No. 113 : Weapons (2007)

Weapons at the IMDb

If you think society is on a downward spiral don’t watch ‘Weapons’ as it’ll have you jumping off a bridge. This is a nasty film with brutal murders and a general nihilistic vibe.

The film opens promisingly with long shot of a juicy burger which is then picked up by a man who seems to be enjoying it. But wait! As often happens someone appears behind him and blows his head off with a shot gun. This scene was really well done and the special effects are great even in super slow motion, but it is really shocking and sets a tone that prevails throughout the film.

The film is like ‘Pulp Fiction’ in that we get several interwoven stories with events seen at different times and from differing perspectives. Of course it culminates with us arriving back at the burger bar to find out why the man’s dinner was so rudely interrupted 80 minutes earlier.

We meet various stoner losers who drink red juice and worry about who may have been disrespecting them. One chap straight out of juvie heads over to the basketball court to shoot someone but as he isn’t about he has a game only for one of his pals to be shot in an unrelated attack. We learn this shooting was over someone’s sister who may have been raped and we flashback to a party to see what transpired there.

The film is well made and the performances are uniformly good but I just couldn’t care about any of them. The characters are all awful people who smoke dope and listen to rap music that sounds like its escaped from Satan’s arse. There is the obvious metaphor in place that not all weapons are of the shot gun variety and gossip and backstabbing can be just as lethal - as can fire extinguishers which was demonstrated in one eye watering scene.

Of the cast the only name I knew was Paul Dano who was the preacher in ‘There will be Blood’ and the mute in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. He had the best role as the needy perv with the video camera but he didn’t fully convince as a bad boy in a crowd of low life scum bags.

It’s not a film I disliked but I’d be reluctant to recommend it given that it’s so nasty and depressing.

Best Bit : Are you going to eat those fries?
‘W’ Rating 13/23