The Misfits
The Avenue EntertainmentWhen a director marks their break into the mainstream with A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and splutters on from there, audience members should be wary of what is to follow. Renny Harlin’s latest feature film, The Misfits, is as generic as generic gets. Placid, perfunctory positioning from a cast and crew that are accomplished elsewhere. It is the inevitable case of wanting more from the men who starred in Bond and Bergman Island. At least that explains, somewhat, how Pierce Brosnan and Tim Roth have found themselves in this latest feature, looking to spin a story of heist-based antics.
There is only so much to be done with flash cars, fast pacing and rough ensembles. Harlin and his editing lack rhythm. His constant stop and start styling, freezing and fading out into narration every time a new character appears, is awful. He marks the untimely demise of character building through natural storytelling. Taking a leaf from Suicide Squad, we are introduced to character after character. The Misfits does not give us reason to care. “Colour me mildly impressed, but why?” says Richard Pace (Pierce Brosnan). Do tell, Harlin, why we should care for the concerns of Pace and his dishevelled crew. The project reeks of that low-budget, glossy styling, puzzling camera placement and ineffective pacing. The Misfits' focus is on how it spins its story, but when Harlin attempts to bring this to the forefront, the simplicity and lack of sincerity is too much for this cast to handle.
Steal from the rich and give to the poor. Where have we heard that one before? The Misfits is nothing but unremarkable. A slick and stylised heist film, this is not. It has an in-your-face attitude, and despite its numerous pop culture references, has no style of its own. Borrowing from other texts and times is fine enough, but The Misfits takes liberties with this far too often. Characters and backgrounds are presented with limited value to them. Interchangeable and often unsatisfactory, they plod through these structured sets with no real motivation. These are not individuals independent of the action cliché and heist movie tropes, but tailor-made to suit a dim reimagining of the Robin Hood tale. Not that it matters much, though, those notes of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor are brushed around and hushed up in moments of filler.
What is left is a successive series of scenes that fail to deviate from the beaten path. We will never see or hear from these characters again, but we have lived their lives so thoroughly when experiencing their stereotypes elsewhere. Horrendously poor special effects that make their green screen technology not only obvious but obsolete too, are frequent and only add to the issues found within The Misfits. When so many pieces of entertainment are clamouring for the attention of an audience, why would anyone settle for a half-baked heist thriller with no control over its unconvincing characters? Turgid times with this ill-suited crew makes for a banal experience, one that would be completely despondent if it were not for the satisfaction of seeing Roth appear for no good reason.