The Rise and Fall of Lily Amirpour

2014 was a breakthrough year for Kent born director, Ana Lily Amirpour, with the release of her breakthrough directorial feature-debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. The film was given the rather odd entitlement of being “the first Iranian vampire spaghetti western”, and seemed to signal the arrival of a new, exemplary talent promising to inject life into numerous genres with her taste for hybridity and subversion. 2017 has marked the year of her return for those of us in the UK; it was announced that she would be pursuing ideas of a cannibal horror film. How exciting - needless to say, genre fans captivated by her debut were thrilled at the idea of her unique style blending with a beloved sub-genre. After being dubbed “the next Tarantino” by Vice creative director, Eddy Moretti, who wouldn’t be excited at such a prospect? All signs seemed to signal the confirmation that a director of rare greatness had arrived. Disappointment is a terrible thing. The Bad Batch, her second feature film and Netflix original production, is a dull world brimming with hollow ideas.

A future dystopia is established in the films exposition; a dangerous wasteland of which Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) must endure after being ejected from a complex in the middle of the desert. In an admittedly rather impressive opening scene, she is left a little worse for wear, and suffers the displeasure of being relieved of an arm and a leg - yes, literally. After this ordeal, which effectively uses pop music to create a surreal and oddly comic tone, the film takes a different approach. Everything post-exposition feels tedious, sophomoric, and pointless, apart from the occasional appeal of well-crafted set design.

It just feels as if the protagonist, Arlen, wanders aimlessly until she is greeted by a select few willing to provide her with a narrative open to plot development. Even the outlaid tasks feel forced and unnecessarily obvious; taking on a rescue narrative with no stakes whatsoever is a daunting task, and without compelling characters it is a foolish one. What may be more foolish, however, is the needless inclusion of actors that simply do not need to be there, and are wasted in shallow roles. Some audiences may have been asking what Jim Carrey has been doing, and this provides the answer; wasting talent. Regarded as The Hermit, Carrey aimlessly scouts the desert plains of this cannibalistic, Mad Max-esque universe in search of something to do, and of course, finds nothing but characters with equally prosaic things to say. Carrey really could have worked to the films advantage, and had the comedic chops to bless the film with some enjoyable aspects. Instead, he is simply there for the sake of being there, offering nothing but empty decoration to the casting; and on to the next casting mistake: Keanu Reeves.

The Bad Batch the Worst of a Mixed Bag

Keanu Reeves, who most cannot separate from the role of Neo in The Matrix franchise, is cast as a man named The Dream. His acting is wooden, and many directors know this and work it to their advantage, and in this knowledge, can pry an interesting performance out of his likeable public persona. His career resurgence with the recently successful John Wick films has made him a much more in-demand star than previous years had made people believe. He brings a fun, competent gravitas to the productions, and in the case of the sequel, ridiculous and comedic notions that make it a delight. Here, he is also wasted, and seems to do nothing but read from a script that falls short of its pretentious aspirations. The narrative does none of the other elements no favours, but when the occasional offer of visual intrigue is excluded from Amirpour’s other achievements, there is little to be desired. The Bad Batch is bland, borrows far too much from recent success stories, and exists in a universe of dead characterisation and mundanities. To bounce back from this one would be a mircle - do not hold out hope.

Written by Christopher Weston