New U.S. Release

Malachance

By ROBERT KOEHLER

A Perro Negro Film production. Produced by Gerardo Naranjo, Karina Pyudik , David Selig, Linda Sena. Directed, written by Gerardo Naranjo.
 
Mika - James Ransone
Ringo - Brandon Quinn
Sal - Greg Wayne
Laura - Nancy Anne Ridder
Batoune - Brian Casey
The Dutch - Robert Phelps
Rachel - Veronica Zane Chanel
 

Extremely rough around the edges but suggesting real promise, writer-director Gerardo Naranjo's "Malachance" is a shaggy movie about aimless young men knee-deep in crime who might want to go in another direction but have no clue where to turn. Firmly in the Martin Scorsese school of filmmaking (the early "Mean Streets" class), pic succumbs to overt imitation and undisciplined direction. But Naranjo also evinces a stylish impulse that, with the right material, could reap rewards in the future. Solid fest play won't translate into much more than vid and cable sales.

Considerably different in tone, and much less glib, than his American Film Institute graduate short, "The Last Attack of the Beast," Naranjo's debut feature presents a harshly beautiful milieu of tough New Orleans backstreets populated by drug rings run by old guys dependent on youngsters to push their product. That's what Mika (James Ransome, from "Ken Park") does for The Dutch (Robert Phelps), an aging boss who acts like more like a grandfather than a godfather and sings horribly off-key in his own club's lounge act.

Mika has his "Mean Streets"-style group of buddies around him -- Brandon Quinn's loser Ringo and Greg Wayne's smarter Sal -- and they loll about, chatting, teasing, fighting. In the early scenes, "Malachance" swims along with a stream-of-consciousness pace that's enticing, and Max Goldman's blue-tinted, hallucinogenic lensing recalls the similar look of Vincent Gallo's "Buffalo 66."

Mika wants out of dealing drugs and is portentously warned by everyone that "the Ramirez Brothers are back in town." What this exactly means isn't clear, but it's enough for Mika to go live in a tenement and try to find an honest job. When he discovers, though, that Ringo has taken over his old position with The Dutch, he lashes back in jealous wrath, and then feels responsible in the wake of a tragic death.

With little explanation, Mika heads north to Gotham and Coney Island, searching for a company that offered Sal a job in a letter that fell into Mika's hands. Pic shifts into a much less assured semi-comic tone as it wanders off on a seemingly aimless story strand. Mika takes an absurd job in a dank office organizing huge, yellowing newspaper stacks. The machinations that Naranjo's script sweats out getting Mika back to New Orleans and a seemingly cruel fate carry all the signs of a work a few drafts short of full realization.

As he showed in his extraordinarily tough-but-tender performance in "Ken Park," Ransone carries a soulful weight on his shoulders that translates beautifully to the screen, despite his role's frustratingly hazy conception. Quinn and Wayne round out their barely sketched-in characters with strong improvisation skills.

Pace is all over the map, but editor Jonathan Alberts uses jump-cutting as a fine, dislocating device. While pic is visually haunting at points, the soundtrack is dim, with some barely audible (and, when audible, fairly pointless) voice-over monologues by Ransone. Locales are unerringly seedy, with no hint of tourist New Orleans in sight.

Camera (FotoKem color), Max Goldman; editor, Jonathan Alberts; music, Ivan Naranjo, Gerardo Naranjo; production designer, Linda Sena; art director, Margaret M. Miles; costume designer, Marianne Parker; sound, Rafael Rivera, Gerardo Naranjo; sound designer, Javier Ponton; line producer, Christos Dervenis; associate producers, Gabriel Garcia, Ximena Hiriart. Reviewed at Mexico City Contemporary Film Festival, Feb. 26, 2004. Running time: 87 MIN.