O (Tim Blake Nelson, 2001)

Mekhi Phifer and Josh Hartnett in O

Cast: Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hartnett, Julia Stiles, Martin Sheen, Andrew Keegan, Rain Phoenix, Elden Henson, John Heard. Screenplay: Brad Kaaya, based on a play by William Shakespeare. Cinematography: Russell Lee Fine. Production design: Dina Goldman. Film editing: Kate Sanford. Music: Jeff Danna. 

Tim Blake Nelson's O begins with Desdemona's prayer from Verdi's Otello on the soundtrack, which seems to me like a misstep, reminding anyone who knows either Shakespeare's play or Verdi's operatic adaptation of it that they won't be hearing either the former's verse or the latter's music. That probably doesn't matter to anyone unfamiliar with those masterworks, which includes much of the teenage audience for which the movie seems designed, but it puts a heavy burden on it for those who do know them. Brad Kaaya is quite deft at sticking to the plot and characters of the play, however, and many of the actors are up to its demands. As Hugo, the movie's Iago, Josh Hartnett is a plausible schemer, and Kaaya probably didn't need to supplement the "motiveless malignancy" of the original character with a suggestion of 'roid rage, showing Hugo shooting up a performance enhancer. Julia Stiles's Desi is spunkier than the play's Desdemona, which presents a problem only at the end, when her character doesn't fight back as much as she might be expected to. But the casting to Mekhi Phifer as Odin (a curiously Nordic name) is the major mistake: He doesn't evoke the charisma and power that Othello needs, both in wooing Desi and becoming the tragic subject of Hugo's. Phifer is also a good deal shorter than Hartnett, which unbalances their confrontation. Still, if you're going to rip off Shakespeare, O does a better job of it than might be expected.  

Trap (M. Night Shyamalan, 2024)

Cast: Josh Harnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, Jonathan Langdon, Mark Bacolcol, Marnie McPhail, Kid Cudi, Russ, Marcia Bennett, Vanessa Smythe. Screenplay: M. Night Shyamalan. Cinematography: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. Production design: Debbie DeVilla. Film editing: Noemi Katharina Preiswerk. Music: Herdis Stefánsdóttir. 

Viewing the manhunt for a killer from the killer's point of view is a good premise for a thriller, one that was done classically by Fritz Lang in M (1931). And M. Night Shyamalan gets off on the right foot by casting the attractive, underrated, and underused actor Josh Hartnett in the lead. He plays Cooper, the psychopath next door, a capable and loving family man whom no one would suspect of being a serial killer called The Butcher. He is just being a good dad when he takes his 12-year-old daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to a concert by her favorite pop star, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), only to find out that the arena is under tight surveillance by the police and the FBI under the supervision of a profiler (Hayley Mills, in the most improbable bit of casting in this or any other year). Will he be able to outwit his pursuers? Do we really want him to? Unfortunately, Shyamalan botches things in working out the plot, in large part by making the concert, of which we see much more than necessary, a crashing bore. The writer-director's daughter, Saleka, wrote and performed her own rather lackluster songs, one of the instances that justify the phrase "nepo baby." She's also not up to the acting demands of the role when she's off-stage. Worst of all, the film ends with a scene that leaves room for a sequel. I'm surely not the first one to suggest that it be called Claptrap?   

The Faculty (Robert Rodriguez, 1998)

Laura Harris, Shawn Hatosy, Josh Hartnett, Clea DuVall, Elijah Wood, and Jordana Brewster in The Faculty

Cast: Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Shawn Hatosy, Elijah Wood, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Christopher McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Patrick, Usher, Jon Stewart, Daniel von Bargen. Screenplay: Kevin Williamson, David Wechter, Bruce Kimmel. Cinematography: Enrique Chediak. Production design: Cary White. Film editing: Robert Rodriguez. Music: Marco Beltrami.

Two premises are key to The Faculty: that adolescents see adults in authority as alien figures, and that high school is an instrument for instilling social conformity. The former has been the stuff of movies since Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955). The latter is in evidence today in the efforts of states like Florida and Texas to remake education along conservative ideological lines. Unfortunately, Kevin Williamson's screenplay and Robert Rodriguez's direction don't take either premise seriously enough to make more than a raucous but routine sci-fi/horror movie out of the material. The result is exactly as the Criterion Channel describes it: "The Breakfast Club meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers." John Hughes's 1985 movie put a Jock, a Brain, a Criminal, a Princess, and a Basket Case together in detention and explored the interaction of disparate high school stereotypes. The Faculty's misfit crew is a little more complex: Stan (Shawn Hatosy), the Jock, wants to quit the team, and Zeke (Josh Hartnett) is both Brain and Criminal: He concocts his own drug (unfortunately called "scat") in his lab, selling it out of the trunk of his car, and he has an off-the-charts IQ. Elijah Wood's Casey is bullied the way Brains typically are in teen movies, and Clea DuVall's Stokely is more of a goth-punk rebel than a Basket Case. Jordana Brewster's Delilah is an overachieving Princess, both editor of the school newspaper and captain of the cheerleading squad. They are joined by a New Girl, Marybeth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris), a transfer from Atlanta to their Ohio high school who comes complete with a somewhat cloying Southern accent. If The Faculty had kept its focus steadily on this group as they uncover the fact that their teachers have been taken over by an extraterrestrial organism, the movie would have had more coherence and suspense. Instead, it opens with the revelation that something is clearly causing the teachers and the principal to go mad and murderous. The principal (Bebe Neuwirth) is attacked in her office by the coach (Robert Patrick), and when she tries to escape, her way is blocked by a teacher, Mrs. Olson (Piper Laurie), who suddenly turns from meek to menacing. After missing work for a day or so, the principal returns as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, other teachers have been showing personality changes that begin to spread into the student body. It's not long before the movie begins to invoke the other half of its inspiration, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956; Philip Kaufman, 1978). Williamson, whose screenplay for Scream (1996) was full of allusions to other horror films, can't resist making the source for The Faculty explicit, so when his teenagers cite the movie themselves and use it as a guide to fighting the alien, The Faculty becomes too meta for its own good. There's enough to enjoy in the movie, including good performances by most of the cast. Hartnett is particularly good in the role of a guy who's embarrassed by his own intelligence. It's fun to see Jon Stewart, who plays a science teacher, in one of the acting performances he likes to make fun of. But when it comes to making good on its key premises and developing a real satiric edge, The Faculty has to be called a missed opportunity. 

The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999)

Cast: James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, Michael Paré, Scott Glenn, Danny DeVito, A.J. Cook, Hanna Hall, Leslie Hayman, Chelse Swain, Anthony DeSimone, Lee Kagan, Robert Schwartzman, Noah Shebib, Jonathan Tucker. Screenplay: Sofia Coppola, based on a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. Cinematography: Edward Lachman. Production design: Jasna Stefanovic. Film editing: Melissa Kent, James Lyons. Music: Air.

Sofia Coppola's first feature is a well-crafted and reasonably faithful adaptation of a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides that takes a retrospective view of the suicides of five teenage girls in an affluent American suburb. Kirsten Dunst is, as so often, a standout as the sister who rebels against her overprotective parents and eventually promotes the suicide pact.