August 5, 2024
FILM: THE PARAGON
DIRECTED BY: MICHAEL DUIGNAN
STARRING: BENEDICT WALL, FLORENCE NOBLE, JESSICA GRACE SMITH
RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
New Zealand has been the home of many excellent filmmakers including Oscar winners Peter Jackson, Jane Campion, and Taika Waititi. While not all of their works are perfect, they have demonstrated admirable skill at creating some pretty magical worlds and fully-fleshed out, interesting characters. So, I was looking forward to the possibilities of Michael Duignan’s new feature, The Paragon. Perhaps it’s not fair to compare his work here with that of these celebrated masters but, like them, he attempts to create something original and ambitious. Unfortunately, this one loses its steam fairly quickly. What seems effective at first becomes overly serious and lacking in its initial attempts at humor and drawing in a wider audience.
Benedict Wall stars as Dutch, a man who is almost killed by a hit and run driver. Now suffering with a limp and a crutch, the former tennis instructor is looking for revenge on the person who disfigured him. Dutch is an interesting character from the start. He’s good-looking, cocky, and clearly driven in his quest. He then runs across an ad suggesting he can be taught to learn psychic powers. Dutch is intrigued because the police have not been able to help him find the driver of the car. He meets Lyra (Florence Noble) who is dressed in a cape and has a triangle tattooed on her forehead. She claims she can help him develop his powers by going through a strange regiment including a color diet in which each day he must eat food of a particular color. (My late friend Lee who refused to eat anything green would have never made it through this one.)
Dutch initially meets all of this with skepticism and some humor but he wants the revenge so why not try it? This occurs fairly early in the film and it is the point at which the narrative’s tone becomes less comedic and more self-serious. The training exercises go on a bit too long and Lyra remains pretty stoic and generally underdeveloped as a character. Eventually the film goes even darker, to a point when some viewers who might have previously found the story amusing will notice it becomes a bit too serious with its science fiction ideology.
Don’t get me wrong: I like a good sci fi story. AppleTV+ has one of the best series of the year with its time travel/parallel universe themed Dark Matter. Perhaps because it has multiple episodes to develop out its premise it stays pretty consistent and satisfying. The Paragon loses the coolness of Dutch in favor of a plot that has its heart in the right place but becomes a bit too overwrought in sci fi elements. Most notably there is a flashy aesthetic to much of the film: unusual camera angles, varying uses of visual media, fast motion, bold colors, etc. But these eventually start wearing thin and losing their effectiveness. They begin looking over-used, a bit low-rent, and almost laughable at times.
The electronic music is pretty effective though and appropriately underscores the weirdness happening on screen. Benedict Wall is also quite good as Dutch. I just wish he would have been given more of a chance to inhabit the character instead of becoming something of a sci fi pawn. There is a shift in his intentions though which does work well as a character arc and a thematic move away from revenge to something a bit more noble.
Still, I can’t help but feel that the future of this film is to be embraced primarily by a cult audience that will eat the psychic aspects of its narrative up. That’s okay for them but there are others who may just roll their eyes at the film and wonder why it couldn’t have had more fun with its subject.
The Paragon opens in select theaters, including the Music Box Theater in Chicago, and on streaming services this week.
FILM: THE PARAGON
DIRECTED BY: MICHAEL DUIGNAN
STARRING: BENEDICT WALL, FLORENCE NOBLE, JESSICA GRACE SMITH
RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
New Zealand has been the home of many excellent filmmakers including Oscar winners Peter Jackson, Jane Campion, and Taika Waititi. While not all of their works are perfect, they have demonstrated admirable skill at creating some pretty magical worlds and fully-fleshed out, interesting characters. So, I was looking forward to the possibilities of Michael Duignan’s new feature, The Paragon. Perhaps it’s not fair to compare his work here with that of these celebrated masters but, like them, he attempts to create something original and ambitious. Unfortunately, this one loses its steam fairly quickly. What seems effective at first becomes overly serious and lacking in its initial attempts at humor and drawing in a wider audience.
Benedict Wall stars as Dutch, a man who is almost killed by a hit and run driver. Now suffering with a limp and a crutch, the former tennis instructor is looking for revenge on the person who disfigured him. Dutch is an interesting character from the start. He’s good-looking, cocky, and clearly driven in his quest. He then runs across an ad suggesting he can be taught to learn psychic powers. Dutch is intrigued because the police have not been able to help him find the driver of the car. He meets Lyra (Florence Noble) who is dressed in a cape and has a triangle tattooed on her forehead. She claims she can help him develop his powers by going through a strange regiment including a color diet in which each day he must eat food of a particular color. (My late friend Lee who refused to eat anything green would have never made it through this one.)
Dutch initially meets all of this with skepticism and some humor but he wants the revenge so why not try it? This occurs fairly early in the film and it is the point at which the narrative’s tone becomes less comedic and more self-serious. The training exercises go on a bit too long and Lyra remains pretty stoic and generally underdeveloped as a character. Eventually the film goes even darker, to a point when some viewers who might have previously found the story amusing will notice it becomes a bit too serious with its science fiction ideology.
Don’t get me wrong: I like a good sci fi story. AppleTV+ has one of the best series of the year with its time travel/parallel universe themed Dark Matter. Perhaps because it has multiple episodes to develop out its premise it stays pretty consistent and satisfying. The Paragon loses the coolness of Dutch in favor of a plot that has its heart in the right place but becomes a bit too overwrought in sci fi elements. Most notably there is a flashy aesthetic to much of the film: unusual camera angles, varying uses of visual media, fast motion, bold colors, etc. But these eventually start wearing thin and losing their effectiveness. They begin looking over-used, a bit low-rent, and almost laughable at times.
The electronic music is pretty effective though and appropriately underscores the weirdness happening on screen. Benedict Wall is also quite good as Dutch. I just wish he would have been given more of a chance to inhabit the character instead of becoming something of a sci fi pawn. There is a shift in his intentions though which does work well as a character arc and a thematic move away from revenge to something a bit more noble.
Still, I can’t help but feel that the future of this film is to be embraced primarily by a cult audience that will eat the psychic aspects of its narrative up. That’s okay for them but there are others who may just roll their eyes at the film and wonder why it couldn’t have had more fun with its subject.
The Paragon opens in select theaters, including the Music Box Theater in Chicago, and on streaming services this week.