Review: The Bad Batch (2017): A Mindbending Trip Through an Existential Wasteland

thebadbatch_02

Ana Lily Amirpour’s follow-up to A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a burning man inspired remix of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo by way of Escape From New York and Mad Max.

As the NEON and Annapurna Films logos buzz kicking off the start to The Bad Batch, an astute fan of genre and sci-fi film knows they’re in for something in the vein of John Carpenter’s seminal 1981 film Escape From New York. Society in America has fallen for an unknown reason and undesirable elements in the population, such as immigrants and drug addicts, are corralled and sent off to die in an isolated and irradiated wasteland that wa sonce a part of the United States. In this no-mans-land in a futuristic yet still familiar America, a man known as The Dream (Keanu Reeves) has carved out a small fiefdom of Comfort; one far away from cannibal bodybuilders and vagrants that hunt down those cast out into this cursed earth. It’s here we first met Arlen (Suki Waterhouse), a teenage girl who has just been tossed into this landscape with nothing but a gallon of water and her wits to make her way to survive. On her journey, she encounters a fellow wasteland denizen, Miami Man (Jason Momoa), a tattooed strongman and artist, who is looking for his daughter and will go to any lengths to find her; including sending Arlen into the Dream’s compound to find if she has survived.

By and large, the majority of The Bad Batch is sans dialogue. Following in the tradition of filmmakers by Jodorowsky, from whose films El Topo and The Holy Mountain Amirpour liberally borrows from in this her sophomore feature, The Bad Batch is largely bereft of traditional narrative. Instead we follow Arlen and Miami Man at different points throughout the film. We see Miami Man struggle with the choices he has to make so his family can survive in this wasteland; just as often as we see him paint and draw showing he has an inner life and hasn’t devolved into a savage due to his lifestyle. We see Waterhouse’s Arlen try to make peace with the toll living in this world has taken on her and trying to find meaning in her life despite the seeming bleakness. Whether its through raves and drugs or questioning the solutions offered by the homeless and the mad, Arlen is a character trying to find an answer to the ennui of being abandoned to a life of hardship with no hope.

The film largely works due to the cinematography and score throughout. Amirpour’s juxtaposition of pop songs by Die Antwoord, Culture Club and Ace of Base against cutting violence and bizarre visual landscapes works extremely well throughout the film and gives it a unique and memorable flavor. This is a world with a scorching bleakness to it, but the bright poppy colors and unique visuals give it tthe flavor of a classicically surreal Alex Cox film like Repo Man or Straight to Hell by way of the acid-infused spaghetti western world of Jodorowsky’s El Topo. Momoa plays Miami Man as a cross between the classic gunslinger El Top and Gibson’s Max Rockatansky circa the first film in that franchise by way of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome; his charisma largely helps carry the film during scenes not featuring Reeves’ mercurial Dream. Waterhouse’s Arlen is a hard character to connect with and her hard face brings to mind a young Juliette Lewis, that of a naive but knowing youth. However, as a protagonist it is difficult to empathize with her journey at times. Its particularly with her scenes with Momoa that the film really shines as the two have a solid chemistry on screen and that is the strongest portion of the film in terms of seeing these characters’ motivations and what they are seeking in this world. Special note has to be made of a near unrecognizable Jim Carrey playing an unnamed desert hermit in the film. Carrey has no dialogue in the film but his presence is felt throughout and gives the film most of its narrative thrust in examining the existential.

The Bad Batch will not be for everyone. This is the opposite of absurdist desert wasteland sci-fi like A Boy and His Dog – Ellison’s script gives you all the answers while giving you an insane post apocalyptic world similar to this; Amirpour offers answers to existential questions about ennui and your place in an uncaring universe without telling you much more about this film’s universe. The audience sees hints of a post-Trump America or these could be the remnants of a world much like Tank Girl. In the end, the film challenges you and makes you think and despite moments of farce and lack of narrative push or focus, there’s more good than bad in this Bad Batch.