Review of Breaking Bad – Crawling Space

Breaking Bad is now running it’s fourth season. In fact season is almost coming to an end. People who haven’t seen this series don’t know how much are they missing in quality television. This series has everything you could ask for – amazing writing, taught direction, beautiful cinematography and above all awesome performance by the cast. Last week’s episode took this series to new heights and I thought I need to write my two cents here.

Before I delve into my review of this particular episode (Season 4, Episode 11) here is a little background.

For people who are not following this series here is a quick Hollywood style high concept – A chemistry genius realizing that he is terminally ill with cancer must generate enough money for his family by using his chemistry skills to cook pure crystal meth.

Sounds simple. Well, it ain’t. There are competitors – real drug dealers, cartels, DEA, family and worst of all a Junkie cooking partner.

Bryan Cranston plays Walter white, the high school chemistry teacher terminally ill with cancer. A very methodical man who gets into cooking crystal meth with a highly disorganized junkie called Jesse played by Aaron Paul. It’s a classic freudian conflict with two archetypes having opposing character traits – anal retentive and anal expulsive.

“What we have here is failure to co-ordinate.”

If you go little deep in the philosophy of Breaking Bad then you’ll realize that the whole story is in a way a re-telling of faustian bargain. For some reason when this episode ended I thought about Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s rare that you see such a clearly defined character arc in a dramatic TV series. Walter White in that sense is really Dorian Gray – person who made a deal with the Devil (in this case drug dealers) for eternal youth (money in this case). His character has undergone such a dramatic shift from a wimp to a control freak.

This episode highlights one inevitability of life that good luck doesn’t last forever.

The episode has an amazing cinematography. In my review of No country for old men I mentioned harsh terrain of texas as a a character in itself. Similar technique is utilized by show creators by giving a character to deserted country of New Mexico.

The episode has a very haunting ending. Show creators used editing, cinematography, sound effect, performance to accentuate this ending. A very clever (some may say cliched) framing device along with smart sound editing. If you have started watching this series then hustle up to season four. If not then I have one thing to say – Netflix It now (sorry, Qwikster it now)!!.

 

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – a blast from the past

First of all I am not reviewing two films here. If title is a little misleading then I am sorry about that. I accidentally discovered this film in my Blu-ray library lying there for years so I thought blast from the last is a little fitting introduction. Oh, by the way Alicia Silverstone did look hot in blast from the past.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has nothing to do with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang if you are thinking in that direction unless off course in some odd universe flying car becomes a flying b**g then you can attempt some similarities.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was a directorial début of Shane Black released in 2005, starring Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer. It’s an oddball movie and incidentally did poor at box office but later became a cult phenomenon on home video. I am sure people will have polarized opinion about this film. It’s kind of comedy with a touch of film noir which is odd because film noir is essentially noire. It has most if not all the elements of noir – femme fatale (usually blondes), murder, corruption, twisted plot. References to Raymond Chandler was all over the film – Goodbye my lovely, Lady in the Lake. Being a big fan of film noir and hard-boiled fiction I really liked the film.

The plot is fairly simple with Robert Downey a thief who gets intertwined in Hollywood, asked to learn to be a detective for a film only to start solving the case of a missing girl who happens to be the sister of a highschool sweetheart. Did I say it was a simple plot? Film Noir and Los Angeles has a long history – years before L.A. Confidential or even Chinatown. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is by no means in the same league but it is no slouch either. Robert Downey Jr is an amazing actor even before he was Iron Man. It’s really a pleasure seeing him performing. His rapid-fire repartee is faintly visible in this film which was heavily used in both Iron Man films. Val Kilmer did good justice to his role as a PI as well as providing a much-needed mentor archetype to the film. One complain I have is that the bad guys were not very well fleshed out which typically isn’t the case with film noir.

Shane Black really is a good writer and director and knows how to borrow the correct elements. [It’s paying him off anyway as he is in the running for directing Iron Man 3]. He created an effective Chandleresque universe with a flawed Philip Marlowe (Downey) and a femme fatale (Monaghan).

Overall I’d say the film is a good watch for a lazy sunday afternoon.