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The Alarmist
USA 1997
Reviewed by Kieron Corless
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
LA, the present. Heinrich Grigoris, the owner of Grigoris Home Security Systems, demonstrates his sales pitch to tyro Tommy. On his first home visit, Tommy is seduced by older widow Gale. Tommy's new career proceeds swimmingly until he encounters a fractious man with an extensive domestic arsenal. Heinrich selects Tommy to star in the company's commercial in which he shines. Heinrich reveals to a horrified Tommy how he increases sales in a neighbourhood by driving at night to clients' houses and surreptitiously setting off their alarms. Tommy invites Gale to the country to stay with his parents. Having shocked them with her drunken behaviour she returns home during the night where she and her son Howard are murdered by an unseen intruder.
Gale's ghost visits a grief-stricken Tommy in a dream, and hints that Heinrich murdered her. Bent on revenge, Tommy tricks Heinrich into breaking into the house with the arsenal. Escaping in a hail of bullets, Heinrich confronts Tommy and denies he's the murderer. Tommy quits his job in disgust and solicits Howard's girlfriend's help in kidnapping Heinrich. He drives Heinrich to a deserted quarry and threatens to kill him unless he confesses. As Heinrich bargains for his life, Tommy receives a call from a talent agency wanting to represent him. Heinrich begs him to call the police to check if they've caught anyone. It transpires a suspect has confessed to the murders. On the drive home, Heinrich offers Tommy freelance work until his acting career takes off.
Review
With The Alarmist debut director Evan Dunsky serves up a cinematic experience not unlike being savaged by a sheep. The central idea is not without promise: a slick, stop-at-nothing home-alarm salesman, Heinrich, keeps his business buoyant by moonlighting as a burglar, while schooling his wide-eyed protégé, Tommy, in the cynical ways of the world. Repo Man and Glengarry Glen Ross are clear points of reference here, but the vivid, freewheeling mania of the first and the incisive analysis of the second are well beyond the grasp of this limping satire. Bland torpor permeates the film's every nook, sapping the momentum of its scattershots at sundry easy targets.
Early on Tommy attempts to sell a security system to a paranoid client, who in turn fishes out every conceivable weapon, extolling its virtues. No doubt this exaggerated role reversal is meant to be funny, but it misses the mark considerably, not least because the scene plods on interminably. Virtually every attempt at black comedy bottoms out thanks to a similar combination of vacuous ideas, flat dialogue and laboured execution. Despite the thin gruel of ironic knowingness, it soon feels like a film running on empty.
As well as comedy and social critique, we get romance, murder mystery and a tacked-on ghost. None of these disparate, collaged elements works in its own right or melds with the others into anything vaguely coherent, although the film manages a productive tonal collision in one scene. Widow Gale and her son Howard's murders occur silently off screen in the kitchen while we see Heinrich's cheap, scaremongering commercial on their television set. It's a nicely judged if not particularly original moment, summoning a queasy, humorous chill.
It's when the script tries to weave Tommy's new relationship in with Heinrich's schemes - sacrificing consistent characterisation along the way - that things begin to feel forced. David Arquette as Tommy clings to innocent, doltish charm and refuses to budge. Stanley Tucci can make no sense of his character Heinrich and retreats into subdued perfunctoriness. Kate Capshaw's Gale conveys warmth and earthy sensuality in her early scenes until she's required to skip into noisy, unmotivated caricature, followed by her swift execution. If only someone had seen fit to visit the same fate on this ill-starred project at an early stage.
Credits
- Producers
- Dan Stone
- Lisa Zimble
- Screenplay
- Evan Dunsky
- Based on the play Life During Wartime by
- Keith Reddin
- Director of Photography
- Alex Nepomniaschy
- Editor
- Norman Buckley
- Production Designer
- Amy B. Ancona
- Music
- Christophe Beck
- ©Life During Wartime LLC
- Production Companies
- Key Entertainment in association with Bandeira Entertainment presents a Dan Stone, Flynn/Simchowitz production
- Executive Producers
- Beau Flynn
- Stefan Simchowitz
- Matthias Emcke
- Thomas Augsberger
- Co-producer
- Jonathan King
- Associate Producer
- Keith Reddin
- Production Supervisor
- Ross Novie
- Production Co-ordinator
- Heidi Pavey
- Unit Production Manager
- David Grace
- Co-location Managers
- Suzanne Benson
- Newton Bass
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Virginia Landis
- Co-ordinator:
- Marvin Harris
- 2nd Unit Director
- Steve Fierberg
- Assistant Directors
- Ed Noddleman
- Tia Ardran
- Valerie A. Bleth
- Michael Shea
- Script Supervisor
- Colette Panah
- Casting
- Carolyn Long
- Concetta Di Matteo
- ADR voice:
- L.A. MadDogs
- Camera Operators
- Gabor Kover
- Anthony St. John
- 2nd Unit:
- Ionni Samaras
- Special effects Co-ordinator
- Andre Elingson
- Art Director
- Rachel Kamerman
- Set Decorator
- Melissa Levander
- Gale's Paintings
- John Scane
- Scenic Artists
- Carol Emmerling
- Inga Helgesson
- Susan Hutchinson
- Melissa Jones
- Lisa D. Lechuga
- Joti Rodar
- Costume Designer
- Denise Wingate
- Costume Supervisor
- Sandra L. Collier
- Key Make-up Artist
- Carol Strong
- Titles/Opticals
- Title House
- Commercial Music
- Zoran Borisavljevic
- Sampling Artists
- Jason Beck
- Zoran Borisavljevic
- Andrew Rathbun
- David Szigeti
- Gabe Witcher
- Music Supervisor
- Barklie K. Griggs
- Score Producer
- Christophe Beck
- Music Co-ordinator
- Chris Kinsman
- Music Editor
- Zoran Borisavljevic
- Scoring Mixer
- Casey Stone
- Soundtrack
- "Life On the Bottom" by Bob Beland, Peter Curry; "Pineapple Hill"; "Ballad of Meeleh"; "Sleepwalk [2 versions]"
- Sound Supervisor
- Dean Hovey
- Production Mixer
- Felipe Borrero
- Re-recording Mixers
- Patrick Giraudi
- Jason Schmid
- Dialogue Editors
- Thomas Jones
- Danielle Ghent
- Susan Shin
- Louis Creveling
- Jason George
- Sound Effects Editors
- Lisle Engle
- Frederick Howard
- James A. Williams
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- Robert Jackson
- Mixer:
- Alan Freedman
- Additional Mixer:
- Bobby Johansen
- Additional Editor:
- Jim Nau
- Foley
- Artists:
- Catherine Harper
- Sarah Jacobs
- Mixers:
- Mary Erstad
- Lucy Sustar
- Editors:
- Benjamin Cook
- David Mann
- Lucy Sustar
- Michael Mullane
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Rick Avery
- Cast
- David Arquette
- Tommy Hudler
- Stanley Tucci
- Heinrich Grigoris
- Mary McCormack
- Sally Brown
- Kate Capshaw
- Gale Ancona
- Tricia Vessey
- April, Howard's girlfriend
- Ryan Reynolds
- Howard Ancona
- Hoke Howell
- Henry Fielding
- Ruth Miller
- Mrs Fielding
- Michael Learned
- Beth Hudler
- Lewis Arquette
- Bruce Hudler
- Richmond Arquette
- Andrew Hudler
- Gabriel Dell Jr
- Skippy Hudler
- Valerie Long
- Doris, Andrew's girlfriend
- Kim Tobin
- Bambi, Skippy's girlfriend
- Colin Campbell
- waiter
- Eric Zivot
- Shelly, the director
- Vincent J. Bilancio
- assistant director
- Clea Duvall
- Suzy
- David Brisbin
- Detective Gary Flinkman
- Bradley J. Gorman
- Grigoris employee
- Dennis Cockrum
- vendor
- Matt Malloy
- morgue technician
- Alex Nepomniaschy
- installer
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 8,196 feet
- 91 minutes 4 seconds
- Dolby SR
- Colour by
- Fotokem