Out of limits
Starring Michael Anthony Hall, Jenny Wright, Jeff Kober, Glynn Turman
Directed by Richard Tuggle
Written by Tony Kayden
The teen movie is the black hole of Hollywood. It swallows up-and-coming actors and directors alike. It draws in the young and old beyond its inescapable event horizon, always hungry for fresh blood. The body count is staggering.
Consider Francis Ford Coppola. After having been the brain of classics as irrefutable as The conversation, apocalypse nowand the Godfather sagas, boldly tackled the teen genre with The outsiders – and with the same audacity fell on his face. Returning to her feet, she summarily dusted off her pants and proceeded to stumble. thunder fish (also know as the godson). Although his second trip into the world of teen angst was a dangerously moody piece with moments of heartbreaking beauty, it lacked the steady genius of his earlier works.
But where Coppola, for the most part, survived his fall from grace, lesser mortals have been much less fortunate.
Consider Richard Tuggle. After appearing out of nowhere to write the script for Clint Eastwood Escape from Alcatraz – his first film, mind you – he quickly moved on to writing and directing Tightropeone of Eastwood’s best movies.
Word spreads faster through Hollywood than a wildfire through the desert, and word spread: Richard Tuggle is hot.
But “hot” is a relative term. In an industry where financial statements are long and memories short, you’re only as good as your last movie. after Out of limitsRichard Tuggle is as hot as a political prisoner in a Siberian gulag.
Your problems begin with the choice of material. After writing his first two feature films himself, he is now working from a screenplay by Tony Kayden, a veteran TV movie-of-the-week writer with credits such as runaway family Y ambush murders. The story is about a redneck from the Midwest (Anthony Michael Hall of sixteen candles Y the breakfast club) who arrives in the big city (Los Angeles) and goes on the run after being accused of a crime he did not commit (the murder of his brother). It’s chock-full of secondhand plotlines and idiotic dialogue meant to convince us that Hall really is a redneck from the Midwest and co-star Jenny Wright (Fire of San Telmo) is truly an urban punk rocker.
Not having written this gut himself, Tuggle fights on foreign soil. The steering is flaccid throughout, as if he couldn’t care less.
The end of the film is downright sloppy. One sequence is particularly incongruous: After spending most of the film tracking Hall on suspicion of murder, police lieutenant Delgado (Glynn Turman) makes a sudden change of heart by stating that Hall is now “alone” and needs his help. . But it’s not until the next scene that Delgado gets the evidence that proves Hall’s innocence.
Looks like someone fell asleep in the editing room.
Out of limits It’s shoddy cinema at its worst. Watching Tuggle fall into the miasma of teen movies, after showing great promise with Tightrope – It’s not a pleasant experience.
Although Hollywood film directors aren’t known for their asceticism (there’s no San Francisco de Azusa), one certainly wishes Tuggle had strove for art and left his wallet behind. He gets to pay the bills with it, no doubt, but he forgets to pay attention—to his audience or his craft.
Bottom line: if you’re in the mood for smart entertainment, Out of limits it’s out of the question.
