Soul Man
By Eric Cox
Constantine
Released by Warner Brothers
Rated R for violence and demonic images
A movie that is made primarily for teenagers but interesting enough for adults is about as good as major Hollywood studio films get these days.
Such a movie is Constantine, a darkly atmospheric, moody, intelligent thriller--not what you might have expected from a movie based on little-known comic book and directed by a man whose last big gig was a Justin Timberlake video. Certainly not what I expected from a movie starring Keanu Reeves in what looked like a pathetic attempt to recapture the magic of the first Matrix movie-right down to the black jacket and necktie.
In fact, however, Reeves gives the best performance I have ever seen from him. Reeves portrays John Constantine, a man who has the supernatural ability to discern demons and angels, which, as the film has it, travel around on Earth searching for converts. Angels and demons are bound by a pact made between God and Satan that forbids them from interfering directly in the human world, though they may do their best to influence human behavior. When demons possess humans, they are in violation of this pact, and Constantine tracks them down to exorcise them and send them back to hell.
When he encounters an unusual attempt by a demon to break into the human world--an overt violation of the pact (referred to throughout the film as "the balance")--Constantine begins an investigation, speaking to a nerdy occult specialist (Max Baker) and also visiting the angel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton), who walks the earth in human form.
In the course of his investigation, Constantine also encounters Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz), a police detective investigating the apparent suicide of her twin sister, a devout Catholic who Angela is convinced would never have killed herself.
Discovering that their respective cases are related, the two reluctantly decide to work together. Angela is skeptical about supernatural phenomena--though, in a bit of harmless contradiction later in the film, she confesses to always having been attuned to the spiritual world just like her sister, who had strong psychic abilities.
Constantine prefers to work alone, but is forced to initiate Angela into the supernatural realm. He is also aided by a trusty sidekick who provides comic relief, a young apprentice named Chas (Shia LaBeouf) who chauffeurs Constantine around in a yellow cab and pleads with him to see some action.
Constantine's storyline is not always logical or consistent--and it slows down quite a bit precisely when the plot should be gaining steam, but what makes it work so well is the title character as portrayed by Reeves.
Constantine is a throwback to old Hollywood film noir heroes, a chain-smoking, cynical man of action. In the character's marvelous introductory scene, he arrives at an apartment building, a cigarette hanging from his lips, and sets about delivering a girl from a demon as deliberately as a plumber unclogging the kitchen sink.
As in all noirs, Constantine has a dark backstory that remains a mystery through most of the film but motivates everything he does. What we do know about him early on is that he is dying of lung cancer and knows that he is doomed to go to hell himself because of a sin he committed years earlier. His work is thus an almost desperate attempt at personal redemption.
Reeves hits all the right notes in his performance. It is not easy to deliver Constantine's style of tough-guy dialogue well, as many of Reeves' past roles attest.
It also is not easy to make a movie that has all the requisite violence and special effects that will draw in overseas audiences and adolescents at home--which all potential blockbusters must do--and that features a main character who is fascinating enough to hold the interest of adults.
With John Constantine (note the initials), this movie has managed to do just that.
Eric Cox is a research fellow at the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research (www.sipr.org) and a movie columnist for TAEmag.com.
