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Babylon (3/10) by Tony Medley 190 minutes R Beware when you see that a film is “written and directed” by the same person, as this one is by Damien Chazelle. It’s human nature that a writer doesn’t want anything s/he’s written to be removed from the film. So how can a director excise something that director has written? This is a prime example. Although there really isn’t a plot, what plot there is certainly can be told in half the time. This film needed an independent director or a much better editor or some hands-on producers to ruthlessly apply the scissors. The first hour is, in a word, atrocious. It’s convoluted, meaningless (except to show rampant debauchery and to flash some bare breasts), if not ridiculous. Worse, the sound is horrendous. It’s not only far too loud (the opening approximately half hour is almost enough to deafen hapless viewers) but also muffled and difficult to comprehend the dialogue, although maybe that’s a blessing. After 60 painful minutes it picks up a little. There is one good bit about reshooting a scene over and over before they can get the sound correct, but even that is overblown. Constant retakes are part of the biz. Brad Pitt is the star, but his bland performance is less than tantalizing. Diego Calva gives a good performance but the person who steals the picture is Margot Robbie. The film only shows life when she and Jean Smart, infra, are onscreen. I’m not sure why they named 70-year-old Jean Smart’s character Elinor St. John. That must be some sort of reference to Adela Rogers St. John who was a screenwriter and reporter who wrote classic Hollywood interviews in the ‘20s and ‘30s, but was in her 30s during the period covered by this film. As an aside not relevant to this movie, her fascinating. biography of her Los Angeles Attorney father, Earl Rogers, Final Verdict, is a book that captures a lot more accurately the life in early Los Angeles than this bloated orgiastic phantasmagoria. Be that as it may, Smart’s performance is right up there with Robbie’s as the best parts of the film. Alas, too little to save this turkey.
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