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ZEROS AND ONES
Director: Abel Ferrara Cast: Ethan Hawke, Cristina Chiriac, Valerio Mastandrea, Dounia Sichov, Korlan Rachmetova, Mahmut Sifa Erkaya, Anna Ferrara MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:25 Release Date: 11/19/21 (limited; digital & on-demand) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 18, 2021 Ethan Hawke plays two characters and appears as himself in writer/director Abel Ferrara's Zeros and Ones. The characters are twin brothers: one a soldier in the U.S. military, stationed in Rome, and the other a political radical, who may or may not be in prison and, for that matter, may or may not be alive. As for the actor, he appears before and after the movie, offering some anticipatory words and, having watched the thing and clearly having no idea what the hell just happened, an admirably improvised monologue about the meaning of life. To be fair, it's not as if Ferrara's movie allows anyone to have an understanding of what the hell is happening in this jumbled, quarter-considered experiment. The movie, according to its star, was written and made in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. From what we can gather, it's a contemporary story about Hawke's solider, named J.J., either trying to stop the bombing of the Vatican or allowing it to happen, in order, maybe, to justify some kind of war. Ferrara gives us the surface and the general motions of a political thriller here, but the plot exists either deeply between the lines or only within the filmmaker's brain. Characters speak in riddles or, in the case of J.J.'s brother (who might be behind the plan or at least knows about it), quote-heavy diatribes. Basically, they offer no help. There are some explosions and chases, but mostly, the sketchy plot follows J.J.'s hunt for information about his brother. It takes him to the house of brother's family, a drug den, a mosque, a homeless veteran's cardboard tent, and, of course, the Vatican, which seems to be destroyed—although, from the lack of any follow-up to such a noteworthy event, it's difficult to tell for certain. A lot of cryptic dialogue and situations (including one moment where some random Russians force J.J. to have sex at gunpoint for, perhaps, blackmail purposes) occur. J.J. obtains some evidence about something or other, and the whole thing builds to some chase or action sequence, before it simply and suddenly ends. The thought arises that Ferrara, certainly no stranger to such enigmatic excursions, is deconstructing the very concept of a political thriller to the bare minimum. If that is the case, Zeros and Ones shows it to be meaningless. The movie itself suffers the same fate. Copyright © 2021 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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