68. 12 Monkeys

Terry Gilliam, 1995

Ah yes, the story of Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork as they quest for eight more men to fill out the band. Oh. Wait. That’s 12 Monkees. Hell, that isn’t even a real movie. It’s one I made up! Damn my eyes! This movie is the excellent Terry Gilliam time travel film starring Bruce Willis. The plot here is that the future is crap, but it’s so crappy and it got crappy so suddenly that they have no idea how it got that way. The only clue they have is a mark reading “12 Monkeys” spray painted around the ruins of New York City. So, future scientists decide to send convicts back in time to find out what the mark means, for which they will earn their freedom. Bruce Willis is Cole, the convict in question. Unfortunately for Bruno, he gets sent back in time a little too far and his insistence on being a time traveler lands him in a mental hospital. The rest of the movie follows Cole’s struggle as he tries to discover whether or not he really is crazy and, if he’s not, then what is going to end the world.

I’m sorry to sound a little glib about this movie as, obviously, I like it a lot. The concept is just brilliant. Is he insane or isn’t he? And the best part is that we’re not sure, at least not for most of the film. For all we know, he could be from the future, but, then again, it could all be a delusion. Terry Gilliam is a brilliant director and one of the things he is best at is making you question the reality he has created. That is not to say that his future is fake, far from it. In fact, his sets are always superbly convincing. However, his future here is even more surreal than usual. It is dark and curved, as if the architects of the future all had a wide angle lens. It is a nightmare and one any man, particularly a convict, would be eager to escape. Further, Gilliam shoots and cuts these scenes with just enough ambiguity to stress that we, like Cole, simply cannot be sure if it is meant to be real.

And Bruce Willis, holy crap. I mean that. Bruce has a public image that is forever going to be a carbon copy of John McClane, his character from Die Hard. To the average guy, Bruce Willis will always be saying “Yipee-ki-yay, motherfucker.” I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that, but what is true is that Cole is nothing like McClane. Cole is, quite simply, an entire world away. Where McClane is a confident, take charge, guns blazing kind of guy and Cole, well, Cole isn’t. Cole isn’t sure of anything. He isn’t terribly likely to pick up a gun and he’s much more likely to follow another man than he is to take the lead. Then, there is one other man who I must single out, although I am loathe to. Brad Pitt is just pretty damn good. Pitt plays the son of a rich scientist. It also so happens that Pitt is crazy, which is how he meets Cole. I have to give it to Pitt; he’s bat shit insane here. Really just bouncing off the walls, frothing lunatic. Who’d have thunk? Finally, big shout outs to co-stars Christopher Plummer, always great, and Frank Gorshin as the head psychiatrist. The Riddler as the head of the asylum? Brilliant. You really can’t trust this movie, can you?