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Average Rating: 40
Duration: 01:38
A deliriously kaleidoscopic violent crime thriller about a disgraced luchadore, a motel owner, a ruthlessly murderous human trafficker, and a guy with a swastika tatooed on his face, a heart of gold, and a black friend. Heartily recommended!
Oh, man, that is pure gold! So glad you saw this, @MelesMeles.
It feels like an auteur movie, since it has such a distinctive voice, sort of comedy thriller with Tarantino patter, a broad sociological cross-section, and a side of gory horror? The problem is, I’m not sure who gave it that voice. The first-time director, Ryan Prows, hasn’t really done anything since. And from the three writers, one was a Funny or Die alum; one was responsible for God’s Country (a short story adaptation which meant a lot to me but was nothing like Lowlife); and one wrote a script about Juggalos on a road trip called Off Ramp. My feeling is if there’s any later trace of Lowlife’s “voice” to be found, it’s going to be in the Juggalo movie. But I haven’t seen it because as far as I can tell, it never even got distribution. Also because, well, Juggalos…
Which is how I felt about luchadores before Lowlife, so you’d think I’d have learned my lesson!
I would rate it M for “Frequent instances of cultural appropriation”.
This movie has a guy who has a big German tattoo on his face, talks like he’s Black, and ends up becoming a Mexican.
The organ harvesting and the sexual exploitation is pretty gross too I guess.
Yeah, it’s super weird that he hasn’t gotten to make another movie on the back of this.
I noticed after watching that it even got a bump from Tarantino himself. It’s crazy that he hasn’t done more.
He did make a short film, I think as a film student, called Narcocorrido. I believe it won some kind of award, and I was thinking about tracking that down.
Indeed. Juggalos, why did it have to be juggalos…
That’s my favorite one though! I was like “Holy crap, it’s THAT good?” :)
I took the Lowlife challenge and rewatched after my brief exchange with @MelesMeles upthread:
So, a couple of things:
Where on earth did I get the idea that this was in any way reminiscent of Tarantino??? I mean, it follows several different characters and does a cool overlapping narrative scheme a la Pulp Fiction, but there is absolutely nothing in the tone of this – mostly warm, humane, realistic, not at all stylized or exaggerated! – that reminds me of Tarantino. It’s also not at all comedic, at least not in the standard sense. It’s dark and borderline absurd, but I wouldn’t say it’s trying to be funny. Please strike my earlier description.
Good lord, I’d forgotten about that cut to the title card. Basically, I’d forgotten how much of a horror movie this is (check out the credits list for the folks who did the gore effects to get a sense for how hardcore Lowlife gets).
I fucking love Mark Burnham. That guy has screen presence for miles. I guess being six foot six or whatever helps, but even just his relatively lowkey “goddammit, Monstro, your Mexican nonsense is causing me a headache” as he strolls around the corner of the fish taco shop is like a bolt from the blue. Someone please tell me they’re making a whole mess of new Texas Chainsaw Massacres with him!
This time I was wondering how poor Crystal is going to explain the situation at the motel after the movie is over. : ) “So, officers, in this room, there’s a headless suicide victim who was my husband; in this room a family of five has gone missing in the middle of the night when they were kidnapped by a rogue ICE agent who refused to identify himself; and this room was shot up with a shotgun, a snub nose revolver, and an automatic weapon”.
The luchadore stuff is just so sweet and weirdly moving and I think I love luchadores now. Especially if there’s this inherent sense that they’re Mexican superheroes to the low and downtrodden. I hate that I’ve only known them as dumb punchlines, like Jack Black in the sophomore movie from the Napoleon Dynamite creator Jared Hess, or the midgets in the stupid Feast horror movies.
No, it’s pretty miserable and cruel for much of the movie until Keith and Randy show up. It’s not an easy watch.
The Quinceañera scene was so funny to me though. From the very earnest setup to the completely absurd payoff, that’s what hooked me on the movie.
Oy, poor Crystal indeed. It’s not a movie that goes easy on it’s characters. Excellent observation though :)
Isn’t it specifically the family of El Monstruo? My impression is that he was deeply embarrassed about being the tiniest giant, and then he accidentally killed someone in the ring, which definitively brought shame upon his family, and that’s how he ends up with Teddy Bear.
I also love the idea of him being a hero, but as I wrote earlier, I sure don’t see him as one.
The fact that he has a secret altar to his ancestors also got me. I went down a rabbit hole recently reading about Our Lady of Holy Death, which is a bizarre occult religion that has spread in areas of Latin America with high poverty and crime. It’s fascinating stuff, albeit completely unrelated to wrestling!
Oh, absolutely! I mean, he begins the movie as muscle for a human trafficker, and according to the rules of dramatic comeuppance, he’s going to have to pay for it with his life. Basically “movie rules” dictate that his redemption has to be self-sacrifice. But the “office” of El Monstro, for lack of a better word, is familiar to other characters in the movie as a champion of the Mexican people against oppression and evil.
In a chintzy storage shed in his backyard where the rogue ICE agent knows to find him and mace him! : )
Absolutely, and I’m glad the movie is aware of that. I would’ve been really upset with it if it wasn’t.
When someone creates a scene as awful as the one in the basement, I need them to know what they’re doing, because it is painful to watch. But Ryan Prows clearly does know.
Yeah, it is a brilliant idea. I want someone to make a movie where El Monstruo is actually the hero :)
I was reflecting on this, and I ended up watching the two bits of exposition for him, first the Quinceañera scene where he tells the story himself, and then the argument with Kaylee, where the tone of the story changes.
I think the movie is actually saying that the legacy isn’t all that. Even in the sanitized version, his dad leaves him in a terrible neighborhood, to be preyed upon by the people there, so he can grow big and strong and learn to fight.
He tells it like that’s a good and a smart thing for his father to do, even though it’s clearly the actions of a terrible father who isn’t worthy of the name.
And it struck me that fathers like that often end up creating monsters. El Monstruo. I don’t know if that’s deliberate or not, but I stumbled onto the thought, and I like it!
