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Ms. 45Rating:
Release Date: 25 April, 2000 Retail Price: $24.99 OUR Price: $22.99 You SAVE: $2.00! Cast: |
Ms. 45 Reviews
"But the gun was put in a woman's hand..."
When two rapists in seperate attacks on the same woman, on the same day, warn her to keep silent, the joke's on them. Thana is a mute, and couldn't scream if she wanted to. She soon finds her 'voice', however, when she fells the second attacker in her apartment and acquires his .45-caliber pistol. It's not long before you can't shut her up-- if you're a man. Thana is a femme fatale with a refreshingly direct approach.
Zoe Lund was a remarkable beauty. To cite some other reviews here, crassly: Is she a dead ringer for Nastassia Kinski, or is it Denise Richards? (Nah, maybe *they* look kinda like *her*.) Anyway, how her looks matter in this role is that she appears so stunningly fragile, a flower of innocence. Even when she's all dolled up to bait the hook, she's nearly a child playing dress-up: makeup to the hilt, soon adding avenger-superhero accents to her garb (black boots and gloves, a beret, a cloak). This young fragility also makes Thana's transformation more believable: she seems all the more easily broken and re-made. It helps that Lund (or Tamerlais, at the time) was 17 years old.
It should be made clear that this B-movie is a B-movie--low-budget, high-concept-- but within those bounds it is *not* campy. It is grim but thoughtful. It has a confrontational uncertainty over what the difference is between vengeance and justice.
It's also got mood and pace. The violence is broken up in part with the story of Thana's gradual disposal of the body parts of the second rapist, scattered around New York in Hefty bags (is she getting rid of the evidence, or sending a message?). The camera ominously lingers on wastebaskets, gutters, and bag-lady shopping carts. The editing is in fact great at holding a shot just a little longer than you expect, and the film develops deliberately and artfully. Even the most outrageously sleazy guys are given their due, and are hardly presented simply as deserving villians (the ones that aren't villians anyway-- you can decide which is which).
At the same time, of course, it's a delirious ride in how extreme the situations get. Don't expect every detail to be believable, that's not the point. It's primal and kind of mythic in a way that any decent exploitation movie should be. The minimal but very dynamic score, with lots of percussive horn blast echoes, is great-- basically horror movie music. And it's all in a perfect setting: New York city deep in its seedy era.
It's nice that some say this film has a 'cult classic' status, but it's one of those that deserves a bigger cult. It's squarely within the off-putting exploitation subgenre of rape revenge films, but it never forgets that this woman is a person, nor that this person is a woman. Zoe Lund, writing in 1993, put it like this: "Ms .45 presents a humble, yet well-crafted metaphor for rebellion of the any-sexed oppressed. But the gun was put in a woman's hand. A woman carried that universal message, and so it was all the more powerful. It made us shiver. Male and female. Different timbres and temperatures of shiver, but shiver all round."
'Repulsion' meets 'Taxi Driver' in the grindhouse
When two rapists in seperate attacks on the same woman, on the same day, warn her to keep silent, the joke's on them. Thana is a mute, and couldn't scream if she wanted to. She soon finds her 'voice', though, when she fells the second attacker in her apartment and acquires his .45-caliber pistol, and it's not long before you can't shut her up. She's a femme fatale with a refreshingly direct approach.
Zoe Lund was a real beauty. To cite some other reviews here, a bit crassly: Is she a dead ringer for Nastassia Kinski, or is it Denise Richards? (Nah, maybe *they* look kinda like *her*.) Anyway, how her looks matter here is that she appears so stunningly fragile, a flower of innocence. Even when she's all dolled up to bait the hook, she's nearly a child playing dress-up: makeup to the hilt, and then adding accents of avenger-superhero to her garb (black boots, gloves, even a cloak). This young fragility also makes Thana's transformation more believable: she seems all the more easily broken. (I guess it helps that Lund-- or Tamerlais, at the time-- was 17 when the movie was made.)
It should be made clear that this B-movie is *not* campy. It is grim, with melancholy amidst the dread and the shock. The violence is broken up in part with the story of Thana's gradual disposal of the body parts of the second rapist, scattered around New York in Hefty bags (is she getting rid of the evidence, or sending a message?). The camera ominously lingers on wastebaskets, gutters, and bag-lady shopping carts. The editing is in fact great at holding a shot just a little longer than you expect, and the film has a deliberate, artful pace. Even the film's most outrageously sleazy guys are given their due, and are hardly presented simply as deserving villians (the ones that aren't villians anyway-- well, you can decide which is which).
At the same time, of course, it's a delirious ride-- downward-- in how extreme it all gets. Don't expect every situation to be believable, that's not the point. It's primal and kind of mythic in a way that any decent exploitation movie should be. The minimal but very dynamic score, mainly electronic, is great-- basically horror movie music. And it's all in a perfect setting: New York city deep in its seedy era. It's nice that some say this film has a 'cult classic' status, but it's one of those that deserves a bigger cult.
More Customer Reviews (14 total)
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