Series 7: The Contenders (Daniel Minahan, USA, 2001) August 15, 2006
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : 2000s, Drama, Film reviews, Thriller/Suspense, Crime , trackbackDir. Daniel Minahan; screenplay by Daniel Minahan; starring Brooke Smith
Series 7: The Contenders is at times a deeply unsettling film that frequently piques the audience’s interest, but in the same token it’s a deeply flawed satire with a muddled script and some awful acting.
Minahan takes his satire of reality television to the extreme, painting a bleak view of a narcissistic world where life and death is so sanitised, committing murder is like stealing the victims favourite teddy bear. The film’s major problem is what makes reality television so fake are the motives of those that take part. Their desperation to become famous feeds their taste to be the basis of voyeuristic desire. In Monahan’s film the motives of the contestants are confused, as if to protect their lives is the only motive they need. The film is so obsessed with sanitising life, this becomes nothing more than a means to an end. Can we as an audience believe that these characters would simply accept their situation without question? The director seems to think so, which really examples a close-mindedness on his part. His characters are either stereotypes (the rebellious, pseudo-intellectual artist, and the teenager with family problems) or caricatures (the psychotic old nurse). The nurse even says that people often ask her if the Emergency Room is exactly like what they see of television, to which she replies that it is, but more bloody. It’s very doubtful that good looking nurses will go around wondering if George Clooney has caught their gaze, and even more doubtful television hospitals closely mimic their real life counterparts. Minahan takes reality television too seriously so his film becomes nothing more than a caricature of the genre, in effect, parodying the very notions it attempts to satirise.
Many have criticised the film’s ending but I believe it’s the most successful part of the film. It’s tinged in over-the-top melodrama, filmed to look like a reconstruction of events that we do not see. It is rather inventive how Minahan self-references his own film to show some of the genre’s more glaring deficiencies, like for example, the ambiguity of what ‘reality’ means when it comes to this sort of television.
The mere fact Series 7: The Contenders throws up so many interesting questions, shows that the idea is a good one. However, while horror films My Little Eye and Kolobos faired worse, The Truman Show and EdTV were much better examples of the theme. Given that Minahan both wrote and directed the film, his problems at script level are never addressed, and his amateurish direction leaves a lot to be desired (his changes of tone are jarring, his lack of focus alienating the viewer). There is of course the other problem concerning his less than stellar cast, none of who really embrace their roles.
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