Matt Shea
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Morgan Bell
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David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
Introducing Tony Scott - The World's Worst Filmmaker
June 18th 2009 06:24
John Travolta in Tony Scott's latest: "The Taking of Pelham 123"
by Matt Shea
I remember with absolute clarity the night the penny finally dropped and I came to realise the awful nature of director Tony Scott’s demented artistry.
Strangely enough, it happened in Queenstown, New Zealand: a destination known for its skiing, sightseeing and partying, but for locals sometimes defined by its loudmouth tourists, diseased backpackers and icy winters, which bum rush you from the bottom of the planet.
The winter I spent in Queenstown was such a season. Arriving at the same time as an accommodation crisis, I suffered a miserable existence, drifting from floor to floor of well-meaning but impatient hosts, before finding a room in Frankton, about five kilometres out of town in a house owned by a six fingered chef and his pastry-baking wife.
Removed from the centre of town and with little in the way of transport I quickly became a sweaty-pitted recluse, reading too much Joseph Conrad and turning to the cutting of my toenails as a legitimate way to pass the time. It was a fairly awful existence and my days off could never end soon enough.
It was on one of these cold and hopelessly boring nights that in need of some sort of stimulation other than the smell of my own earwax, I pulled on my fleece and snow clogs, gingerly making the one kilometre trip to the ‘local’ video store.
Once there, the uninspiring range made my shivering body deflate with disappointment. I wandered from aisle to aisle for 20 minutes, just hoping that I’d missed something. Eventually I found a DVD that actually looked promising: it was about spies and starred Robert Redford and Brad Pitt – how bad could it be?
So, tucking “Spy Game” and a six-pack of Heineken under my arm, I started making my way back to the house, whistling a tune to my newfound urbanity. Unfortunately, about halfway there my improving mood and creeping pace came unstuck on a patch of black ice. The six-pack flew like a cluster bomb, the smashing of the bottles drowning out a yelp as I hit the gutter. The ‘Spy Game’ case split open on the road, the disc rolling a gentle arc before hitting me in the head.
Robert Redford and Brad Pitt discuss how much they hate Tony Scott in "Spy Game"
A terribly disappointing turn of events. But appropriate, when considering the quality of the film I sat down to watch later that night, battered and beerless. The incident on the road was just a taster of the single-fingered salute “Spy Game” would throw in my direction. Tony Scott’s 2001 film is an awful piece of celluloid, full of one-dimensional characters, boorish dialogue and schizophrenic editing. It ducks and weaves, but it’s only shadow boxing as Scott attempts to tell a story when none really exists. It took all of my willpower - and a significant amount of cooking wine I found in the pantry - to make it through the entire film, and I sloped off to bed that night wondering what I’d done that would give the gods jurisdiction to piss on me from such a great height.
But as bad as “Spy Game” is in isolation, it’s also the perfect sample of Tony Scott’s wider oeuvre. Scott is the ultimate stylist, his films cascading with visual preposterousness whilst running empty on narrative. “Top Gun”, “Beverly Hills Cop II”, “Days of Thunder”, “The Last Boy Scout”, “The Fan”, “Enemy of the State”, “Man on Fire”, “Domino”, “Déjà vu”: as director, Scott is responsible for all of them, a cavalcade of bloated boorishness that’s only evolution is a tendency towards increasing clutter and evermore feverish editing.
Having started his career in advertising, Scott moved to feature films in the 1980s and became the go-to guy to translate dead-headed High Concept to the big screen. His technique is built purely on vacant visuals, with hazy interiors and eternal sunsets being endlessly spun by effulgent, swirling cameras. The story is secondary in Scott’s motivations, with scenes built to be digested by their visual impact rather than any effect they might have on the narrative. The result for the viewer is like eating a candy bar in the evening, the sugar hit quickly wearing off and destroying your appetite for dinner.
In this sense, Scott can be viewed as the progenitor of the current batch of big budget directors such as Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, McG and Renny Harlin, all of who share the Brit’s taste for ungainly action that shouts down any idea of a compelling story. It’s a nauseating trend in modern cinema, shell-shocking audiences by creating films that are little more than extended previews.
Of course, Scott himself is alive and kicking professionally, but no longer content to tarnish just his own era with the shitty stick of tasteless mediocrity. His latest series of projects look to sully the films that existed before the advent of empty-headed stylism, the first off the block being “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3”. The original 1974 version of “Pelham” was a smart, tight action thriller, full of tension and peppered with lovingly cured dialogue. In contrast, the early reviews of Scott’s remake have decried it for being a bombastic, disposable mess.
It doesn’t stop there: a remake of the 1979 classic “The Warriors” is also in the pipeline, and with its trick of moving the action to Los Angeles – More haze! Better sunsets! – it’s sure to be as loud and obnoxious as the original was lean and efficient. It’s all the work of a phoney filmmaker who’s the master of mediocrity; the sooner Tony Scott folds up his director’s chair and retires to somewhere far beyond the dusty hills of Hollywood, the better off the worldwide movie-going public will be.
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Comment by Kynaston
Kynaston Tales
Comment by Marc P
Top Gun sucks more than a super-massive black hole in my opinion.
That's enough time wasted on Tony Scott.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
I enjoyed The Hunger when it came out, but that was more than 25 years ago ... I enjoyed Deja Vu actually. Far-fetched, but it engaged me. I hear Man on Fire is very difficult to watch.
I'm a huge fan of his brother (primarily Alien and Blade Runner), and both mean express themselves chiefly through the visual narrative (both coming from a background in advertising/commercials).
I've actually never seen Top Gun. I must be one of the very few Gen-Xers who hasn't ....
Remaking The Warriors! NOOOOOO!!!!
A popular director whose movies I loathe is Kevin Smith. But I did find his talk on how he got fired from doing the screenplay to Superman Lives very funny (youtube it)
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Cheers for reading Marc P - yeah, Top Gun is almost okay while Anthony Edwards is alive, but after he hits head there's absolutely nothing to recommend it.
Bryn - glad you enjoyed it! I caught Deja Vu on DVD and didn't enjoy it. I tend to give Tony another chance every now and then, but always come away disappointed. I have a method of describing the Tony Scott madness: he has this way of making the wide screen look like 4:3 - so cluttered and busy are his frames.
Comparing Ridley and Tony is strange indeed. Ridley Scott's work is not quite as good as it used to be IMHO, but still miles ahead of his brother's... Will check out Smith on Youtube
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Mountain Fog
Anyhoo, oh, one other thought, maybe that is why Ridley has failed to get an Oscar so far, the voters kept confusing him with his brother's work! tee hee!
And, I am SOOO disappointed that Pelham123 has been remade, so many remakes are crap, and it is just Hollywood producers answering to greedy investors' pockets, rather than commissioning new works and taking the risk.
cheers
fog
Comment by Someone
Evil Pleasures
Random Musings on Life, Love and Everything
Let's Get Down To Business
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Fog - thanks for reading. Yeah, it slips under a lot of people's radars, the brother thing. It's bizarre because, as Bryn mentioned, in some ways their films are quite similar in style.
Cheers for reading, Someone. Warriors - I know, what a travesty if it does indeed become a fully fledged go-project. The original is just untouchable.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by stu-kicks
stu kicks
Comment by Literary Hack
Anonymous Film Critic
While Top Gun is certainly a laughable movie these days, the movie is almost a cult classic in its own right. The Last Boy Scout is extremely entertaining, The Fan was thrilling, Man on Fire is a great movie for both it storyline and emotionally gripping premise. Spy Game
is the best example of all.
A few years back, it was found out amongst my buddies that Spy Game was a good movie and had only been seen by one of us. We watched the movie at my house on a Sunday afternoon, and the group of twenty-something years old loved it.
It seems to me that the general public loves the the films seeing how much money they make, and also how Tony Scott projects continue to showcase Hollywood's best. I loved the post, but I hope. along with many others, that he continues to put out future movies as entertaining as the one's you listed above.
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Hack - thanks for reading. I'm glad you've posted your thoughts because a heap of people regularly go to Tony Scott films and enjoy them - I just wish I was one of them. His films really divide people - you either love his work or you hate - there doesn't seem to be an in-between. Thanks again.
Comment by stu-kicks
stu kicks
you should check out my review of the new movie TERMINATOR SALAVATION at oldmovies.net.au
Comment by Someone
Evil Pleasures
Random Musings on Life, Love and Everything
Let's Get Down To Business
Comment by stu-kicks
stu kicks
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
That is the exception to the Tony Scott sucks rule....though Last Boyscout is a guilty pleasure with its Shane Black Script. like Bryn i dig The Hunger. Revenge is also watchable.
I do agree with most all you say about his films they are shallow and often pointless, Spy game pissed me off for the same reason you cited
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by jlj
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
JLJ - thanks for making it through the boring intro - apologies if you didn't like it. True Romance's strengths are Tarantino's script IMO. For me, Man on Fire is an over edited button-pushing disaster.
Comment by Lee-Shu
- if you forget that watching movies is for proving something yourself, you will see Tony Scott movies highly watchable
- also, you will see more substance and character design than in most of today mainstream movies. For example: show me characters and substance in highly recommended "The Kingdom" comparing to any Tony Scott movie. Put on the table even "Top Gun".
- Scott is absolutely one of the best shooter in the industry. Provides great light and outstanding composition in his images. One of the first filmmakers made depth of field important.
- Scott movies are always about relationship (mostly between two men). This relationship is developed in first and second act. At the same time director draws the characters - always enough to make movie engaging - more or less in different stories. Third act is going to judge the relationship shaped earlier. Interesting is that those relationships are always archetypical, and - due to mainstream moviemaniacs - not very but still enough complicated.
- Scott made several mindblowing sequences which are the essence and still the best in the genre. Also he made lot of "simply very good scenes" like "The Fan" opening radio interview, main deck scenes in "Crimson Tide", agency room scenes in "Spy Game" or Pita's kidnapping in "Man on Fire". You don't have space in your blog to put here them all
- He is one of the best in dialogue sequences. Yes, that's why "True Romance" was good (but the Soprano's fury vs. Arquette scene is classic today).
- Every Tony Scott movie has a tempo which is stimulated minute after minute. This "trance" is always made very well. Scott's movies have mostly "final orgasm" sequences as an apogeum of story emotions. Those sequences are cooked from beautifully designed photographies, editing, music. Today most of action directors do the same as Tony did 15 years ago.
- Comparing Tony and Ridley is a nonsense. Ridley couldn't do movie like Tony. He's not as "smokey" like his younger brother.
"although I didn't know at the time it was a TS film"
I don't have any questions
PS. Forgive me my english.