Whenever he damn well feels like it Nathan Rabin emerges from his crypt of doom, drinks the blood of virgins to regain his waning potency and writes about two or three DVD premieres for Dispatches From Direct-To-DVD Purgatory.
Journey To The End Of Night Most actors claim they appear in big-budget, special effects blockbusters solely as a way to pay the bills so they can appear for next to nothing in the films they really care about, gritty low-budget dramas where they play ex-con narcoleptics who live with their mother and enjoy an unlikely friendship with a blind Holocaust survivor. In his interview with the A.V Club a while back, Brendan Fraser confessed that he appeared in moody independent films as a way of passing the time between the films he really cares about: big-budget special effects blockbusters where he battles mummies and journeys to the center of the earth and pals around with the Tasmanian Devil, the big homey Monkeybone and Bill Ayers. At this point isn't Bill Ayers, like Joe The Plumber, everyone's friend? Isn't he ultimately humanity's friend?
I found Fraser's attitude refreshing. He seems like an exuberant overgrown kid who still can't believe he gets to play dress up and make-pretend in front of green screens for a living. Readers were less approving. From the vitriol he inspired in the comments section you'd think he'd raped their dog, not appeared in some films they didn't care for.
While other, more pretentious thespians rail against the cruelty of typecasting, Fraser seems comfortable with being cast in film after film as a boyishly handsome goof who has fantastical adventures. And for good reason: his dramatic films tend to suck. Oh sure, he was good in Gods and Monsters and touching in The Scout. And I suppose that horrible Crash movie did O.K.
I can't say enough Fraser's revelatory performance as a Henry Kissinger-like statesman in President Baseball. Fraser was spellbinding, and not just because he was unrecognizable after taking an aging drug specifically for the role. The scene where he negotiated an oil treaty with the King of Salty Arabia was spellbinding. Frightmaster Trent L. Strauss really outdid himself with that one.
Fraser tends to fare worse in non-imaginary movies. There's a reason I've covered three of Fraser's recent non-Mummy movies for this feature (The Last Time, The Air I Breathe and now Journey To The End Of Night. To paraphrase the great Jay Sherman, they stink! The differences between Journey To The End Of Night and this summer's Journey to The Center of the Earth are instructive. For Earth, Fraser was paid millions of dollars, was pampered like a King and got to stay in a ginormous trailer, starred in an international blockbuster that grossed over one hundred million dollars in the U.S alone and made a movie he could proudly show his kids. In Night, however, Fraser was undoubtedly paid in craft-service sandwiches, probably slept in the back seat of the director's car and made a movie that went direct to DVD that he could never show his children unless he wants them to ask questions like, "Why is daddy beating up that hooker and stealing her packet of white powder?"
Yes, Journey To The End Of The Night is the kind of movie where Brendan Fraser beats up a hooker and steals her drugs. That's not even the worst of it. For those keeping score at home, Fraser here plays an angry, alcoholic pimp who snorts blow, plots to rip off dad Scott Glen, furtively fucks his dad's wife and orders people killed. Oh, and then there's a scene where he gets so angry at a blind fortune-teller's reluctance to talk that he orders one of his henchman to kill the soothsayer's dog. At this point, I started to turn against Fraser's character. Before that, I was with him. Afterwards, not so much.
Yet no matter how deplorably his character behaves, an air of goofball innocence clings to Fraser, so his dark deeds come off as unintentionally hilarious. Night deserves a place of pride in the Miscasting Hall of Fame, alongside John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror and Denise Richards as a rocket scientist in The World Is Not Enough. Fraser isn't just playing a bad guy or a villain here: he's playing the worst person in the world, evil incarnate, old Beezlebub minus the horns, cloven hooves and pitchfork.
Ah, but I'm seven thousand words into this review and I haven't even touched upon the plot. Here, Fraser and Glenn play father and son pimps who hire Nigerian dishwasher Mos Def to act as a mule in a massive cocaine sale. Fraser plans to rip off the money before it can get to Glenn so that he can pay off his gambling debts. Or not. Did I mention that Fraser is also a degenerate gambler? Cause he totally is. Otherwise his character would come off as overly sympathetic. Glenn's plans backfire however, when Def is beaten up and robbed by muggers who conveniently neglect to steal his backpack full of money. Violent, profane pulp motherfuckery ensues until a glorious climactic monologue where Fraser explains that he's such a bile-filled fuck-up because when his dear old mom was dying of Cancer Glenn was off giving her nurse a gynecological exam–with his tongue! The last time I saw a scene so hysterically melodramatic Calculon was starring in it.