Journey to the End of the Night

Scott Glenn, Brendan Fraser, Mos Def, Catalina Sandina Moreno

2006, Millenium Films

Pretty intense, and although my wife would be horribly emotionally scarred if she were ever to see a movie with Brendan Fraser being so completely nasty, I personally think it's refreshing to see an actor do more than the same character over and over again. And he plays it very very well.

Basic plot, father (Glenn)/son (Fraser) own a strip club in Sao Paolo - they lucked upon beaucoups of bucks from a Russian killed by his jealous wife, and now they are trying to sell the drugs to some Africans for enough money to retire - but son is trying to double-cross father. Father wants to leave the business and take wife (Sandina) and their young son to some nice tropical resort, with light and sun, and leave the nasty Sao Paolo streets behind, and leave the club to Fraser. Fraser, however, is the true father of the young boy (that was obvious from the beginning); however, don't think badly of Sandina - she plays a character who basically loves both men and at the end of the day is just trying to make it through this dark world.

Sao Paolo, as a character, is dark, tough, nasty, spiteful . . . kind of like L.A. In fact, this film probably could have been set in LA and had much of the same effect.

The only character for whom you can really have sympathy (basically you just feel pathetically sorry for the young child) is Mos Def, who plays a young African immigrant dishwasher who they use as the contact for the Africans. He is in WAY over his head, and is the single only character in this movie who has ANY morals whatsoever.

So, what you have is a decent movie, lots of intrigue, lots of grit, lots of people throwing things around and cutting each other, and it remains fairly intense up until

SPOILERS COMING! DON'T SAY YOU HAVEN'T BEEN WARNED!



Mos Def in a huge motorcycle chase through the nightstreets. The girl who had helped him out (which is a side plot - she dies, too - that's sad, but somehow a little pointless),

and then at the end, the big showdown between father and son, and then the transvestite man-whore whose face Fraser had sliced up in a fit of rage at the beginning of the movie shows up and blows him away! Now, that might have stood for Karma or Just Desserts or whatever you wanna callit, but then man-whore tries to kill Glenn and Sandina and Glenn kills him and it's just like a Shakespearean tragedy, but for some reason this final scene feels a little farcical.

Glenn dies by telling Mos Def to get wife and young boy to safety, and they all drive off into the sunrise, and all of this has taken place in the span of only one night (still my favourite plot scenario ever!) and

I just now remembered! They left the old blind Brazilian prophet sitting alone in the room with three dead bodies! They just drove off and left him there!

That's a bite.

I didn't mention the blind "seer" before, did I? He's a wonderful character. You feel for him too, because basically he knows all without seeing all, and even though the death scene was silly, here's a nice piece of dialogue:

Old Man (to Glenn): That question you asked before, about does your wife really love you? Do you want to know the answer?

Glenn (after a pause): Nah - not really. (Then he dies)



Ah, yeah! There's a smile!



All in all, not a bad movie - could have been done better. Personally, for everyone to get their desserts, I'd've had the man-whore kill Fraser, then Glenn kills man-whore, cops come to clean up and "liberate" the money from him, but he sells the club to another investor and takes off out of town anyway, with wife and young child, to start a new life tending bar in Aruba - it's not the retirement that he hoped for, but at least it's a more honest living.

But that's just me.


VG