Movie Review: Choke
Book readers may be disappointed, all others... I'm not so sure
Photo: Fox Searchlight
The audience for Choke will be split among two groups of people. Those that haven't read the Chuck Palahniuk novel the film is based on and those that have. Those that haven't read the book are likely to call it raunchy and crude while those that have read the book will be more inclined to call it tame and only a shell of the story Palahniuk told on paper. I fall in the latter group and it is the main reason I wasn't all that shocked by the subject matter or intrigued by the storytelling. Then again, if anyone told me this film was overly raunchy or rude I would have to disagree even if I hadn't read the book. I may have a relatively high tolerance for that kind of stuff, but this film may bump up against the edge, but it isn't pushing it.
Choke tells the story of Victor Mancini played by Sam Rockwell, quite possibly the only actor that should play the role. Rockwell is one of Hollywood's most underrated actors and he certainly has the acting chops necessary for a character such as Victor as if the role had been written with him in mind. Victor is something of a con artist who goes to restaurants and forces himself to choke on food only to have an unsuspecting guest at the same restaurant save him and then form an emotional attachment of which Victor can feed off. On top of this he works at a colonial re-enactment theme park with his best friend Denny (Brad William Henke), a chronic masturbator. Oh, and did I forget to say Victor is also a sex addict? Yeah, that's part of his repertoire as well.
The cast includes Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald, Clark Gregg, Heather Burns, Brad William Henke, Joel Grey, Gillian Jacobs, Paz De La Huerta and Isiah Whitlock Jr.. For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Review
"Choke" is a Fox Searchlight Pictures release, directed by Clark Gregg and is rated R for strong sexual content, nudity and language.
Actor turned writer/director, Clark Gregg, helmed the pic and even plays a small role in the film. Gregg fought for a long time to get the story on screen and I give him credit for getting it made and picked up by a major distributor, but as I wrote in an editorial over a year ago this is a film you can't make without it being NC-17. The raunch in Palahniuk's story is extremely sexual, but it isn't gratuitous, while it feels as if everything in the story may only be feeding our prurient interests the ending reveals there is much more to the story using the overly sexual situations to its advantage.
My advice is to certainly read the book before considering the movie. While Gregg has made a nice little film it just doesn't live up to the source material which had much more substance. Then again, I am speaking from a rather biased viewpoint and you may want to judge for yourself.
C+
Links from Other Sites You May Like
Comments
~ PLEASE NOTE ~
If, in any way, your comment is an attack on the author of this post or a previous commenter, your comment will be deleted without question.
Add a New Comment |
Click to Read Our Commenting Rules & Guidelines
Join the conversation!
Got something to say? Scroll down and post the first comment.