Viking Night: They Live
By Bruce Hall
August 4, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
And I’m not just saying that because he’s dead now. I really liked “Rowdy” Roddy, because he talked the same amount of smack whether he won or lost - and he never, ever stopped talking smack. He’s the one who gets dramatically whacked at the top of Act III in every Scorsese movie, when the Feds are closing in and the guy with the big mouth has become a liability. But it was the very fact that he seemed only dimly aware of the difference between courage and suicide is precisely what made him so entertaining. That he also successfully rocked a kilt in public only doubled the awesomeness.
In a business that made its bacon from larger-than-life personalities, the guy stood out.
This is probably why John Carpenter picked him for the lead role in “They Live”, 1998’s tongue-in-cheek satire about the vanishing line between culture and pop consumerism. And in case you’re starting out fuzzy on that, the first ten minutes pretty much hammer it home. A down-on-his-luck construction worker named Nada (Piper), lands in Los Angeles with nothing but the blank expression of a professional wrestler turned actor, and whatever else he can carry on his back. He finds no kindness in the City of Angels, because nobody there appreciates good honest work, or good honest workers. So Nada wanders, and as he does, he rubs elbows with an apocalyptic street preacher who, if you listen, lays down the theme of the story for you.
Then, as if to further prove the point, Nada notices something peculiar about the city. All around, there’s a stark dichotomy between classes, with vagrants camped outside the open windows of comfortable middle class apartments. Inside, fat/happy consumers drool away in front of the television, soaking up cathode rays like sunlight. Nada watches this with the semi-amused detachment of a guy who’s already up above it. Carpenter lays it on a little thick here, doing backflips to remind us that we’re a society living under the thumb of greedy, conniving Overlords. Obviously, what humanity needs is a savior; someone to open our eyes. Lucky for us, as the hero of this story, Nada is not down with being a media hero.
It’s not that I don’t wholeheartedly agree with Carpenter’s assessment. In fact, as bad as it was in 1988, just look around you today. How many people do you know who would go into immediate anaphylaxis without their smart phone. With no way to manage their Starbucks points and publicly obsess over the inevitability of middle age weight gain on Facebook, many of us wouldn’t have a damn thing to do all day. Nobody knows the difference between news and entertainment anymore. We let our leaders manipulate us with our own fears, and we soothe ourselves at the mass media teat. We rely on corporate America to assure us that yes, we matter and yes, as long as we keep spending money, we’re always doing the right thing. Dear God, it’s worse than I thought. It’s gotten so bad, if aliens wanted to invade they could just walk right in and take over, and we’d all be too busy tittering at cat pictures to notice!
It is this very metaphor that forms the centerpiece of the film. I think that’s pretty cool. What’s not is everything else.
Nada’s hunt for work leads him to a construction site, where he befriends a man of similarly strong moral fiber in a fellow construction worker named Frank (Keith David). The two develop an immediate and very plot-friendly bond that serves them well throughout the story. All too often, Frank extends an inappropriate level of trust to Nada, not because it makes any sense - but because it’s his role to do that. They Live isn’t populated with characters, it’s infested with plot contrivances. But really, that’s fine. It’s not very imaginative, but it’s still a valid way to tell a story, right? Besides, Mr. Carpenter has been doing what he does for a long time, and because of The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China, I’m willing to trust him.
Moving on, Frank and Nada put down roots in an oddball urban shantytown that looks like a Syrian refugee camp because that’s what happens to hard working people in a diseased society like ours. While investigating mysterious goings on in and around Camp Oddball, Nada comes into possession of a strange pair of sunglasses that allow him to…”see” (or “unsee” depending on your point of view) certain things that others can’t. I won’t spoil the details except to say that the metaphor will be obvious. If you think what I said before was nuts, how would you feel about the inexorable decay of Western civilization if you could literally see it with your own eyes, rather than waiting for some shrieking AM radio personality (or internet columnist) to tell you about it?
It’s a pretty cool idea, even if we never do find out exactly why these incredible pieces of eyewear even exist. They just DO, okay? It’s all part of the unapologetically allegorical nature of this movie. Okay, so now that he’s got your attention, what will Mr. Carpenter do with it? He’s got the human race devolving into compliant sheep without even realizing it. He has many salient observations about our society’s obsession with self-indulgence. Add in a spectacularly mulleted hero, best known for his aforementioned kilt-rocking ability, and you have the potential makings of a kick ass sci-fi horror/satire. That is, unless of course, you’d like to go a different route and make the last two thirds it a mess of glacial pacing, pointless exposition and lazy sleight-of-hand.
Of course, Nada makes the acquaintance of a random beautiful woman named Holly (Meg Foster, whose acting style I can only describe as “mannequin-esque”). Holly really has nothing to do with the story, she’s just there to be the pretty face all action movies seem to need. Holly and Nada start off rocky, and for just a moment it looks like we’re going to get the first interesting twist of the film. But eventually, Holly ends up being just another useless ‘80s Action Flick Chick. And speaking of action, the biggest issue I have with They Live is that there’s so damn little of it. Yes there are a handful of action sequences, but they’re so spread out and over the top that they don’t feel natural. What few moments of true dread, danger or excitement there are don’t fit well into the context of the story, and feel more like an attempt to liven up what was starting to look like a really dull movie.
I could excuse most of these shortcomings if I thought this movie was a straight satire. But despite some intentionally corny visual effects, and a few moments of clever self-referential wit, They Live seems to take itself pretty seriously. It starts with nearly 10 minutes of glaring pretense, followed by 20 minutes of genuinely interesting build up, bogs down in the middle with what feels like hours of poorly paced exposition dialed back to C-SPAN levels of dullness. It saves all its energy for an ending that, while admittedly action packed, still hardly feels worthy of all the buildup.
They Live urgently asks a lot of interesting questions, and then just drops the subject entirely. What becomes of a society when it gives up trying to better itself? Are the driven among us just destined to rule over the ones who aren’t? Is it ever okay to sell out your personal liberties for a larger cause? Is it wrong not to want more from life once your basic needs are met? If not, what’s the point in even fearing death? Wow! That’s a lot of super deep thinking! Too bad we spend approximately zero time whatsoever exploring any of that, and after the movie goes through all that trouble to curb stomp it into you! Instead of the clever social commentary you thought you were going to get, They Live just kind of turns into a bad Lethal Weapon knockoff filmed for less than what it would cost to buy a dumpster full of kilts.
To be fair, Roddy Piper did show some potential as an action hero. He lacked Sly’s intensity and Arnold’s winking self-awareness, and God knows he was no Kurt Russell, that’s for damn sure. But he acquitted himself well in They Live, and had the film been more successful, maybe he would have had a chance to stretch his legs and develop his own unique style. So, while the jury is out on him as an actor, I give Piper credit for improvising the best line in the movie, which was recycled for one of the best video games of the 1990s, which helped make me the attention deficient, socially awkward person I am today. Thanks, Roddy. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Rest in peace, my rowdy friend.