by Mel Valentin
"Better than your average sci-fi/horror/political satire..."
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Political and social satire, black comedy, science fiction and horror, only partially describe John Carpenter’s audacious, angry polemic masquerading as B-level flick, "They Live." After 1986’s "Big Trouble in Little China" met with poor box office returns (unsurprisingly, it’s since become a “cult” favorite, with fans and critics considering it one of Carpenter’s best films), Carpenter decided to return to low budget filmmaking with "Prince of Darkness" in 1987 and "They Live" only a year later. Unusual for a genre filmmaker associated with the typically apolitical horror genre in the late 70s through the early 90s, "They Live" was developed as an explicit critique of Reagan-era America, an America distinguished by rampant consumerism, corporate capitalism, loose environmental controls, and the widening gulf between the moneyed elites and the poor (with middle class making minimal gains, if any).Rather than confront Reaganism head on, Carpenter cleverly, if not exactly subtly, opts for making the elites either ghoulish aliens from outer space or their human collaborators, eager to sell out for wealth and power. The bug-eyed aliens appear normal to everyone around them, thanks to invisible transmission towers. In addition to the signal that distorts perception (thus making it easy for the aliens to blend in with the human population), the alien transmitters bombard the airwaves with subliminal advertising, with simple, coded messages (e.g., “Obey,” “Listen to Authority,” Consume,” “Marry and Reproduce,” “This is your God,” the last in reference to money). The transmissions make everyone but the aliens willing and submissive subjects to the social order. Some humans, discovering the truth, give in their baser impulses, and openly collaborate with their oppressors.
Enter Nada (ex-wrestler turned actor Roddy Piper), an unemployed construction worker newly arrived in Los Angeles. The local unemployment office offers him no hope. Wandering into a job site, he manages, however, to obtain work. Homeless, he befriends the gruff Frank (Keith David, The Thing, Requiem for a Dream), who invites him to Justiceville, a shantytown located in an abandoned lot. A nearby church helps to feed Justiceville’s poor and dispossessed. Like everything else in They Live, however, the church isn’t what it seems. Nada’s natural curiosity leads him to discover a very special pair of sunglasses.
Those sunglasses prove to be the catalyst for Nada’s newly awakened social consciousness (and a peculiar brand of hands-on social activism). With the sunglasses, Nada can see the aliens living among us. With the sunglasses, he can see through billboards, books, and magazines, to the subliminal messages. It doesn’t take long before the aliens realize that Nada’s eccentric, agitated behavior has a cause (i.e., he can see them for what they really are). The aliens dispatch the police to silence Nada. Desperate to escape, Nada encounters the obligatory romantic interest, Holly Thompson (Meg Foster), a typically wary, cautious woman (after all, she meets Nada when he’s holding a gun on her). Holly also happens to have a high-ranking position at the local television station. Nada’s awakening then leads to a brutal encounter with a disbelieving Frank (the on screen fight scene lasts for almost six minutes), and eventually, a makeshift plan to take down the aliens or at least reveal their true identities to an unsuspecting public.
Mention They Live to even casual science-fiction/horror fans and the first topic raised will be the centerpiece fight scene between Nada and Frank, due to its length (the fight seems to go on and on, with the characters pausing multiple times to catch their breath). Roddy Piper’s wrestling experience means all the stock wrestling moves are in evidence, including chokeholds, suplexes, head butts, eye gouging, and back breakers. Some viewers will enjoy the scene thoroughly, others will find it tedious. Others will mention the quotable dialogue, most notably Piper's ad lib when he enters a bank filled with aliens,"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." Still others will look at the almost non-existent romantic subplot, compare it to the scenes between Nada and Frank and conclude that, in effect, their platonic, homosocial relationship is far more engaging and open to interpretation (others, of course, can take that point further, beginning with the post-fight scene that has Nada and Frank sharing a room in a flophouse, with Nada bathing his bruised upper body in an open sink while Frank looks on quizzically).There are, however, far more serious problems with "They Live," beginning with John Carpenter’s screenplay and ending his direction, which is slow to start (Nada doesn’t find and put on the sunglasses until almost the halfway point in the film), and quick to end thanks to a minor character who reappears in the penultimate scene to share key information with the surviving characters, with several, key action scenes either shortened (and therefore, unfulfilling) or poorly, lazily staged (e.g., any scene involving dimwitted alien soldiers who run straight into gunfire). To be fair, budget limitations likely forced Carpenter to compromise his vision for the film. Political and social subtext aside, the end result is a flawed, sporadically entertaining effort that almost manages to overcome its genre trappings or limited resources.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=3004&reviewer=402
originally posted: 09/12/05 07:21:43
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