Playing God
USA 1997
Reviewed by Liese Spencer
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Struck off the register for operating while high on amphetamines, drug-addicted Los Angeles surgeon Eugene Sands spends his time trying to score synthetic heroin. At a bar one night someone gets shot. Sands saves their life. Later Sands is kidnapped by gangster Raymond Blossom, who gives him $10,000 for saving his employee and offers him a job treating wounded criminals who cannot be taken to hospital.
Sands joins Blossom's gang which is battling for territory with the Russian mafia. Sands grows close to Blossom's girlfriend Claire. The Russians raid Blossom's warehouse and steal his fake designer goods. Blossom captures an injured Russian called Vladimir. Sands saves his life, but discovers Blossom has only kept him alive long enough for questioning.
An FBI agent tells Sands that to avoid arrest he must inform on Blossom. Sands is wired up to record Blossom's meeting with a Chinese gangster, eager to import Blossom's counterfeit goods into China. During an FBI raid Claire is shot. Sands and Claire escape to a car, driven by Blossom's henchman Cyril; Sands sees an FBI microphone on Claire's chest. Cyril tries to kill Sands, but Claire stabs Cyril.
After operating on her in a bar, Sands takes Claire to his parents' house in the country and comes off heroin. The FBI insist Claire return to LA to entrap Blossom. Back in LA, Blossom sends two surfers to kill Sands, but he escapes. Blossom shoots the Chinese businessman. He and Claire are pursued by the FBI and Sands. During the car chase, Sands rescues Claire and runs down Blossom.
Review
A wretched Tarantino rip-off, this trashy thriller aspires to flip black comedy but manages only moments of unintentional hilarity. As a Hollywood calling card from Andy Wilson (one of the British directors of the television series Cracker) it's a derivative disaster. As a vehicle for David Duchovny (this was his first feature before the X Files movie) it's a tragedy which could have buried the star's spin-off career before it even began.
The film opens with a portentous voice-over musing on the significance of day-to-day decisions, causality, or what "the Greeks call character". The voice belongs to Eugene Sands, a famous Los Angeles surgeon who has had his licence revoked for operating while high on amphetamines and now spends his days trawling seedy bars in search of heroin to feed his addiction.
In one such bar he saves a gun-shot victim's life with a coat hanger and soon finds himself in the employ of Timothy Hutton's gangster, who hands him fat envelopes of cash to perform emergency operations on various low-lifes.
If we are to believe Duchovny's hypnotically monotonous voice-over, this arrangement is some kind of Faustian pact, with Sands selling his soul to the Mob in return for a chance to practise his profession. "Hell doesn't always look like hell," he drones, "on a good day it can look a lot like Los Angeles."
Since Wilson handles his story with all the wit and sophistication of a bad episode of Charlie's Angels, it's hard to give Playing God much credit as a morality tale of any profundity. What's left is an impression of relentless, poorly staged but graphic violence, whose genuine B-movie texture is supposed automatically to qualify as 'ironic', as if unbelievable characters, crude performances, plastic sets, second-hand dialogue and other clichés (sinister FBI agents, car chases, slow-motion shoot-outs) were somehow innately witty.
Eager to impress on viewers his technical virtuosity, Wilson gratuitously shoots each scene from a different, ever more ludicrous angle. His frenetic framing is complemented by some enthusiastic over-acting from a peroxide-cropped Hutton. Risibly camp and flamboyant, Hutton's performance provides a pleasing foil for Duchovny, who doesn't so much sleepwalk his way through the film as remain in a coma, barely bothering to open his mouth to mumble a line (go back to the amphetamines, Eugene).
What is it that Claire sees in him, you wonder, to lure her away from Hutton? Is it the blank eyes or the sheen of sweat? But that would probably be investing too much motive, too much of what the Greeks call character into Claire - her main purpose is to pout, which Angelina Jolie does admirably. During their brief sojourn in a comfortable country cabin ("My parents' summer house," he tells her, failing to explain why he spends the rest of his time in a squalid flat), Sands decides to come off heroin. The cold-turkey scenes in which a well-fed Duchovny affects withdrawal symptoms take the film to a new low.
Credits
- Producers
- Marc Abraham
- Laura Bickford
- Screenplay
- Mark Haskell Smith
- Director of Photography
- Anthony B. Richmond
- Editor
- Louise Rubacky
- Production Designer
- Naomi Shohan
- Music
- Richard Hartley
- ©Beacon Communications Corp
- Production Companies
- Touchstone Pictures presents in association with Beacon Pictures
- Executive Producers
- Armyan Bernstein
- Thomas A. Bliss
- Co-producers
- Melanie Greene
- Nancy Rae Stone
- Production Supervisor
- Nicole M. Libresco
- Production Co-ordinator
- Patty Long
- Unit Production Manager
- Nancy Rae Stone
- Location Manager
- Molly Allen
- 2nd Unit Director
- B.J. Davis
- Assistant Directors
- Francis R. Mahony III
- Mark Hansson
- Carla Brand Breitner
- Elena V. Santaballa
- Script Supervisor
- Robin Anderson
- Casting
- Johanna Ray
- Elaine J. Huzzar
- Camera Operator
- John Sosenko
- Projected Effects
- H.E.I.
- Billy Hansard
- Art Director
- Troy Sizemore
- Set Decorator
- Evette Frances Knight
- Scenic Artist
- Denise Boquist
- Storyboard Artist
- Dan Caplan
- Costume Designer
- Mary Zophres
- Costume Supervisor
- Nicole Gorsuch
- Make-up Design
- Naomi Donne
- Special Make-up Effects
- Gabe Bartalos
- Key Hair
- Lana I. Heying
- Main Titles Sequence Designer
- Dan Perri
- Titles
- Cinema Research Corporation
- Music Performers
- Guitars:
- Hugh Burns
- Harmonica:
- Julian Jackson
- Music Supervisor
- G. Marq Roswell
- Music Editor
- Tass Filipos
- Music Scoring Mixer
- Phil Chapman
- Additional Programming
- Mark Austin
- UK Music Consultant
- David Arnold
- Music Consultant/Co-ordinators
- UK:
- Paul Hitchman
- US:
- Dondi Bastone
- Soundtrack
- "Doc's Groove" by D. Williamson, performed by ITJ Buken; "These Boots Are Made for Walking" by Lee Hazlewood, performed by Family of God featuring Adam Peters; "Redrum" by/performed by Ganjah K; "If the Sea Was Whiskey" by Willie Dixon, Leonard Caston, performed by Willie Dixon & The Big Three Trio; "Apt. 8-C" by Joey Altruda, performed by Joey Altruda and The Cocktail Crew; "Jive Talking" by Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb, performed by The Bee Gees; "Spybreak" by Alex Clifford, performed by The Propellerheads; "Anything" by Angel C & Angie Hart, performed by The Angel featuring Angie Hart; "Delilah" by John Mason, Leslie Reed, spoken by Timothy Hutton; "Trigger Hippie" by Paul Godfrey, Ross Godfrey, Skye Edwards, performed by Morcheeba
- Sound Design
- Will Riley
- Sound Supervisor
- Darren Paskal
- Sound Co-ordinator
- John Switzer
- Production Sound Mixer
- Mark Weingarten
- Re-recording Mixers
- Dave Maiden
- Edward C. Carr III
- Sound Editors
- W.C. Williams
- Stewart Nelson
- Allan Bromberg
- Bruce Greenspan
- David Spence
- Kurt Thum
- James Lay
- Alan Porzio
- Scott Silvey
- Anna Bright
- Supervising Effects Editor
- Trip Brock
- ADR
- Mixer:
- Lee Tinkham
- Wooter Van Herwerden
- Supervising Editor:
- Bobbi Banks
- Foley
- Artists:
- Doug Madick
- Vince Guisetti
- Mixer:
- Denise Bent
- Technical Adviser
- Donna Duffy
- Chinese Cultural Consultant
- Vivian Shen
- Sleight of Hand/Magic Consultant
- Larry Wilson
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- B.J. Davis
- Cast
- David Duchovny
- Dr Eugene Sands
- Timothy Hutton
- Raymond Blossom
- Angelina Jolie
- Claire
- Michael Massee
- Gage
- Peter Stormare
- Vladimir
- Gary Dourdan
- Yates
- John Hawkes
- Flick
Andrew Tiernan- Cyril
- Philip Moon
- Casey
- Tracey Walter
- Jim
- Will Foster Stewart
- Perry
- Pavel D. Lychnikoff
- Andrei
- Sandra Kinder
- Sue
- Bill Rosier
- Jerry
- Keone Young
- Mr Hsi
- Eric DaRe
- DiGiacomo
- Gareth Williams
- Phelps
- Teo
- Adonis
- Stacey Travis
- nurse
- Max Lazar
- Dimitri
- Frank Ensign
- Len
- Bob A. Jennings
- Doctor Clifford
- Ross Kettle
- resident surgeon
- Nikki Lee
- anaesthesiologist
- John Roselius
- surgeon 1
- Damon White
- Winston
- Dan Hildebrand
- J.P. Jones
- Jerry Sloan
- Russian thugs
- Alphonse V. Walter
- Isaac
Melvin Jones- Rasta doorman
- Mara Duronslet
- Jessica
- Ernest Garcia
- Burt
- Alex Désert
- bartender
- Sarah Stavrou
- woman
- Jesse Perez
- crack dealer
- Daniel Rey Silvas
- basketball player
- Michael Chong
- Michael, Chinese security guard 2
- Alexander Folk
- South African businessman
- Stella Garcia
- South American businesswoman
- Guy Siner
- Dutch businesswoman
- Al Ahlf
- FBI agent
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Blue Dolphin Film & Video
- 8,457 feet
- 93 minutes 58 seconds
- Dolby digital
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Prints by
- Technicolor