Customer Reviews

Three Businessmen

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The film begins by showing us the grand old buildings of Liverpool, England. An old man walks in front of one of them and in the next shot enters Lime Street Station. You wouldn't think that this is relevant, but it is. In Alex Cox's Three Businessmen most things that are on view in the frame are relevant. Cox describes the film as "Buñuelian". You could say that it is something along the lines of one of the maestro's films, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie, because the two main protagonists have the same problem - they can't seem to find a meal and a place to eat. The two main protagonists in question are art dealers Bennie Reyes (Miguel Sandoval) and Frank King (Alex Cox). The two men meet while waiting for food in a hotel's dining room. The food doesn't arrive, and the eerie hotel is mysteriously empty, so the chaps go in search of a meal around Liverpool, which proves to be a difficult task as their search is thwarted constantly. Their crusade takes them into foreign locations, even though the men think they are in Liverpool throughout. It's a very enjoyable and inventive surreal film.

The DVD picture is in widescreen and fine. The sound is in Dolby 2.0 and alright. The main menu is a static shot of the Three Businessmen and has the Debbie Harry song, "Ghost Riders in the Sky playing". There are eight chapters. The extras are just a commentary by director Alex Cox and writer/producer Tod Davies. It is an excellent commentary featuring amusing commercial interludes by Alex Cox. Tod Davies is good, too, explaining all the background on the making of the film. Funny, insightful and interesting.

On it's face, Three Businessmen is the story of two men looking for dinner in a strange town. But, as Hitchcock might say, that is just the MacGuffin around which this tantilizing tale of the everyman lost in a world they have no way of understanding. The two stars, Miguel "The West Wing" Sandoval and director Alex Cox, accidently travel the world by public transport without noticing. They talk and try to get something to eat; they argue; they discuss; they mesmerize.

And there is a connection to 2001 in here.

The commentary by Cox and writer/producer Todd Davies is funny and informative. Like being stuck in the movie theater with two intellegent hecklers.

Gosh this is a good movie. I watch it more often then almost any other movie in my collection. Watch it yourself.

Bennie has just arrived in Liverpool, obviously on business, but the details are sketchy. He arrives at this gorgeous hotel that has about as many quirks as any place I've seen on film. The doors have no room numbers, the hallways are a maze, and everything is completely dark. It is agonizing watching this man drag all of his luggage through such emptiness, we can only sympathize with him. But it is a minor tragedy, afterall, and soon Bennie finds his room. That's how this film is structured, a series of miniscule and minor tragedies painting an oddly dark landscape. Having set up shop with his computer, printer, and coffee pot (in a jacuzzi suite that has only one electrical outlet), Bennie soon finds himself bored. He goes through books, paces around, blesses the room with sage smoke... Yes, this is an odd little movie. But we see that he is waiting for something, he keeps glancing at his cell phone... Nobody calls, so Bennie decides the best bet is to find something to eat.

The hotel's restaurant is this wide open ballroom, as beautiful as it is obnoxious with an abundance of chandeliers and very bright lighting... It is empty, sans one other person. Bennie is seated next to another businessmen patiently awaiting his meal. The time lingers and soon enough, Bennie makes just enough of an annoyance to get the other patron's attention. His name is Frank, and soon we find they are both in the "art business". I should point out at some point, Bennie is the obnoxious American type... Much to the chagrin of a very polite English Frank. But a small relationship is established, and after a very long period of time the food still has not arrived... So, noticing that this restaurant doesn't even have the smell of food, Bennie takes the initiative to visit the kitchen... Which is completely abandoned... Cue slow panning shot and one of the few pieces of musical score to reveal on of the most depressing moments of the film.

OK, so these guys aren't going to eat in the hotel it seems, so they decide to hit the streets to find something to eat. They wander the streets for twenty four hours with some idle, sometimes confrontational, chit chat... Completely oblivious to the fact that the setting is changing around them... The fact that they don't see Hong Kong harbor outside their Liverpool ferry pretty much sums what this film is about...

But... There's more!

Brought to you by the man responsible for Sid & Nancy, Repo Man, and Straight to Hell, Alex Cox weaves perhaps one of the most subtle and insidious films I have ever seen. I don't know why I've put off seeing Cox's later work, perhaps because I didn't believe he could maintain the same level of insanity that he had during the eighties... That seems to be the case for most genre directors, so I didn't keep my hopes up. This is about as clever, if not more so, than his early work. Just as before, I am always astounded at Cox's ability to weave so many non sequiturs into a film and give them as great of gravity as the key points to the film. It is not as obvious as say Repo Man, considering that the pace is excruciatingly slow, but so much the better for us.

The description on the DVD mentions Beckett, and that about sums up this film. This is probably the closest I have seen to a cinematic equivalent to Waiting for Godot. The description above pretty much sums up the progress of the entire movie, and in the wrong (perhaps right) mindset, you will be as completely oblivious as Bennie and Frank. Unlike Godot, however, Three Businessmen does have a punchline and the last act is hard to ignore the drastic changes occurring around our two businessmen. The title is Three Businessmen, but the third doesn't make his way in until this cosmic joke is reaching its climax so I will leave it at that. But I will say that this film is one giant joke, the kind that if told would take ten minutes to tell before the one-liner conclusion. This is a joke that involves Bennie, Frank and their soon would-be counterpart, and when the punchline comes it doesn't seem to make much of a difference between the three.

On the FAQ at Alex Cox's site regarding Three Businessmen, when asked what the film is about: "Certainly is. It's the story of Bennie and Frank, two independent businessmen, who meet by chance in the restaurant of the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. Unable to find food therein, they set out in search of dinner." That's enough for me, but when writer Tod Davies is asked the same question: "It's not what it's about. It's just what happens. There is some confusion that these two things are the same, in the movies. But they are not."

Fair enough.

First of all, I love Luis Bunuel and surrealism. Also a movie doesn't have to make sense to be great. I found this film to be VERY boring. I never got to the third businessman because I went along on the ride with the first two for long enough. Usually, I'll hang with a movie until the end but just couldn't with this one. I found the first two characters to be, well boring and completely uninteresting. I think surrealism should be surreal, how about some crazy weird things thrown in to make you go WTF? Also the lack of a weird soundtrack (like with Lynch films) would have worked if something interesting was being shown.

So the guy can't find his room and the numbers don't match? I thought the hotel restaurant scene was okay but the conversation was again boring as hell. Why not make these characters more interesting? I found the cinematography to be uninspiring and uncreative. In fact, it looks like it was shot and cut by a first year film student. What was with the sudden color correction in the dark alley?

In a surreal film like this a LOT more could have been done to make it interesting. Plus, it took way to long to get going (actually it never got going anywhere?)

Hey, if two guys walking around talking about nothing interesting, trying to find a place to eat and get a drink but get lost sounds cool, then get this movie.

Actually an Epiphany myth.

Actually written and produced by Miss Tod, his cohort at Exterminating Angel.

Once you get the conceit it pretty much all comes clear, with lingering ambiguities which call for repeated viewings. Not as compulsively perhaps as Mr. Cox's noted messianic neutron tale Repo Man (Collector's Edition), but certainly delightfully. In fact this movie we may recommend for children and teens as a modern millenial retelling of the Three Wise Men. It is absolutely free of vulgar language and of violence beyond a momentary and possibly psychosomatic twisted ankle, and the only nudity is the public stone statue of Liverpool Resurgent.

For this Wise Men Revisited myth begins in Mr. Cox's native Liverpool, and mentions the Ferrey Across the Mersey and other cultural landmarks so well known from the early Sixties, including Mr. Sandoval's character Reyes's intriguing and unorthodox reflections on the well-known Liverpudlian "moptops."

Miquel Sandoval of course has appeared in a number of Alex Cox Films, including Repo Man (Special Edition), Sid & Nancy - Criterion Collection, Walker - Criterion Collection, etc., each with a surprisingly varying appearance and character. Here he appears more closely his well known television character supervising the psychic detective, or his appearance in Jurassic Park, or Clear and Pressent Danger.

The disk case indicates an indebtedness not only to Bunuel but also Beckett, and indeed this road show resembles the strange conversations in Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts in which a mismatched pair discuss all things while unconscious of their true predicament. So here as well, yet one might find as easily echoes of the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby Road films, if not Abbot and Costello, etc. The reflections on life and reality here nevertheless most call to Samuel Beckett, native of Dublin across the way.

Please do not do as I have done. View this film first, and then with the delightful, informative and ever engaging commentary with Tod and Alex. In this way you avoid spoilers, reflect first on the conversation and action, and focus on the essential rather than the peripheral, and especially may hear what this film says to you rather than to its creators. Be this film, and then hear about it. In fact this film (or rather in the commentary) reflects upon the nature of art and an art of the horrors of war and death which permits us to distance ourselves from that horror and thus ignore it.

I do not wish to lose you in my ramblings, but highly recommend you see this film. See especially the delivery of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, here in the form of a plastic model kit of the Mir international space station, mir meaning in Russian peacful society.

This film once its conceits are understood may seem deceptively simple and yet it invites repeated and delighted viewing once more. It really is an excellent Holiday movie for the entire family, for the entire human family, to gather closely in viewing and laughter and singing and discussing, world without end. In Repo Man we famously hear of the cosmos as a Plate of Shrimp. Here we find the undeniable global unity of all peoples on the path to peace. See this gentle film. You will not be disappointed. See it with those whom you love, not so alone, like me.

One might find arguable whether we may in fact discover a street named MAtthew in Latin America, in particular the street which appeared in A Fistful of Dollars (2-Disc Collector's Edition). Nevertheless we must recall the context of this movie, and its source in the retelling of an ancient myth of wise men, astrologers, from Bagdhad worshipping first, after the shepherds, the Son of Man, and that the most poignant and powerful cinematic and traditional representation of this myth is found in The Gospel According to St. Matthew.

Thus, small clues and hints are found throughout this Alex Cox movie, as ever with Mr. Cox (notice for instance the cans of food in Repo Man and magazine covers in Walker), unnoticed but by the most careful viewer who is justly and amply rewarded. For instance those familiar with Mr. Cox's opus will note with interest the significance of that which hangs from the goose-neck lamp in the L.A. office.

The final scenes of course were shot in Spain as an ersatz Mexico, as in Straight to Hell. In that film Mr. Cox used an abandoned set form a 1970's Charles Bronson Western. In this film he employs the town where Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns were filmed.

Often when we see a film we afterwards meditate how how we would have filmed it, ignorant of such restraints of reality as time and space and money. This globe-trotting movie was miraculously filmed in four weeks on a shoestring, yet with great production values. Nevertheless, the movie-goer often pretentiously opines how it might have been made better, as good as it is. Thus we make the film our own.

In this case, I sincererly wish the final scenes might have been filmed in a small Spanish town playing the part of a Mexican pueblo, but right there on the border with Mexico, and I know some wonderful places and people who might have served.

The film begins in Mr. Cox's very real and native Liverpool. A full circle might have been drawn by ending it in Sandoval's character's real town in New Mexico near the border (if we trust the character's claims, which we have no reason to). Thus we would correctly have corn tortillas with our refritos, instead of a fork. Wisdom's character's observation regarding pork fat is accurate, as both refritos and torillas bear their lard; yet, Mr. Cox's character most heartily digs in to his beans. His character is clearly that which most indergoes a transformation by the end, from stiff businessman to human being (although Wisdom merely shakes his hand while hugging Sandoval at the end).

But the real pointof this additional observation is that in northern Mexico we might have discovered not Franco's grand-daughters to play Elizabeth and Mary, stiffly, reluctantly, fearfully, and as Sandoval's character remarks, "fiercely." Instead we might have found an older woman serving refritos, without a cigarette but with generous love, and a very young mother to receive the gifts of the magi as beautifully, as cautiously for her baby, as gratefully and wonderingly as Passolini's.

And the injection of the creche only drives home the story with a sledghammer and is strictly unnecessary, as if another film enters suddenly. But this is like wishing they would remain silent at the death of Jarmusch's Ghost Dog rather than driving home explicitly the meaning of the symbolism. Trust your audience!