PC protesters show real guts
Abattoir auteur Eli Roth’s “The Green Inferno” is a breezy college comedy. Until it’s not. Then it’s really, really not.
There just aren’t enough “reallys” to express how not a comedy it ends up being.
A relentless attack on “slacktivism” and otherwise wellintentioned but sometimes not-so-well-researched movements for change, “Green Inferno” takes students representing cliches of the Millennial campus activist and drops them into an actually hazardous situation. Paper tiger, meet wood chipper.
The film’s first act is often very funny as it lampoons the know-it-all, shame-it-all young people, mostly through details in their behavior. It starts by introducing us to some delightfully unpleasant college women and proceeds to run down and back over manifestations of political correctness. There is also salty dialogue, such as when protagonist Justine’s too-cool-for-facial-expressions friend scorns the earnest protesters with “Activism is so (expletive) gay.”
Or when ultra-serious and guerrilla-dreamy activist leader Alejandro chastises Justine in his suave but oh-so-committed Chilean accent: “You must be a freshman. Only a freshman would speak with such insolence.”
Still, the initially sneering Justine (Lorenza Izzo) develops into a wide-eyed convert, eventually becoming likable. The humor and surprisingly solid performances keep the viewer interested in the students’ ill-conceived quest to protect a Yanamamo-esque tribe in the Peruvian rain forest from the bulldozers of a natural-gas concern.
In that way, “Inferno” would be so much more enjoyable if the viewer were unaware that it were an Eli Roth film. Like Takashi Miike’s horror classic, “Audition,” it sails along like a romantic comedy until it takes a sudden turn down murderous rapids. But as audience members attending an M. Night Shyamalan film wait for the twist, they know if they’re going to a Roth movie, they’d better bring their rubber aprons.
For those seeking meaning, Roth’s derision for slacktivism, along with his delight in dismemberment, are the movie’s driving forces. The bloodsoaked “Inferno” practically ends up a promotional snuff film for deforestation.
For others, the question is whether they can overcome the graphic sadism to enjoy the film’s other virtues.