Muddled ‘Kalamity’ Plays One-Night Only Chicago Engagement

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Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – There was a day not that long ago when it felt like Nick Stahl was the next rising star. He delivered nuanced performances in films and on HBO’s “Carnivale” that led one to believe there was potential for stardom. “The Thin Red Line,” “In the Bedroom,” “Bully” — he was going somewhere in the early ’00s, but he was derailed into basically nothing but straight-to-video junk like “Mirrors 2” since 2005’s “Sin City.” Does “Kalamity,” playing a one-night engagement at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago tonight, January 25th, 2011, represent a comeback or continued decline?

I won’t tease you any more by delaying the answer — it is definitely the latter. A muddled mess from the very beginning, “Kalamity” is a near-disaster, a work that offers glimpses yet again at the talent Stahl appears to have squandered but never once comes together into an entertaining piece of its own. With an overdone score, horrendous script, choppy editing, and bizarre tone changes, “Kalamity” is just weird in that B-movie, straight-to-video way that sometimes distinguishes films into the so-bad-it’s-good genre but not quite here. And when a movie falls short of that genre, it’s just bad.

Kalamity
Photo credit: Screen Media Films

Stahl plays Billy, a young man returning home to Virginia where he finds an old friend named Stanley (Jonathan Jackson) who appears to have gone crazy from the local heat and a break-up with a missing girlfriend. Billy tries to reconcile with an ex-girlfriend (Beau Garrett) and even speaks to her when she’s not there (raising instant “which one is the crazy one?” questions) but Stanley’s mental decline quickly takes center stage. Billy consults with Christian (the very-ineffective Christopher M. Clark), Stanley’s roommate, to try and figure out what the hell is going on and the script takes a few twists and turns.

Films with mysterious characters acting bizarrely must fulfill one key tenet — we must give a damn what’s happening to the characters in question. Stanley is an odd creation, a guy who behaves like a near-mental patient who we have no ties to other than through a lead that we have difficulty caring for as well because, well, he seems one card short of a full deck as well. Jackson has done decent work in the past, appearing as Kyle Reese in “The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” but he’s miscast here, mistaking brooding and mopey for crazy.

There was potential here. It’s essentially about two men (Billy and Stanley) dealing with emotional break-ups. But the chance to turn this foundation of a story into a concrete indie drama was wasted with thriller elements that never work. Why bother with the mystery? Why not focus on the way men deal with romantic drama, something rarely dealt with honestly in film?

Kalamity
Photo credit: Screen Media Films

As “Kalamity” progresses it gets weirder and significantly worse. Odd music choices, poor dialogue, bizarre framing choices, weird transitions — the film constantly threatens to go completely off the rails into B-movie greatness but it takes itself too damn seriously to do so. Writer/director James Hausler can’t decide if he’s made a cheesy midnight movie or a serious thriller and, consequently, fails by committing to neither. It’s not a gritty enough film to be a serious look at a homicidal mental case. There’s simply not enough tension. And it’s too slow to be a midnight movie marathon entry. Audiences would get bored if this played at 2am. And they’d throw things at the screening by the time the cop-out ending pops up with its overheated narration.

With another truly lackluster notch on his belt, what happens to Nick Stahl now? Considering the last two things I saw him in where “Mirrors 2” and now this equal (and possibly even inferior…yes, worse than “Mirrors 2”) misstep, one has to wonder how many more chances he’ll have before we’ve forgotten “Carnivale” and “Sin City” entirely. Or if he’s run out already.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]