“GO GO TALES” (2007)

Starring: Willem Dafoe, Bob Hoskins, Matthew Modine, Asia Argento, Pras, Burt Young, Bianca Balti, Lou Doillon, Roy Dotrice, Sylvia Miles, Frankie Cee, Mara Adriani, Sebina Beganovic, Joseph Cortese, Frank DeCurtis, Selena Khoo, Justine Mattera, Yuliya Mayarchuk, Julie McNiven & Manuela Zero
Written & Directed by Abel Ferrara

Polly Staffle Rating: *

Shot in Rome with a budget of five million dollars and starring Willem Dafoe, Asia Argento, Bob Hoskins, Matthew Modine, Burt Young, rapper Pras, multiple Academy Award nominee Sylvia Miles, French actress Lou Doillon and Italian super model Bianca Balti, Abel Ferrara’s dark comedy “Go Go Tales” sounds promising.

The film, which premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, takes place on a Thursday night at a club called Ray Ruby’s Paradise, a strange and mysterious establishment that is part nudie bar, part cabaret and part snooty restaurant with dancers that are mostly beyond skinny and flat chested.

Willem Dafoe is the big dreaming and always scheming Ray. He’s barely keeping his club a float and is possessed with trying to win the lottery. Ray also thinks quite highly of himself. He’s no sleaze ball boss, or so he feels. He’s a daddy to his family at Paradise. Sure, a stingy, egotistical, obsessive dad that puts himself ahead of his wife and kids, is always late with the allowance, gives horrible advice, offers no stability and never takes care of anything. Who’s this guy think he is Jesus? (Dafoe did play the Christmas birthday boy once in “The Last Temptation of Christ.”)

When patrons enter his club, they buy play money with their credit cards. The play currency is then used as tips and spending cash for private dances and such, so that cheapskate Ray can control all the strip club’s funds. His employees then depend on him for paychecks; unlike most topless and nude establishments where dancers keep whatever tips they bring in. Ray is currently 36 hours late on making good on this week’s checks. He’s also several month’s late on the rent. It’s 7 p.m. at night and he has supposedly disappeared to make a bank deposit. His dancers are considering going on strike. The club’s financial backer (Matthew Modine) wants to shut the place down. The elderly foul mouth owner of the building (played by Sylvia Miles) wants to turn it into a Bed, Bath & Beyond. She is currently raising hell at the premises and is threatening to bring people with her the next day to evict Ray’s ass.

When one of his strippers comes to Ray to inform him that she is pregnant and that her doctor recommends she stop dancing, he tells her she’ll be fine for at least another four months. In the basement of the club is a tanning booth, one that the dancers have to insert dollars into in order to use. When the tanning booth injures one of his dancers after it catches fire because the wrong type of bulb was placed in it, Ray isn’t the least concerned in rushing her to a hospital and having her burns attended to.

Ray’s dancer Monroe (played by a highly underused Asia Argento) has a big dog, which is part of her act on stage. When she isn’t French kissing the pet, Monroe places the Rottweiler in the kitchen. This makes gourmet chief Sandman (Pras) upset. Not only does the dog eat his organic hot dogs, but he protests to Ray that it violates health code violations. Ray does nothing.

In fact, even though he may have very well have won $18 million and all of this chaos is going on, Ray lays down for a nap. He needs his beauty sleep for his part of the night’s stage show. Ruby thinks he’s a MC of a variety show or something. He also fancies himself as a lounge singer. He actually isn’t half bad either. Ray’s voice has a very David Bowie quality to it. So even though, to the right and left on all the monitor’s in his office are women in various stages of undress and a pounding bump and grind soundtrack pulsates in the background, Ray pulls a blindfold over his eyes, lays down his head on his office couch and sleeps. I personally can’t blame him. I was ready to do the same. I’m not sure what it was, but despite the ample amounts of skin and erotic dancing, I too could have got some shut eye during “Go Go Tales.” While Ray was avoiding his problems and trying to shut out his hectic world, boredom was trying to send me off to sleepy town.

Ironically, the last time I almost fell asleep at CineVegas was during Ferrara’s “Mary” two years ago at the Las Vegas film festival. That movie, which starred Matthew Modine playing an egotistical and obsessive actor/director who thinks he is Jesus, felt like it didn’t really have a script. It was slow, tiresome and didn’t really go anywhere. The same can be said for “Go Go Tales.” This film feels as though Ferrara wrote a handful of monologues, had a general idea of what he wanted (“Bad Lieutenant” meets “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” meets “Broadway Danny Rose” meets “Eddie Presley”) and then got together a bunch of quality actors (along with his girlfriend Shanyn Leigh) and expected them to be able to elevate the material he gave them into something more.

But “Go Go” ended up being a no go for me. The visuals aren’t as fun as they might sound, the humor wasn’t that humorous and the whole thing is quite predictable. The title “Go Go Tales” also implies plural storylines. When I hear “Go Go Tales” I think of multiple lurid and sleazy grindhouse plots going on at once that intersect and crisscross. There isn’t even a single tale here. It’s more like “Go Go Tails” or an even more appropriate title would be “Go Go Nothingness,” which could have still been entertaining had he developed his characters, gave them more to say and do, and gave me a reason to be interested, aside from T&A.

In a recent interview, Asia Argento told Independent Film Quarterly that she was really happy she got to work with Ferrara again. Asia worked with the filmmaker, along with Willem Dafoe, on Ferrara’s “New Rose Hotel” in 1998. “I’m very grateful for the rest of my life for working with such a great director who was and still is one of my favorites,” Asia said. That comes as a very high endorsement from the daughter of legendary horror director Dario Argento and a good filmmaker herself (“The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things” and “Scarlet Diva”). CineVegas obviously loves Ferrara as well. His documentary “ Chelsea on the Rocks” is also playing this year. Not to mention that “Go Go Tales,” already a year old, played the event unscreened, “on reputation only,” according to the festival official that introduced the movie at its “Diamond Discoveries” screening.

The print shown at CineVegas was even the same one used at Cannes. The English language film included French subtitles, which was annoying as hell. The film also malfunctioned about halfway through. The reel was broken, so there was an impromptu ten minute intermission. Some in the crowd left during this time and didn’t return. I waited it out, only to realize later that I too should have gone AWOL. I’d miss the point of the movie, I thought. Nope, there’s not really much of anything being said here. There’s a weird energy about the movie; that much I will say. It’s this anxious, something is going to happen any second kind of vibe. It ends up being just a tease, however, just like all of Ray’s empty promises to his employees and their false come ons to their customers.

Had an unknown filmmaker made “Go Go Tales” it would not have screened at Cannes or CineVegas. Ferrara is a washed-up has been that is getting by on his maverick status that brought us “Ms. 45” in 1981 and “The Driller Kriller” in 1979. Sure, he’s had a handful of decent cinematic moments since then, but for the most part, his movies feel like uncompleted sentences that………..

- CCF, June 2008