It's no big surprise why movie studios shy away from risky topics.
A movie about a fluffy bunny who just wants to find his way out of the big city and reunite with his equally fluffy parents? Here's your billions, sir.
A movie about a fluffy bunny who sells his sisters to Pimpy Possum? Here's your refrigerator box, sir.
Religion isn't a guaranteed bomb, but I'm guessing it tends to provoke two reactions from most viewers: indifference and offense. That and the scattered plotting might explain the generally negative reaction to 1997's Commandments.
After the loss of his wife, house, job and one of his dog's legs, Aidan Quinn believes he's being tested by God. In defiance, he vows to break each of the Ten Commandments until he gets an answer for why he's drawn so much wrath.
To me, that is a concept.
Maybe not quite a rock-star concept, but certainly a well-known local gigger of a concept who could go mainstream with the right break. And then you will be able to say, "Hey, I went to high school with that concept! Well, no, I wasn't in his band. No, I wasn't his friend. But, you know. Same school."
Commandments wastes no time in trotting that concept out to center stage. Quinn's defying the heavenly will within minutes, carving idols of Kali and heading down to the library to research the finest methods of taking the Lord's name in vain. It's a bitterly funny sequence.
Writer/director Daniel Taplitz hangs a careful balance between two forces Hollywood would usually rather avoid: the struggle of a religious man who feels persecuted by his God, and blasphemies so sacrilegious just hearing them could get you turned into a pillar of today's low-sodium salt substitute.
But after knocking off the first five commandments, the story starts to spin out into the sometimes-messy entanglement between Quinn, his dead wife's sister Courteney Cox, and her husband Anthony LaPaglia, a philandering journalist.
(OK, I'd like to take this space to protest the fact that journalists are always stereotyped as sleazebags. I'll have you know that 2 percent of all the profits I make when studios pay me off for good reviews goes straight to the Human Fund.)
The switch in gears between black comedy and dark drama isn't entirely smooth. Though Taplitz mines some genuine insights about selfishness and relationships, Commandments sometimes feels as if it's firing in several directions, losing force in the process.
I'll tell you what, though: until its bizarro ending, boy, does it ever stay dark. I didn't have to look it up to guess this one lost money. I don't think it deserved to, though.
* Contact Ed Robertson at edwrobertson@gmail.com.
