Review: The Bad Batch

If writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour's impressive directorial debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, was pitched as "the first Iranian vampire western," then her no less striking sophomore feature, The Bad Batch, can be likened to a grindhouse cannibal western. Mixing elements of the Mad Max series, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo, The Bad Batch confirms Amirpour as an auteur with a knack for finding fresh new angles in genres generally categorised as low-rent or exploitative and infusing them with political and feminist touches.

The Bad Batch is set in a dystopian wasteland where undesirables are exiled from America and left to fend for themselves. Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) is just one of the many considered to be part of the Bad Batch, and it doesn't take very long to discover what lies beyond the U.S. border. Arlen is taken captive by member of the Bridge, a gang of cannibals who rescue her from the scorching heat only to chain her up and saw off an arm and a leg. The plucky Arlen manages to escape on a skateboard and is barely conscious when she's picked up by a mute hermit (an almost unrecognisable Jim Carrey), who drops her off in the makeshift town of Comfort, whose citizens are led by a long-haired, mustachioed leader The Dream (Keanu Reeves) who encourages them to "follow the Dream" and have "the Dream inside you."

Five months pass. Arlen is now up and about with a new prosthetic leg, but she hasn't exactly settled in Comfort. She doesn't help matters by wandering around the outskirts of Comfort where she encounters one of her former captors, whom she shoots dead. Model Waterhouse has been building up her resume with small roles in Love, Rosie, Insurgent, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; here, she proves herself a compelling presence and, though she still has a long way to go as far as her acting is concerned, she sells the moment when Arlen's anger gives way to shock at having pulled the trigger.

The second half of the film pairs her with Jason Momoa's Miami Man, a hulking Cuban cannibal searching for his daughter Honey (Jayda Fink), who followed Arlen back to Comfort and was secretly taken in by The Dream. Arlen and Miami Man forge a testy bond as he enlists her help by threatening to kill her if she doesn't succeed in returning Honey back to him.

The Bad Batch abounds in remarkable compositions, amongst them a shot of the newly dismembered Arlen lying on the sand during the night, the acid-fuelled first meeting between Arlen and Miami Man, the neon colours that dominate one of the raves in Comfort, even the final image of three figures surrounded by barren land as far as the eye can see. Amirpour directs with a confident hand, depicting a society that's not too dissimilar from our own. However, Amirpour has a tendency to let scenes run for far longer than they should. A scene with Miami Man sketching the hermit is already unnecessary, yet Amirpour lets the scene go on for the length of time it takes Miami Man to do the drawing. Similarly, a tense showdown between Miami Man and an equally brawny figure is nearly undone by too long pauses between exchanges.

Nevertheless, The Bad Batch is most definitely worth a look and a listen. The soundtrack features a handful of unexpected song choices such as Ace of Base's "All That She Wants" alongside tracks from Darkside, Die Antwoord, Black Light Smoke, and Federale, a seven-piece ensemble whose works are often compared to Ennio Morricone.

The Bad Batch

Directed by: Ana Lily Amirpour

Written by: Ana Lily Amirpour

Starring: Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Keanu Reeves, Diego Luna, Giovanni Ribisi, Jim Carrey, Yolonda Ross, Jayda Fink