Movie: Big Bad Wolves
Director: Navot Papushado and Aharon Keshales
Cast: Lior Ashkenazi, Rotem Keinan, Tzahi Grad and Doval’e Glickman
Rating: ****
When Quentin Tarantino raves about a film, there’s something to look forward to in it because he’s not one of those filmmakers who’d say such things for limelight. And as he rightly pointed out, this Israeli torture thriller is uniquely brilliant in a very subtle way. Although it might seem like just another revenge story, but “Big Bad Wolves” is what “Pulp Fiction” was nearly twenty years ago. Agreed it might not appeal to everybody, especially not for all those who can’t stand violence, but it still entertains with its intermittent use of humour, which I personally feel was used extremely well.
The mood of the film is set in the opening scene, where a school teacher is picked up by three cops, beaten up mercilessly, because they think he’s responsible for killing and beheading a number of little girls. This entire episode is videotaped by a young boy, who later posts it on Youtube, only to make things worse for the police as well as the suspect. After the video goes viral, the suspect is released due to lack of evidence but a police detective is convinced and strongly believes otherwise. While searching for an opportunity to prove that the suspect is indeed guilty, the father of latest victim sets out to take revenge. What happens when these three characters cross paths?
From scene one, we get a clear picture about the tone of the film. It’s a revenge story, laced with extremely violent torture sequences you and I can ever imagine. I liked the film for this exact reason as it tells us right at the beginning about what we can expect from it and it delivers it promptly. How many films that you know of have successfully achieved that? I would be surprised if that number touched double digit.
In the opening scene, three kids – a boy and two girls – are playing hide and seek close to a cabin in the woods. This results in the disappearance of one of the girls, indicating that what appeared to be a game of fun till then suddenly turns into one grim tale of torture, revenge and redemption. Despite the familiarity in its plot with several films in the same genre, BBW stands out for successfully oscillating from thriller to comedy to psychological horror albeit clichés.
Directors Navot Papushado and Aharon Keshales never let you root for any character and that’s precisely why there’s no character called a hero in this film. Akin to the title, every character is a wolf, big bad wolf, cunning and unpredictable. Sample this scene. The father of the latest victim takes the suspect captive, far away from human contact and tortures him to find out about the whereabouts of his daughter. But he has a surprise visitor in the form of his father who lends a hand in torturing and turns out to be nastier than him.
Even with lot of blood, you’re entertained by the film as it at regular intervals entertains with dark humor. For instance, right when the torturer is set to bash the hand of the suspected serial killer with a hammer, his annoying mother calls to inquire on him. The subsequent conversation with his mother is hilarious. The directors also use some racist humor about Arabs and Jews to evoke laughter even in the most serious scenes.
“Big Bad Wolves” is undoubtedly the most entertaining serial killer film in recent times narrated with gusto.