[COUNTER CLOCKWISE is no available on home video and VOD.]
Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
Filmmaker George
Moise' agreeably low-budget time-travel yarn had me for while…then lost me…then
had me…then lost me etc. I suppose on balance it’s pretty good, aspiring
essentially to being a cause-effect teaser in the tradition of 12 MONKEYS and DONNIE
DARKO (other stated inspirations were the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy and an
indie I never saw, TIMECRIMES). I might even throw in there local writer James
Renner’s novel The Man From Primrose Lane (even though that’s a bit of a
spoiler).
These are not bad
associates, at least when things stay fairly cerebral. Which is about more than
half the time in COUNTER CLOCKWISE. Nebbishy inventor Ethan (Michael Kopelow)
working in a private lab on platforms that, a la THE FLY, teleport living
things (there’s a one-eyed dog he uses as a test animal), crosses the wrong
wire and ends up with a time machine instead.
Experimenting on
himself, he zaps himself into his lab a months into the future - to find the
complex closed down, his beloved wife murdered, his mother institutionalized,
and himself a notorious fugitive, object of a manhunt as a brutal mass-murderer.
Trying to use the
time machine to unravel what went wrong, he uncovers corporate conspiracies and
criss-crossing timelines that indicate that Ethan already did (or already will)
take more trips back in time to correct his errors and try to sort things out.
Speaking of which…Home-video
is probably an ideal format for this one, as it may take a few repeat viewings –
and even a few DIY charts on scrap paper - to begin to understand the
deliberately convoluted narrative. Also check out the making-of extras and
commentaries on the Artsploitation DVD release, in which Moise describes not
only the fraught creation of the picture (with reshoots and stop-start
progress) but the auteur’s frustration with having to satisfy focus-groups and
test audiences, who couldn’t comprehend what was going on. Well…duh, as we used
to say in school.
Another thing on
which those test auds were correct are the discordant ways the plot turns
graphically violent, then positively sadistic, amidst eye-rolling, exaggerated
performances, pretty much turned in by all but Kopelow. This kind of arch-Coen
Brothers approach, with its darkly comedic elements, is said by Moise to arise
from a most surprising influence: Woody Allen's BULLETS OVER BROADWAY.
Well, Moise is
something of an original I think; not your run-of-the-mill 'Dr. Who' nerd. And in stretches the filmmaking team's raw
enthusiasm shines through COUNTER CLOCKWISE, even as you’re scratching your
head. Science-fiction audiences who appreciate a nice try, even when it doesn’t
entirely work, with some very lateral thinking thrown in, are the best audience
for COUNTER CLOCKWISE. And, as I say, my rating applies best if you take time
for all the extras and deleted scenes and featurettes that strive to fill in the story blanks and iron out the chronological loops and Moebius strips. (2 3/4 out of 4
stars)
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