Crass Warfare: "The Bad Batch" Review

"A love story set in a community of cannibals in a future dystopia. In a dessert wasteland in Texas, a muscled cannibal breaks one important rule: Don't play with your food."

Written & Directed by: Ana Lily Amirpour

Starring: Suki Waterhouse

                 Jason Momoa

                 Jayda Fink

                 Keanu Reeves

                 Giovanni Ribisi

                 Jim Carrey

A dazzlingly lurid wasteland washes over you as Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) descends into the dessert. In the darkness preceding it, you hear disembodied voices taking about "The Bad Batch" and reciting ominous rules. A tattoo is carved in to Arlen's neck, "BB5040." As the gate closes, you see a sign telling you you've entered the Bad Batch and that from here on out you're no longer a recognized citizen of the United States. You're in a beautiful nightmare and nothing will ever make sense again.

At least that's what you'll think while getting lost in Ana Lily Amirpour's bizarre and daring sophomore effort. After making a stunning debut with A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Amirpour became an immediate sensation. A skateboarder from California by way of Iran, Amirpour offered a fresh voice in an industry crying out for one. She could have done anything and work with anyone but what she ended up doing is both jarring and wonderful. Defying genre and conventional narrative m, Amirpour's sun-soaked dessert is home to the Bad Batch, a civilization of misfits, outcasts and criminals. We're never given specifics like "why is the world like this?", "What's America look like on the other side of the border?", "What transgressions are cause for being sent into the Bad Batch?". Instead, Amirpour thrusts us into a world that already is and has been for some time. She isn't concerned with the finer details of world building because our story is hyper focused on the unlikeliest story of love, class warfare and finding your community you'll see all year.

I've found it hard to classify this as a "good" or "bad" film. In many ways, this transcends the notion of "grading" a film. The film as an acid trip wrapped into a nightmare. It would seem that there isn't much to dissect on the surface, but if you shrug it off you're missing out.  The reward to The Bad Batch comes when you dig past the glitz and grime and muscles and blood. 

Past the border of whatever "normal" civilization looks like in this world lies two distinct areas: Comfort and The Bridge. Comfort is what passes for high end living and it's led by The Dream (Keanu Reeves), a Jim Jones-lite cult leader. Over in the Bridge are mutated body building cannibals A.K.A. the dregs of the Bad Batch. Amirpour shoots the disparity between the two perfectly. Her hyper-stylized look at Comfort comes complete with raves, drugs and constant partying. Here there's nothing to fear because you have the Dream. Let the Dream enter you and you'll be fine. In the Bridge, her camera glides across these monstrosities as they pump iron. Their eyes bulging as wide as their muscles. She takes her time as they cook their human delicacies. There's an odd beauty to how she films Momoa grilling his food for his daughter. You hear it sizzle and crackle and for a brief instant you forget that what they're doing is absolutely disgusting. It's when it all comes rushing back to you and you're horrified all over again that the film really sings. 

It's here where Amirpour excels. Her first film was made as an outsider. Not only in the industry but in the world itself. As an Iranian-American, she comes with a set of baggage that I could never begin to understand. Couple that with the fringe skater-grrrrl lifestyle and Amirpour's voice was always going to be raw, vibrant and intense. At the heart of her second film is that same outsider mentality, crying out to be heard. In a fucked up future where people are just thrown away into the dessert, human nature unfortunately always prevails. The Bad Batch are a civilization of freaks, outcasts, criminals, addicts and more. They're left with nothing and made to feel like even less. Somehow though, the overwhelming desire to branch off into groups and judge one another takes over and that's how you have a slightly less disgusting group of people like Comfort making the cannibals over in the Bridge feel like they're less than. Of course cannibalism is disgusting but Amirpour uses it as a perfect metaphor to mirror life today. 

People in power will constantly seek to divide and conquer. If they can get the lower class to hate each other and fight among themselves, they can quietly take control and leave nothing to the rest of us. In Amirpour's world, she takes that notion to it's most violently logical conclusion. In the Bad Batch, you can be dirt poor, sleep on a mattress in the middle of the street and survive on a rabbit every other day but hey, at least you aren't like those damn, dirty cannibals! In her world, it's better to starve than to do what you can to get by. If that doesn't sound like the argument between lower income families and food stamps, then maybe I'm just crazy. Here in the Bad Batch, the Dream has found that it's easier to take control of a terrible situation and cede power to himself. He's the king of the dunces in a world where all they'd have to do is work together and take back their lives. It's such an urgent and necessary story that you almost miss it as Arlen acid trips across the dessert. 

The Bad Batch weaves such a gorgeously rich tapestry that it can be easy to overlook the performances. Suki Waterhouse gives one of the bravest performances I've seen in some time. In one of toughest scenes, she's forced to drag her freshly mutilated body across the dessert on a skateboard all while covered in her own shit. I can't think of many actresses that would be willing to put themselves through the grime and dirt like that. She's so expressive too, which really helps sell it as most of the film could play a silent. Jason Momoa is best when he's not speaking, instead staring contemplatively into the dessert. He's a such a unique looking person that projects an aura unlike many others. He's unfortunately saddled with a pretty bad Cuban accent but that's not a deal breaker. Keanu Reeves, currently in the midst of the wildest period of his career, is so cool and calm as The Dream. His uniquely stoic demeanor is perfect as the guy who's somehow above all the freaks and weirdos he lords over.



And then there's Jim Carrey. Amirpour takes one of the loudest and most expressive comedians in history and does something brilliant: She shuts him up. Carrey plays a scavenging hermit who belongs to neither Comfort nor the Bridge. His performance is magnetic because Carrey's presence offers up a Pavlovian response in that when you see him you want to laugh. When he doesn't crack a joke, you're left to admire him as he's meant to be and what he's meant to be is a silently expressive characters I've seen all year. You can't take your eyes off of him. This is easily the most interesting Jim Carrey's been in over a decade and it's all thanks to Amirpour's excellent decision to keep him quiet. In a better world there would be awards chatter surrounding him.

There's such a rich depth to The Bad Batch that it's something that needs to be seen and experienced to believe. It's a film I plan to pour over again and again and again. Amirpour has served up something truly magnetic that any complains I have seem to wash away before I can finish thought. Does it go on a little too long? Maybe. Is the story itself kinda bare? I guess. But none of that is the point. It's a gorgeously shot Odyssey with a hypnotic soundtrack about two outcasts finding each other in the dessert. It's a freak manifesto about rising up and giving your identity agency and meaning. It's a battle cry against the bourgeoisie and everything they hold dear. I'm not going to grade this one because like I said, it's above that sort of thing. As we live in an America that seems to be slipping further and further from itself every day, The Bad Batch's message is all the more important: We're all freaks and we all flock together.  

Go see this if you can on the big screen but if not, experience it however you can. You'll never see anything like it and it deserves your attention.