It always bothered me when people involved in a long-running movie or TV franchise stubbornly refuse to experiment with the core concept that’s already sold so well. Why can’t you mess with the formula that much? You wouldn’t want to see Indiana Jones on a date, or maybe see John Kramer (the killer from “Saw”) shopping for aluminum siding? What do these characters want or need when they’re not seeking rare artifacts or mass-murdering innocent victims? Does Robocop dream of stop-motion sheep?
“Bloody Hell” is not part of an ongoing franchise (yet?). But it probably is the closest answer to the question of what would happen if you trapped John McClane in a horror movie. The movie begins with such a situation, with ex-soldier Rex (Ben O’Toole) trapped in a bank just as an armed robbery erupts. Acting on impulse, Rex dismantles the intruders with a show of force and adrenaline. But, as befitting a more-realistic take on a “Die Hard” scenario, he goes to prison for the death of an innocent during the incident.
This is a hilariously-elaborate set-up, one that gets even wilder once he leaves prison. His first, and worst, choice to leave the country is to go to Finland, where he can live an isolated life free of media attention (much of which is fawning, but obviously exhausting). Before he can appreciate his new surroundings, he is kidnapped. The movie has already established he’s a traditionally cool-under-fire action hero, so it’s a bit of a shock when he wakes up chained to the ceiling in a basement, a leg cleanly severed off. All the smirking in the world couldn’t have prepared Bruce Willis for that one!
I gotta say, this guy did only a little bit less time than I did. But anyone who spends that much time in prison survives a lot, and I probably survived more than most because I was never protected by a “car” or clique or officer – I made no friends, and it was probably for the better. But you do that much time and come out as healthy as I am, and you really do feel like you’ve survived something wild, and nothing can stop you. I have to say, if I woke up tomorrow hanging from the ceiling in a basement somewhere, leg cleaved off, I’d probably cackle like a madman and proclaim to myself that you’d need kryptonite to kill me. Then I would pass out from the pain and die from the blood loss. But for a minute there, I’d think, “You shoulda killed me when you had the chance!!”
But this movie isn’t done with the curveballs. Rex soon learns that he’s been kidnapped by a family of cannibals. They know nothing of his past, he just looked good enough to eat, I guess. He puts this together with a little John McClane ingenuity (it was Detective McClane, after all), but also a contrarian inner voice that, until that point, had been narrating the movie. As Rex tries to convince the family’s attractive young daughter to free him (an impressive act of pitching woo, considering he’s 50% legless), the voice in his head teeters between inner monologue and genuine schizophrenic affectation.
“Bloody Hell” has the gruesome detail you see in a lot of the torture porn genre, the “Saw” movies and their various copycats. But it also has this acerbic, comedic vibe, as Rex constantly argues with the voice in his head. It was that voice that powered him through that earlier bank robbery, and in this scenario proceeds to give advice on how to over-aggressively rectify the situation despite being bound and handicapped. It reads like a bit of genre critique – his internal monologue is guiding him towards how to survive an action movie, except that he himself is now stuck in a horror movie. The same rules don’t apply. It’s a funny conceit, but it’s even more amusing given the legit star performance by O’Toole, an Australian actor who has worked in TV exclusively since this film. It’s a loss for the medium, particularly considering the ending here teases a second “Bloody Hell”.
Rex’s debilitated state made me think of when I was taken to the hospital. It was 2017, and I was driven out of the prison to the hospital for x-rays, having taken a brutal beating that broke my jaw in two places. I was handcuffed by my ankles and by my wrists, forced to hunch over and take small steps as if having a broken face didn’t limit my gait on its own. When we got to the hospital, I was placed in a wheelchair and eased into the ER. The nurses laid me out on a stretcher, while I remained cuffed – the officers freed my wrists so I could be cuffed again to each end of the stretcher.
I laid there, unfamiliar with the feeling of being out of prison, and of being chained to a stretcher. It was late winter, still March, still cold. I subtly shook as I waited for medical attention. Without saying anything, a nurse came over and pulled a blanket over me. I was still waiting to be seen, but she had noticed my slight shiver. I didn’t understand the emotion in that moment, but I soon began to cry. It was the kindest gesture I had felt in years. I think about that when I think of people with problems. Some of them need to be saved. Some just need others to notice that they’re cold.
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The ending of this killed me. Sometimes people just need someone to put a blanket on them. Life is all about gestures.