Two Jacks, directed by Bernard Rose, concerns the Hollywood exploits of – you guessed it – Two different Jacks: Legendary filmmaker Jack Hussar (Danny Huston) and, later, his upstart auteur son, Jack Jnr (Jack Huston). Based somewhat upon Leo Tolstoy’s short story Two Hussars, the film rambles its way through Los Angeles and leaves you scratching your head in mild confusion.
Two Jacks has some pedigree – it has bona fide stars (Danny Huston, Sienna Miller), as well as a couple of ‘ooh, I’ve seen his face before’ players (former Hollyoaks-er Guy Burnet) and a tenured director. The plot has some potential, if not a huge amount below the surface. However, it seems filmmaker Bernard Rose was only able to secure enough funding for a couple of camera-phones to shoot his movie. You may find yourself checking the DVD for blemishes – the picture is rather awful. Shot like a 90 minute long YouTube video, with focus darting in and out at will and shaky camera moves, Two Jacks fails on a basic aesthetic level.
Perhaps the performances can save it? Both Hustons (Uncle and Nephew in real life) are good enough, with the elder in the role of charming hell-raiser – channeling some Jack Nicholson devilish eyebrows as he drunk-drives around Hollywood, trying to raise money for his latest film – a project in Africa. Getting kicked out of hotels, fighting at parties, bedding the frankly-young-enough-to-be-his-daughter Diana (Miller) – it’s all done in the classic Hollywood bad-boy-with-charm way. He gets away with it.
Flash forward 20 years, and Hussar Senior is long gone. In comes Jack Jnr, in LA to direct his own feature. Clearly influenced by his Father, he comes across like an entitled prick, bemoaning the lack of space in his gigantic hotel suite and being rather rude to a now older, fading Diana (Jacqueline Bisset). Whereas Daddy Hussar had something of the classic hell-raiser about him, Jack Jnr is far more like the current generation of bad-boy idols. He’s the Justin Bieber to his Dad’s Ollie Reed.
Sienna Miller’s Diana is bright and seductive – possibly the best performance of the lot. The rest of the cast is middling to bad, however. Often it feels like a student film, and many scenes see people talking over each other, making dialogue unfathomable. Confusingly, while some care is taken to show the passing of time – the cars on the street, Diana’s metamorphosis from Miller to Bisset as she ages, certain aspects are ignored completely. Both Hussars visit Lorenzo, a broadly painted, sinister producer who likes to have filmmakers in his pocket. Played by Richard Portnow, Lorenzo doesn’t age a day over the twenty year gap, and neither does his shady, red lit bar where he appears to being playing poker in the same outfit.
When Jack Jnr goes on a bender with Lorenzo’s go-go dancer girl, we expect severe consequences. They never really arrive, and the film peters out. It’s unclear what the message is – do we sympathise with Jack Jnr? Do we even care?
Not really.
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