Fifth City (2007)

Posted on May 16, 2007 under Action-suspense, Comedy, Martial arts, Sci-fi |

Written and directed by Eric Thornett
Starring
- Christi Etcher
- Cash Flagg, Jr.
- Eric Thornett
- David Stewart
- John Paglio

I’ve lavished praise on Eric Thornett’s previous movies here and here. I think he’s a tremendously energetic filmmaker who produces features that belie their miniscule budgets and deliver more bang-per-buck in audience enjoyment than a dozen Jerry Bruckheimer explodaganzas.

That said, every auteur is allowed a one-off, and this is Thornett’s.

The story of a boy, a girl, and a hubcap.

Where 23 Hours (2000) was a paranoid overcaffeinated chase-scene movie and Shockheaded (2004) was a neo-noir marinated in the surreal, the tone of Fifth City lies somewhere between absurdism and straight-out camp. Named after the backdrop city/milieu featured in all of Thornett’s features, Fifth City centers, more or less, on an uncommonly-dedicated limo driver named Guy Huggins (Thornett). Guy is stalwart, resolute, upstanding… all those qualities you expect of a Mountie, really. But he is being opposed by the evil Overlord Crumb (David Stewart), the scenery-chewing leader of the Goths, who are…a rival limo company. No, honest. A really really scary limo company. Crumb is waging an underground war against Guy to keep him from picking up fares in the Goths’ territory. And all that Guy has on his side is his upright sense of honor, and (being played by Thornett) his impressive fu-fighting skills.

Male bonding at its finest.

Normally, I like (or at least don’t mind) Thornett’s performances, which are usually in the role of the heavy or a major goon; he plays such roles in a self-consciously cartoonish way that seems natural for characters invested in the acceptance of their own evil. (I know other reviewers disagree. But as usual, I’m self-evidently correct, which is why I’m sparing those other reviewers the embarrassment of naming names.) Here, though, Thornett’s role as straight-laced Guy prevents him from exhibiting any of that cartoonish charisma; Guy seems like a third runner-up from a Buster Keaton impersonator contest, and deadpans so consistently that even his double-takes are entirely phlegmatic. Yes, I did chuckle on occasion, but only about once for every ten “comedy” bits. I never though I’d see the day when an Eric Thornett performance bored me, but that day has come.

Plot B involves a skinny girl named Bethany (Christi Etcher), who owes some money to festering pottymouth Chazz (John Paglio). He chases her around, demanding payment and threatening revenge with a mouthful of malapropisms, and so when she crosses paths with Guy, she kind of inserts herself under his wing for protection.

**“‘Requires 2 AA batteries (not included.)’ Well, crap!”**

And Plot C revolves around a odd fist-sized sphere studded with spikes (known in the credits as “the Nix,” and to various characters as “the pointy thing”) which appears on a city street and is picked up by Bethany. It is, according to several fragmentary and unreliable accounts, some sort of physical expression of the negative energies of Fifth City, and like most abstractions rendered concrete, will bestow great power on the possessor who knows how to use it. In other words, it’s a spiky little McGuffin. Bethany picks it up at one point, which is how it manages to intersect with the two other plots.

If “intersect” is really the right word. The three plots bump into each other at times, but they never weave together into a single narrative; they’re three separate stories which all have to do with Guy, and to a lesser extent Bethany, and Guy’s cryptic fu-fighting mentor Zen Legend (Cash Flagg Jr. of Lethal Force fame). So separate are the narratives that Guy’s conflict with Crumb is resolved halfway through the movie, leaving the rest of the time to deal with Chazz, and then finally take some time to explore what this pointy thing is.

“And where is the Limo Man? He’s at home — washing his tights!”

The biggest disappointment for me is that, despite the title, the stylized milieu of Fifth City is less present than in either of Thornett’s other movies. In 23 Hours and Shockheaded, Thornett manages to shoot in a variety of east-of-the-Mississippi cities and combine the footage to portray a backdrop that it lies somewhere between Dark City and Grimjack’s Cynosure (geekiest allusion of the week!). Here, though, the action all simply takes place in Generic Big City Place, with none of the sense of character that informs the other two movies set there.

Boy, if I had a dime for every… on second thought, maybe I’ll keep that to myself.

Though just barely through post-production, Fifth City was shot before Shockheaded, and that’s a relief to me. It means that Thornett hasn’t exhausted his vision and imagination on his initial features. As a sophomore effort, Fifth City stumbles as Thornett tried to graduate from the straight-ahead chase-scene storytelling of 23 Hours into a broader, multifaceted narrative. Shockheaded is evidence that he recovered from that stumble, and confirmation that he was right in his decision to move on and release Shockheaded before finishing Fifth City. If his second movie was a necessary learning experience toward making his third, then I can’t hate Fifth City too much.