Northfork

The folks living in the small town of Northfork are being asked to move out of the area because the government plans on turning it into a lake that will produce electricity. All those who remain by a certain date are visited by men in trenchcoats whose job it is to get them to leave. In the meantime, angels have moved into a Northfork home and a priest is praying over a dying boy. How and why do all of these elements connect to one another? I have no idea, folks, but I do know that this movie sucks, which is probably this film’s most important plot point.

I’m surprised that it took me almost the entire year to find a movie as bad as NORTHFORK, a film so stinkingly incomprehensible and pretentious that it took all of my might (along with a few shots of the ol’ faithful) just to survive every single elongated minute of its shit-shoveling pretense. Between me and you, this entire thing could’ve been covered in a 5-minute film fest short. Consider a narrative that combines a bunch of misplaced stylish dressed men with black trenchcoats and hats, with Nick Nolte as a priest and a bunch of Shakepearean spewing “angels” who look like they came straight out of a Marilyn Manson music video, and if you don’t click on the STOP button 10 minutes into the proceedings, you’re a better person than I am. How anyone would give half a shit about anyone or anything that happens in this movie, up to and including its boring premise, unbelievable characters, lame-ass setting and quasi-religious, quasi-metaphysical, quasi-shitstain storyline, is beyond me. It took me 80 minutes just to figure out what the F was going on and even then, I could not have cared less if I tried. This is the kind of movie in which characters speak to each other in “movie pauses”, with each line of dialogue followed by a 6-second wait by the other person, and then responded to, in a slighter slower manner. NOBODY TALKS LIKE THAT IN REAL LIFE!! But then again, some of this film is a dream, isn’t it? I don’t know…maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Whatever it was, it managed to horribly balance three diverging story-lines, each of which made me care even less about anything or anyone involved in any of them, including Nolte’s graying beard, Daryl Hannah’s idiotic get-up or Anthony Edwards’ EDWARD SCISSORHANDS-like glasses.

This movie sucks because other than a handful of gorgeous shots of the midlands, it tosses a whole bunch of uninteresting characters together with a slew of esoteric, pretentious dialogue like “Don’t let your motherly nature cost you your manhood”, “The prodigal son returns”, “Hello, my name is Cup of Tea” and my personal favorite: “You know when you’ve smelled death. Cause when you smell it, you say to yourself, “Damn, something die?” I’m not fuckin’ kidding, folks. That last line is in the movie and it’s meant to be taken seriously too. C’mon man…who wrote this horse-drivel? Am I on Candid Camera or something? Where the heck’s Ashton Kutcher, his trucker caps and his MILF? The Polish brothers can take their symbolism, their analogies, their methaphors and everything else they crammed into this 100-minute borefest and shove them where the sun…it don’t shine. I’m not sure why so many “name” actors got involved in this gig, but I suspect that Woods’ participation had something to do with his executive producer credit on the project, while D-list actors like Kyle MacLachlan and Claire Forlani are obviously slumming amongst those who likely never got around to reading the script (yeah Nolte…I’m talking to you, you HULK-movie-ruiner you!) In the end, I’m pretty sure this film had something to do with death and if my experience watching it is any indication, you’re likely to feel that much closer to the Grim-meister after experiencing this waste of time and space yourself. Please folks…don’t ever see this movie and warn all of your loved ones about it as well. This film deserves an “F” for “Fuck You”!

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian