The Wicker Man (2006/Theatrical Film Review)

 

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Beahan, Molly Parker

Director: Neil LaBute

Critic's rating: 7 out of 10

 

Review by Chuck O'Leary

 

Warner Bros. is so ashamed of The Wicker Man that they waited until Thursday night at 10 p.m. to show it to critics, and didn't even bother to hand out those digital press kits to the media -- as if not to encourage reviews. I even got a digital press kit for A Sound of Thunder, the film Warner quietly dumped last Labor Day Weekend.  That tells you what the powers that be at the studio think about this one.

 

A Sound of Thunder was a fun B movie that was destined to get lambasted by most critics, who couldn't get beyond the film's decidedly second-rate special effects.  The Wicker Man, on the other hand, is destined to get blasted by most critics, who won't be able to get over its campy outrageousness (especially in the last reel) and its subversive nature in these times of repressive political correctness.

 

Written and directed by Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors), and co-produced by star Nicolas Cage (along with 17 other producers), The Wicker Man is a remake of a strange 1973 cult item of the same name.  In the original, Edward Woodward (best-known to American audiences as the title character of TV's The Equalizer) played an uptight, possibly virginal police detective whose search for a missing girl takes him to a secluded island somewhere off the United Kingdom where all the residents turn out to be oversexed pagans who engage in human sacrifice.

 

The remake changes the setting to America, where a conscientious motorcycle cop named Ed Malus (rhymes with phallus) becomes traumatized after not being able to save a little girl from a fiery accident.  While taking some time off, Ed receives a letter from a former girlfriend named Willow (Kate Beahan) asking him to help find her missing little girl, Rowan (Erika-Shaye Gair).  Ed's investigation takes him to a secluded island off the Pacific Northwest, where most of the inhabitants are women, most of whom aren't the least bit friendly and resent his presence.  The handful of other men on the island are all mute and act like oppressed slaves.

 

The island is also full of bees, to which Ed is deathly allergic; he must always carry around one of those adrenaline shots in case he gets stung.  The women on the island also run their colony like bees, where a queen (Ellen Burstyn) rules and all men are needed for is physical labor and reproductive purposes.

 

The other women on the island range from a haughty schoolmarm (Molly Parker) to a manish barkeep (Diane Delano) to a young woman (Leelee Sobieski) who seemingly wants out.  Parker is especially good, demonstrating the same kind of intensity she did as a regular on HBO's Deadwood.

 

Cage, who remains one of the most interesting and eclectic leading men in contemporary Hollywood, should be commended for continually taking risks on off-beat films such as this and last fall's underrated The Weather Man.  And Paul Sarossy's cinematography of the scenic British Columbia locations makes The Wicker Man on the most attractively photographed films of the year.

 

But where the original Wicker Man is brimming with repressed sexuality and contains a lot of nudity, the better-paced remake plays down the sexuality angle and misses the chance of becoming a psychologically erotic battle-of-the-sexes classic along the lines of Don Siegel's The Beguiled (1971).  This is definitely a case where the filmmakers should have gone for an R (like the original) instead of settling for a PG-13.

 

Still, though, it's quite politically incorrect and downright gutsy for a film in these times to have a cast of all-female villains that the hero is reduced to calling "bitches," and some of whom he's forced to punch and kick -- this certainly won't be a favorite of Gloria Steinem.

 

I, however, enjoyed this creepy tale of militant feminism and anti-male attitudes taken to grisly extremes.  Maybe it serves as a cautionary tale of what America may look like if Hilary Clinton ever becomes president.  I guess LaBute, Cage and I better get ready for a trip to the re-education camp.

 

Oddly enough, the film is dedicated to the late, politically conservative punk rocker, Johnny Ramone, which got a big reaction from a late-night preview audience.