Flick (2008) - 3/4

While the plot is thin and nearly disposable in Flick, what comes across most is heart. Strange for a comic horror picture, Flick has a lot of heart in its love of its characters, its fetishized rockabilly music and its nostalgia for the '50s. This, more than anything, is what makes Flick a truly charming film.

Flick concerns a young man in Wales named Johnny, nicknamed 'Flick' for his switchblade, known as a 'flick knife' in the UK. While trying to get a dance from a crush he's attacked, fights back, and ends up driving over a bridge in his car. Over fifty years later his car is found with him in it and the power of rockabilly music playing over pirate radio brings him back to life, now thirsty for revenge on those who wouldn't let him dance with his lady crush. All of 'those' are now senior citizens, incidentally. Meanwhile, a detective from Scotland Yard (I imagine) gets a new partner all the way from Memphis (Faye Dunaway!), who comes equipped with chainmail and illegal weaponry.

The style is dripping from the frames in Flick. Bridging the live action scenes are pages from a comic book showing parts of the scenes that apparently were either too boring or expensive to act out. I suspect the former. I'm not certain if Flick was a comic first or if they made those pages for the film; either way, while the idea has been used before in Tank Girl (1995), it is put to good use here. Moreover, whenever rockabilly music is heard, red notes can be seen floating out of the radio. Johnny always sees things as they were in the past, in the '50s. Blood is always splashes of ink printed directly to the frame or coloured like Playdough. And, my favourite, most of the transitions are good old fashioned irises. As a whole, the cinematography, gelled lighting, and stylistic tricks give Flick the feel of a comic book. The one major difference is that the camera is quite agile. A bit ostentatious at first, the style grew on me as I watched and I soon came to enjoy it. It gives the film a fluidity while yet giving each scene a hermetic quality, like the squares in a comic book or the shots of an early silent film.

The odd array of characters are very entertaining. The most standout of them all is Faye Dunaway's Lt. McKenzie, who despite being in her sixties with a robotic arm is the most energetic force in the film. She is the perfect contrast to the nearly lifeless Johnny. Moreover, despite Dunaway herself being over sixty-five at the time of shooting, she is amazingly sexy as Lt. McKenzie. Sometimes facelifts do work wonders, ladies and gentlemen: Ms. Dunaway is still a beauty. But I digress. The other really standout character is Johnny's mother, a dotty old lady, who, like Johnny, is stuck in the past. She is so oblivious Johnny is a zombie that she invites the parish priest over to pay her little Johnny a visit. The comedy in this film is based more on these odd characters and the situations their personalities entail rather than any contrived comic situations.

The exception, unfortunately, is the character of Johnny himself, the titular 'Flick'. Johnny is little more than a revenge-obsessed zombie, whose motivation for murder is weak at best. His monomaniacal tendencies can be annoying. But I suppose that's a trait he shares with all zombies. At best, he's an uninteresting character, very much overshadowed by those around him, although his old crush and her daughter are rather bland as well. The filmmaker perhaps sensed this, giving Lt. McKenzie much more screentime than anyone else.

Where Flick fails most is in its weak plotting. The whole story is the height of contrivance and has its fair share of holes. The weak plot makes it difficult for Flick to sustain an effective structure and pace, making the film drag somewhat after the first hour, once Johnny begins pursuing his old crush herself. It picks up in the end for a finale that isn't wholly satisfying.

Flick's greatest success is in capturing the spirit of nostalgia for the age it is fetishizing. Nostalgia is not an easy feeling to capture--Down with Love is one of the few recent films that does it really well--but Flick succeeds. It makes a good case for the love of the old. While I didn't need a zombie to convince me, I'm sold. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to listen to some Ron Haydock & the Boppers while I fantasize about the sexy sexagenarian Faye Dunaway.