I feel like such a shithead, guys. I started watching Twin Peaks a few months ago, finally, and I have yet to finish it. I enjoyed the first season and I thought most of the second season was awesome, but once I found out who killed Laura Palmer, I didn’t really give a shit about who owned the saw mill. How does this related to Chained? Why, it was directed by David Lynch’s daughter, Jennifer Lynch, duh! Between Jennifer making this film and David Cronenberg’s son, Brandon Cronenberg, finding success with Antiviral, it’s been a pretty good year for the progeny of Twin Peaks related weirdo filmmakers! Hey guys, remember when the mid 90’s had a resurgence of Vincent D’onofrio because he was in Men in Black? Hahaha, he did a movie where he was married to Cameron Diaz! And now he’s on TV I guess? I don’t know man, just read the fucking review of this movie.
No Vincent D’onofrio! THAT’S NOT HOW YOU DANCE WITH A LADY!
After a mother and her son get out of a movie on a sunny afternoon, they get into a cab driven by Bob (Vincent D’onofrio) who, rather than taking them home, takes them to his house. He kills the mother and chains up the boy, who spends the next decade or so cooking and cleaning for Bob. In addition to doing all the chores, the little boy also sees Bob taking home young women to rape and murder. The older this boy, who Bob names “Rabbit”, gets, the more freedoms he is allowed. Things like TV, having his chains removed, and books to read. Bob pressures Rabbit into following in his footsteps of rape and murder, and is even allowed to pick out who his victim will be from a yearbook. Once Bob gets this girl and brings her to Rabbit, he only pretends to kill her and uses this opportunity to escape from Bob. By the time we get to the end of the film, Rabbit finally confronts Bob, Rabbit learns the truth behind why all of this was happening, yet we are left with uncertainty as to where Rabbit goes from here and what his future may hold.
I still don’t understand how they got through the whole movie without making a single “off the chain” joke. Not. Even. ONE.
I know that I normally post all of the plot points in graphic details, not giving a shit at all about spoilers, but since the ending did make the film a little bit more enjoyable, I figured I’d leave it out. Granted, this explanation doesn’t make the movie worth watching, in my opinion, but it might be up someone else’s alley. When I say that we get an explanation for why these things happened, it’s really only the answer to one specific thing, but the reasons behind why Bob was such a weirdo freak who liked to murder women was mostly him just saying “they deserve it” over and over again. I do think that Vincent D’onofrio’s performance in this movie is the strongest thing going for it, but the relatively boring plot didn’t make it entertaining. D’onofrio made his character really disturbed, yet pulled it off in a subtle way. I’m not even sure if he yelled/screamed angrily once through the whole film. It’s possible he did but I was too bored to notice. His character kind of reminded me of being a kid and meeting one of your friend’s father or uncle or something who made you feel uncomfortable, but wasn’t weird enough to run away screaming. Does that imply that I spent a lot of time with older men who made me feel uncomfortable? That wasn’t my intention. Well….that was awkward. The point is, other than a good performance by D’onofrio and a somewhat interesting justification for why this kid and his mom were specifically chosen, there’s really not much else to make this film enjoyable. I guess that it was directed well? Lynch was technically proficient…I guess? I don’t know man, I gotta go hang out with some of my friend’s creepy relatives for a while.
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I was really excited for this & ended up being let down as well. I suppose having a drunk daddy w/ a chip on his shoulder who makes you bang your equally dysfunctional ma would leave you what? Warped at best? Not bad, but could’ve been better. There’s not quite enough meat on that bone.
Not intended to be sarcastic, but what were the reasons you were excited for it? Not saying that you shouldn’t be, just wasn’t sure if the early-ish buzz on this movie was good or you liked Jennifer Lynch’s other movies or what.
I adored Boxing Helena but wasn’t very interested in anything else that she had done until this. The subject matter, Vincent D’Onofrio & written/directed by Lynch piqued my interest..I was hopeful. The early buzz did more damage than good, as it gave me far too much time to build up how wonderful it could be & let’s face it…..NO ONE can compete with your mind. The MPAA battles over rating certainly kept me salivating too. I love D’Onofrio & it was competently enough made but unfortunately at the end of the day it just kinda ended up being a pretty big bowl of ‘meh’.
I agree with the big bull of “meh”. I feel like the first time I was hearing about it was through the festivals it was playing and it was kind of lumped together with the hype around Antiviral. I know most people were saying Antiviral was really good, so I think I was just combining the two. Man, I’m such a stupid dummy.
I think maybe you guys are a little too desensitized to appreciate good storytelling. This movie falls into line with films like Hard Candy, Bully, Black Snake Moan, and Oldboy. It isn’t a thriller or horror movie, so much as a story about the things people are driven to by their personal traumas. I’m sorry that someone who reviews movies only seems able to appreciate films on the “Michael Bay scale”. If you don’t know anything about nuance, you should probably stop attempting amateur reviews, especially when said movies leave out a lot of the shock value that American audiences seem to need to get into a story.
Glad you enjoyed the review! I mean, I don’t necessarily agree with you calling my review “perfect”, but I appreciate the support!