Tromeo And Juliet
The minions at Troma Films and their fearless leader (Lloyd Kaufman) spent years and years trying to perfect the art of the trashy, low budget scum movie using their requisite formula (sex, nudity, foul language, and lots and lots of gore) in order to make films that would if not change the world, then set it back on its heels in the expressions previously unseen in cinema that they would bring forth. Kaufman would hit pay dirt very early on with 1984âs The Toxic Avenger, a raunchy superhero spoof portraying a superhero who never had his own comic book going around dispensing gory justice to an array of villains whose repugnant actions were equally matched by their completely amoral attitudes. In fact, showcasing amoral characters who wore their scumbag, piece of shit nature on their sleeve would become a trademark of the Troma filmmaking factory even as the films that followed Toxic Avenger (including several stillborn, misfired sequels) would ultimately fail to top it for sheer, brilliant audacity. The next (last?) high water mark for Kaufman and Troma would come from this 1996 release, an adaptation of none other than William Shakespeare, albeit updated for its present time period of late 1990s New York City in a degenerate retelling of the classic love story that nonetheless stays fairly close to the original text including a half assed attempt at the same style of dialogue. Which brings us to Kaufmanâs secret weapon here even if he wasnât aware of it at that time: The screenplay was written and sold to Kaufman by one James Gunn, whom at the time was still struggling to break into the film industry but would later go on to achieve the not so mean feat of writing and directing film franchises in both the Marvel Universe (Guardians Of The Galaxy) and DC Universe (Suicide Squad). Here with its let it all hang out veneer of sleaze and perversity, Shakespeare would not only have one of his best (and least boring) adaptations, but Troma (if but for a brief time) would garner some semi mainstream attention especially since an also modernized Leonardo DiCaprio starring and Baz Luhrmann directed film version of Romeo And Juliet had also come out at around the same time. But this version was one that was definitely NOT meant for mainstream audiences, depicting the two feuding families (Capulet and Montague who here are renamed The Ques) as being former partners in the porno film industry until Capulet head Cappy (William Beckwith) had stolen the business right out from under Monty Q (Earl McKoy), reducing him to little more than a drunken, passed out mess being cared for by his son Tromeo (Will Keenan). Itâs obvious that Kaufman had mounted this production with the intention of it being his epic magnum opus, even going so far as to bring in Lemmy Kilmister (of Motorhead) to be the onscreen narrator (something which should have been more heavily promoted and wasnât) along with Motorhead actually contributing a song to the movieâs soundtrack and also a couple of future big names who would build their stardom on the future efforts of Gunn himself (including his brother Sean and Stephen Blackehart) as well as two legitimate future Scream Queens of low budget horror in Debbie Rochon and Tiffany Shepis. Here, Keenanâs Tromeo is a grinning idiot who spends most of his free time hanging out with his buddies and masturbating to interactive CD-ROM porn where it appears that his favorite selection to wank off to is anything involving âtrue loveâ. Meanwhile, Juliet (Jane Jensen) is a sweet faced blonde kept almost completely sheltered by her tyrannical father whose only friend appears to be her heavily pierced and tattooed nurse / nanny (Rochon) with whom she spends plenty of time engaging in some lesbian heavy petting with. Unfortunately, she is also subject to the evil, lecherous advances of her own father who takes her to a place called âthe quiet roomâ and locks her inside a plexiglass, soundproof box before having his incestuous way with her. Even worse, her father has set her up to be married (or trafficked as it would be) to a goofy, trust fund billionaireâs son and obvious virgin (Steve Gibbons) whose family fortune is derived from the meat industry but whose obnoxious personality is so profuse that any girl looking for a ride down Easy Street would still be hard pressed to settle on him. The everlasting feud between the two families now usually culminates with the occasional fight or two members of the Que clan taunting Senor Capulet outside his house while he reaches for his crossbow (his preferred weapon of choice) all while both clans seem to be fans of the Troma Films product with several posters from other films seen hanging on their walls. As in the original story, our star crossed couple meet by chance at a costume party (where Tromeo has disguised himself to get in) and from there on out the real war begins as Tromeo has a rendezvous with her in the quiet room (after another rape session with her dad) and then makes arrangements to head off the impending nuptials with the meat tycoonâs son by having themselves get married first by the local priest (who is portrayed as being a pedophile) even while the expected confrontations (and deaths) take place along the way. Of course, when it comes to Troma doing Shakesphere, itâs all in the approach so in recreating and reinterpreting anything from the original story that was even remotely violent, any sense of discretion or restraint goes completely out the window (not to mention the borderline pornographic sex scenes), culminating in a grand setpiece where a character is first deprived of his arm while it was still holding his custom made bully club with a bust of Adolf Hitlerâs head at the end of it, then while riding along on the ladder attached to the car that caused the detachment, they come to a flatbed truck where one worker is heard saying to another âyou have to work hard to get ahead in lifeâ whereas that same character is now sent flying into the flatbed end of the truck and summarily decapitated, but thatâs not all! A normal family (where James Gunn is cameoing as the father) sees the head land on the hood of their car while theyâre riding along, eliciting squeals of laughter from the kids while the horrified parents manage to flip their car over while barely surviving and then afterwards the two little kids play catch with the head as mom and dad watch their vehicle blow up. If this sequence looks just as spectacular as it sounds, thatâs because it really is even on a meager 350K budget. Other atrocities on display include a reactionary cop whom when in an interrogation room with two male suspects and a female, chooses to beat a confession out of the girl while two other cops look on laughing, but you pretty much get the idea at this point. The film does run a little bit long in the tooth so to speak (thanks mostly to the elaborate story setup) and the illiterated, âenlightenedâ dialogue (much of it made up although it does include a few random Shakesphere quotes from his other plays) can be hard to follow at times, but the finale thankfully turns out to be just as wild as anything else in the movie with an actual monster transformation and one of the best shit talking lines in movie history (âIâm gonna wipe you off the face of the Earth just like a piece of shit from Godâs ass!â). Plus, with the final revelations (be that what they are) intended to shock everyone into an unhappy ending instead being shrugged off and disregarded (âFuck it. Weâve made it this far.â) perfectly sums up the whole entire spirit of this insane enterprise, a world where sometimes the amoral can be portrayed as being both heroes and also as the only healthy dose of reality when contrasted against a den of deceptive vipers and the cheeky final shot of an actor playing Shakesphere himself nodding with approval helps to confirm exactly thatâŚ
9/10