Adam’s Crawl Space: Deuces Wild

Not since The Boondock Saints has a movie wanted to be so cool and failed so hard.  Deuces Wild should have been a pretty interesting movie, but sadly it falls short on everything it attempts to accomplish.  The story is vanilla, the characters are boring exaggerations of how real people act and the stylistic choices have absolutely nothing of substance to back them up.  Oh, I’m sorry.  Are some of you still reeling from my Boondock Saints comparison?  I know that movie has an ungodly number of fans out there, but it was the most obvious choice to point to when it comes to stylistic melodramaction bullshit.    What a coincidence that Norman Reedus is in both of these buckets of piss.

I remember seeing the trailer for Deuces Wild and actually laughing out loud in the theater.   Even with just a 2 minute trailer, there was no way to hide the over dramatized performances in the flick which mainly came from Stephen Dorff (big surprise), Brad Renfro and the aforementioned Norman Reedus.    I know, I know, I hate on the Dorff a lot.  Get used to it; he’s got a nice list of shit to cull reviews from.   The studio knew this movie was bad, and you know how I know that?  It was released on May 3, 2002.  What is significant about that date you ask?  Anyone?  You in the back, I hear you, and you are correct.  A little film called Spider-Man directed by some awesome motherfucker named Sam Raimi was also released on May 3, 2002.  Woops.

They sent this fucker to die, and die it certainly did.  I only wish all prints had been burned and of course complimentary memory wipes offered to all the actors involved.  Director Scott Kalvert should be strapped down and forced to watch this movie on a loop until he promises never to direct again.  He did Basketball Diaries too, which I remember being ok at best.  It got its praise due to Leonardo Dicaprio, who I would carry a child for.  Don’t ask how I’m able to do that.  It’s complicated.

I realize 99% of you have no clue what movie this is and I know a few of you are probably a little steamed at me for hating on some actors or movies you love.  I only do it because I have to, folks.  Deuces Wild is the story of two brothers, Leon (Stephen Dorff/Deacon Frost/FearDotCom guy) and Bobby (Brad Renfro) who live in 1950s Brooklyn.  Their younger brother Alfonse died of a drug overdose three years earlier, because token bad guy Marco (Norman Reedus) kept selling him smack even after Leon had asked him to stop.  Marco goes to jail and does some time for the death of their brother.

Everything is roses for awhile.¬† Leon starts his own gang, the Deuces, which really is an unfortunate name to choose.¬† His only goal is to protect his block from drug pushers and the rival gang, the Vipers who are led semi-remotely by an incarcerated Marco.¬† ¬†The Deuces¬† are not all nice young men helping old ladies across the street though, they suffer from the same deficiencies that every gang does.¬† Early on in the movie, Bobby beats the crap out of a deaf kid because he walked onto the Deuces turf.¬† Nice guys.¬† The Deuces free ride is short lived because when¬† Marco is released from prison,¬† he’s hungry to establish dominance on the block once again.

I have to be honest here.  As soon as the credits rolled and I shut this off I had to mellow out.  I’m listening to Regina Spektor as I’m writing this so I don’t go off into some blind rage.  You may think that kind of hate makes a good Crawl Space, but really all that would look like is this:

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You don’t want to read a review from a caveman, and I don’t want to end up with a broken keyboard alright?

Not even James Franco could save this movie.  Balthazar Getty couldn’t do it either.  I should mention that DAMN does that guy look like a young Charlie Sheen.  It’s uncanny.  Frankie Muniz definitely did nothing to help the picture out other than look like his usual bug-eyed awkward self.  The film is a pint of piss when it wants you to believe that it’s a delicious frothing pint of lager.   It’s a bunch of bad accents spoken by wannabe tough-kids with zero charisma.  Even the characters that you’re supposed to like make it impossible for you to do so because they’re drawn up as one-dimensional and paper-thin as you can get.

I thought maybe, just maybe the gang battles would save some part of this movie but I was left with some very unintentionally funny fight scenes instead.  The typical bad director overuse of slow-motion, coupled with some truly laughable edits in these scenes nearly had me dying.  At one point it was as if every punch was dubbed with the sound of a shotgun blast, and it generally only took one blow to take a gang member down.  There’d be a punch, and then Kalvert would cut to another punch, and then another punch, and then another so it’s just like a montage of punches.  There didn’t even seem to be any sort of attempted realistic flow to the fight at all.  To top the battle off, the soundtrack to it all was, get ready for it, ELECTRIC GUITAR WANKERY.  That’s right.  This period film set in the 1950s features Yngwie Malmsteen (not really him) scoring the first big gang battle!   You know how it was back then.  Greasers would sit on the stoop of their building in Brooklyn smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and blaring Eddie Van Halen’s Eruption.  It was this scene that was the turnaround point to this movie becoming enjoyable and it graduated to the ‘so bad it’s good’ category.

Did I mention the Dorff single-handedly takes down the Vipers in that scene?  He shows up late because he’s banging his old lady and when he arrives, he discovers his Deuces are nearly beaten.  Naturally, he leaps into the air and clotheslines two Vipers (in slo-mo of course) sending them to the ground.  What follows was a Dorff punch-a-thon that capped one of the lamest and funniest gang fights ever put to film.  Guys, if you want to watch a good movie about punk ass kids running around in gangs, watch Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders first.  Watch Deuces Wild when you’re trashed or have friends over that you want to punish.

So what’s legitimately good about it then?  I thought about this for a long time, and the only thing I was able to come up with is that there’s a shirtless James Franco in here in a scene by a swimming pool.  I can just imagine Franco getting told the weekend box office totals for Deuces and him screaming  “I DON’T CAAAAARRRE!!” while snorting coke off of a Spider-Man comic book and being surrounded by a sea of boobs and cash.   I mean really, how strange is it that the guy is in a complete bomb and one of the biggest movies ever at the same exact time?  Ah, if I could only have been a fly on that wall.

What more do you want from me?¬† The final battle has to be seen to be believed.¬† I don’t want to overhype this nonsense, but it’s so silly that you need to check it out.¬† I won’t spoil it.¬† Norman Reedus does his best honestly with what he‚Äôs given in this.¬†¬† His character Marco is just too ordinary and generic to do anything really interesting with.¬† On paper the cast looks phenomenal, but it ends up just a big, ugly mess of bad ideas and even worse directing.¬† If you‚Äôre looking to rent a movie that wants to be Goodfellas with children minus all of the cool dialogue and neat-o direction, then by all means, this is for you.¬†¬† I suppose if you’re a fan of Newsies or Swing Kids this is kind of like that, only it sucks even harder and people hit each other with chains and bats.¬† As I said before, this movie does belong in the ‚Äòso bad it‚Äôs good‚Äô category, so I suppose I can recommend it even for you film buffs out there.¬† Just bring a supply of alcohol; it‚Äôll only make it funnier. ¬†¬†Oh by the way, Matt Dillon is in this.¬† He does nothing.¬†¬† Well, he punches Dorff, so that‚Äôs something.¬† I‚Äôm gone.

Mini Reviews!!

A Perfect Getaway –

Hi, David Twohy, it’s Adam.  You know, from the Breach!  Anyways, next time you write a movie, make sure you craft it so that you don’t have to stick a 4 hour flashback at the end of it.   You ruined an otherwise perfectly awesome Timothy Olyphant and Steve Zahn vehicle!!  Asshole.  The way you shot the flashback was pretty rad though.

Angels and Demons (THE REVIEW IS ONE LONG SPOILER) –

Ewan McGregor is a priest.  He flies a helicopter with an anti-matter device on board into the heavens to save the day, and parachutes to safety down into St. Peter’s Square.  FUCK YEAH.

Obsessed –

I watched 5 minutes of it.  Idris Elba has sex with Beyonce.  I got what I needed.

Recent posts by Adam

• Adam's Crawl Space: Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star - January 11th, 2012
• Review: Fruit Ninja Kinect Demo - August 18th, 2011
• Your Highness - April 11th, 2011
• Zack Snyder fired from Superman, Replaced with Tim Story - April 1st, 2011
• Adam's Crawl Space: Bear - March 7th, 2011

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