Drunken Master

Turning the Super Hero Genre on its Ear
By Morgan P Salvo
 
 It’s been quite the summer for super heroes—Iron Man, Hulk, and now Hancock, who comes in the form a of drunken lout turned nice-guy-reformed-super hero.
Despite a weak beginning scene Hancock was actually better than I thought it would be.The premise is nice—a super hero with a drinking problem, confused as to who he is or where he comes from. Carrying a truckload of all his own problems, he doesn’t really enjoy saving people’s lives. He just does it because either he can and/or he’s the only one who can. He makes a sloppy exercise out of saving the day—chucking a beached whale out to sea only to hit a sailboat….skewering a car of bad guys on the Capitol Records building, you get the point. Hancock is pretty much despised for all the chaos he causes with the exception being one Ray Embry (Jason Batemen). Hancock saves him from getting pulverized by a train and in return Ray befriends him and attempts a marketing strategy makeover. Ray brings Hancock home for counseling and to meet the wife. Wife Mary (Charlize Theron), busy to get on with her own life does not approve.
Restrictions need to be applied as to what and how much is revealed in previews. Every scene extolling the drunken escapades that would’ve had some shock or humorous impact was sucked short because I already saw it a gazillion times. However the second half of the movie remained a surprise. Somewhere in the middle a major twist gets hurled your way and far be it from me to give it away. The marketing geniuses just loaded on the previews for the first half, purposely not revealing anything else.
Will Smith is a charismatic actor managing to bring life to what would normally be a spoof oriented role. He also plays a believable drunk with some genuine talent. With Charlize though, I wondered for the longest time why she was even in this movie but a couple of things she finally brings to her role make sense. Justin Batemen is an entertaining guy in a smarmy and witty kind of way, although fairly two dimensional.
The film is shot with a handheld flair, which is strange for an ultra slick superhero movie but I found it effective. Actor/Director Peter Berg used a lot of close ups, reminiscent of the Tony Scott school of cinematography where claustrophobic storytelling is literally “their-face-in-your-face-cinema”. Sometimes it works, other times it becomes increasingly annoying because their entire head is taking up the screen. We get it. It’s larger than life. Change the direction.

At one point Hancock, in order to redeem himself for being above the law, and to help his image goes to jail willingly. Knowing he could break out anytime provides moments of decent humor .Hancock, a homophobic and an alcoholic has abandonment issues; jail therapy does nothing for him. Another slapstick-like choice is gratuitous one liner repetition that’s a lot like what’s found in Terminator movies or what the Get Smart redux should’ve had.
The film’s borderline cute moments thankfully quickly dissipate. It had intermediate darkness that I would’ve liked to have seen explored more. Near the end it gets a little dodgy as to which way it might go. A pause in the action leaves a gap to fill between a believable ending with serious reality coming into play, or opting for a nice superhero ending complete with sequel… let’s juts say the one I was rooting for didn’t win.
All in all it could’ve been a lot worse. I know I’ve just over exceeded my coulda-woulda-shoulda quotient. This movie had decent potential but sort of sky-rockets downwards after the initial novelty goes away. The director who brought us Very Bad Things manages to hold on to a smidgeon of semi dark-comedy, co-mingling with the sanitized cuteness, keeping an even keel on the performances with a whole lot of bendable leeway in the script and plot department. Like I said, coulda been worse.
Hancock
Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Justin Bateman
Director: Peter Berg
2 1/2 stars