FAHRENHEIT 451 (2018)

Studio:       HBO Films
Director:    Ramin Bahrani
Writer:       Ramin Bahrani, Amir Naderi
Producer:  David Coatsworth
Stars:     Michael B. Jordan, Michael Shannon, Sofia Boutella, Lilly Singh, Khandi Alexander, Keir Dullea, Daniel Zolghadri, Martin Donovan

Review Score:

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Summary:

In a dystopian future where free thought is suppressed, a disillusioned fireman questions the practice of burning books.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In a dystopian future where books are banned to suppress free thought, Master Trooper Guy Montag and his mentor Captain John Beatty, two firemen with the Salamander division in Cleveland, raid a hideout belonging to “eels,” who are rebels determined to propagate banned media. As the raid is broadcast for the devoted public to watch, Montag experiences a troubling flashback of his father Granger while destroying servers and torching hard drives that were uploading digital books.

Later, Beatty and Montag meet their informant Clarisse McClellan, an eel regularly blackmailed by Beatty into revealing compromising information. Acting on Clarisse’s tip, Beatty and Montag raid another eel hideout.

After disabling his home’s Yuxie, a Siri-like A.I. used in private residences and public spaces, Beatty secretly writes and burns messages on rolling papers, even though writing is forbidden. Privately in his home, Montag peruses his own stash of contraband items while continuing to think of his father.

Beatty, Montag, and their fellow firemen raid a home belonging to an old woman in possession of thousands of physical books. Beatty has a private conversation with Montag about philosophies behind banned books. His curiosity piqued, Montag hides a copy of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from Underground” in his pants.

The firemen spray the book piles and residence with kerosene, but the old woman refuses to leave when ordered. Instead, she reveals a match and lights herself on fire along with the books. The woman says the word “omnis” before dying.

Clarisse is horrified when she sees the old woman immolate herself on the public broadcast, which edits out the word omnis. Commissioner Nyari privately chastises Beatty for allowing the woman to burn.

Unable to process why the old woman would kill herself over books, Montag begins questioning his indoctrination. Beatty has another private conversation with Montag in which Beatty assures Montag that he will become a successful captain like Beatty, and not be broken by his doubts.

Montag tracks down Clarisse to ask about the old woman as well as omnis. Montag gives Clarisse the copy of “Notes from Underground” to prove he is not trying to trap her. Montag and Clarisse take a mutual romantic interest in one another as they take turns reading to each other from the book.

Under orders from Commissioner Nyari, Beatty rallies the Salamanders to smoke out all the eels they can in an effort to find omnis. Beatty explains to his firemen that the eels converted the language of technology to the language of DNA. Omnis represents the collective consciousness of mankind, and the eels found a way to insert all books, music, art, news, and media into a microscopic DNA strand that the firemen must locate before it can be smuggled into Canada.

During the citywide sweep, Montag helps Clarisse escape when Beatty’s men round up the eels. Montag also tries to keep a father and daughter from being discovered in an eel hideout, but Beatty discovers Montag’s misdirection.

Montag attempts to resign when Beatty reprimands him after the raids. Beatty insists that Montag will become his successor and must get his dissident ideas sorted.

Beatty tasks Fireman Douglas with tailing Montag. Douglas witnesses Montag meeting with Clarisse and being taken away in a car with other eels.

Montag is taken to an eel hideout on a farm where he meets the rebel leader. The leader reveals that each of their eels has memorized an individual book that they plan to mentally disseminate when the omnis connects all human minds.

Montag agrees to prove his loyalty to the eels by murdering a captured fireman. However, the setup turns out to be a staged test that Montag passes when he shows his willingness to stab a fellow fireman.

The eels introduce Montag to Clifford, whose mother was a geneticist who put the omnis DNA in Clifford’s pet bird Lenny. Montag is told he needs to retrieve a transponder from the fire station so that the bird can find the homing signal of dedicated scientists in Canada.

Beatty confronts Montag after he pockets the transponder. Surrounded by the other firemen, Beatty compels Montag to reaffirm his dedication to their cause after forcing him to read passages from “Crime and Punishment.” Montag agrees to go on another raid with Beatty.

Montag is surprised when the firemen escort him to his own home. With the public watching via live broadcast, Montag is outed as a traitor. Beatty forces Montag to burn a stash of contraband as well as his house.

Having stopped taking his prescribed drug drops, Montag finally remembers Beatty being present when his father was taken away for secretly hoarding books. Beatty removes Montag’s identity. Montag retrieves a flamethrower, torches Douglas when he tries to attack, and escapes on foot.

Montag brings the transponder to Clarisse. Beatty and the firemen track Montag to the eel hideout. While the firemen torch the farm, Clarisse escapes with the eel leader.

Montag finds Clifford dead, but his bird still alive in the burning barn. Beatty confronts Montag with a flamethrower. Montag manages to attach the transponder to the bird before releasing it. Beatty torches Montag, but the bird flies to Canada where it disseminates the genetic code to a large flock of other birds.

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Review:

What constitutes a “fair” microscope for examining a film adaptation of a novel?  Should the movie be largely regarded as a standalone work, or should source material faithfulness be carefully considered among other evaluation criteria?

For something such as Stanley Kubrick’s version of Stephen King’s “The Shining,” one might more readily argue to favor the former.  Not to imply that King’s book doesn’t have its own inherent thematic merits.  But a thriller geared straighter toward entertainment allows organic leeway for artistic license with respect to justifiable alterations for visual storytelling.

At the other end of that spectrum, Ramin Bahrani’s adaptation of “Fahrenheit 451” has a harder time disassociating itself from Ray Bradbury’s celebrated novel. Bradbury’s book has been required classroom reading for seven decades.  It’s certainly subject to individual interpretation.  Yet to play loose with its authorial intent of specific censorship cautions is to court controversy at best or completely miss the point at worst.

Bahrani and his co-writer Amir Naderi don’t miss Bradbury’s point.  But their take pours a lake’s worth of water on the book’s concepts to make them modern and “movie-like.”  By attempting to turn a treatise on government suppression into a sci-fi spectacle palatable with popcorn, Bahrani’s film comes off Frankenstein’s table as a lumbering brute built from mismatched parts that don’t work well in unison.

Guy Montag is a fireman.  His job isn’t to extinguish flames, but to ignite them whenever his superior Captain Beatty sends their crew to destroy contraband media, be it on paper or a hard drive. Like the novel, the screenplay originally included Montag’s wife, although she ultimately didn’t make the movie.  Montag instead gets mixed up in a lukewarm love affair with Clarisse, an informant involved in an underground uprising.  When a raid results in a woman willingly choosing to burn with her books, Montag turns to Clarisse to sort through his growing doubts and disillusionment before becoming a rebel himself.

As a Cleveland native, I couldn’t help but be amused by the movie’s futurization of the Northeast Ohio city where this dystopian story is centered.  In reality, Cleveland is a predominantly blue-collar burg with just three skyscrapers.  In “Fahrenheit 451,” Cleveland resembles some impossible offspring of “Blade Runner’s” Los Angeles mated with the electrified action of Las Vegas.

That’s not an altogether awful metaphor for “Fahrenheit 451” as a whole.  The movie desperately wants to have slickness similar to Ridley Scott’s contemporary classic.  It also fabricates a false façade of cheaply replicated grandeur momentarily appealing to inebriated tourists while harboring bankrupt hollowness on its interior.

I’m being harsh for the satisfaction of having a colorful turn of phrase.  Restating it simply, “Fahrenheit 451” virtually defines a bare minimum movie.  Not in terms of effort, which is adequate.  But in terms of achievement, of which the best to be said about anything in particular is, “it’s alright” with little need for elaboration.

Michael Shannon leans on experiential instincts for playing Captain Beatty like one of his characteristically charismatic powder kegs of conflicted villainy. Shannon doesn’t seem bored, though undemanding direction happily leaves him on autopilot to be more basic than bold.

Ditto Michael B. Jordan, whose stiffness stems from a rigidly rote script that makes Montag out of preloaded protagonist templates.  His connection with Clarisse comes from a single sequence of taking turns reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from Underground” while enrapt in each other’s arms.  Montag’s other introspective musing comes from flashing back to a father whose symbolic function doesn’t establish meaningful exposition.

It’s no wonder Montag’s wife didn’t make it into the mix since “Fahrenheit 451” affords neither the time nor the space to dig any deeper into the book’s layers.  The film instead recycles routine setups aimed at hitting the finish tape in a direct line.  Putting itself on a pedestrian pace, “Fahrenheit 451” feels like one of those studio movies written by a committee following formula, not the seminal work of a vaunted visionary.

Production design similarly concerns itself with matters other than narrative. Someone thought it looked cinematic to project digital video broadcasts on buildings, yet failed to apply logic to why random emoji expressions bubble up alongside imagery.  There’s an incomplete idea here to apply some semblance of social media relevance even though it doesn’t fulfill a practical purpose within the film’s realized fiction.

“Fahrenheit 451” isn’t as misguided about Bradbury’s content as it is about smartly utilizing sci-fi cinema staples.  The film’s desire to be stylish regularly distracts from social commentary, resulting in a movie that only flirts peripherally with being an intriguing adaptation.  More functional than memorable, “Fahrenheit 451” settles for the simplicity of having acceptable acting, standard cinematography, and okay everything else, despite having a timely opportunity to tell an important tale.

Review Score:  50

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