And no one ... is gonna be safe.

Every so often, a movie comes along that is so astoundingly inept that you cannot help but be wowed and enthralled by its incompetence. Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of those movies.

In the Kingdom of the Blind, the Man With One Eye Is King (1995): Oh. My. God. I hope William Petersen was paid a trillion dollars to be in this movie, otherwise he got ripped off. Anyway, I was like "oh hey" when I saw this in the cable guide because I knew it was one of those Petersen deep cuts that I would have no chance of seeing or bothering to see without stumbling upon it by chance. I would call this the Cobra of crappy Reservoir Dogs ripoffs, but it is undeserving of such praise.

This is supposed to be a New York mob movie, I guess, which totally explains why people are riding the L.A. Metro, and also why gangsters are seen hanging out in caves. It starts out with Michael Biehn, an apparent "Westie," torturing some dude in a cave and then crucifying him. Yes. On a cross. When your mafia movie touchstone is Duke Mitchell's The Executioner, you are in for a bad time. We know Michael Biehn is a "Westie" because he's all, like, "Why did you go to [obvious Italian gangster name] when you could have come to me, Jackie Ryan, who would give you anything you ask for?" Anyway, it's that whole deal where the guy is spouting all philosophical religiousness like "people who think they are God should know that no man can be God!" for 10 minutes before he kills a guy. THINK ABOUT IT.

And then the screen goes black, ooh. And we never see any of those characters again!

Next we meet our hero, Al. Al is an Italian cop. We know this because when he is greeted by his wife, she calls him "Detective Scarpelli" or whatever. Al is a doughy douchebag with a thinning mullet who looks like a really fat Joe Flaherty. (Apologies to the real Joe Flaherty, whom I actually consider to be kind of hot.) Al comes home to his grand estate filled with roses and a zillion lit candles because you know us bitches don't have anything better to do with our time. He finds a note from his daughters that reads "Have fun, Daddy!" in crayon. I just threw up in my mouth a little. His daughters are his little angels. We know this because there are pictures of his daughters and Botticelli cherubs everywhere. Because they're ITALIAN. The zillions of candles lead Al out to his enormous swimming pool, where we meet his impossibly hot wife, Stephanie Seymour, who is played by Hope from "Days" before she turned into Skeletor. She's in a swimming suit and starts making out with him.

At this point, I speculate the man playing Al (see picture above) must have also written and directed this movie. Did you guess that too? Yes! And hey, you know something? We're absolutely right! We're so smart. If we're so smart, then why are we watching this? I don't know, I'm just mesmerized.

Also, please note that the fat dude who lives in the grand estate with a giant swimming pool and an impossibly hot wife is a cop and he lives in New Jersey. Check.

Now things begin to get foggy as I sink deeper into hypnosis. There's a strip club called "The Classy Lady" and a bunch of leather-jacketed toughs who all appear to have been members of The Blackhearts at one time or another. We learn that one of them is in love with a stripper and wants her to stop living that life because even though he's tough, he feels. But she's too hard, man, too hard to be a happy wife with kids and a white picket fence and dammit, why can't he accept that! And the guy gets enraged and starts a fight with about eight other people and gets tossed out of The Classy Lady, yet his sunglasses remain firmly on his face the entire time. This is the magic of Hollywood.

And then ... the screen goes black. And we never see any of THOSE people again, except for our main three Blackhearts, one of whom is wearing a black leather trenchcoat that is ripped straight from the pages of International Male. And they ride the L.A. Metro to an unknown destination in Manhattanish or Brooklynesque.

Next we are on one of those typical streetcorners where Black People hang out, complete with an ashcan full of burning trash and a fake Boyz II Men singing fake a cappella R&B:

Young at Hea-art
Young at Heart is comin'
Young at Hea-art
Young at Heart is comin' — ooh
Comin' to you
Young at Heart is comin'
Young at Hea-art
Young at Heart is comin'

I'm not even exaggerating, that is a literal transcription and I don't think I will ever forget that song, ever.

Then a limo pulls up and it's pimp Paul Winfield as Mr. Bigg. He says the "n" word so you know he's street. He's got a phone in the the limo that basically looks like someone borrowed their office console for the day and propped it up in the back window. I'm obsessed with it. He sends one of the young streetcorner dudes to give a message to the Italians. Don't worry about the details, because William Petersen will kill the guy in about five minutes. And then ... wait for it ... the screen goes BLACK. (That's racist!) And we NEVER see PAUL WINFIELD ... or our new favorite R&B supergroup YOUNG AT HEART ... AGAIN!

OK, I know this is a lot to take in. Are you with me? So like, all of this stuff, you don't know how any of it relates to the other stuff, and it really doesn't, because, as I pointed out, you will more or less never see any of these people ... AGAIN! But instead of being like, "I am intrigued to discover how all these characters relate to one another," you just simply don't care because, in fact, pretty much none of these characters relate to one another.

Now, all that up there? That's about as complex as the story gets, because after this, almost nothing happens. Essentially The Blackhearts killed an important mob guy, and William Petersen is angry about it, and somehow he knows that one of The Blackhearts is Al's brother. Meanwhile, William Petersen and Al have some kind of "past" involving "police corruption" and "dealings" and "tapes of evidence" and "money". So William Petersen decides to send Al to take care of The Blackhearts as revenge for them killing the mob guy, somehow, because ... perhaps someone, somewhere, thought this would be poetic and meaningful.

I'm disappointed we never get to see this important mob guy who gets killed, by the way. At least that cameo appearance would be endemic to the plot. Certainly Ben Gazzara didn't have anything better to do back then.

Oh! And there's some great great dialogue in this movie, like when Al and Hope from "Days" are talking about all that crappy stuff women like to talk about, like their relationship and communication and feelings, there is a beautiful moment:

Al: You're upset. Here, have some more ice cream.
Hope: I don't want more ice cream! [pause, pause, pause]
Me: I want you.
Hope: [pause, pause] I want you.

Then, when William Petersen brings Al into his office (is that a picture of Mussolini on the wall?), they get a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red and proceed to pour what is obviously flat cola. It is dark brown, people. Petersen makes awesome hammy faces while he's drinking it, too. He's a brilliant professional. Anyway, he flies into a rage about what's going to happen when word gets out that the important mob guy got killed, right? And this is basically a reprise of something he's already said earlier, but with a special twist at the end:

Petersen: When [whoever] finds out his brother is dead, people are gonna start getting killed! And no one ... [pause, pause]
Me: ... is gonna be safe.
Petersen: [pause] ... is gonna be safe!

I love William Petersen.

So now the rest of the movie, which goes on for at least another hour, is one long fake Reservoir Dogs complete with guys in matching outfits fighting in a warehouse after pulling a job and oh it went wrong and whose fault is it and Mexican standoffs and "I'm scared" and handcuffings to chairs and beatings and insightful exchanges between characters:

Blackheart 1: It's like a guy's dream t'walk inna strip club and have a stripper fall in love with him.
Blackheart 2: Yeah, but for me, that dream ... [pause]
Me: ... turned int—
Blackheart 2: ... turned into a nightmare!

Once Al shows up at the warehouse to confront The Blackhearts, we get some more insight into why this movie was made in the first place, because all the guys, who are all young and reasonably good looking (for Blackhearts that is) and not fat old douchebags with thinning hair, get tied to chairs to "confess" their crimes, but instead they spend the whole time confessing the sin of envy because oh, they've all been so jealous of Al because Al is so great! All the teachers loved him in school! He's got a hot wife and a great job and a million friends! He's so smart! Mom liked Al best! He was the captain of the football team and everyone thinks he's #1! If only ... oh, if only people could have felt that way about us, The Blackhearts, but no, we were always trapped in the shadow of Al's awesomeness!

I swear, that is the entire rest of the movie, is these guys falling over themselves to praise the greatness of Al and how much they wish they were him and how their lives were ruined because they were not Al, the best guy in the world. I'm not even exaggerating. Then Al kills everyone and dies. The end.

Incidentally, I think the real quote is "In the village of the blind, the man with one eye is king," 'cause, like, if it was a kingdom of the blind, then the king would be blind too, right? Or hmm, maybe that was intentional. THINK ABOUT IT.

Posted by Kim at February 11, 2005 03:28 AM | Moving Pictures