The MacGuffin

In the trailer of Oren Moverman’s latest film, Rampart (2011), a quote says that “Woody Harrelson is the most corrupt cop you’ve ever seen on screen.” I would guess that that statement is fairly accurate. The character Harrelson plays, L.A. police officer Dave Brown, is not a good man. Heck, he’s not even a descent man. Brown is a down-and-dirty son of a gun in the worst way possible. He’s a hateful, misogynistic, egocentric, adulterous drunk who does whatever he wants, all the while hiding behind the protection of his badge and the power of his gun. When it comes to cinematic anti-heroes, you can’t get much worse than this guy. I usually like protagonists that tiptoe that moral line, who do questionable things as a means to an end. It’s much more interesting to see a person who has faults and eccentricities; it makes their journey much more fascinating to watch and analyze. So why exactly didn’t that work for me here?

Tell me if this sounds familiar to you. A master criminal who is out of the game is drawn back into one last caper to protect his family. Not surprisingly, things don’t go as planned, some twists occur, but good overcomes evil in the end. Yeah, pretty generic, eh? Well that is what you get in Contraband.

Judd Apatow had been the show runner for a couple of television shows before Freaks and Geeks, but most that are familiar with his work will agree that this was his true masterpiece.  Set in Detroit in the 1980’s, the show follows Lindsay and Sam Weir as they attempt to survive the reality of high school.  What Freaks and Geeks offers that other teen shows like Dawson’s Creek don’t is a look at the other side of high school as the tag line says so eloquently, “What high school was like for the rest of us.”  You get to see high school from the side of the “Freaks” (a.k.a. the druggies and burnouts) and the “Geeks,” which as some of you may know, will give you a completely different look at high school.  As a side note, this show is basically the flagship for “Before They Were Famous.”  It is almost inconceivable to look at the actors (and even some of the guest actors, including Ben Foster and a very young Shia LaBeouf) starring in this show and see where they went after this.