Guns. Why do more and
more average people feel they need them? Why do more and more average
people use them? Through a cross-section of today’s urban life-styles,
It’s the Rage uses comedy to explore our growing fascination
with guns and its tragic consequences. At a time of heated debates
about what our right to bear arms means, this film sets the stage for a
closer look at the deeper human dimension of the gun issue. Ultimately,
guns don’t kill people. People kill people. But, as this film
illustrates, people with guns do it so much more easily, even
accidentally. With a bold, sophisticated, and humorous touch, It’s
the Rage dramatizes the intricate social and individual conditions
that have transformed guns into tools of immediate conflict resolution
and mystical personal power.
The script written by
Keith Reddin based on his play rallied a power ensemble cast under the
guidance of an accomplished theatre producer and first time film
director James Stern. Joan Allen plays the central character Helen who
is awakened one night by gunshots. She finds her husband Warren (Jeff
Daniels) looming over the body of an intruder he shot. Humorous panic
buffers the initial shock, but the horror escalates when Helen realizes
the intruder is Warren’s long time business partner. The incident
shatters the already rocky marriages, and Helen abandons her upper scale
home.
Warren glosses over the
event and breezes through the police investigation with his lawyer Tim
(Andre Braugher). Tim is abhorred by Warren’s trigger-happy delusional
personality, but he too soon faces the power of gun-ownership when his
lover Chris (David Schwimmer) gives him a small, engraved pistol as a
gift. In a delicious twist, Tim, a wealthy black professional living
with a jealous “artsy” gay man in an elegant flat, starts having an
affair with a blonde bimbo (Anna Paguin), whose in-and-out of prison
brother (Giovanni Ribisi) is ready to shoot anyone who crosses her.
Helen meanwhile becomes
an assistant to the childish and lonely high-tech billionaire Mr. Morgan
(Gary Sinise). Mr. Morgan’s head is splitting with migraines caused by
the information overload, and the laser-guided semi-automatic in his
desk drawer is dangerously too close to his cracking psychology. Mr.
Morgan’s previous assistant Tennel (Josh Brolin), a man of weepy
sweetness and delicious naïveté dreams of fame as a film director, but
ends up as a video store clerk who falls madly in love with Annabel, the
blonde bimbo.
Thus, the connections
of sadly and comically flawed individuals of vast social differences are
heightened by the presence of guns. When and why those guns are drawn
may invoke memories of the Frontier days, but the issues that are
resolved with gunfire only indicate that, despite our more civilized
appearance, we are just as incapable of addressing our emotional subtext
as we have ever been.
Amidst the accomplished
cast, Gary Sinise pulls out all the stops in a breathless performance
that sheds the brightest light on the issue the film raises. In his
loveless, isolated, childishly indulged, and immature life, he is
buckling under the weight of impersonal technology that provides every
type of distraction, but cannot give the slightest pleasure of an
authentic human exchange. The frustrations that mount in fruitless
communication with the seemingly self-absorbed, disinterested world
eventually erupt into rage that is easily quenched with guns. In a
sense, each character struggles in the void of disconnection, and most
cannot be saved.
The ensemble cast is
captivating in the range of personalities they cover. However, their
personalities are static. We don’t really have the satisfaction of
seeing them change and grow in their understanding of who they are and
why they do what they do. The humor emerges from the intertwining of
discontent and idiosyncrasies – both as strengths and weaknesses. We
may laugh, but there is insufficient depth to really move us to
emotional or intellectual understanding.
With cinematography and
set design enhancing the outer and inner world of each character, along
with irony that takes the edge off, we cannot help being draw into the
complex challenges that confront our right to bear arms in the evolving
but still explosively fragile humanity.
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