Treasure Island

An incoherent, interminable mess, Treasure Island, which bears no connection to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel, follows a pair of WWII-era cryptographers (Lance Baker’s Frank and Nick Offerman’s Samuel) as they devise a plan to mislead the Japanese by placing a series of phony letters on a dead body and allowing it to wash up on Japan’s shores. It’s a perfectly serviceable premise that’s botched from the word go by filmmaker Scott King, as the writer/director opens the movie with amateurish fake newsreel footage that immediately establishes an atmosphere of pervasive pointlessness – with this vibe ultimately compounded by a pace that’s beyond deliberate and an emphasis on superfluous elements designed to pad out the seemingly endless running time. Far more problematic, however, is King’s decision to aggressively toy around with reality; right from the outset, the film transpires within a dreamy realm in which nothing is what it seems and it does, as a result, become more and more difficult to discern what’s real and what’s imagined. (This wouldn’t be quite so bad if King actually had anything relevant to say about anything, but he seems content to stress weirdness for weirdness’ sake.) There subsequently reaches a point at which one is forced to throw up one’s hands and simply wait for the narrative (and I use that word loosely) to run its course, as the movie, which has been shot on the cheap and looks it, contains about five minutes of actual, coherent plot – with the remainder devoted to inexplicable, inconsequential artiness that accomplishes nothing aside from the total irritation of the viewer.

no stars out of ****