King of the Ants (2004)
A house painter becomes an assassin in the latest film from terminally uneven B-auteur Stuart Gordon. The film has interesting ideas about the limits of what man can or should do, as well as a surprising and complex understanding of morality (it's one of the rare films to nail the difference between immorality and amorality), but it's damaged by a screenplay that knows where it wants to go but doesn't quite know the way there, and it's fatally wounded by a godawful lead performance by Chris McKenna. Kind of worth seeing anyway, just for the obvious fun George Wendt is having in subverting his image, but it's pretty clear to me why this couldn't buy a theatrical dance.
Grade: C+
A house painter becomes an assassin in the latest film from terminally uneven B-auteur Stuart Gordon. The film has interesting ideas about the limits of what man can or should do, as well as a surprising and complex understanding of morality (it's one of the rare films to nail the difference between immorality and amorality), but it's damaged by a screenplay that knows where it wants to go but doesn't quite know the way there, and it's fatally wounded by a godawful lead performance by Chris McKenna. Kind of worth seeing anyway, just for the obvious fun George Wendt is having in subverting his image, but it's pretty clear to me why this couldn't buy a theatrical dance.
Grade: C+
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