I used to frequent a pizza place
that, to this day, has never been topped, and no one I ever talk to is even
aware of its existence. The place is called
Mama’s Pizzeria, and it is located on Belmont Avenue in Philadelphia. It’s in an inconspicuous building with
limited parking. The hours of operation
are also odd (hey, maybe the joint is a front; Considering the quality of the
eats, who am I to judge?). Inside, there
is a small room for takeout orders and a couple of tables for people to dine. Up a narrow stairway is the main dining
room. I never once ordered a pizza from
Mama’s, but I also never needed to. Rather,
they make what is, in my opinion, the single best cheesesteak in the
universe. This delicacy was a little
over a foot long, and for around ten dollars, it had more meat and cheese than
you can comfortably fit into a human stomach (and colon). I used to order these things, and it was all
I would eat for a weekend. I don’t know
if the caliber of their cheesesteaks has held up some twenty-odd years later, but
just the thought of one of those things makes me hungry even now (and I just
ate). The reason I’m promoting cheesesteaks
from Mama’s in a review of Glenn Gordon Caron’s Wilder Napalm is because the restaurant had nothing but clown art
decorating its walls, and in this film, one of the characters is a clown by
profession (a thin connection, sure, but that’s expected from me). That, and I miss Mama’s cheesesteaks and
wanted to extoll their virtues.
Wilder and Wallace Foudroyant
(adjective – Striking as with lightning; sudden and overwhelming in effect;
stunning; dazzling) haven’t seen each other in five years. Wilder (Arliss Howard) has a crummy job, but
he is also a volunteer firefighter. His
wife Vida (Debra Winger) is a firebug who is due up for release from her house
arrest in a few days. Brother Wallace
(Dennis Quaid) is a circus clown who rolls into town on his way to The Big Time
and stirs up old resentments and tensions.
And both brothers are pyrokinetic.
Aside from the basic idea of
sibling rivalry, the film deals with the dueling desires for normality and
notoriety. Wilder craves a quiet
life. He wears a tie and jacket to work at
a Fotomat knockoff in an empty parking lot (guess where the circus sets up
shop). He volunteers to call BINGO at
the local rec center (the film is set in Midlothian, and I assume it’s the one
in Virginia, not Scotland). When he is
paged to a fire, he stops to hang his jacket on a hanger and lock the work
booth door behind him. To lose control
is unacceptable because it irresponsible.
The exception to that rule is when he has sex with Vida, which can get
pretty wild, apparently. Wallace, of
course, is the antithesis of Wilder. He
uses his power freely, zapping flies, melting air conditioners, and so
forth. He wants to be famous, to be
“somebody.” His big dream is to appear
on Late Night with David Letterman
and get rich. Wallace likes to have
fun. When Vida’s house arrest is over,
it’s Wallace who takes her out on the town.
Vida, being the tether between the two, responds to both
positively. She has genuine affection
for Wilder and appreciates that he’s a solid guy (he lost a decent job because
of her but never resented her for it), though she also feels constrained in
their relationship to some degree. By
that same token, she’s attracted to the wild side of Wallace, who knows what
she likes. She is a musician (a cellist,
not a rock ‘n roller), and she loves hanging out on top of her and Wilder’s
trailer home. She sets fires just to get
the fire crew to come to her house, so she can see Wilder (she’s also an
arsonist, thus explaining why she’s enthralled by the Brothers
Foudroyant). The thing about the brothers’
antagonism is that neither is one hundred percent wrong. Wilder thinks that exposing their powers will
only bring harm to them both (“You read Firestarter,
didn’t ya?!”) on top of the physical dangers of it (there is a very good reason
for this). Wallace realizes that he and
his brother are unique, and, if done correctly, his gift can be used to benefit
himself. The two are so dug in on their
positions, that they can’t see the value of the other’s perspective.
For my money, Wilder Napalm could easily have been one
of the first Marvel Comics theatrical releases (you know, if it had anything
whatsoever to do with Marvel). Screenwriter
Vince Gilligan (who would write quite a few episodes of The X-Files but is far better known for creating and executive
producing Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) and director Caron
(also a television alumnus, having created Moonlighting
and Medium) understand what makes
Marvel’s characters work so well, even if they don’t refer directly to them. That is, they are people who have real
problems to deal with on a daily basis who also just so happen to be
superheroes (Wallace has a costume for his Dr. Napalm alter ego, and Wilder
sort of gets one by the end). The most interesting
things in Marvel comic books are usually not the obligatory slugfests but the
interactions between the characters as they wend their way through their
melodramatic lives (true to fashion, this movie contains both). Borrowing heavily from the famous Stan Lee
wisdom of “…in this world, with great power there must also come - - great
responsibility,” the filmmakers use the brothers as foils to illustrate this
point. Further, their powers are
secondary to their interrelationships while also representing the core of what
is between all three of them (when the brothers get worked up, things tend to
melt and boil).
The film is quirky in both good
and bad ways. Four firemen are also an
acapella group who provide a chorus for Wilder (they sing a nice version of The
Ink Spots’ “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire”). Character actors Stuart
Varney and M Emmett Walsh both turn up in small but effective roles as the
circus owner and the fire chief, respectively. There is the dry humor of Wilder’s
character as he paces through his days (Arliss Howard has always excelled at
this). Winger is genuinely charming as
the earnest free spirit. Wallace, while
in his clown persona of Biff, is both unsettling and a tad menacing. That said, the fighting between the boys
turns a little too slapstick at times (there is not only a bonk on the head
from a pipe but also a fire extinguisher to the face). Further, Quaid really overdoes the
histrionics most of the time in an attempt to act funny, something which never
works. He even jumps up and down like
Yosemite Sam at one point. Still, the
film is breezy, the pyrotechnics are truly impressive, and overall, it’s a very
satisfying experience when it’s firing on all cylinders.
MVT: The originality going
on in the script (remember, this was 1993) is admirable.
Make or Break: The finale
cuts loose emotionally and physically, and even though, we know how it will
turn out, it still works a treat.
Score: 7.25/10
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