Various ideas are flirted with only to be dropped altogether before they can have any impact. The various styles- Russ Meyer level exploitation, road trip bonanza, would-be love story, revenge tale-sit uneasily next to one another, never cohesively forming into a singular approach. But Amirpour presents a surprising lack of conviction in her own voice making the film’s most recognizable trait its utter confusion. These first 15 minutes are undoubtedly the strongest thanks to the sure tone and unflinching violence which is simultaneously absurd and nauseating. The near-wordless opening of Arlen being tagged, released into the wild, having her limbs sawed off, and her eventual escape presents a slew of intriguing avenues to explore. It feels oddly claustrophobic because the world-building is too scattershot and poorly conceived. But she musters the strength to escape her captors, setting off on an absurdist journey in which she meets a slew of off-beat characters, each more infuriating than the last.ĭespite the way cinematographer Lyle Vincent capably shoots the dusty landscape, blaring neon of The Dream’s slice of paradise, and gleaming night sky, this world doesn’t feel expansive. Arlen is quickly captured by cannibals, only to have her arm and leg sawed off. This is a world brimming with heavily muscled cannibals, bedraggled savages, scavengers, and mad men. “The Bad Batch” centers uneasily on Arlen ( Suki Waterhouse), a young Texan woman released into the wild desert frontier where all the undesirables of America are forced to weather dangerous terrain to survive. Late in the film, Keanu Reeves as a heavily mustachioed messiah figure called The Dream asks a question to the effect of, “Is all this really necessary?” I found myself wondering the same thing. The strange mix of genres and obvious influences sit uneasily next to each other. Unfortunately, what made Amirpour compelling as a raconteur with her previous film gets lost on the broader canvas of "The Bad Batch." It’s astounding that a director that portrayed such stylistic panache in her debut could produce such an aimless, empty, muddled spectacle that reaches for the mythic but stumbles toward the mundane. Amirpour’s first film, “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,” culled inspiration from a multitude of genres in a way that heralded the emergence of a distinctive directorial voice.
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