[You'd think that with such a self-explanatory title, a bust of this movie's plot would be entirely unnecessary. But you'd be wrong.
I must apologise for once again describing a character as someone's "true love". It's just that there seems to be an awful lot of them about, lately.]
The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (2013) is an American-Romanian adventure drama film directed by Fredrik Bond, starring Shia LaBeouf, Evan Rachel Wood, and Mads Mikkelsen.
In the end, jet-setting, hobo with an iPod, adventure seeker, Shia LaBeouf is saved by crack-shot cellist and true love of a few days, Evan Rachel Wood, from certain death at the hands of her violent, ominously fatalistic gangster-enforcer ex-husband, Mads Mikkelsen.
Following the confused advice of a pill-induced spirit vision of his dead mother to travel to Bucharest, LaBeouf finds himself seated next to a salty old Romanian, flying home after a bucket-list visit to the States, who consoles him over the recent death of his mother by recollecting the sad loss of his own wife, many years previously.
Charmed by his candour and friendliness, LaBeouf is later shaken to discover the old man has passed away, in his sleep.
Forced to remain next to the body, when cabin crew are unable to re-seat him, LaBeouf experiences another pill-induced spirit vision, this time of the old man asking him to pass on a gift, together with a message in Romanian, to his daughter, when they land.
Despite a run-in with airport security, when he eventually passes on the message, LaBeouf discovers it was the father's pet-name for his daughter, Rachel Wood, who he is immediately and profoundly attracted to. So much so, that when he later spots her parked by the side of the street, he demands to be let out of the taxi he is travelling in.
Explaining that she was too upset to keep up with ambulance carrying her father's body, LaBeouf offers to drive, but, paying more attention to Rachel Wood that the chaotic traffic, ends up causing an accident that flips the ambulance, when they catch up with it.
Deciding to ride with her father's body in the replacement vehicle, LaBeouf is left with Rachel Wood's car and only the clue that she plays in the Bucharest opera's orchestra, to go on.
Eventually finding his way to the opera house, LaBeouf manages to slip into the building behind a musician, who he follows to the gruff and agitated orchestra leader, who gives LaBeouf a very hard time, until a call from Rachel Wood confirms him as a friend.
Permitted to remain for that night's performance, LaBeouf spots another audience member paying keen attention to Rachel Wood's playing, that turns out to be her ex-husband, Mikkelsen, whose continued interest in her is clearly unwanted.
Annoyed with both men's masculine posturing, Rachel Wood dismisses them, directing LaBeouf to a nearby youth hostel, where he is roomed with a pair of excitable clubbers from Britain, one of whom is trying to break into the local porn industry, who encourage LaBeouf to join them for a drink, which they duly spike.
Out of his head on acid, LaBeouf encounters a contrite Mikkelsen, before running into Rachel Wood, who he insists on tagging along with, to her bemusement, until she finally shakes him off on the steps to a subway station, with some promising sounding words of Romanian, whispered in his ear.
Deliriously happy with himself, LaBeouf races through the streets, until he is struck by a taxi, and suffers a portentous hallucination of Mikkelsen.
Having somehow found his way back to the hostel, the banged-up LaBeouf is disturbed when his room-mates return, one of whom is suffering the extreme consequence of a Viagra overdose, help with which they decide to seek at a local strip club, where they get into trouble with the club's owner, a gangster and former associate of Mikkelsen's, keen to know his current whereabouts.
Released on the understanding that he has 24 hours to serve up Mikkelsen, LaBeouf spends most of the day camped outside the opera house, until the orchestra leader emerges and reluctantly agrees to take him to Rachel Wood's father's house, where a party celebrating his life is under way.
Delighted with LaBeouf's arrival, Rachel Wood ushers him aside, to deliver the kiss she had secretly promised him in Romanian, after which he confesses his encounter with Mikkelsen's threatening former associate, that concerns her considerably, as does Mikkelsen's violently intimidating behaviour towards LaBeouf, when he later interrupts the party, and Rachel Wood is forced to see him off with a passing shot from a revolver, that brings celebrations to an end.
Alone, together, Rachel Wood explains her doomed romance with Mikkelsen and the reason behind his and his former associate's renewed interest in her, that her well informed orchestra leader has just revealed, which is an incriminating video her father was using against the pair, that they are now both interested in recovering.
The next morning, finding Rachel Wood gone, after a passionate night spent together, following LaBeouf's declaration of love, he chances upon a tape with a label that reminds him of something her father mentioned on the plane, that turns out to be security camera footage of a bloody massacre, Mikkelsen and his partner can easily be seen to be the perpetrators of.
Charging off in search of Rachel Wood, he finds her talking to Mikkelsen, who attacks LaBeouf viciously, when he unwisely reveals knowledge of the tape's existence, despite Rachel Wood's own blank denials.
Lucky to survive, LaBeouf is taken into custody, after Mikkelsen flees, before Rachel Wood's orchestra leader bribes police to run LaBeouf out of town.
But on discovering the hostel from where he is collecting his belongings, swarming with gangsters, LaBeouf makes a break for it, and despite losing his perusers in the subway, runs into them again, waiting for him at Rachel Wood's father's house, where he finds the video player empty.
Threatening the lives of LaBeouf and his hostaged room-mates, Mikkelsen's gangster associate is interrupted by a call from Rachel Wood, who bargains for their release, in exchange for the tape.
However, when LaBeouf meets up with her and Mikkelsen, and Rachel Wood explains her destiny lies with Mikkelsen and not LaBeouf, experiencing another vision of his dead mother, LaBeouf rashly decides he must risk all for love, and save her from her ex-husband, which just gets him into further trouble, as Mikkelsen easily subdues him, and LaBeouf ends up dangling head-first from the end of a rope, beside a gigantic set of sluice-gates.
Offering Rachel Wood the chance to demonstrate her renewed commitment to him, Mikkelsen hands her the revolver, with which to shoot LaBeouf. But she deliberately misses, just as police arrive at the scene, shooting Mikkelsen dead, when he pretends to pull a gun on them, allowing everyone to live happily, ever after, or thereabouts.
There are some movie plot lines that progress effortlessly towards a conclusion, and others that lurch along so clunkily, that they give the impression that the director was making it up as they went along. In this case, that might have been due to cuts forced on the production in the edit. Or it might simply have been the result of tossing a bunch of intriguing character and scenario ideas into the air and seeing where they fell.
Whatever the cause, the resulting mess is hard to enjoy as entertainment, although the stonking soundtrack from Buffy the Vampire Slayer stalwart, Christophe Beck, does drive the experience of it along with terrific energy. It's just a shame that the considerable on-screen talent, who are often required to perform sanity-defying volte-faces of emotion and motivation, couldn't have been put to more productive use.
Unless you have a particular thing for former ginger wizards, and the unedifying prospect of a maniacally high Rupert Grint leering over a bar full of fantasized naked women, or getting his infeasibly large chemically induced trouser-schnitzel ground on by a bevy of strip-club dancers really appeals, I suggest we draw a veil over proceeding, and agree to never speak of it, again.
[If this is, in fact, the reason LaBeouf passed on the role Daniel Radcliffe took up in Horns (2013) then he might very well need to have a serious talk with his own representation.
Top marks, though, to Rachel Wood for achieving a very convincing and fetching Ziggy Stardust look.]
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Countryman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggy_Stardust
