Picking Up Apples on the Subway
What happens on the subway happens again and again.
Dear Moviegoers,
Briefly, before I get on with Andre Gaines' The Dutchman, I'd like to express some thoughts about a film that came out a few years ago, The Actor. Much like the subject of this review, Duke Johnson's The Actor also starred Andre Holland in the lead role and also dealt with theatricality, time, and choices. Holland gets put through dramatic ringers that are in one moment vague and esoteric, and in others, unsubtle and broad. It was an ambitious picture, if confusing and frustrating.
For The Dutchman, an adaptation of the play by Amir Baraka, some of those words of criticism follow. Some.
A black businessman gets on a subway train, only to be aggressively tossed at by an incredibly sultry - and grossly so - white woman, who is desperately trying to seduce him to a nefarious end. Watching Kate Mara perform this mysterious succubus feels impressively bold and downright embarrassing to me, in fits and bursts, which may have been built in by the script (and perhaps the play), oddly enough. Why the bewilderment of second-hand humiliation? It's the tricks and the trade that Mara lets off. She's demonic here.
She provokes, pokes, de-underwears herself, and makes statements that grow more inappropriate and racist as the movie moves forward. It's less temptation and more self-punishment for Holland's "upstanding gentleman." I'm reminded of the line in Glengarry Glen Ross (another adaptation of another play) where Ed Harris, trying to get Alan Arkin to do some dirty work for him, explains why he's doing this, stating, "because you listened."
This movie isn't a simple, straight line-by-line record of the play, but an innovative interpretation, melding the writing itself into the story, and the playwright himself as a character, played by the always great Stephen Henderson. It's as if Director Andre Gaines is trying to be faithful to the source while updating the material to modern day and attempting to conduct his own fantasy vision of it. I'm uncertain if he succeeded, but I'm sure that it was brash and daring to do all of that.
The Dutchman almost assumes that everyone knows of the play, the other versions of it, the original meaning, and has knowledge of its writer and his background. The racial relations theme is clear and as potent as possible, but the add-ons in this film don't particularly add up to much outside of being creative and being self-serving. It's an ok movie, but never as good or great as it tries to be.
No, The Dutchman isn't terrible, nor is The Actor. They're just two examples of too much and not enough. 2.5/5
The Dutchman is available on digital, for rent or purchase.
