Penn Jillette’s Director’s Cut (Review)

[No detailed spoilers, but the overall tone and feel of the plot is discussed, so it may very well ‘spoil’ it for you. You’ve been warned]

Face front Non Believers^[1][!

I just had the privilege of catching Penn JIllette’s Director’s Cut; the highly anticipated crowd funded film from the vocal half of Penn & Teller. Thanks for the ticket, Dave!

You may or may not remember back in 2013 Penn JIllette and director Adam Rifkin announced their plans to ‘Make Penn Bad’ and produce his thriller screenplay. By November 2013, they had successfully crowdfunded their film to the tune of 1.1 million dollars^[2]. Of course, I sincerely doubt that covered all the costs of making the film, which looks pretty fucking good, aside from the moments when it’s not supposed to. But we’ll get into that.

Full disclosure: I know Penn, and he knows me. I should hope so, I’ve been nearly naked on stage with him a few times (he had clothes on). Also, I’m a fan of Penn’s, and have been for a very long time^[3].

 

In any case, Director’s Cut is good… it’s uh… Good. It’s not bad. In fact, it’s good.

Well, thank you for reading, remember to subscribe and all the other ubiquitous stuff.

…

OK, OK, I suppose you want a few nuanced opinions on the matter^[4].

Well, as I already said; it is good. In fact, on a purely conceptual level, it’s fucking genius! It’s one of those ideas where when you first hear about it, you’re like “Duh! Why the fuck has no one thought of that before?! A director’s commentary and/or cut that tells a different narrative than the actual film that is being commented on. Fucking, YES!!!”

I do realize that this is typically not the kind of project that you’re ‘supposed to do’; a movie about the movies, but Penn’s concept uses the perspective of an outsider who desperately wants to be in the movies, which is basically everyone, so it’s perfect.

I was really excited about this project. I even read part of the screenplay when they were doing their fundraiser, which may have altered a few of my expectations^[5]. But I’m pretty sure in a couple instances, Mr. Jillette and Mr. Rifkin just fell short of their intentions. For example, in the screenplay there’s a note that the film within the film will be a cop movie that’s “done earnestly. Not camp at all.”

This isn’t the case. I suspect that the cast and crew may have thought they were doing a sincere job with it, just like Al Jolson may have thought that he was doing a sincere homage to the talented black people he knew. I will say the cinematographer sure as hell was. Good job, Scott Winig! (If IMDB is to be believed) But the film within a film really came off as campy. What you see on screen is really talented old school pros, having fun by pretending to be shitty actors in a shitty cop movie. 

See, that’s the problem that a lot of people fall into when they are doing something comedic, satirical, or tongue in cheek; they don’t take it seriously, and that reads on screen. If you want a joke to truly pay off, you need a director and performers who are going to commit, and you definitely had the right cast. I mean, Harry Hamlin?! The man was in Clash of the Titans for God’s sake^[6].

There is one exception to this, and it’s pretty ironic since his role was extremely over the top, and he’s definitely not known to be an actor. Teller’s performance is downright stunning. You may not notice it at first because he’s only on screen for like 3 minutes, and, again, it’s a very over the top character, but god damn that mother fucker commits.
I say this with no hesitation: Teller gave the best performance of the movie. You can actually see most of his performance on the Director’s Cut Youtube channel.

And, as Teller actually told me with words after the screening, the writing for his scene was perfect. We knew everything about this man’s character, his motivation, even his moral compass within 60 seconds. Penn fuckin’ nailed that scene, and, clearly, understood that character.

Sadly, he did not put nearly as much thought or care into the main character of the movie, the one he plays; the ‘director’. It’s a very shallow and cyclical character.
He’s a character who dresses and acts weird. Why?
– Because he’s weird!
His character stalks an actor who he’s in love with. Why?
– Because he loves her.
He has poor social skills. Why?
– Because he doesn’t have any friends.
I’m not asking for a character backstory or anything; a fully realized character doesn’t even need one. A good villain is often better without too much exposition. But we, as the audience need to believe that we know something about this character, even if it’s just his intentions or instincts. ‘Weird with a PG level of creepy’ isn’t a fully realized character; it’s affected and stagy.
As Penn’s character says in the screenplay; “the better the villain, the better the movie.” This movie didn’t have a good villain.

It also didn’t have a villain with a story arch. I mean, the entire plot and very concept of the film is built around this character, and he is the same from beginning, middle, to end. Nothing that actually happens to him seems to affect his weird and oddly enthusiastic demeanor. He doesn’t appear to have any ‘triggers’ or weaknesses that have any effect on the actual story. Our main character literally has no stakes^[7]!

Maybe Penn liked the idea of a bad guy who was perfectly content to be his weird self regardless of circumstance. Maybe he thought his character was an ‘unshakable villain’; instead, it just comes off Magoo. And this could have sincerely paid off as well, if, for example, after we watch Magoo blindly bumble through most of the obstacles, we learn that his only solution to complete the film is to create a life size stop motion puppet out of Missi Pyle’s body parts… or whatever! We needed something that was a genuine revelation.

Sure, kidnapping is a very big deal in real life, but we’re so desensitized to hostage situations in movies that it’s usually a pivotal plot point in half of the family friendly movies ever made^[8].

So there was no revelation. This movie was genuinely toothless. There were a couple moments of mild discomfort. Without giving away any details, because the details don’t actually matter, this had a very quirky and cute ending. It’s the kind of ending that you would choose to attach to this kind of plot if you were doing a short film because the audience wouldn’t have time to fully believe or invest in your world, so you can’t ask them to go to any truly horrific places with you, and expect that journey have a genuine impact^[9].
But fellas, you had us for 90 minutes. We were there! We were invested! We were waiting for you to go for the gusto. Whatever that turned out to be. I mean, this is an original idea, and you got there first, right? Imagine if Blair Witch had ended with the kids realizing that they were being pranked, and then they get picked up by their moms and dads.
Even forgetting Blair Witch, we live in a post-RedLetterMedia/YouSuckAtPhotoshop world! You need to take the gloves off, especially if you have a genuinely unique idea.

If you get somewhere first, you don’t pose for an ironic selfie. You climb on top, and shove your flag in that fucking mountain. Come on, guys. You know this^[10]!

I don’t know. Maybe they just didn’t want to take it to that next harsh level. And ‘Make Penn Bad is a lot catchier than Make Penn a Weird and Oddly Loveable Antagonist. I mean, Penn is a family man, and this does come off less like a scary story told by your best friend, and more like a mildly dirty joke told by your dad or uncle.
Sadly, it could have been a much funnier joke, had they committed to the setup.
In an interview, Penn said “I’m always interested in how things that we trust automatically can be used against us. I mean, that’s what magic is, really. It’s finding a way to lie to yourself. A director’s commentary seemed like the perfect way to kind of get people to be betrayed. With a director’s commentary, it’s a different kind of trust, but it’s still a kind of artistic trust. What if the person talking to you doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing?”

Fascinating, right? I wanna be artistically lulled into a false sense of security by a guy who might be taking me to a place I didn’t want to go.
Well, forget it. As soon as the movie starts rolling, they give away the entire plot. Not that this project has been kept under tight wrap or anything, but I wanted to see a gradual transition. Instead, the entire plot/joke/concept is telescoped to us within the first 30 seconds. So there was no genuine setup and therefore no good payoff^[11].

Everything was given away upfront, which means we were, whether intentional or not, treated like rubes. But that is one of the great dilemmas: Is it better to treat your audience like morons or create something enigmatic that risks making your audience feel like morons? I mean, no creator wants to do either, but you can’t always tell how things are going to come off. And to Penn and Adam’s credit; I never once felt dumb or lost while watching their potentially convoluted film. So that’s good. And again, it was good… It was… Let’s call it an interesting exercise in filmmaking; one that I’m sure a lot of would be filmmakers would enjoy seeing if only to realize the potential of such a work of art.

Speaking of which, check out this lovely poster signed by Penn and Adam at the screening! Which you can now find on ebay. So if you want this poster, and you want to help support my channel, check it out^[12].

Thank you for watching.

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