Coming toon
I saw Dave Green's Coyote vs Acme and-- surprise surprise-- liked it.
Didn't sound promising. The premise itself is looney tunes-- that Wile E. Coyote would finally come to his senses and attempt that most American of undertakings, file a lawsuit against the Acme Corporation; that the case would blow up into a congressional hearing commanding nationwide attention; and that this whole silly drama would be material enough to fill a hundred minute feature.
Not to mention the real-world decision of Warner Discovery to treat the picture as a 30 million dollar tax writeoff; the struggle to find an alternative distributor; the last-minute rescue by Ketchup Entertainment, which bought the movie for fifty million.
The big online fuss surrounding its unlikely commercial release; the basically low boxoffice returns which, most unlikely of all, barely fazes the fans-- no one is blaming Ketchup, and a handful of articles have called the release a 'win' despite the modest numbers.
I was at the local multiplex looking at choices and found little else appealing. There was Ridley Scott's adaptation of Peter Heller's The Dog Stars but on the basis of his recent work (a sequel to his Best Picture winner Gladiator (both of which I didn't much like), and an epic biopic on the former Emperor of France (which I might have actually liked, blobby Joaquin Phoenix and all, if I hadn't seen the even more epic silent version by Abel Gance)) I wasn't all that eager to catch another Scott, at least this year. So-- Coyote vs Acme, with Dog Stars slated for next week, maybe, or streaming.
The movie's peppered with little in-jokes (Acme's law firm is Avery, Jones, and Maltese-- and if you're a true Looney Tunes fan you know exactly who they represent) amusing spins on old Tunes tropes (Acme's CEO is Foghorn Leghorn, the logical outgrowth to his blowhard personality) interesting details borrowed from various films (the plot is an amalgam of Erin Brokovich, The Insider, A Few Good Men (in turn a ripoff of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial), Silkwood and, of all things, Pascal Laugier's Martyrs).
Laugier? But consider (and skip this paragraph if you haven't seen the movie): the toons are caged in stainless steel cells and tortured, often to the point of madness, for the sake of a great exploratory cause. Some critics complain that this isn't as dark as say Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*; I say they weren't paying attention.
*(Others say this is too dark for children, which is even sillier-- Disney toons model the blandest of Midwestern values to the lowest common denominator, still do; they are and have been always for the kiddies. Warner toons address the urban smart aleck, the wisecracker who liked to nibble on carrots and ask a physician for the latest status update. They cater to chaos goblins yes, but in all of us; the more adult sensibilities are not insulted)
As the movie's true protagonist (Will Forte, Lana Condor, and a game John Cena do their level best but let's not fool ourselves) Wile E Coyote comes off at first as unpromisingly mute and inexpressive, but give him a little time and you start to learn to read his mannerisms. The narrowed eyes suggest focus; the sideways glance suggests he can't believe the crap you're saying; the hunched back and incessant hammering suggest inhuman determination at work. Coyote turns out to be an inspired hero for a legal drama-- no matter how intricate the case or intimidating the odds, he simply squares his shoulders and bulldozes ahead; O sure once or twice he walks off in apparent defeat, but at the merest contrary cue (a throat-clearing cough, a word from his lawyer) he immediately spins about and is all attention again, ready to do anything to win.
O he doesn't speak? But that's what makes him perfect. Every legal drama in the history of cinema has the eloquent key witness or defendant or plaintiff taking the stand, raising his left hand and with the other on a bible promising he'll tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but. Then out from both lips come talk talk talk... "well you'll make a rope of words and strangle this business, with a microphone there to catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor to photograph the red swollen tongue!" Coyote is the very incarnation of that old school adage 'actions speak louder than,' and proves it with every moment onscreen.
Pause here to note that there's an actual arc to Coyote's relationship with his lawyer Kevin Avery (Forte), from uncooperative potentially psychopathic client to unlikely role model and possible friend. I'll give Forte this much, he pays his plaintiff as much attention as Bob Hoskins gave Roger Rabbit, though on the whole I prefer Coyote's taciturn monomania over Rabbit's scattershot sharply annoying personality.
But if the investigations and legal proceedings are mere folderol to ornament the picture's narrative throughline, I submit the budding bromance between lawyer and mangy client is yet another front behind that front to distract us further from the picture's core relationship, that between predator and prey. We've known coyote and bird for over three-fourths of a century now, we've projected all kinds of thoughts and emotions on their bright bug-eyed faces, and between these two figures looming large over the pop culture topography we knew-- we always knew-- it was never just about food. Coyote vs. Acme isn't a perfect picture, much less the greatest combination animation / live action movie ever realized on the big screen (my vote goes not to Robert Zemeckis' but Joe Dante's Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which isn't just funnier but purer in intent and total lack of sentiment); it does manage to give us the final word (or what feels like the final word) on these two creatures forever racing across Chuck Jones' fertile mindscape. Beep beep indeed.
First published in Businessworld 8.8.26
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