Let the Devil Wear Black

There's something rotten in the City of Angels, claims the video box. Sure enough, under the dysfunctional dealings of a family business is the story of "Hamlet" retooled for the twilight world of nocturnal L.A. Jack (Jonathan Penner, who cowrote the screenplay with director Stacy Title) is spending a joyless break from graduate school to deal with his father's sudden death. He's disconnected from his unstable lover (Mary-Louise Parker), the daughter of family lawyer Philip Baker Hall, and his mom (Jacqueline Bisset), a withdrawn alcoholic who has let his "2-watt" Uncle Carl (Jamey Sheridan) manage the family fortune. When a mysterious figure tells him that Carl murdered his father, Jack's unsettled feelings are thrown into a restless rage. This official Slamdance 1999 selection is never as moving or insightful as Michael Almereyda's Wall Street "Hamlet" with Ethan Hawke, but Title makes the most of this free adaptation, and drives the film with the simmering energy of a frantic, wound-up hero. It's surprising how well the story lends itself to the double-crossing and devious betrayal of modern neo-noir, only periodically stopping for a Shakespearean rumination (the "Alas, poor Yorick" speech becomes a meditation on a skull fragment, the remains of a brutal execution-style murder). Title makes the fatal architecture of Shakespeare work beautifully and unpretentiously in a modern context, creating a modest but satisfying gritty little thriller. "--Sean Axmaker"

"There's something rotten in the City of Angels," claims the video box. Sure enough, under the dysfunctional dealings of a family business is the story of Hamlet retooled for the twilight world of nocturnal L.A. Jack (Jonathan Penner, who cowrote the screenplay with director Stacy Title) is spending a joyless break from graduate school to deal with his father's sudden death. He's disconnected from his unstable lover (Mary-Louise Parker), the daughter of family lawyer Philip Baker Hall, and his mom (Jacqueline Bisset), a withdrawn alcoholic who has let his "2-watt" Uncle Carl (Jamey Sheridan) manage the family fortune. When a mysterious figure tells him that Carl murdered his father, Jack's unsettled feelings are thrown into a restless rage. This official Slamdance 1999 selection is never as moving or insightful as Michael Almereyda's Wall Street Hamlet with Ethan Hawke, but Title makes the most of this free adaptation, and drives the film with the simmering energy of a frantic, wound-up hero. It's surprising how well the story lends itself to the double-crossing and devious betrayal of modern neo-noir, only periodically stopping for a Shakespearean rumination (the "Alas, poor Yorick" speech becomes a meditation on a skull fragment, the remains of a brutal execution-style murder). Title makes the fatal architecture of Shakespeare work beautifully and unpretentiously in a modern context, creating a modest but satisfying gritty little thriller. --Sean Axmaker