| When I heard that Shakespeare’s Macbeth had been adapted into a modern day gangster movie starring John Turturro, I had to check it out. Men of Respect (1991) is a bizarre curiosity full of violence, creative profanity, eye-rolling histrionics and unintentional laughs. The setting and language have been carefully updated, and viewers unfamiliar with Macbeth might not even realize the story’s origins, seeing the flick as standard gangster fare. It actually works fairly well, as mobster Mike Battaglia (Turturro) murders his way to the top of an organized crime syndicate, egged on by his cold-blooded and ambitious wife Ruthie (Katherine Borowitz). The thing that separates Men of Respect from the crowd and makes it such a wacky viewing experience is its faithful adherence to Shakespeare’s original plot, which is – let’s face it – a pretty darn goofy story.
What? It is.
Don’t get me wrong – I love Shakespeare, I’m just saying that Macbeth has a bunch of witches in it who try to gross each other out with the ingredients in their cauldrons. Then they speak in nursery rhymes and cackle. That’s just weird. It’s so weird that scholars have tried to apologize for it by theorizing that the witch segments were written by someone other than Shakespeare.
Either way, it leaves writer-director William Reilly stuck with trying to work crazy witch prophecies, a ghost and a walking forest into a gangster film. He succeeds better than anybody could have hoped, but those sequences are still way funnier than intended. Wait until you see Turturro blasting away with a pistol, shouting "Born of woman, all of you! Who’s next? Who’s the unlucky fuck? Come and get me!" just before Irish gangster Duffy (Peter Boyle) regales him with a description of the unusual circumstances of his birth via C-section. Crazy stuff, and well worth renting when you’re in a goofy mood.
Speaking of wacky tragedies, Revenger’s Tragedy (2002) has finally – finally – hit the home video ranks, thanks to a fine DVD release from the good people at Fantoma films. I’m not sure who the intended audience for this film is, other than myself, but hey, I’m delighted. Back in University, I wrote a term paper on how funny the original play, The Revenger’s Tragedy (1607) is, and it seems that cult director Alex Cox (Repo Man, Straight to Hell) thinks the same way.
The play itself (which was written anonymously) mixes horror and wit, and is one of the most excessive, ridiculous and sublime black comedies in the English language. It plays like an episode of South Park in blank verse. Cox keeps most of the original text, but places the characters in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic version of Liverpool. The resulting film is an undeniable mess, but it’s a fascinating mess.
Many of what I consider to be the funniest scenes from the play have been cut or altered, but solely for practical reasons, as Cox seems fully willing to be just as goofy and obscene as the material demands. The memorable cast includes Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who) as Vindice the revenger, along with Derek Jacobi as the evil duke, and comedian Eddie Izzard as the duke’s outrageous son, Lussurioso. Be prepared for 17th century verse obfuscated by heavy cockney accents, and be warned that most "normal" people will absolutely hate this movie.
Of special note is the audio commentary provided by Cox and Izzard. This commentary is relaxed, informative and had me rolling with laughter more than once. Keep listening during the end credits, as the conversation descends into complete deadpan nonsense, and Cox tries to pitch a ridiculous sounding movie script to the bemused comedian.
As long as we’re discussing crazy updated versions of classic tragedies, I would be remiss if I left out Let the Devil Wear Black (1999), a retelling of Hamlet transplanted Men of Respect-style into modern-day Los Angeles. ("Something is Rotten in the City of Angels" goes the tagline.)
It’s been years since I’ve seen this curio, and to be honest, I really only remember the updated "Alas, poor Yorrick" scene. In it, the Hamlet character "Jack Lyne" (an intense and steely-eyed Jonathan Penner) is released from a hospital after surviving a drive-by shooting. A doctor presents Lyne with a sliver of bone that had been lodged in the lad’s eye after the guy in the driver’s seat took a bullet. He scrutinizes the slender fragment, musing how it once was the skull of his friend. Kinda nifty, and sure to be rented by English and drama students everywhere, along with the other oddball flicks mentioned above. |
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