I Heart Hartnett

Josh Hartnett and I go way, way back.


By which I mean, of course, that I've had an infantile crush on him almost since he was a wee bairn (well, since he was a 20 year old in sweet horror film The Faculty, actually).


He's had a fascinating career including The Virgin Suicides, the much-underrated "O" (his vile Hugo was fabulous and utterly credible), Lucky Number Slevin (for about half of which he is dressed in just a towel. Which is nice) and the ambitious if ultimately rather flawed The Black Dahlia.

I am going to draw a polite veil over Pearl Harbour [sic] and Black Hawk Down. He was only young.


So today saw a double-bill of Josh's 2008 films, starting with August. This tries to capture the insanity of the dot.com bubble, the time just before 9/11 when companies were valued at hundreds of millions of dollars even though the vast majority of them would never make a profit.


It's a perfectly servicable film, trying a wee bit too hard at the stylish visual moodiness, and a bit wrong-footed by an odd cameo from David Bowie (no, really), as some sort of mega corporate giant rich geezer.


Josh is easily the best thing in it, easily filling the shoes of an upstart business tyke who is almost all bravado and no substance.

Whereas in the other half of the double bill -- I Come With the Rain (alas, not a porn movie with a punning title) -- his character was all palpable substance.


Hartnett plays Kline, a former detective who quit after spending more than two years tracking down a bizarre serial killer (this part of the film is strangely reminiscent of Michael Mann's 1986 Manhunter, all fucked-up mind games and a cop becoming a killer in order to track him down).


Elias Koteas's killer is spectacularly creepy, and his sculptures made from the body parts of his victims are straight out of Francis Bacon's gloriously nightmarish canvasses.


In his new role as a private detective, Kline takes a case to find a rich industrialist's missing son, a search that takes him via the Philippines to Hong Kong.

I do like movies set in Hong Kong.


At this point, the plot goes a bit bananas, involving a gang of triads, a revenge kidnapping (can you have such a thing?) that goes wrong, a character who appears to be some sort of mystic healer (or possibly a reincarnation of Christ), and Josh desperately fighting his nightmares.


Things twist and turn, sprawling back and forth in time, layers of dreams, flashbacks and reality all co-mingling in a glorious rain-sodden (and blood-spattered) stew.


I'm pleased to be able to report that Josh spends some time wearing only a towel, and some other bits of time standing around in his pants (including one scene where, all nonchalent, he seems to be stroking his, er, morning wood through his loose-fitting boxers. I swear this is true).


It's also a very sweaty film, for those people who like that sort of thing. In fact, my very straight (cough) friend D. also professed to liking it, and he's not the sort to put up with any stuff and nonsense.

For myself, I was content just to be reunited again with lovely Josh.