Mall (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Someone who goes on a rampage in a local mall… It doesn’t sound too much like fiction, does it? A situation like that happens in real life, which makes this movie so much more interesting, or so I thought. Why would anyone do such a thing? What are the consequences for other people? With Mall, I assumed that all those questions would get a pretty clear answer but the movie wasn’t quite what I expected. Here’s why.
The story starts off with Malcolm, a troubled young man who’s addicted to crystal meth and doesn’t see his life turning out too well. He decides to take up arms and bring some mayhem to the local mall. Malcolm’s decision to go on a rampage reflects immediately on other people in the mall. Of course, you have the customers who are incredibly terrified because of this act of violence and the guards who don’t seem fit to take it up against the crazy boy but more importantly, there’s Jeff.
Jeff is a very philosophic boy who seems to keep to himself most of the time while his favorite thing to do is making up stories about the people around him (which are fairly accurate to their real lives). Besides his strange talent, he seems to be in love with Adelle but it’s clear quite fast that the feelings aren’t mutual. When the girl he loves makes a bit of fun of him and says he’s far from an exciting person, something changes in Jeff. What that is, you’ll see when you watch the movie but it’s interesting how the director tried to put these emotions into visual effects. Although those effects may seem a bit strange at first, somehow, it wasn’t too hard to understand their basic meaning and just go with it.
Besides those two main characters, there’re still 3 other recurring ones but their stories are connected to either Malcolm or Jeff so it’s more important to talk about those two personages. It’s a fact though, that Malcolm’s actions have their impact on the lives of all 5 main characters (going from a Peeping Tom to a shady Tuxedo salesman).
Both Malcolm and Jeff represent certain problems in a youth’s life like peer pressure, drugs and love among other things. In the beginning of the movie, these issues are shown in a fairly normal way with some special effects to keeps things interesting but as the movie progresses, things can become a bit weird both story wise and visually. First, you’ll have a feeling like: “Yeah, I get this movie, I get what those people are going through and what those acts mean to them”, but after a while, some stuff happens that give this movie a totally different vibe. If that’s a good or a bad thing… It’s hard to say really. Some of you will love the change; others will think it’s totally over the top. If I may give a tip, watch the extras afterwards. In one of them, the director explains what this movie is all about and what the meaning of all that initial “weirdness” is and this truly helps to understand Mall a lot better. Still, this movie might not be for everyone and it’s possible that you don’t feel like watching it ever again.
Acting wise, there aren’t really people that stand out but this doesn’t mean that the actors and actresses weren’t good. They all did a decent performance which helped quite a lot in keeping the viewer interested to watch the whole movie as at some moments, a sudden urge might pop up to stop the movie and go see something a little more “casual”. James Frecheville, who plays the role of Malcom, the cold-blooded killer, succeeds in making his character a convincing one. The way he acts and thinks in Mall is very alike with how some news reports in the real world describe a real criminal who did something as terrible as Malcolm did. Then we have Cameron Monaghan who does his very best to play a young lad who’s not really down to earth. In the beginning, the acting is realistic and believable but as the movie progresses, the acting seems to go a bit downwards. The other cast members like India Menuez (Adelle), Peter Stormare (Barry) and Gina Gershon (Donna) among others, do their work well enough but it’s hard to say that one of them really stood out as I already mentioned.
What I previously mentioned in this review as well: it’s really recommendable to watch the extras after seeing the movie. They will explain the vision of director Josephn Hahn thoroughly and you might appreciate Mall a bit more because of it. This doesn’t change the fact that Mall stays a pretty “special” movie which won’t suit everyone’s taste.
Conclusion
Mall starts off pretty interesting with Malcolm going nuts but it doesn’t take too long before the “weird” side of the movie pops up. The acting is pretty standard and nothing extraordinaire but gets the job done. Casual movie watchers might get surprised at some of Mall’s scenes but if you don’t mind that a movie does something totally different, then maybe you can still give Mall a chance.
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