My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2010) R

If you haven't seen a Werner Herzog (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Rescue Dawn) or a David Lynch (Mulholland Dr., The Elephant Man) film, this review doesn't pertain to you. That is unless you want to try something different, something daring, something ugly, something beautiful, something just plain odd (usually in a good way). I've never really seen anything like this film before, and I'm quite certain that's what writer/director Herzog was aiming for. For most of the country this film was unavailable to us, which pretty much makes it a straight-to-DVD film. The lead, Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, The Missing Person), happens to be one of my favorite supporting actors around. So I decided to give it a whirl. I'm glad I did.

It's a simple storyline. Shannon plays Brad McCullum. He murders his mother with a sword at the neighbors house. He then takes "hostages" and barricades himself in his mothers house. The police have the place surrounded. But quite frankly everyone is confused (myself included) why he did it, and why his mother? Brad throws cylinders of oatmeal out his garage, he plays sermons on a small CD player and shouts prophecies out his door which flashing his shotgun. Nothing is adding up. His fiance Ingrid (Chloe Sevigny) shows up on the scene, and she tries to explain his behavior to Detective Hank Havenhurst (Willem Dafoe).

The majority of the film consists of various flashbacks. About a year ago Brad came home from a kayaking trip to Peru. Before hitting the rapids Brad heard a voice inside his head telling him not to get into the water. He stays behind, and the rest of the crew drowns. Put yourself in his shoes. Now what? From that day forward, Brad listens to that voice, no matter what it says. There are some fantastic shots taken in Peru, really beautiful stuff. A lot of the great camera work and still shots are unexplainable, but they're often wondrous.

We also see flashbacks of Brad visiting his Uncle Ted (Brad Dourif). Dourif (Halloween, Bride of Chucky) is creepy, racist, surprisingly funny, and is full of stories about 40 pound chickens and midgets. Brad burrows a sword from Ted, which becomes the murder weapon. Brad is obsessed with this sword.

Brad's old theater director Lee Meyers (Udo Kier) shows up on the scene, as well. Brad was in a play where he murders his mother with a sword (sound familiar?). Things begin to slowly add up. But the story really takes a back seat to Brad's manners, rants, and odd prophecies. I mean the guy thinks God dwells in his kitchen pantry. He believes the Quaker oatmeal guy is God. You can laugh if you want, but this whole story is based on true events, which is quite scary and fascinating.

I'm just sick of viewing the same formula films that just regurgitate the same crap, over and over again. This is definitely not one of those films. Some might say it's pointless, stupid, or a waste of time. I say it's daring, fresh, and oddly entertaining. Shannon is fantastic as usual. He's so creepy and eerie. Dafoe (Antichrist, Spider-Man), Sevigny (American Psycho, Zodiac), Kier (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, End of days) and Dourif are all good. Especially Dourif. We also got Michael Pena (Crash, Observe and Report), Loretta Devine (Crash, Death at a Funeral), Irma P. Hall (Collateral, The Ladykillers) and Grace Zabriskie (Armageddon, Gone in Sixty Seconds) in the mix. I'm not going to sit here and recommend this film, I can't do that. Because I know for a fact you will hate it, and I don't care. I enjoyed it. It's impossible to grade. It's in the what the hell did I just watch column. But I'm glad I took the trip.
C+