Choke - REVIEW

It's always unfortunate when the best bits of a movie are put into a trailer, or when the trailer by itself is more satisfying than the final product. As fate would have it, that's what has become of "Choke", a dirty comedy based on a novel from the author of Fight Club (a movie which I adore). The use of the term "incendiary" is appropriate in describing author Chuck Palahaliuk's [sic] works because they can easily repel people with the audacity of their subject material (Choke) or their philosophies (Fight Club). As such, it takes a skilled director and screenwriter to properly adapt the author's material to the screen. David Fincher was perfect. Clark Gregg is anything but. His handling of Choke, coupled with an equally dismal screenplay, result in nothing less than a sleazy trainwreck of a movie, despite a good cast (Sam Rockwell, Kelly MacDonald, Angelica Huston). The big problem with the movie is that its priorities are all out of order. The story is supposed to center on a sex addict who pretends to choke in upscale restaurants to earn the affections (and cash) of his saviors to help pay for his dementia-affected mother's (Huston) hospital bills. So you'd think there would be enough choking scenes to justify a blackly funny montage of deception. Instead, we get a movie that borders on pornography. Apparently 2 or 3 scenes of protagonist Victor (Rockwell) engaging in meaningless sex with strangers wasn't enough to let us know how bad his addiction really is. We get scene, after scene, after scene (even though most are brief) of random sex, and after a while it begins to feel more than a little sleazy. Not helping matters is the absolute lack of focus. This is one of those rare movies that seriously doesn't feel like it has a beginning. After the introductory moments, I was expecting some sort of "hang on, allow me to back up to set everything straight". And I waited. And waited. And then I realized that it simply wasn't going to arrive. With meaningless, sleazy, degraded sex pushed to the forefront, the main story is thrown aside, leaving several moments (including the two best scenes in the trailer, which involve an erotic dancer named Cherry Daquiri) feeling more like last minute add ins. The result is a disjointed, tone-less, slimey film that I can best describe as a cinematic prostitute. The only thing I have to add is that Angelica Huston is pretty good, and Rockwell could have been good, but the character just becomes too much. I'm so disappointed, and frankly, disgusted, with Choke, that I'm starting to get sick of writing about it. I think I'll stop now, and pass judgment.

Grade: C-/D+

Nominations: None

Number of 2008 Films Seen: 32