Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
In December 1997 in Amarillo, Texas, a late night scrap between local groups of punks and jock “white hats” took a sharp turn towards tragedy when one of the “white hats” drove his Cadillac into and over 19-year-old Brian Deneke. Deneke died on the scene, but his killer received only probation. At the time, the leniency of the sentence was chalked up by many as being due to the public image projected by both young men. Brian was a “bad” kid, with his mohawk, studs, and combat boots. His murderer was a “good” kid, a high school football player with a sensible hair cut, churchgoing parents, and lily white skin.
Bomb City, the feature debut of director and co-writer Jameson Brooks, depicts the final days of Brian Deneke (played by Dave Davis) as he wanders rebellious but not angry through the at times deeply hostile world of Amarillo. Deneke plays with his band, sets up local art projects, scurries away from the cops after being caught tagging, and generally roams about with no way of knowing his life is on a rapid collision course with its end.
Bomb City also lingers over the injustice of the subsequent trial, as hotshot defense attorney Cameron Wilson (Glenn Morshower) defends the killer (renamed Cody Cates and played by Luke Shelton) as an innocent boy who acted in self-defense to put down a dangerous, violent attacker.
Equal parts slice-of-life, tragedy, and furious indictment, Bomb City drew raves from critics but seems to have flown somewhat under the radar in discussions of 2018 cinema. So let’s do our part in bringing some attention to this powerful little movie, and go off on Bomb City.
Next Week’s Pick:
For our next stop on a tour of some of the best that 2018 had to offer, we wander south of the border and get lost in Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. The autobiographical epic follows a turbulent year in the life Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) and the family she works for as a maid. Captured in elegant black-and-whites with many of Cuaron’s trademark extensive tracking shots, Roma is a frontrunner at the upcoming Academy Awards.
The film is currently available to stream on Netflix Instant.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
The Team
All I could think about was those Covington Catholic kids. Bomb City is a strong enough film that it no doubt would provoke feelings of sickening grief and righteous fury no matter when you watched, provided you come equipped with the necessary empathy to see past the chaotic ornamentation of its central punks. But watching it in the wake of that smirking shit-gibbon doing a full court press PR tour in which him and his dipshit parents insist that no, the crowd of screaming, out-of-control racist white kids were the real victims, not the elderly Native American Vietnam veteran they terrorized and insulted, it makes the fury underlying Bomb City that much more righteous, and the grief that much more sickening. This is still a country with a protected demographic (to which I belong) and everyone who doesn’t look/dress/act in accordance with that demographic has a target on their back.
At times Bomb City maybe lays things on a bit thick (the punks aren’t just our sympathetic point-of-view characters, they are depicted as being purer then the driven snow) especially in the courtroom scenes that form the framing device. But watching as the real world gnashes its way through that Covington story, it’s clear that these stark miscarriages of justice, these corrosive media narratives of white masculine victimization, they happen just as openly as depicted in this film.
Bomb City also manages the neat trick of being entertaining as well as enlightening. The young cast all gel well together and director Brooks shows a remarkably assured eye for only having some short films and this one feature under his belt. The wide open Texas fields and dank urban corners all thrum with life, underlining what these characters find invigorating and stultifying about their world. Bomb City proves to be a harrowing ride, but one well worth taking.(@theTrueBrendanF)
[Editor’s note: Rod is from Amarillo, where the film takes place]. I never thought I’d see a movie made so close to home, more geographically than emotionally, but it was still a shock to my system. I’ve become much more sympathetic to rebels than I was, even though I’m typing this from my comfortable, suburban home. Bomb City is a hyperbolic and simplistic look at a complex but troubled place. Amarillo’s still a city people say “It’s a great place to raise kids” about, and while I’ve chose not to, I’ll spend the rest of my life thinking about this city in the Panhandle and all the years I called it home. I’m of there and from there, but it’s no longer mine, and never will be again. (@rodmachen)
[Read Rod’s full thoughts on the film HERE]
After spending a lot of time with this film earlier this year, I revisited it this week for the first time since. It somehow hit me even harder than before. I’d last watched the film then began reaching out to people who lived through it, one of whom talked at length with me and was part of my previous piece on the film. Maybe the added personal touch of that discussion was an added weight to this film for me — but, no matter what the reason, I found it completely and utterly crushing this go around.
A remarkably well told and well filmed tale of hate fueled tragedy, Bomb City is deserving of all the praise it has received and far more. The story is so powerful and I am so happy it was told this way. This is a huge recommend for me and is easily one of 2018’s best. Just know that it’s not an easy watch. (@thepaintedman)
[Read Justin’s full thoughts on the film HERE]
Similar to acclaimed pictures of late like Mid90s and Lady Bird, Bomb City is a throwback to teenage years for Gen Xers and Millenials who grew up in the 90s, focusing on youth subcultures as its narrative window to the living past. Part of the reason these films hit so hard is nostalgia for anyone part of this generation or close to these people and places, but that’s not the only audience that can appreciate this level of storytelling and filmmaking — and in this case, a true story. As a smaller production, Bomb City hasn’t picked up the same widespread love as those other films, but it’s very much part of the same conversation (and one of my top 10 films of 2018).
What Bomb City does best is humanize punks in a way that doesn’t happen much on film. From the outside, they can be easy to dismiss or misunderstand by any number of adjectives: Rebellious, noisy, misanthropic. Frightening. Aggressive. Crusty. Treated in fiction as interchangeable with gangsters as the de facto low level bad guys. The other side of these punks that we don’t see: Principled, conscious, passionate. Kids who love their parents — and whose parents who love them. Growing up, falling in love, searching for identity, hugging puppies, and rejecting the hypocrisy and misaligned values of respectful society (until, it’s implied, ultimately accepting it and moving into the apathy of adulthood).
Bomb City is a bit of propaganda in that it has clearly drawn a line in the sand, but it doesn’t suffer for its bias — if anything there’s a sense of both a genuine plea for sanity, and a righteous scream against injustice. (@VforVashaw)
Further reading:
https://cinapse.co/bomb-city-captures-the-true-and-tragic-story-of-the-death-of-brian-deneke-307a61536c50https://cinapse.co/bomb-city-captures-the-true-and-tragic-story-of-the-death-of-brian-deneke-307a61536c50
Next week’s pick: