SYNOPSICS
Bang (1995) is a English movie. Ash Baron-Cohen has directed this movie. Darling Narita,Peter Greene,Michael Newland,Erik Schrody are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1995. Bang (1995) is considered one of the best Crime,Drama movie in India and around the world.
A young woman in L.A. is having a bad day: she's evicted, an audition ends with a producer furious she won't trade sex for the part, and a policeman nabs her for something she didn't do, demanding fellatio to release her. She snaps, grabs his gun, takes his uniform, and leaves him cuffed to a tree where he's soon having a defenseless chat with a homeless man. She takes off on the cop's motorcycle and, for an afternoon, experiences a cop's life. She talks a young man out of suicide and then is plunged into violence after a friendly encounter with two "vatos." She is torn between self-protection and others' expectations. Is there any resolution for her torrent of feelings?
Bang (1995) Reviews
Original, ridiculous, quasi-authentic
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.) This is an interesting movie with some superior shtick. It's outrageous of course, but there's a semi-plausibility to it throughout, once you accept the initial premise. Here it is: Asian kind of girl (Darling Narita) gets kicked out of her L.A. digs by a landlord thinking only of his mortgage payments. He just locks her out and tells her he is selling her stuff. But she has some hope: she has an audition with a Hollywood producer. His "office" is his home in the Hollywood hills. Before she goes in she befriends a schizophrenic street person. He hustles her for a dollar. Inside the house "producer" proves to be particularly slimy and we can see he is just scamming her for sex, and when she doesn't come across he verbally abuses her and throws her out. The schizo dude meets her and trashes the street a little just to pent and splits as a motorcycle cop drives up. She runs because it looks like she did the trashing and he chases her into the lush hills where he handcuffs her and gives her a choice: On your knees and do the deed, or you'll spend a night in jail. After assuming the position she manages to grab his gun and handcuffs him to a tree. She has had a bad morning. She freaks and makes him strip and takes his uni, dons it, and his motorcycle and goes on to play cop around town. She cruises some ghetto scenes and gets way into her act: she encounters pushers, dealers, killers, hookers, pimps, gangland lords and she gets engaged. Everybody thinks she's a cop, but she seems to forget herself sometimes. She hands out some money to some street people, runs out of gas and smokes some weed with a Latino hommie. By the way, the scene in the car with Juan and Jesus is just really excellent as it captures the barrio style. Then it gets a little rough. The cute cholo gets blasted in a drive by as his bro is filling her gas tank. She takes off after the perps and ends up shooting a dude. She spots this Asian hooker and tries to tell her she is doing wrong but gets kicked around by her and her pimp for her trouble. Strange how the film has turned a little. She walked more than a mile in the cop's shoes and suddenly we have identification with the enemy in a sense. The movie is now a kind of slapstick symbolic jaunt showing how being a cop in the modern urban scene corrupts absolutely. (I wonder how much of this was intended by Director and writer Ash.) She goes to the ocean to shake off what has happened to her. And then of course she returns to have her way with the lecherous producer and the wayward cop and further befriends the schizo dude. Ah, gee it's kind of sweet in a la la land sort of way. Best joke on the square: CIA = Cocaine Import Agency.
Interesting indy-style L.A. based film
A woman finds herself in a police uniform after cuffing him to a tree and spends the day as he might have. She experiences an assortment of situations and emotions. Truly an "if I were in his shoes" approach works quite well. The film has a lower budget look but features some good acting although I do give the film a low-to-moderate "yeah, right" factor in a few scenes.
An excellent indy film. Darling Narita is way cool.
I loved this film. Darling Narita's performance convinced me that what I was seeing was possible, however improbable. She carries the film, but there are several other fine performances here. An added bonus: Lucy Liu, currently appearing in TV's Ally McBeal, in a small but important role as a strung out hooker. Note: I rented this film from BlockBuster under the title "Bang" with a release date of 1997.
Worth watching..
Ash definitely has talent.. a clever script.. you must watch to the end to fully appreciate his talent..of course there were limitations being a low budget movie.. i didn't particularly like the filming style, the hand held camera going back and forth to the different characters.. but the story, a struggling actress, kicked out of her apartment and thrown into a 'real' acting part by bad circumstances, is very interesting and thought provoking and scary. The lead actress is particularly good. like i said before.. don't give up.. see it all the way through.
One of the best films of the 90's, plain and simple
Bang, a film by Ash. It's a tough one to find, but it's a scrappy little treasure trove of a flick. It's a guerrilla film in the sense that the filmmakers had no permits, schedule, a puny budget and a barebones script which is mostly hijacked by wicked improv thanks to the cast. This seat of the pants storytelling technique doesn't exactly ensure wide distribution or any efforts in marketing, but they managed to pull off one of the most galvanizing, unpredictable and emotional films of the 1990's, as far as I'm concerned. On a bright sunny morning in Beverly Hills, a young Asian American actress (Darling Narita in an arresting, pulverizing debut performance) heads to a make it or break audition with a hotshot Hollywood producer (David Alan Graf), who turns out to be an outright scumbag rapist, leaving her distraught and afraid. Her only friend seems to be Adam (Peter Greene), a rambunctious and slightly unstable homeless man who valiantly defends her by trashing every garbage can on the block, heralding the arrival of a motorcycle cop (Michael Newland) who chases our heroine down, and attempts to persuade her into sucking him off as an exit to vandalism charges. Her fuse reaches its end and all of a sudden she overpowers him, takes his gun and clothes and assumes the much feared mantle of the LAPD. From there on in its a surreal odyssey of crime, mistaken identity, personal awakening and a riveting exploration of what makes a person powerful, what it takes for a woman to gain respect in a cutthroat city where misogyny runs rampant and unchecked, and ultimately how a downtrodden individual can regain their footing through the most traumatizing of encounters. It's like baptism by fire, only the fire comes from the end of the police issue handgun she never wanted, and the baptism from the death it deals out in the extreme circumstances she finds herself in because of what the uniform, the symbol, represents. Narita is a startling wonder, attacking each scene with renewed intuition and never missing a beat. Greene is a rare revelation; he almost always plays nasty psychos, and here is given a shot at the eccentric loony toons style character that would usually be given to to Jim Carrey or Robin Williams. He shows what a talent he is as everyone's favourite lovable bum, displaying a gift for improv and off the cuff performance. Narita and him have an unforced friendship that blossoms early, ebbing and flowing as both find a modicum of solace within each other's company that is periodically broken and reunited. Watch for Lucy Liu as a reprehensible young hooker as well. Ebert sung this ones praises when it came out.. No one heard. I imagine because of its extremely indie nature. It's worth seeking out for the important message it brands upon the viewer, it's frank and very candid approach, and it's rabbit hole glance at one woman in trouble, navigating a zone out of depth in an unchosen guise. One of the best films of the 90's.