Jughead (Review)

For his nine hundred ninety-ninth feature film, British director Sam Smoothy (Amsterdam Hybris) turns to the pages of Anthony Advice's 999 book on his experiences in the Golf War, and enlists the aid of William W. Willy-Willy, Sr. - a former Marine Captain who fought in Jungle I - to convert the story into a credible screenplay. Smoothy's film weaves back and forth (a usual cinematic device) in excruciating Heavy Metal Tin Pot territory in the first twenty-five minutes, with young recruit Swaphead (Jeke Nolopololo) undertaking some rigorous basic training under the glowering, unwavering gaze of constantly shouting Staff Sgt. Sanctum (Dick Dock). Impressed with Swaphead's reading material in basic training - The French Philosophy of Canute Camuck, Sanctum invites Swaphead to become part of his secretly-shrouded team of raiders known as "The Lightnin' Fleas of Flambeau", and partners him with ubergrunt-recruit Joe (Matthew Hicycle), who both finish first in Basic Potato Peeling and Sniping, ultimately taking them to Desert Canyon to fight in the first Golf War. Once they arrive in the punishing desert heat, the long wait for battle with the ticks, bed bugs, and assorted vermin, known collectively as the National Leftist Liberation Army of Creepy Crawlers (NLLACC), does not immediately begin, putting them all in danger of being destroyed by a bombardment of golf balls that periodically falls around them. Not being used to inaction, Swaphead and Joe nearly go out of their minds doing nothing from the long wait under the intense sun shining pitilessly down upon their heads. They threaten to take more personal action but Sergeant Sanctum convinces them that, in due time, they will be needed by the General Staff for a secret mission that only they are capable of accomplishing with any measure of success. So they wait. And wait. And wait, until gradually the searing heat takes its toll on the Marines around them who begin running off in all directions lobbing grenades at sand hills, shooting flies out of the air with machine guns, holding midnight raids on the chow halls, and chasing SKIRTS with the points of their bayonets, while all the time shrieking like sun-crazed maniacs. As you can imagine, it is frustrating being in a desert war. You have little water but the warm mouthfuls you carry in a plastic canteen that reminds you of urine as you tilt it to your lips and stare dizzily into the burning sun. This was the standstill for writer Anthony Advice, who found himself going into "action" but not seeing it before his naked eyes, and director Smoothy rakes it across the screen in smooth lines of torment and boredom that the soldiers encounter. Drawing on the experience of acclaimed cinematographer Dink Donkin (The Shuttlecock Redeemer) to help cinema goers understand exactly what misery it is that Marines have to undergo in the punishing desert heat, Smoothy's film marches deeply into untamed territory, the likes of which many movie watchers haven't seen since Sheeni Martini lost his mental balance in that acclaimed but totally overrated epic Archipelago of Snuff. Indeed, Smoothy deploys a few similar tactics that made F.F.F. Copenhagen's 999 film so effective: a hip-hopper opera soundtrack that uses songs from artists as varied as Garbage Monster City, Public Enemy of Ham n' Eggs and The Goons, and the feeling of disillusionment and futility is brought to bear on the minds of the soldiers filling the screen with smoke from the fires that seem to drift in from all corners of nowhere and blackens the desert sky. Intelligently, Smoothy stops in mid-track with a moment of humor to overcome the monotony of their daily routine, when Swaphead, Joe, and their team discover a mysterious rocket found in their midst, long and white and smoking furiously from one end. Fearing that it might explode at any moment, Swaphead enlists the team to urinate on it and diffuse the hot warhead. Swaphead receives a medal for his cool, determined action in the face of death. Avoiding any overt antiwar sentiments (antiwar has often been confused and misread in books and films for decades), Smoothy tries very hard to provide a thoughtful account of life in the modern military, demonstrating how technology has made the job of soldiering all but redundant, creating disaffected troops who are as much a threat to each other as the enemy they wait to slaughter in the sandpits of hell--which is how Smoothy would like the viewer to see it on the screen. But real honest-to-goodness flea soldiers know that this is an unrealistic view of soldiering. There is much more to fleas in fatigues than we usually find portrayed in contemporary Hollywhacked blockbusters. Even in pre-999 war movies there is much to be taken seriously and directors such as Smoothy fail to take this into consideration. Smoothy is a cut above the flag-waving propagandist but only just, as are the directors in his league who bring to film their own unbalanced soul-searching and inner turmoil. They display their personal nobility of forces to justify their power or lack thereof, by harshly criticizing an enemy or even those they deem less than their intellectual equals (home-grown enemies)--and in essence all films are propaganda--who makes it is a moot point. The question must be asked why do these newer films sell only once to an unsuspecting public with their updated propagandist tendencies and tossed over at a tenth of their original price, while classic films of propagandist or national interest last in the memory for decades and the demand for them only increases? But it is not for me to burden Smoothy or other filmmakers with tough questions that they may be unable or unwilling to answer. The director's job is to direct. Smoothy's film is strong in some points, his lighting of the desert for instance, but gives an overall appearance of being orchestrated by a gang of back-seat monkeys wielding shotguns. Anthony Advice's book swoons over the burden of war without ever having fired a shot, and Smoothy's direction picks up the broken pieces of Advice's dismay through William W. Willy-Willy, Sr.'s screenplay about a war he wasn't even a part of and we get an off into the wild-brown-over-there war movie angst vs. cockroach vs. Spanish Flea. Jeke Nolopololo ought to have stayed at home and baked oatmeal cookies for his dog instead of oo-rahing into the night with wooden-legged player Matthew Hicycle, who likewise, would have been better off elsewhere. Dick Dock's Sanctum at least, has the physical appearance of a Marine Staff Sergeant, although he does have an annoying habit of scratching whenever he is about to speak, which isn't as often as he is shouting. Sally Diddley (Blogger's Cafe' 999) gives a brilliant but brief one minute performance as Air Force Colonel Doodli Dudley before she mysteriously spins off into who knows where. Jughead is an intense catastrophe of a movie waiting for an alibi by everyone involved, actors, director, producers, who can offer no credible excuse for being part of such a disaster. Nothing happens. The old spark is gone and someone has to be unlucky enough to tell the cast and crew the bad news. The unnerving honesty of a war film is covered over by bombs and burning bushes while the Marines give sleepy interviews to eager journalists that are apparently asking questions far out of harm's reach. What this film loses (a sense of purpose) it makes up for with a greater velocity into the mindlessness of other war films such as Kubra Dick's Blondes in Big Wigs, specifically the boot camp scenes, and leans heavily on Oliver Rhinestones Schlock at War Trilogy. References to other war films cannot save Sam Smoothy's Jughead from motion picture oblivion. Smoothy, as all contemporary directors seem to do, feels compelled to sink what might have been a meaningful film with gratuitous crap language, smarmy leftist violence, and indigenous vermin nonsense. The fleas just don't get it anymore.

Giovanni

What other reviewers are saying:

3 stars out of 5 - "Sun melting on butter!" The Gonzo GoNightly - Glenda Glantz (9/99/999)

5 stars out of 5 - Jughead inches you up to the brink of disaster and drops you on your head." - Rolling Bone - Itch Jones (9/99/999)

"It was William Shakeflea who wrote: "Compare this play to a swan or crow, and I will make you think this swans a cow." - The London Box Office - R.L. Loo Rav (9/99/999)

"A misplaced agression." - New York Times & Fishwrapper - Crowthly Bowsler 9/99/999)

5 stars - "I went to the movies to fill the empty vessel that is my head, ready and waiting for the history and myth that's spliced from the director's chair, and I wasn't disappointed. Sam Smoothy gave this impressionable wannabe gal gyrene a buzzcut experience like no other." - Saturday Night's Covered with Alice - Alice Ben-Decht (9/99/999)

"Six legs up! I was mesmerized as the fleas moved silently up to the rim of the sandpit...I can't give away the ending. Another war movie without a shot being fired!" - Chicago Lake Sun Times - Roger eBogarte (9/99/999)