Random Acts of Violence
shudderIn Jay Baruchel's sophomore directing effort Random Acts of Violence it is clear from the outset and throughout that the director is a major fan of Tobe Hooper's 1971 genre-defining hit The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as Rob Zombie's 2003 directorial debut House of 1000 Corpses. It wouldn't take a keen film fan to guess either, as Baruchel more often than not uses visual verbatim of both pieces to stitch his Frankenstein esque monster together with what is very little his own imagination, and instead is a simplistic amalgamation of better and more engaging horror features.
Granted, that is not to say that Baruchel's film is terrible. Far from it, in fact. Random Acts of Violence on occasion shows strong signs of competent crafting regarding its execution, and on the surface feels very much in the vein of what the viewer would expect from Baruchel. The film follows comic boom creator Todd (Jesse Williams) as he tours the country regarding his controversial but enormously successful comic book series that eerily parallels similar recent attacks resembling his work. For the most part, Baruchel's film is an engaging piece of work. The mystery element is interesting enough, and the characters have depth and are given adequate material to provide development.
However, the irony here is the titular namesake of violence as it is the most prominent issue the feature has. To say its conviction and production is overkill and excessive would be an utter understatement. Baruchel's use of horror depiction here is not only excessive but quite frankly hard to stomach, even coming from a horror veteran. Extreme is perhaps too light to describe the horror on show with the word sadistic most definitely feeling more apt.
With the poor depiction of extreme horror on offer, Baruchel's film then falls onto the heads of its performances, of which are a mixed bag. Williams takes the leading performance here, and while much of his filmography has underwhelmed, the actor does a decent job with the material provided. A darker, more sinister plot is unfolding under the surface, and with a stronger more effective screenwriter who can balance nuance, Williams may have been afforded a more robust performance but nevertheless does an adequate job.
The same cannot be said for the actors' co-stars, however. Baruchel himself turns up for a bloated cameo that adds nothing in the wake of character development overall nor does it inject a layer of humour into proceedings. Jordana Brewster also feels wasted. An actress not new to the game with her role in one of the multiple remakes and reboots of The Texas Chainsaw series. Yet, is given nothing much to do with what is in actual fact an interesting sub-plot about the gruesome murders in question, but alas Brewster has little on-screen connection to her love interest Williams, making the story all that more uninteresting and dull.
If Baruchel’s intentions are to imitate his idols, then the actor turned director wholeheartedly succeeds. However, anything more in regard to shaping an engaging and fresh take within this saturated genre is long lost. Random Acts of Violence is a film that feels hollow and opaque at every turn. Even with a relatively engaging score and soundtrack Baruchel utilises an incredibly cheap and bland production design with a poor conviction of the aforementioned gore, that only highlights the directors lack of maturity behind the camera.
