Let's talk about Skinhead movies, shall we? That's a fun genre. Romper Stomper, American History X, Green Street Hooligans - they all run the gambit from exploitative fun to depressing cautionary tales with ease. Some even do both!
With such a great track record of good movies, you could be excused for thinking every movie about bald-headed, racist scumbags causing trouble would be good. Then you'd accidentally find yourself watching "Pariah."
Pariah follows the story of a man who joins a skinhead group to stalk and kill all of them in revenge for the gang rape of his black girlfriend that ended in her suicide. You might ask yourself "one would a skinhead - someone who inherently believes people of color are less than human - want to have sex with a black woman, even if forced?" The question is never answered. I guess the writers didn't know how to make you hate the characters unless they used a woman's emotional pain and eventual suicide as a plot device. Pretty sure those other movies I mentioned didn't have rape scenes and worked perfectly anyway.
There's a scene that works early on where the boyfriend cusses out his mother for trying to get him to read the bible - but we never see her again and that's about the last chunk of character development our fair protagonist gets.
He crafts an elaborate revenge plan wherein he disguises himself as a skinhead, infiltrates the group and proceeds to... do nothing the rest of the film. I guess the implication is he's going to trick them all into getting themselves killed or something? But that doesn't happen. Instead, nothing happens.
The film makes the avant-garde, experimental and oh so artistic move of having absolutely nothing happen the entire rest of the film. There's a lot of scenes of the Nazis behaving badly, being scumbags, arguing with each other, doing drugs and drinking beer, swearing at each other some more, not bathing and generally being creepy, loathsome jerks. The film is so obsessed with executing these scenes, it forgets things like basic act structure or even basic storytelling.
Nothing happens in this movie. There's no build up, no pay off, no revenge, no tragedy, no pivotal events, nothing. The protagonist isn't even the protagonist after the thirty minute mark, becoming just another empty character in a film populated by them.
The ending of the film, which I will not spoil for conveniences sake, comes out of nowhere and resolves nothing, paying off for a moment in the film you could easily be forgiven for forgetting about.
The film meanders around aimlessly with no plan, plot or end goal. It's only purpose seems to be to show how awful and scummy it's main characters are - which I could have easily guessed, since they're Neo Nazis. Apparently someone felt it necessary to make a movie to tell us about how evil and nasty Nazis are. Which is like making a movie to tell us water is wet.
Roger Ebert pushed this film as a "better version of Fight Club." Which is just about the stupidest thing any film critic has even written that's been published. Even if you only saw Fight Club on a broken VHS tape on a tiny black-and-white television, it's still a better movie than "Pariah."
It's a film with no tension, conflict of payoff or any kind despite it's shocking and upsetting opening (which Pink Floyd's "The Wall" pulled off far better despite only devoting a few seconds to it.) This is a film that just gives up and never bothers to finish itself.
It would all be forgivable if this was the only movie of it's kind to tackle it's subject matter, but it wasn't even the first! This movie came out six years after "Romper Stomper."
This film goes nowhere, does nothing and has no kind of climax or payoff of any kind. Even if there weren't dozens of other, better movies in this genre, this film still wouldn't be worth watching. Don't bother with this turd. Go rent "American History X" instead.
With such a great track record of good movies, you could be excused for thinking every movie about bald-headed, racist scumbags causing trouble would be good. Then you'd accidentally find yourself watching "Pariah."
Pariah follows the story of a man who joins a skinhead group to stalk and kill all of them in revenge for the gang rape of his black girlfriend that ended in her suicide. You might ask yourself "one would a skinhead - someone who inherently believes people of color are less than human - want to have sex with a black woman, even if forced?" The question is never answered. I guess the writers didn't know how to make you hate the characters unless they used a woman's emotional pain and eventual suicide as a plot device. Pretty sure those other movies I mentioned didn't have rape scenes and worked perfectly anyway.
There's a scene that works early on where the boyfriend cusses out his mother for trying to get him to read the bible - but we never see her again and that's about the last chunk of character development our fair protagonist gets.
He crafts an elaborate revenge plan wherein he disguises himself as a skinhead, infiltrates the group and proceeds to... do nothing the rest of the film. I guess the implication is he's going to trick them all into getting themselves killed or something? But that doesn't happen. Instead, nothing happens.
The film makes the avant-garde, experimental and oh so artistic move of having absolutely nothing happen the entire rest of the film. There's a lot of scenes of the Nazis behaving badly, being scumbags, arguing with each other, doing drugs and drinking beer, swearing at each other some more, not bathing and generally being creepy, loathsome jerks. The film is so obsessed with executing these scenes, it forgets things like basic act structure or even basic storytelling.
Nothing happens in this movie. There's no build up, no pay off, no revenge, no tragedy, no pivotal events, nothing. The protagonist isn't even the protagonist after the thirty minute mark, becoming just another empty character in a film populated by them.
The ending of the film, which I will not spoil for conveniences sake, comes out of nowhere and resolves nothing, paying off for a moment in the film you could easily be forgiven for forgetting about.
The film meanders around aimlessly with no plan, plot or end goal. It's only purpose seems to be to show how awful and scummy it's main characters are - which I could have easily guessed, since they're Neo Nazis. Apparently someone felt it necessary to make a movie to tell us about how evil and nasty Nazis are. Which is like making a movie to tell us water is wet.
Roger Ebert pushed this film as a "better version of Fight Club." Which is just about the stupidest thing any film critic has even written that's been published. Even if you only saw Fight Club on a broken VHS tape on a tiny black-and-white television, it's still a better movie than "Pariah."
It's a film with no tension, conflict of payoff or any kind despite it's shocking and upsetting opening (which Pink Floyd's "The Wall" pulled off far better despite only devoting a few seconds to it.) This is a film that just gives up and never bothers to finish itself.
It would all be forgivable if this was the only movie of it's kind to tackle it's subject matter, but it wasn't even the first! This movie came out six years after "Romper Stomper."
This film goes nowhere, does nothing and has no kind of climax or payoff of any kind. Even if there weren't dozens of other, better movies in this genre, this film still wouldn't be worth watching. Don't bother with this turd. Go rent "American History X" instead.