Ryan McNeil
A story is a living, breathing organism. It’s a product of a particular ecosystem. While it can thrive within that particular circle of life, it won’t necessarily be able to acclimate itself to being yanked out of a habitat where it works and supplanted to a completely different one.
In other words, taking a 1930’s radio character and building a new millennium film around him isn’t as easy as it might seem.
THE GREEN HORNET is the story of billionaire partyboy Brit Reid (Seth Rogen). As the film begins, his father – one of the last independent news paper publishers with integrity – dies a suspicious death. Brit is lift rudderless, barely knowing what day it is, let alone what his father would do on that day to keep his newspaper running. His selfishness isn’t all bad though – it leads to him seeking out the member of his father’s staff who made a particularly awesome cup of coffee: his mechanic, Kato (Jay Chou).
In talking with Kato, he discovers that he is wildly talented and imaginative…and that neither one of them liked Brit’s father. This pushes them to reap some vengeance through vandalism, but the whole plan takes a turn. While they are out executing their plan, they stumble into an innocent man getting assaulted. Without thinking twice, they spring into action…Kato a bit more than Brit…and save the man’s life. However, that story isn’t the news – their act of vandalism is, and with that a new criminal has been born.
Brit sees this as an opportunity to finally do something with his life. He convinces Kato to team up with him and work to pose as villains just long enough to infiltrate the city’s underbelly. Once they get inside, the plan is to use that access to bring the whole crime syndicate down – a plan that slowly pisses off the city’s biggest crime boss Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz).
Crazy as the plan is though, it works…and sources of crime and mischief seem to be falling one by one. Just another day’s work for The Green Hornet and Kato.
In the past, I’ve described director Michel Gondry as the sort of guy who colours with every crayon in the box. With that in mind, what seems to hold THE GREEN HORNET back is the feeling that he was handed an eight-pack to work with, rather than the sixty-four-pack he’s used to. You know…the one with the crayon sharpener attached to the box? Using those eight primary colours, he’s able to give us glimpses of creativity…such as he does when we see how Kato visualizes his attack method. The problem is that those eight colours can only do so much with this treatment of the property.
Considering that the character of The Green Hornet began as a radio serial, I’d wager that Gondry could have done a lot with the property if taken down a different avenue. Unfortunately, the story written by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen has no use for that avenue…it’s too busy guiding the pulp fiction character down their usual boulevard of snark. This script, and all its moments of schluby cleverness is a complete mismatch for the story. Put it all together, and you’ve given the film a lot to overcome.
Interestingly, certain elements of the movie do work…in a manner reminiscent of a guy getting a girl’s number despite being surrounded by his five douchebag friends. For starters, Jay Chou is badass as Kato – mask on and off. In a manner that would make Bruce Lee proud, he plays the planning moments with a calm charm, and the action scenes with cold intensity. If THE GREEN HORNET leaves me with one bright spot, it’s that I’ll get to see more of Chou in the near future.
The other bright spot comes courtesy of Christoph Waltz, who seems to understand what sort of movie this should be more than anybody else on the screen. Playing the villain with a Woody Allen-esque nerosis, insecure about his image and method works better than anything else in the film. It allows him to have fun with it, and put a memorable spin on what would otherwise be a boring big-bad.
While performances like Chou and Waltz gave me enough to enjoy in the film, I can’t help but wonder what could have been. This movie isn’t “another comic book film”, and wasn’t ever going to be. It’s a character from a bygone era, a story that used to have to pause for Ovaltine ads. Perhaps the story would have been better served as a 50’s period tale…infusing the film with an L.A. CONFIDENTIAL look and style.
Of course, many other stories from the era tried going that route and failed…so perhaps the better idea is to leave this type of source material alone and move on to new ideas.