TOO LATE (Dennis Hauck). 107 minutes. Opens Friday (April 29) at the Royal. See listing. Rating: N
With Too Late, writer/director Dennis Hauck pulls off an impressive stunt: shot and screened on 35mm, his film plays out in a series of discrete takes, each the length of a reel of film, connecting the fates of its disparate Los Angeles characters.
Conceptually, it’s pretty cool: think of all the rehearsal and choreography that goes into each shot! But it’s all for naught, because Hauck’s insistent virtuosity is all in the service of a dull Tarantino knockoff in which every character speaks the same rat-a-tat dialect: half slang, half nerdy movie references.
There are no characters, just types: John Hawkes is a private eye, Crystal Reed a dancer, Robert Forster a weary Mr. Big. There’s not much of a plot either, just a chronologically scrambled revenge story built around a twist that’s telegraphed in the first reel, and the second, and the third.
The longer Too Late goes on, the less there is to it. And say what you will about Tarantino’s own self-regard, he’d still make sure his actors knew the correct pronunciation of “shamus.”
