The Amish survive through the Blade Runner era, do they? News to me. I’d say that Darwin usually accounts for those who fail to adapt, but MAGA is still yuge, so who am I to question? This is the story of a little Amish boy who lost his vocal cords in a horrible boating accident, but grows up in a dystopian future to be an overprotective bartender in a strip club.
I’m being a tad misleading here; we’re only told that Leo’s mom is Amish, which is why she refused to get him the corrective vocal cord surgery. As the boy grows into a man who tends bar in a strip club, one guesses that maybe, just maybe, he’s shed the Amish roots. Either that or I don’t know the Amish nearly as well I’d like. Leo (Alexander Skarsgård) is in love with a blue-haired nightmare Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh), who waits tables at the club. Leo doesn’t like it when a customer get too handsy with Naadirah.
♪And when she finished, he called her over
But Rico went a bit to far
Tony sailed across the bar♫
That’s right, for the first act of this film, you have to imagine a cross between Blade Runner and the lyrics to “Copacabana.”
And somewhere around the time where Leo is fired for fraternizing with the customers, Naadirah disappears. This is the mystery portion where the film asks, “How would a Mute guy handle the disappearance of his girlfriend any different than a guy who isn’t Mute?” The answer: Not at all. Dumbass is dumbass, handicap or no. However, the screenplay gambit did give Mute the ability to introduce Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd), an ill-tempered, bullying, single-father, underground mob doctor and easily the best-defined character in this film.
I’ve never seen Paul Rudd try on his heavy pants. That was odd. It’s kinda like trying to imagine being beaten up by Wallace Shawn or Mark Ruffalo. Sporting a Fu Manchu straight out of Elliott Gould in M*A*S*H, Paul bullied his pedophilic partner-in-crime, Duck (Justin Theroux), and pulled a massive hunting knife out of his asscrack whenever threatened. Eventually the worlds of Leo and Bill will collide, but only after a collection of atmosphere.
The title is technically correct; Leo is Mute. The question is why? When you choose for a hero to be Mute, you must have a good reason, right? For example: He’s a creative problem solver, he’s gifted in other ways, the film is making a statement about physical impairment, there’s a plot twist which exactly requires or exactly works against a man who can’t speak; the director doesn’t speak English and this makes it simpler. None of these are true. I watched two hours of film and I cannot point to a single reason why our hero is Mute. That’s not only depressing; it’s lazy. Why was it so important that Leo can’t speak? How has it defined his life in such a way that our viewing experience is enhanced? There’s no more important question in the film so it really doesn’t matter how close Mute got to Blade Runner. And FWIW, not much.
It’s time for another bleak future rant
It’s funky, but nothing you’d call pleasant
There are those who can
Copy Blade Runner, man
And then there are those who replicant
Rated TV-MA, 126 Minutes
Director: Duncan Jones
Writer: Michael Robert Johnson & Duncan Jones
Genre: “Please be ‘Blade Runner’…Please be ‘Blade Runner’ …”
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Anybody who has ever wondered what it would be like if Paul Rudd switched places with Robert DeNiro
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who question
