FILM: Heckler (Michael Addis, 2007)

Michael Addis’s Heckler – an investigation into the increasingly critical culture we live in - might just be the most fascinatingly flawed documentary of recent years. Attempting to write about the film initially seems an inherently pointless task, since it appears by its very nature to establish itself as the first critic-proof movie in history. Much like Kirby Dick’s equally provocative This Film Is Not Yet Rated – ultimately released with no MPAA certificate after featuring scenes from films previously granted an NC-17 rating - it seems to exist in its own meta-bubble, offering little-to-no way in for subjects or agitants alike.


Our guide and narrator, Jamie Kennedy, doesn’t like critics – mostly, it seems, because critics don’t like him. Kennedy, the actor/comedian best-known for the Scream franchise and Punk’d-style sketch show The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, has just received a pasting for his turn in Son of the Mask. Fuelled by the equal lack of respect afforded to his own stand-up by various members of the audience, he decides to fight back by taking on the hecklers at their own game.


Aside from his turn in the original Scream, I’m not particularly familiar with the bulk of Kennedy’s work, so I won’t be able to mount the kind of personal character assassination he seems to take such umbrage with. The clips we are shown of his stand-up, however, suggest that he is a likeable, personable performer peddling what seems to be fairly uninspiring and unoriginal material (but that’s just, like, my opinion, man). Equally, I haven’t seen Son of the Mask - as a massive fan of the first film, I took one look at the trailer and decided that it wouldn’t be for me. That’s my prerogative: I choose not to watch films which I am unlikely to enjoy, hence why I’ve never watched any of the various Scream sequels. I also wouldn’t pay money to watch Kennedy’s own stand-up - if I did, however, I certainly wouldn’t hurl abuse during the performance to the detriment of others’ enjoyment; I would simply leave. It seems like the fair, democratic and sensible thing to do - as it’s stated repeatedly throughout Heckler by comedians and filmmakers alike, if you don’t like it, pipe down and switch off.


The documentary’s initial section on hecklers is hilarious. Invariably drunk and attempting to carve out some indeterminate niche for themselves, we are treated to an array of blistering put-downs from seasoned comics whose distaste and vitriol have been sharpened by years of upward struggle against this most gratuitous of irritants. Partway through, however, Addis and Kennedy shift focus from hecklers to critics, and it’s here that the perspective of the film becomes problematic.


Kennedy seems to take the view that, with a couple of notable exceptions, all critics are either, sad, overweight virgins tapping away in their parents’ basement in Buttfuck, Idaho, or bitter, failed creatives pouring bile on those of greater fortune. While there’s an obvious case to be made for both in certain instances - particularly in the come-one, come-all level playing field of the internet and its endless ‘Have Your Say’ culture - it does offer a rather blinkered and reductive view of the function of criticism. Bad criticism, of course, often consists of little more than ill-reasoned opinions fired off in unsophisticated phrasing designed to reduce its subject to a series of bullet-points: “crap”, “sucks”, “rubbish”, “boring”, “slow”, “annoying”. By contrast, good criticism (whether positive or negative) seeks to illuminate, discuss, inform and in some cases even enrich its subjects; ultimately, it is up to the consumer to ascertain which set of notices they choose to adhere to. Taking the recent reports of varying audience reaction to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life as an example, I’m far more likely to attribute credence to the opinions of someone who’s familiar with Malick’s previous work and offers a reasoned negative review than those of some clueless muppet who’s gone to see the film “cos it’s got Brad Pitt in” and walked out after half an hour “cos nothing happens”.


All reviews of cultural products are, by their very nature, subjective – this is an inescapable fact when one person is asked to appraise a given piece, since their individual take on it will inevitably be informed by their own tastes, reference points and life experiences. I would suggest, though, that there is a degree of objectivity which can be employed when assessing any cultural work: is it, when measured against that which has come before, original? As a stand-alone piece, does it challenge your perception of what comparable works have achieved? Is it, when assessed against these previous works, accomplished within its own field, regardless of the two previous criteria? I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that what ultimately emerges is an overall consensus point around which the bulk of criticism tends to convalesce: it’s a fair bet, for example, that when your film is met with universal hostility from press and public alike, it’s probably not that great a film. (Richard Roeper seems utterly baffled when confronted by Kennedy and asked whether he should apologise for hurting his feelings by slating Son of the Mask; no, he says, it’s just a bad movie).


Taking it one step further, should we even be allowed an opinion on Heckler itself, given that the very nature of its existence posits criticism as inherently pointless? Like many of the internet reviewers interviewed in the film, I have own my little corner of the web where I’m able to write about subjects which pique my interest – it’s even so named to flag up the fact. But does the fact that I’m writing about films and music rather than making them invalidate my own critical viewpoint? Like many movie-site reviewers, I watch films constantly; it’s my greatest passion. As noted above, I generally avoid those which are unlikely to be to my own taste, which unfortunately wipes out a fairly high proportion of those produced and released nowadays. On the whole, though – and this is the overwhelming impression one gets from reading the work of someone like Harry Knowles, the figurehead of independent movie writing - I just want films to be better. I want things to improve. I want the standard to rise. How on earth can this ever happen if bad art isn’t called to task?


Let’s assume, as Heckler suggests, that the equation functions on a level as simple as ‘ordinary people’ who work ‘regular’ jobs, and ‘entertainers’, whose function it is to amuse them at the end of a long, hard day. Should we, the public who are ultimately expected to pay for their endeavours, simply part with our money and time without question, and blithely consume what is served up to us, regardless of its merit? The answer is, quite clearly, no.


Indeed, several sequences in the film seem to actively work against Kennedy’s thesis. We later meet the director of one of his long-forgotten early movies. Again, I haven’t seen it, so I’m unable to pass judgment on the film as a whole, but we are shown a brief clip; it does, in fact, look dreadful, and at the very least deserving of the claim by one reviewer that, on a basic visual level, it is badly-shot and visually incoherent. Following its universal panning, the director, we are mournfully informed, has resorted to teaching film at an American University and hasn’t made another movie since. Are we, though, supposed to feel sorry for what appears to be the deserved removal of a poor craftsman from the film industry? Or should we applaud the fact that no more man-hours, finance and resources have since been wasted on something which contributes little but clutter to the artistic landscape?


To this end, many of the talking heads featured in Heckler – blockbuster producers, ‘low’ comics, B-grade directors - make for difficult ideologues. In one supposedly empowering sequence, German schlock purveyor Uwe Boll challenges a series of internet critics to a boxing match. As a comic scene, it’s unbeatable, gaining huge laughs as Boll clatters his challengers to the ground in a triumph of creative rights over individual nitpicking. Nevertheless, many of the critics, hecklers and reviewers interviewed by Kennedy seem down-to-earth, reasoned, knowledgeable and passionate about their chosen subjects: far from the bile-spitting, masturbating loners Kennedy considers them to be. By contrast, Kennedy’s constant desire to confront those who question his abilities comes across as petulant and, as one of his detractors astutely notes, “needy”. When interrogating one particularly geeky-looking internet reviewer, his response is to simply hold up the Vulcan symbol at him, as if to suggest that the writer’s opinion should be invalidated by the fact that he might go to Comic Con once every couple of years. The bemusement on the young man’s face says it all – in fact, it simply affirms his opinion that the default mode of Kennedy’s work is bland immaturity.


One of the key focuses of the film – voiced succinctly by that most revered and loathed of contemporary directors, George Lucas – is the separation between those who choose to create, and those who choose to destroy. It’s a neat dichotomy, but a flawed one which offers a rather rose-tinted view of the former and nihilistic take on the latter. I create; I write. You can read it here. Here’s the thing, though: if you don’t like it, I honestly couldn’t care less. I do it primarily for myself, with the added bonus that there might be others out there who get as much out of the finished product as I do. Ultimately, if you’re happy with what you’re doing, and other people like it, so what if it gets mauled? Indeed, as it’s suggested innumerable times throughout Heckler, doesn’t the fact that someone enjoys what you do wholly invalidate any suggestions of its lack of worth?


The “nasty comments hurt my feelings” rhetoric of the likes of otherwise commercially-successful figures such as Carrot Top and Kennedy himself therefore ring hollow, since ultimately they are the people who choose to put themselves out there for scrutiny. Are they so naïve as to think that they won’t be judged on the merit of their efforts, or that their every endeavour should be greeted with unquestioning worship? Kennedy’s closing gambit is to burn all his negative reviews before walking off with his arms around two obese women dressed in their underwear. Is this supposed to be funny, a provocation, a validation of his armouring against all those negative barbs, or all three? The closing image of another internet critic ripping the shot to shreds suggests so, but it’s a muddled and flatly ambiguous conclusion to a documentary whose scattershot approach perhaps inevitably means that it ends up shooting itself in the foot.


The bottom line is that we need to have a filter. Kennedy’s ideal world is one in which we simply accept what is presented to us, and shouldn’t bother to voice an opinion if we can’t say anything nice. However, followed through to its logical conclusion, what we’re left with is the music pages of Myspace: a million different bands of every imaginable grade, all gabbling for our attention, the vast majority of which are without notable artistic merit or unworthy of serious consideration. There's no way through the fog. If the value of a society can be measured by the quality of the art it produces, in Kennedy’s utopia, we’re all fucked.