The Bar

Starring: Milo Ventimiglia, Michael Weston, Alyssa Milano

Director: Marc Schoelermann

Writer(s): Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor

Studio: MGM

Rating: R

Official Bar Score: 

When med school student Ted Gray (Milo Ventimiglia) graduates top of his class he joins one of the nation’s most prestigious Pathology programs. With talent and determination, Ted is quickly noticed by the program’s privileged and elite band of pathology interns who invite him into their crowd. Intrigued by his new friends he begins to uncover secrets he never expected and finds that he has unknowingly become a pawn in their dangerous and secret after-hours game at the morgue of who can commit the perfect undetectable murder. As Ted becomes seduced into their wild extracurricular activities the danger becomes real and he must stay one step ahead of the game before he is the next victim.¹

I was pleasantly surprised about the level of enjoyment I had watching the film. It reminded me of a reverse “Flatliners” with elements of some of the more obscure (and morbid) underground necrophilia flicks like “Aftermath”, “Buio Omega”, and “Necromantik”.² I thought it worked well, but there were some things that nagged me that kept me from considering it anything truly special.

The positives do, however, outweigh the negatives. For one, be on the lookout for Michael Weston. He hasn’t been in much, his most high profile film role being a supporting nod in “Garden State”, but he has the talent to carve a niche out as a rather cruel villain type. I recognize him as the crack head who kidnapped David on HBO’s “Six Feet Under”, and if that means nothing to you let me just say that it was one of the more intense television moments I can remember ever seeing. A big part of that was Michael Weston’s performance, as he just seemed to take to the villain role naturally. While his character in “Pathology” is a bit more clean cut, he still is able to make you feel that the character is not somebody you would want to be around. He carries the movie.

For the gorehounds, while the more seasoned veterans might not be overly impressed, the effects that are there are top notch. The majority of the movie takes place in a morgue, so there is no shortage of bodies to chop up, especially when shit hits the fan. The abundance of severed limbs comes off as very real, and the autopsy scenes are genuinely cringe inducing at times, which in this case is a good thing. The actual killings and their aftermaths are excellent as well. The film would have been very lackluster if they had sugar coated everything. Thankfully they didn’t hold back on the depravity, and the film had an undeniable edge because of it.

I was somewhat disappointed with a lot of the actors, but the majority of my issues are with Milo Ventimiglia, who turned in a rather wooden performance that somehow managed to be all over the place. To explain, he rarely shows any type of genuine emotion, and when he does it comes off as forced. In addition to that, it’s hard to get a read on whether or not to like the character. One scene has him doing something completely reprehensible, and the next has him in a situation where you know you are supposed to be on his side, but you have little interest in doing so because for the most part the guy is a dick. I understand that Ventimiglia might have been a victim of the material, but a little emotion or something to make you forget that you are watching an actor would have helped sell the character a bit. Ventimiglia was great as Rocky’s son in “Rocky Balboa”, so hopefully this was an aberration. Or maybe it wasn’t, who knows. Whatever the case may be, he was bad in this.

Speaking of the material, the plot holes are as obvious as they are abundant, and I feel this should have been realized and something done about it. I couldn’t shake the “this is ridiculous” feeling nagging at me the whole time in the back of my head. It almost ruined the whole thing. If not for the delightful (but predictable) ending, we are probably talking a 2 beer flick. Some rewrites or cuts were in order and nobody bothered, a mistake that held the film back severely and almost took it down completely.

In the end though, the film is worth a watch for Michael Weston’s performance and the gore effects. The story is outlandish and not very well thought out and most of the performers don’t seem to be into it, but if bad guys and blood are your thing, you should be at least mildly satisfied.

Notes:

1. Synopsis from the film’s Wikipedia entry
2. HA! How is that for fucking name dropping?!? Got that “Wizard of Gore” bullshit in “Juno” beat by a mile! I’d give “Buio Omega” 3.5 beers easy. I’ve never seen “Aftermath” or “Nekromantik”, but I know they are about cutting open dead bodies. For that matter so is “Frankenhooker”.³
3. I’d probably give “Frankenhooker” a classic status on principle. When I was twelve years old, that talking VHS box that screamed “WANNA DATE?!?!?” at you was priceless.

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