SANCTIMONY (2000)

Directed by: Uwe Boll

Writer: Uwe Boll

 

Sanctimony is a movie about some guy that kills people and it was released a few months after American Psycho, with which it shares certain plot elements. I originally thought that Sanctimony was actually the first and therefore considered American Psycho just a blatant rip-off of it, but now that I know the chronology, I realize those two have absolutely nothing in common.

"Please sign this. It's a statement that you won't sue us when we kill you."

This movie was one of the last Uwe Boll made before the historic House of the Dead, which marked the beginning of the long and fruitful video game adaptation phase of his career. That phase is still not over (and probably never will be), but thankfully for the last few years he’s also been doing other projects. But I digress. Even though this (at least to my knowledge) isn’t a video game adaptation, it sure has UWE BOLL written all over it – it’s not hard to see a rushed-out production, Michael Pare (this time without the usual accent aigu in his last name, which makes typing this text a whole lot easier), complete disregard for the usual film structure (also for political correctness!) and occasional flashes of brilliance, which make you wonder what would Uwe do if he was given tons of money and enough time to completely realize some of his visions. I guarantee that would be a blockbuster more insane than Transformers and 2012 combined!

What a nice couple! Working couple, I mean - Jennifer surely wouldn't do anything to ruin Michael's marriage

Sanctimony starts as your average serial killer thriller (no rhyme intended). Pare and Jennifer Rubin are two cops working on a bizarre series of murders (working as in solving, not committing them, mind you). The killer, nicknamed The Monkey Maker (sic!), has already offed like 14 people or something – six of them have their eyes ripped out, six of them ears cut off and the last two – the tongue (if I remember correctly). This leads Michael and Jennifer to think that this might be related to that see no evil – hear no evil – speak no evil thing, and the number of victims (6 + 6 + 2 and counting) reminds them of a certain Iron Maiden album. The hunt for the Monkey Maker is taking its toll on Pare, who is so occupied with the case that he starts to neglect his wife Catherine Oxenberg. Fairly standard stuff as you see, complete with a ridiculous nickname for serial killer.

It's OxenbErg, you fools!

However, this movie is not about the hunt for the killer, as his identity is revealed very quickly – it’s about the killer himself. The guy’s name is Tom Turner (or Garrick if you read the credits, but don’t trust them too much – they even misspelled Catherine Oxenberg’s name on the DVD) and he’s a brilliant young stock trader who realises the emptiness of our modern society driven by materialism and decides to start killing people. Of course, he’s not killing the entire time - he also wisely takes time to humiliate and insult everyone around him, especially his fiancee and friends.

A subtle reference to Starship Troopers! That was a movie about BUGS, and this here is Volkswagen BEETLE, which is practically the same thing!

 

You won’t see Casper Van Dien playing the bad guy very often, but he definitely should – as Robin Williams’ example shows, psychopaths are best played by quiet and nice people (I think Javier Bardem would also agree). At times Tom seems like a nice guy, only to turn into a monster without any visible effort. The best example is the hilarious dinner scene with his fiancee, which I won’t spoil here – suffice it to say that she expected them to talk about some final wedding arrangements and instead she got something completely different.

Casper was initially offered Michael Pare’s part, but he found the role of the villain more interesting. That way he lost the opportunity to have his wife play his wife. It’s pretty cool to watch the movie when you know that Casper and Catherine are married in real life – for example, in one scene she says to Michael Pare “Catch that son of a bitch!” (referring to Casper) and while you may think that’s not a very nice thing to say about your husband, you have to keep in mind that he tried to hang her from the window a few minutes earlier. I consider Casper’s behaviour towards his wife in this movie even worse than in Road Rage. 


 

Catherine is pregnant and not happy with Michael's obsession with Casper

I haven’t even mentioned his sex scene, which is easily the most disturbing part of the movie (and keep in mind that the body count here is pretty large). Basically, he starts to rape his fiancee but it turns into consentual sex. This was too much for the British censors, who decided that was simply unacceptable because it implied that women like to be raped or some crap like that. Idiots. They managed to completely miss the point of the scene. It’s not about raping itself, it’s about Casper’s character – it shows him being a real bastard and at the same time irresistably attractive (to women).

"Now I'll show you how to make a KILLING!"

(I apologize for the oldest joke in the world, but it seemed appropriate)

Anyway, the raping part of the scene was cut in the UK version, and the cut is absolutely horribly done (it was probably in a big hurry) -  it looks as if some kid had fun editing the film with his VCR. One moment Casper is approaching the girl and then it immediately jumps to them being naked and having sex and it’s so damn obvious that there’s something missing. I wonder what Catherine thought of that scene (though I must admit, there’s a possibility that body doubles were involved at some point). As for her, she didn’t have any sex scenes with Michael Pare (most of the time she was pissed off with him for giving his complete self to chasing Casper and not loving her), but she did see him naked in a completely gratuitous nude modeling scene (fortunately, we didn’t!).

That beautiful red and green photography always creates an intense atmosfere of fear and moral destruction of our society. And death.

The weakest part here is the character development. Almost all of the characters are completely flat and uninteresting, with Lieutenant (played by Eric Roberts) taking the cake. What a tragic waste of a good actor! He was given only the most generic lines in the history of thrillers. “Catch this guy before FBI takes the case from us!” is about the peak of his character’s intelectual capacity. Michael Pare tries his best playing a disturbed cop, but often winds up looking like a sissy. Catherine Oxenberg is good, but her part is too small to make any significant impact. As for Jennifer Rubin, I must say I expected more from her. She was always the sexy one in her movies and there’s none of that here. After this, she made only two or three movies (one of which was the incredibly crappy Cruel Game) before retiring, only to make a spectacular comeback seven years later in... are you ready... TRANSMORPHERS: FALL OF MAN (!).

A nice car race through the streets of Vancouver

With character development being the weakest part of the movie, it’s no surprise you’ll quickly find yourself rooting for Casper, and he won’t disappoint you – the ending of this movie, when he finally snaps (snaps, as if he hadn’t killed 15 people already!) is absolutely hilarious. Uwe does John Woo like his life depends on it and the last ten minutes or so are almost entirely shot in slow motion. I’ll just say that people die here and it’s one of the most beautiful examples of gratuitous violence EVER (though I have to warn you, there’s not much blood – it’s all about the action and the choreography). So, even if you didn’t enjoy the rest of the movie much, the ending will make it worth your while.

Michael saves Catherine from certain death. Pay attention to the fact that this is the building they live in! Either the cops have crappy salary, or Uwe should have fired his production designer

The atmosphere is good and mostly makes up for the undeveloped screenplay – the photography and music at times create a feeling of a William Gibson story (though there’s no trace of cyberpunk here, of course) and the direction and editing are done in that chop-chop music video style, which actually works really well.

 

"Honey, where are you going?"

"To buy some sheets and pillows."

 

Sanctimony may not be the deepest movie in the history of cinema, but it’s well worth watching. If Uwe had improved the screenplay just a bit, it could have been a mightily mighty thing, but then again, you have to remind yourself that at any given moment Uwe is working on about fifteen different films, so he can’t be bothered with technicalities. I will end this review now.