slavery. He probably had the best lines in the film and I’m not saying that because he was black!

The action, as it is, starts when Marvin has to answer a 911 call having been left alone at the station. He gets distracted by a seal on the road and endures an endless car crash as his vehicle tumbles down an never-ending mountain before being crushed by a boulder. Hopes that he’s dead and we can stop the film after 25 minutes are dashed when he is rescued by a mysterious stranger. Through his fevered dreams Marvin has visions of various animals in medical gear before waking up at the crash site a week later. He isn’t very curious about his situation, but soon we see changes in his character and abilities.

It turns out he has been fitted with various animal parts, as you do, and can now run fast, swim like a dolphin and smell things up peoples’ butts. After a successful drugs bust and a water based rescue Marvin becomes a full police officer and starts dating local tree hugger Rhianna, who also runs an animal sanctuary.

The only fly in the ointment is an unknown predator referred to as ‘The Beast’ which is attacking people and eating cows – could these nocturnal events be down to Marvin or is he not the first to have endured animal part transplants? Soon an angry mob of townsfolk are hunting for The Beast and we have to wonder who is the culprit and can Marvin enjoy a happy ending?

I’d seen this film 20 years ago and thought it was quite funny. Time hasn’t been kind however and apart from a couple of scenes it was really poor. I’d did like Ed Asner telling Marvin that ‘We’ve all eaten from the garbage’ and the black characters outrage at people being nice to him still translated to today’s easily offended world. It was also fun to see the late Norm MacDonald as an inquisitive mob member and, as is usually the case in Rob’s films, Adam Sandler, this time as a baying rabble rouser. 

The wafter thin plot was padded with too many overlong scenes such as those with the orangutan and the goat, but I guess if you’ve booked the animals you better use them! There were a few plot holes which was some going seeing at it was pretty much transparent to start with- I mean, who ate the cows? 

As a mindless distraction this squeezes a pass but the laughs were too far apart and there was no plot or intrigue to speak of.

 

THE Tag Line : Animal Lacks Bite 51%