Modus Operandi (February 2nd at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

[MODUS OPERANDI screens Wendesday February 2^nd at 7pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art Morley Lecture Hall]

Review by Bob Ignizio

The plot of MODUS OPERANDI is all but incomprehensible, and feels like half of it was made up by cast and crew as they went along. And yet there's an undeniable energy and passion behind it all, with everyone involved clearly having a good time and not caring in the least if the average person gets it. There are occasional shots of visual brilliance interspersed between far more frequent moments of cinematic laziness, a great groovedelic soundtrack, a bevy of beautiful and exotic women in various states of undress, brutal violence juxtaposed with childlike silliness, and excessive use of the zoom lens. It's all an awful lot like one of Jess Franco's spy romps from the late sixties like THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA or KISS ME MONSTER. For those who share my taste for trash, that's cause to take notice; for most, who likely have never heard of Franco, it should be considered a warning to run far, far away.

Although most of the major plot points eventually resolve, there are still a lot of pieces that never quite fit. In every scene we're introduced to at least 2 new characters who disappear just as fast as they enter it. The film's marginal protagonist, Stanley Cashay (Randy Russell), barely seems to do anything, instead hiring someone else (who in turn hires someone else yet again) to do his dirty work. Director/co-writer Frankie Latina doesn't seem concerned with delivering anything that even resembles a satisfying narrative. What he's done here is to make something more akin to a cinematic tone poem, a moody evocation of a bygone era of trash sinema. Franco may be the most obvious influence, but there are also fleeting moments that recall Jean Rollin, Joe D'Amato, and in some of its more pretentious moments, arthouse auteurs like Jean Luc Godard.

Roman Coppola perhaps blended the French new wave with psychedelic Eurotrash to better effect in his under appreciated CQ, but then he had name stars and a considerably larger budget than Latina. All Latina has going for him is passion and some diamond-in-the-rough raw talent. As far as star power goes, all MODUS OPERANDI can offer is Danny Trejo in a small but important role and Mark Metcalf (ANIMAL HOUSE) in a blink and you'll miss him cameo. Whether you want to count fellow low budget filmmaker Mark Borchardt (subject of the documentary AMERICAN MOVIE) towards the star count is up to you, but he's in here, too.

I imagine many will dismiss or deride MODUS OPERANDI out of hand, consigning it to the trash pile with other recent “so bad they're good” flicks as THE ROOM and BIRDEMIC! Maybe that's where it belongs, but at least part of me was engaged with MODUS OPERANDI on a more substantial level. It's not a great movie by any means, but considering the resources he had to work with, Latina has at least made a film that achieves much of what it sets out to do. Perhaps only a very small number of people will be interested in such an achievement, but isn't catering to those kind of audiences what indie film is supposed to be about? (2 ½ out of 4 stars)