A cop walks into a nightclub with a duffel bag full of coke. Shortly after he enters said nightclub, a narc follows. She spots the duffel bag and notifies her superior, who’s as crooked as a witch’s nose. Her superior notifies another dirty cop, who helped steal the hefty amount of coke inside the duffel bag from the nightclub owner’s godson. Holed up in the belly of the nightclub is the kidnapped son of the first cop to walk into the nightclub – the accomplice of the dirty cop who held up the nightclub owner’s godson.

Thus sets the stage for Frédéric Jardin’s Sleepless Night – a white-knuckle nut-grabber out of France that adds great weight to the argument that the U.S. is slacking in the thriller department. If you’ve been playing along at home you’ll notice that out of the past three positive reviews I’ve written, two have come from overseas – Headhunters and The Raid: Redemption – and now Sleepless Night makes that three out of four. Ya blew it, America.

Vincent (Tomer Sisley – who looks remarkably like an Arabian John Turturro) is an undercover cop working to pull apart the Marciano drug ring at the seams. While holding up a shipment of coke with his partner Manuel, things go sour and Vincent is recognized by one of the transporters. Marciano has Vincent’s son kidnapped and holds him in a nightclub he owns until Vincent returns the shipment of coke. It turns out to be not that simple (as you can tell from the first paragraph) and a chain reaction of relentless suspense goes off inside the club.

Vincent falls into the league of men who are experts at their job and revered in the field, but at home are seen as failures – Tony Soprano and Walter White, for example. When his son is kidnapped, his guilt is the main force that drives his quest into the labyrinth of the nightclub. He’s always put his job before his family and now he’s Theseus come to slay the Minotaur. But unlike a lot of action heroes, Vincent doesn’t know martial arts. He gets the snot kicked out of him a lot, in fact, and the only person he manages to easily take down is a girl. I like it when flawed heroes are dragged through the gauntlet, so I empathized with Vincent a whole lot.

How anyone could strategize a rescue operation while house music is playing is beyond me. The club is stuffed with sweaty kids gyrating, packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Other parts of the club include a dim restaurant, a billiards room, the kitchen, a stairwell, and Marciano’s private quarters. It’s in this labyrinth that Jardin stages his thriller and thank the gods this man knows how to handle action-dynamics and geography. Even when three different parties are running around the club, hunting each other down, Jardin always lets us know exactly where they are. It would be very easy for the audience to get confused in this chaotic environment, but Jardin masterfully handles his chess pieces across the board. The kitchen fight scene between Vincent and the dirty cop manages to be epic in scale for such a confined space. It’s like a sloppy street brawl version of the kitchen fight from The Man From Hong Kong – the grandaddy of kitchen fight scenes.

The suspense in Sleepless Night ebbs and flows steadily through a series of “oh shit” moments until reaching its peak during the films closing minutes. Instead of the “pull the trigger” style of climax we see so often at the end of action films, Jardin shoves a knife in our hearts with an emotionally ambiguous ending that left me in ruins. This is the opposite of The Raid, which had incredible action but zero characterization. Sleepless Night is filled with so much characterization that even minor characters have full arcs. It’s engaging, thrilling, and very, very kickass.

Sleepless Night is now On Demand via Tribeca Film and is opening up in a very limited release on May 11.

On April 6, 1993, Makome M’Bowole, a youth of Central African descent, was shot in the head at point blank range while handcuffed to a radiator in a Paris police station. The police called it an “accident.” There had been hundreds of these so-called accidents since the 1980s around Paris and its low-income suburbs – known as banlieue districts. Needless to say, these senseless deaths at the hands of bonehead cops repeatedly led to rioting and birthed an unbearable tension between immigrant youths and the police.

This volatile banlieue society is captured in Mathieu Kassovitz‘s landmark 1995 film, La Haine. An eruptive and stylistically beautiful film, La Haine looks at one day in the life of three kids from immigrant families living in a working-class banlieue housing project outside of Paris. Vinz the Jew (Vincent Cassel), Saïd the Arab (Saïd Taghmaoui), and Hubert the African (Hubert Koundé) are all recovering after a night of heavy rioting. During the previous night’s chaos, a friend of the boys, Abdel,  was shot by a cop and is in critical condition in Paris. One other possibly explosive thing happened the night before: a cop lost his gun. And Vinz found it.

The three friends travel from the projects to central Paris getting in various mixes with police and other youths along the way. Early on in their journey it’s easy to see that race doesn’t mean a damn thing to these kids. While it may mean everything to the police and the society who has marginalized them, Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd are unified in their alienation, resentment, and anger. Vinz may be the most angry – he fantasizes about blowing away a cop and now he’s got the gun to make it happen. Hubert, whose boxing gym was destroyed in the night’s riot, is the most level-headed – a product of having to be the man of the house at an early age. And Saïd is stuck on the fence.

While the three actors have gone on to successful careers, they were unknown at the time. Vincent Cassel is now one of the most interesting actors working today. Saïd Taghmaoui has been in a ton of movies and TV shows, including Lost. And according to one of the special features on the Criterion Collection‘s Blu-ray release, we can all thank Hubert Koundé for coining the word “parkour.” Kassovitz, an accomplished actor in his own right, appears in the film as a skinhead, because what’s a movie about urban race relations without a skinhead.

Kassovitz shot the film in a style reminiscent of the Italian realists but with lots of flare thrown in. Think Luchino Visconti if he’d watched too much MTV. The style never takes away from the substance though – instead it emphasizes the scope and sprawl of the projects and Paris. From the legendary opening shot of the molotov hitting the earth to the crushing close-up of Saïd that closes the film, La Haine is a visual feast. The stunning helicopter shot over the projects while a DJ cuts KRS-One’s “Sound of Da Police” is the only helicopter shot in film history that’s worth a damn.

It’s a very funny film too. There’s an unshakable sense of humor that develops out of oppression and Kassovitz injected his film with perfectly timed bits of comedic relief. But no amount of humor can crack the power of the images onscreen. As fun as it is to watch Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd take the piss out of one another, the clock is still ticking. From the moment Vinz shows off his newly acquired revolver, it’s apparent this day isn’t going to end well.

The Criterion’s release features a wealth of special features, including a fantastic feature length documentary about the making of the film and its legacy. That one feature is worth the price of the disc alone. The actors and Kassovitz explain how they lived in the projects for two months in order to be accepted by the residents and not be seen as intruders with cameras. Their discussion on the Cannes experience is infuriating. The amount of misrepresentation thrown upon La Haine almost seems like a joke – every moronic media droogie portrayed it as promoting violence and 100 percent anti-police. There’s also a feature in which sociologists discuss the film’s banlieue setting, an introduction by Jodie Foster (who championed the film in America), production footage (in color!), deleted scenes, and commentary by Kassovitz. And, of course, the wizards at Criterion gave it the best high-def transfer possible. Black and white never looked so crisp.

10 years after its release, the sun hasn’t set on La Haine. The riots in the Paris suburbs in 2005 brought the debates put forth by the film back into the public conscious. Kassovitz got into a heated back-and-forth online with minister of the interior Nicolas Sarkozy, who infamously referred to he rioters as “scum.” You can read transcripts of the exchange over at the Criterion’s website. The La Haine Blu-ray is out now and is also available in a 2-disc DVD edition.

Here’s one last trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator before it hits theaters May 16. This one divulges more of the story line, specifically that Cohen’s dictator character gets stripped of his beard, and therefor his political power and recognition, and has to adjust to life in New York City. It’s something along those lines. Then there’s some new funny scenes in here besides just him shooting marathon runners, things such as kicking a little kid, and slapping some dude in a magenta blazer.

Unlike Cohen’s last two films, Borat and Bruno, this one will be completely scripted. Watch the trailer. Go watch the actual movie, May 16. It’ll probably offend a whole mess of people. It’ll be great.

Like a cockroach struggling to climb out of a toilet, Playback never reaches the top of the bowl. Michael A Nickles‘ film nearly manages to be a decent thriller, a decent horror movie, and a decent teen slasher, but looses its hold and drowns in implausible plot developments and sequences that are nonsensical even for a low-budget gore film. Playback does have some positive things going for it and it’s a perfect pick for a rainy Sunday evening while you’re waiting for Thrones to come on, but it’s sadly an all together forgettable film.

Aspiring filmmaker Julian (Johnny Pacar) is working on a project about some infamous murders that occurred in his small town back in 1994. He quickly discovers that his police lieutenant mother is covering something up and that the house where the murders took place is still standing. He also learns there was a baby found at the scene and that the guy who committed the wretched murders was a descendant of Louis Le Prince, the man who many argue is the true father of filmmaking. He’s a real guy, and his “Roundhay Garden Scene” is the oldest surviving motion picture.

Not only is the “Roundhay Garden Scene” historically significant, it also possesses anyone who watches it because Le Prince was actually the Devil! Didn’t see that coming, did you?! Julian’s gas-huffing acquaintance Quinn works at a local TV station and watches Le Prince’s film while doing research for Julian. He becomes instantly possessed. The rules of possession in Playback are baffling. Quinn can take control of other people, use them to do his dirt, but he has to be two floors above or below them. He can also possess through cameras and TVs, I think. What starts out as a fun, teen hijinks horror movie quickly gets bogged down in goofy possession nonsense.

There are some diamonds in the toilet though. The editing is top-notch and honestly saves Playback from being wholly unwatchable. It’s paced well and shot with skill. I was worried during the opening that a majority of the film would be found-footage style, but there’s hardly any of that. Phew. The acting isn’t terrible either. I would watch 90 minutes of Alessandra Torresani doing her taxes if given the chance. Christian Slater gets a small role as a pervert cop who diddles himself to footage of the girls’ locker room, shot on the down low by Quinn. His role amounts to nothing more than “Oh hey, it’s Christian Slater” and it gave them a recognizable name to put on the DVD cover.

I don’t want to sound too harsh. Playback is fun to watch, and like I said, it’s a perfect Sunday afternoon movie. I actually enjoyed the moments of the teens hanging out being all cliche more than the actual “scary” parts. This sort of death-by-video has been done better before (even Playback cites The Ring) but it’s probably been done worse too. So if you’re stumped next time you’re at the Red Box or on Netflix, give Playback a shot. That way if someone ever asks “Whatever happened to Christian Slater?” you’ll be the most knowledgeable person in the room.

Playback is available now on DVD and Blu-ray from Magnet. The disc includes a couple behind the scenes features, which include actual insight into the film, rather than being glorified promos like most behind the scenes are nowadays.

I was never into hardcore but my ex-girlfriend in college was. She was into all those bands with “blood” in their names and local Boston groups like Suicide File. I tolerated it – anything was better than Morrisey, her other love – and I even liked a few. My favorite parts were, of course, the breakdowns. All of them. Any of them. Breakdowns make me want to do push-ups and bang a chick – at the same time! The Raid: Redemption is like a bunch of hardcore breakdowns strung together with some flimsy exposition thrown in between. I couldn’t care less what was going on in between the breakdowns – just fast forward the verses and get to the throwdowns.

Here’s the inconsequential plot briefing: in Jakarta, a staggering amount of baddies are holed up in an apartment building, lorded over by ultimate scumbag Tama (Ray Shetapy), who resides at the top floor. A SWAT team arrives led by Rama (Iko Uwais), who can be seen in the film’s opening doing a plethora of badass stuff like praying and beating the stuffing out of a heavy bag. The SWAT team must fight their way up to the top of the tower, but on each floor resides more and more baddies armed with guns, knives, machetes, etc.. And they ALL know martial arts!

It’s essentially set-up like a video game, with each floor being another level until you have to fight the boss, Tama. There’s even a mini-boss! There are some twists and double-crosses along the way, but all you need to know is that there are a bazillion jaw-dropping fight sequences. Believe me, you will not see better choreography, camera-work or raw physical prowess in an action movie this year. Once the SWAT team enters the tower and the first trigger gets pulled, there’s a kinetic energy that never lets up. This movie is alive and it wants to kill you. The martial art of choice is the traditional Indonesian art of Silat, which I don’t think I had ever seen before director Gareth Evans‘ and Iko Uwais’ first collaboration, Merantau. Silat focuses on a lot of joint manipulation, which is infinitely more intense to watch than just a bunch of kicks to the face. Plus, everyone in the film is super tiny and scrappy, which makes the fights all the more interesting.

The mini-boss battle I mentioned earlier is unreal. It’s two-on-one with Rama and an ally taking on Tama’s number one fighter. There aren’t enough positive adjectives in my thesaurus or hyperbole in the universe to convey how sick this rumble is. It’s a solid three to five minutes long and over that time it escalates to reach a beautiful ballet of brutality the likes of which you may never see again. People in my theater cheered when it was over. I can’t wait for the home release so I can watch that fight on a loop.

My only problem with the film is minor considering what I assume the aim of the film is, but it did keep it from reaching the next level of action-movie greatness. When the SWAT team first enters the building and long after, everyone is wearing the same thing. Call me racist or whatever, but I couldn’t tell who was who, therefore I didn’t care about anyone who got killed (and A LOT of SWAT gets killed). That’s what keeps The Raid from being more than violent eye-candy to me. In the best action movies, like Die Hard and Leon and many others, we get emotionally invested in the fiction. All I gave a damn about in The Raid was the action because that’s all they let me care about. But that’s cool with me. They went for raw, visceral entertainment and they knocked it out of the fucking park.

The Raid: Redemption is playing in select U.S. cities. Go see it or else. Gareth Evans’ previous Indonesian martial arts throwdown Merantau is currently on Netflix Watch Instantly. Stream it or else.

So in a little over a week, Marvel’s The Avengers, as directed by “geek” favorite Joss Whedon, has racked up just under $650 Million in ticket sales, over $200,000,000 (boy that’s a lot of zeros) of which came from American moviegoers, making it the most successful opening of all time by a hefty margin. Now certainly that has a lot to say about the strength of its advertising, about Marvel’s cross-pollination gambit paying off in spades, about the country’s still fervent desire for franchise and sequel properties, and also the effect of inflated ticket prices (especially from 3D and IMAX) on box office revenue.

But really that, to me, only accounts for $150 Million US, maybe $160. Which is fine, fantastic even, better than almost everyone else. The special kind of magic in The Avengers is what accounts for that final push into history and the record books. Because the numbers dont lie: somehow, despite talk of “The Tesseract” and the general feel of the whole movie being something Biff Tannen would sock you for enjoying, The Avengers is a movie for everyone but it’s also about being a movie for everyone. Now you could take that as a bad thing: that it’s somehow bland, fine to all but not fantastic to anyone, but that’s not the case. Instead it’s the celluloid (or digital data, I suppose) incarnation of a universally enjoyable experience that’s also inherently communal.

It is a spectacle with just enough heart (maybe watching a fireworks show with your best gal, except here she turns into a giant green monster) and brains to make it not seem like a portent for an impending Idiocracy-style apocalypse. Best of all, it evokes what I imagine to be the original impetus behind the large scale cinema experience, the epochal difference in available technologies be damned. Funnily enough, the film stumbles legitimately only once, and it’s in its opening 15 minutes, as the puppets strings are tugged in a way too noticeable, and the characters say “important things” in very explanatory ways.

But, and I really believe this is true, there was almost no other way for Whedon to open this movie other than an info-dump that does a very good job of yanking that band-aid off so for the last 90 minutes you can just pin your face into a smiling rictus that tastes sweeter than the biggest Icee. Because once Tony Stark (Roberty Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and – yes – Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) find themselves on Joss Whedon’s playing field, he creates something that feels like a kid playing with all his action figures in the very best way possible.

Best of all he realizes what almost all other comic book movies forgot: when we play with toys, it’s not all smashing them together to go “boom.” There’s standing around and talking too (usually accompanied by fingers pinched firmly around their abdomens as you dodder them back and forth), whether it’s in Thor’s Mid-Atlantic oratory or a simple Hulk roar. The scenes of banter between the heroes (in wonderful sets like The Helicarrier, a starlit forest, and a half-decimated Manhattan) are almost as enjoyable as those of action, and often they bleed into each other with gusto. As much as they are fighting Loki (Hiddleston is perhaps the secret MVP here, as he was in Thor, and Marvel would be dumb to let this be his last appearance) and his Chitauri army (faceless goons really, and nothing like the Chitauri in the comics. Didn’t bother me though) they’re also battling amongst themselves and for our attention.

It’s a battle I’m happy to watch, as they display their powers in a way that has utility but is also ever-conscious of the inherent showmanship that accompanies being a superhero. As Captain America: The First Avenger so gleefully pointed out (and, by the way, the X-Men movies so deeply misunderstood), heroes don’t wear costumes because they’re useful. It’s because they look cool. Soon enough, the heroes realize that not only will teaming up make the defeat of the Chitauri easier, it also makes it more entertaining.

The scenes of hero collaboration are the movie’s best, whether it be Iron Man reflecting a proton cannon blast off Cap’s shield to strike a massive enemy, Thor and the Hulk battling a giant serpent, or (best of all) a faux-one-shot that whips us dizzyingly through the battle of Manhattan to check up on each and every one of our heroes. Everyone is doing their part. Everyone is trying hard.

American’s are hard wired to enjoy (and reward, as noted above) effort – human effort especially – and The Avengers has it in spades. There’s a very interesting byproduct of the utterly unsecret Marvel habit of post credits sequences. First of all **SPOILER ALERT** the mid credits sequence gives us a brief glimpse of Thanos, which sent my heart embarrassingly aflutter **END SPOILERS**. But, to borrow an astute observation from Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe, it forces you to stay through the gargantuan credits, an exercise that starts out tedious but eventually become awe-inspiring and somewhat vertigo inducing as the seemingly endless crawl of names continues. All of those people did actual work to make this thing for you to enjoy. The Avengers is a proudly collaborative effort, and the audience is part of that too. All the 80 million or so people that saw it worldwide. The most of all time.

How do you make a character memorable? Sure, you could do the really hard stuff like developing their backstory, giving them a rich personal history and well developed, consistent motivation. Or you could just give them a really badass name like Snake , John Matrix, of Maximus. Better yet, you can just slap a fucking awesome tattoo on and BOOM, instant characterization.

It works on so many levels. First of all they just look cool. Even though it seems like everyone’s got one, in reality only 24% of American’s are tatted up, and I bet an overwhelming majority of the rest have at least considered it at one point, and are secretly jealous of some of their friends’ ink. Also, a tattoo displays a certain level of commitment, so for a character each tattoo can tell a little story without words. #tactics. Here are the High Five movie tats.

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Honorable Mention: Francis Dolarhyde’s Dragon – Manhunter (1986)

In case you had forgotten, Tom Noonan is one terrifying looking motherfucker. His performance as Francis Dolarhyde in the original Hannibal movie, Michael Mann’s Manhunter, is not to be missed, as he’s simultaneously kind of pitiable but also pure nightmare fuel. One of the scariest moments in the film is when he doffs his shirt, whilst (of course) wearing some pantyhose half over his face, to reveal the giant William Blake red dragon tattoo he has.

Excepppppt this was never in the movie! What the fuck, right? What happened is they shot all of these scenes twice, once with the dragon and once without, and for whatever reason they decided that it worked better with just Noonan’s pasty ass flesh. Must have been a bummer for Noonan, because I imagine this wasn’t exactly a short sit in the makeup chair.

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5. Marky Mark’s “Nicole 4 Eva” – Fear (1996)

Hey look, two William Peterson movies in a row! Bizarre! I’m not really sure why (well, yes I am: it’s awesome) but I really love Fear. I’m sure you may have noticed, I mention it on the Bloglin a disproportionately large amount. I’m particularly struck by the scene where Wahlberg’s character gives himself the world’s skeeziest/most intense stick & poke tattoo.

It’s just a really weird scene in general, but it also probably sums up his strange obsession better than anything else in the film. First of all, he does the whole thing whilst staring intensely at himself in a mirror, and then I just remember the cavalier way that he cracks open that Bic pen and smears the ink on like it’s fucking Coppertone. Plus, I mean, come on: “4 Eva.” All timer.

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4. Russian Mob Tattoos – Eastern Promises (2007)

These are arguably the best part of this movie. They’re certainly the most memorable. Well, these and that move where Viggo pokes himself in the neck all angry like. Still not really sure what that means. Seriously though, these are some of the most purely badass tattoos ever put to film. It makes it even cooler that they are all based off actual Russian mobsters.

Nothing like Eastern European gangsters to make you feel like a real pussy. Bonus points for the scene where they tattoo the stars onto his kneecaps so he can prove his devotion. I’m gonna go ahead and assume that hurt real, real bad. I got a hangnail once.

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3. Leonard Shelby’s Memories – Memento (2000)

Alright, so this is kind of going back on what I said in the beginning of this post, because these tattoos are actually the entirety of the character’s backstory (or so he thinks. 12 year old spoiler alert. Sorry.), and pretty much the only thing he knows in the whole wide world. It’s a brilliant little conceit really: Leonard is nothing more than the things on his body.

I find it humorous (in a good way) that Leonard would make sure that, in addition to being informative, the tattoos also looked really cool. Because why just have a stupid little list on your thigh when you can also have “FIND HIM AND KILL HIM” in giant Old English lettering at an angle across your chest. Bonus points for the mirror tattoos.

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2. The Big One – From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Now I know what you’re saying: really? It’s just a humongous tribal tattoo. What, do you miss the 90s or something? First of all, yes, and second of all if you’ve seen the movie (you have seen this movie right?) then you’ll know that the key to this tattoos awesomeness is the manner of its revelation. You see, we never get a real look at Clooney’s giant art until the very, very end.

The whole movie you see just the hints of it, poking up through his collar and then down by his wrist. But after I while you just sort of forget about that, especially since it’s Clooney and even when he’s saying “fuck” a lot and shooting vampire’s he still seems charming, dapper, and very classic movie star-esque. But then, just as shit wraps up, he doffs his blazer and you realize the entire left side of his body is completely covered in black flames. Possibly the best visual reveal in the whole movie. And that’s saying something.

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1. LOVE/HATE – The Night of The Hunter (1955)

I’m not sure there had been a really memorable movie tattoo before Robert Mitchum’s hand art in The Night of The Hunter, and I really don’t think there’s been any to surpass them in the 57 years since. They’re cool looking (who doesn’t like hand tats amirite? Y’know who? Communists), they mean something, and the fact that they’re on a preacher (preacher/serial killer, but who’s counting) makes them even more memorable.

Plus they contribute to the above image, one of the more iconic snapshots of 50s cinema that I can conjure up. So those are my High Five. There were some I left out (like Max Cady’s at the top of the post) but I wanna know what you’re favorites are.

Weird Science (1985) – Dir. John Hughes

Vs.

Real Genius (1985) – Dir. Martha Coolidge

It’s really quite strange that both of these films came out in 1985. At first I thought perhaps they were both attempting to capitalize on the success of Revenge of The Nerds, but considering that came out in ’84 and John Hughes was famously longwinded with his pre-productions, often spending years writing about his characters in notebooks, that seems unlikely. Is it possible that all three of those movies can be directly tied to the rise of personal computer availability? This is some deep investigative journalism right here you guys.

Now I think that most people’s gut reaction to this Choice Is Yours will be “Weird Science, of course!” But try to separate in your mind that movie from the general glow of John Hughes that now rests gently over all his projects, and also remember that, while not as popular then and certainly not as remembered now, Weird Science is really fucking good. Sure, Weird Science has the incomparably hot Kelly LeBrock, but Real Genius has hilariously great performances from Val Kilmer, William Atherton, Jon Gries, and more. I’ll give Weird Science the edge in actual main character, as Anthony Michael Hall is better than whoever plays Mitch. But really at the end of the day Real Genius is Kilmer’s show and he owns it with aplomb.

Both movies have great looks and great weird Sci-Fi fun, whether it be the mutant biker (mutant. bikers!), gravity manipulation, indoor sledding, or a house being filled to the brim with popcorn popped by a lethal space laser. Both hold special places in my nerdy little heart, but you know how this works. The Choice Is Yours…

Whether they’re sparking controversy or groans, killer kids are all the rage these days. Movies like Kick Ass, Super, Hanna, and most recently God Bless America all feature kids cussing, stabbing, and slaughtering their way into our hearts. For most viewers, these overt attempts at shock fall flaccid. They’re fun characters, but after a while, watching cutthroat kids murder and crack wise gets just as dull as watching grown-ups do the same. Enter Steven Miller’s low-budget crowd-pleaser The Aggression Scale – a breath of fresh air in the killer kiddie realm and one badass survival thriller.

Wrapped around a simple plot involving a vengeful gangster and stolen money, The Aggression Scale is a energetic tale of survival that could easily be marketed as an R-rated, hyperviolent remake of Home Alone. Newlyweds Bill and Maggie are moving into a new home while struggling to get their kids (from separate marriages) to get along. Elder child Laura is in a constant state of whine and I wanted to throttle her after only a few seconds onscreen. While Lauren never stops complaining, younger child Owen (Ryan Hartwig) never speaks at all. Fresh out of a juvenile mental hospital for his sociopathic behavior, unassuming Owen is constantly observing, plotting, and (literally) sharpening his tools.

When some hitmen under the order of Ray Wise show up at their house, the family has to do everything in their power to survive. This doesn’t end up so well for Bill and Maggie, but Owen is instantly thrust into his deranged element. With Lauren in tow, Owen wreaks havoc upon the hitmen through deadly booby traps, makeshift weapons, and even a good old-fashioned bat to the head. Imagine if Kevin McAllister and Hanna had a love child. That’s Owen.

The hitmen, including Jacob Reynolds from Gummo and Derek Mears, the revamped Jason Voorhees, are picked off one by one, but not before being dragged through the ringer by Owen. The booby traps get increasingly more brutal and bloody – the Mouse-Trap-esque one in the basement was my personal favorite. Derek Mears takes the brunt of most of these traps and his reactions provide some much-needed comic relief amidst the chaos. Ryan Hartwig steals the show though. Even though he has only two lines in the whole movie – “Nyagh!” and “NYAGH!” – he still manages to grip us. I’d follow that kid into a mine field any day.

Each kinetic cat-and-mouse scene is a crowd-pleaser that adds a fresh twist on the home invasion genre. While The Aggression Scale is a little rough around the edges, it’s always entertaining. The action is well staged and the violence splatters in operatic fashion. The camera drips with energy. The score is incredible. For such a low-budget effort, they made the best movie possible. Young director Steven Miller has got the chops to make bigger and better films, so here’s hoping his budgets swell in the future. The Aggressions Scale is out on DVD and Blu-ray May 29 via Anchor Bay Entertainment.