| [BACK]
MILLIONS by Tom McCurrie
It's currently in very limited release, and probably will get lost in the endless stream of big-budget Hollywood behemoths with their superstar casts and 5,000 screen release patterns, but if MILLIONS ever gets to a theatre near you, give it a chance.
Now as Dirty Harry once said, I know what you're thinkin'. Directed by Danny Boyle and written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, MILLIONS is superficially a kid's movie with a bunch of no-name actors who speak in often garbled (i.e. English) accents. Not too promising at first glance. But remember that Danny Boyle's claim to fame was the provocative thriller SHALLOW GRAVE (1995). And Boyle apes that earlier Look-I-Found-A-Bag-Of-Money plot in MILLIONS, producing a surprisingly provocative kid's movie as well.
The set-up is deceptively simple. Young Damian (Alexander Etel) discovers a bag of money, thinking it's from God. He attempts to do good with it by helping poor people, and we soon expect the sap to run wild. But Boyle leavens the sap with a harsh dose of reality: when Damian's brother finds out about the cash, he uses it for his own personal gratification (becoming too cool for school), and when Damian's father finds out about the money, he decides to keep it for himself since after several hard knocks (including the untimely death of his wife), he feels life owes it to him. Damian and his brother also like to play the My-Mother-Just-Died Card, which gets them everything from free candy at the local store to a free pass from the principal if they do something wrong. Dark behavior like this makes MILLIONS refreshingly unsentimental for a kid's movie.
MILLIONS is also extremely suspenseful for a kid's movie. For it turns out the bag of money wasn't dumped by God, but by a nasty train robber, and that robber comes to Damian's neighborhood looking to get his ill-gotten gains back...or else. Then there's the effective ticking clock -- Britain is about to switch to the Euro, but the bag contains pounds. So Damian & Co. only have a week to spend the money before it becomes worthless. All this tension keeps both adults and kids glued, making MILLIONS a film that truly appeals to the whole family, as opposed to one where parents have to suffer in silence until the torturous ordeal is over (the POKEMON movies, anyone?).
MILLIONS' stylistic flourishes also set it apart from typical family fare like ICE PRINCESS. Boyle layers on the surreal touches with eye-popping visual effects, ranging from Damian's vision of St. Francis of Assisi to a cardboard "rocket" shooting Damian's family all the way to Africa. No bland vision of suburbia here; this is a world where anything can happen, and that sense of unpredictability, of what wild event could be around the next corner, keeps us hooked.
The main question MILLIONS asks (at least in its marketing campaign) is whether anyone can be truly good. This one is easy to answer, as Damian selflessly devotes the stolen money to the poor. But the film ends up posing a more daring (and less marketable) question: "Can evil come from doing good?" Damian spreads so much money around trying to help people he attracts the attention of the robber, who ends up threatening his entire family. Can evil come from doing good? A complex, morally ambiguous question like this is provocative for an adult film nowadays, never mind one aimed at children. Even many of our supposedly "challenging" independent features tend to spoon-feed their audiences with obvious moral bromides that preach to the converted, so we leave the theatre the same way we came in. And what's the point of that? MILLIONS should be saluted for avoiding pat answers...
At least till the climax. MILLIONS' major flaw is its final message -- money doesn't buy happiness...in fact, it actually causes unhappiness according to this movie. This is much too predictable, and simplistic, a message, even for a kid's flick. Kids are much sharper than we give them credit for, and they'll see through this sappy lesson that has so little to do with life and so much to do with the box-office economics of happy endings. For in the end, money, like a firearm, is neither good nor evil. It's just a tool, and like all tools it can be used to hurt or help people. Of course, focusing on money as the be all and end all in life makes you shallow and materialistic, which is one sure way to be unhappy. But not having money makes you unhappy as well, especially if it means going without food, shelter or proper medical care. MILLIONS may be a provocative story, but its rote "Money is the Root of All Evil" ending is a bitter disappointment.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
(Note: For all those who missed my past reviews, they're now archived on Hollywoodlitsales.com. Just click the link on the main page and it'll take you to the Inner Sanctum. Love them or Hate them at your leisure!)
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles and is currently writing a novel about Spaghetti Westerns.
|
