Watch Mute,
writer-director Duncan Jones years-in-the-making pet project (now
streaming on Netflix), and youll find yourself in a very familiar, very
typical sci-fi noir scenario. The movies hero an Amish, strapping Alexander Skarsgrd left voiceless from a childhood accident lives in a future-shocked Berlin circa 2048. He
splits his time between a shabby apartment and the sleazy strip club he bartends at; the
latter is also where his blue-haired lady love (Seynab Saleh) works as a cocktail
waitress. Then, suddenly, she goes missing. And down these mean dystopic streets
Leo must go, trying to unravel a mystery amongst the hovering cars, neon lights,
polluted skies and broken dreams.
So far, so Blade Runner. But lurking on the sidelines is another narrative, one involving two AWOL Army surgeons who ply their trade on the underground sew-and-slice circuit. One has a weakness for loud Hawaiian shirts and martinis, as well as showcasing what might best be described as a normal mustache run amuck; the other sports long, hippie-ish blonde hair and granny spectacles. Both favor smirks over smiles. If you feel like youve seen this perpetually wisecracking pair somewhere before, well, thats on purpose, one more signifying influence worn on a sleeve already cluttered with them.
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But the dose of meta-anarchy this duo brings to Mute is not just welcome but invigorating, ingenious, life-saving and thats completely thanks to the casting coup of getting Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux to play them. And as the two actors sit in a SoHo hotel room, far away from some worst-case-scenario German cityscape and already deep into a press day, they find themselves wrestling with a question that has taxed some of our greatest contemporary minds.
What the hell is Crackle, exactly, asks Theroux, 46, partially rhetorically.
Wait, the candy?! replies Rudd, 48, genuinely confused.
No, the app on your phone, Theroux says, referring to Sonys bid for a space in the online-content arena. I see it and I always think, What the fuck are they putting on there? Apparently, they have a big comedy slate?
Well, comedies with mid-range budgets, theyre hard to make now, Rudd notes. Something like I Love You, Man, [his 2009 brom-com with Jason Segel], around that $35 million budget range I mean, now they go straight to TV, right?
Yeah, but thats because Theroux leans forward and talks directly into the digital tape recorder in front of him Paul takes $30 million off the top of all of projects and the other $5 million goes to everything else. Please make sure you write that down. He turns to face his costar. Not cool, dude.
Im totally worth it, Rudd deadpans.
Its the well-honed repartee these old friends bring to their oddball characters who, it turns out, arent as peripheral to the plot as they initially seem that adds a whole other dimension to this Raymond Chandler-meets-William-Gibson thriller. They two have only worked together a handful of times, most notably in David Wains 2012 comedy Wanderlust, where Theroux played a commune Casanovaand Rudd spends an ungodly amount of time practicing hillbilly dirty talk. But theyve known each other since the mid-1990s, when they ran in the same circles, knew the same folks, Theroux says. When we finally met, we just sort of hit off right out of the gate. Watching them in Mute,its apparent that these guys have a natural double-act screen chemistry thats hard to fake. The second thing you pick up on is that they look like dead ringers for MASHs Trapper John and Hawkeye Pierce. Not the TV versions the original countercultural pranksters played by Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland in Robert Altmans 1970 comedy.
Which is, according to everyone involved, anything but a coincidence. The original MASH its my absolute favorite comedy, Jones admits, when reached over the phone. The idea that these guys were based directly on Trapper and Hawkeye was always there, even in the scripts earliest incarnations. I mean, you have a protagonist who doesnt speak at all how do you balance that out? You give him two characters who cant shut up. I knew the [parts] needed to be cast as a pair, because you had to get the sense that there was a long history between them. And Paul and Justin already had that.
More importantly, he adds, if you go back to Altmans movie and watch those guys, you realize: Theyre kind of dicks. I mean, theyre not very nice people at all, yet I cant help liking them, though. So what if you take that to the extreme and go: Well, what if these charming, carefree guys who are so witty turn out to be the villains of the film?
Yeah, Go watch MASH that was Duncans homework assignment to us, Rudd admits. We both immediately went, Oh, I get it. Right, we can do this. I mean, they call each other babe! Its right out of the movie!
Still, it was pretty jarring to see Paul show up in full Seventies Elliot Gould wardrobe, with that mustache,Theroux says. I saw you and just yelled, Holy shit!'
It was the same with your Sutherland wig, Rudd adds.
But we liked what Duncan was trying to do, Theroux continues, which was lull you in to a false sense of security. You see us done up as Trapper and Hawkeye, its, I know these guys, these are the goofballs I like, theyre going to be the fun part of the movie!'
Rudd: Which they are
Theroux: until theyre not. They clearly become less fun as the movie progresses. He smiles. From fun to fucking psychopathic.
That, in short, is Mutes ace in the hole: By the time the movie hits the midway point, youve already spent a good part of the movie inadvertently rooting for the bad guys. (Whats that maxim about Satan getting all the good lines in Paradise Lost?) At the risk of treading into slightly spoiler-ish territory, its safe to say that Rudds military doctor has a bad temper and a large knife that would put Crocodile Dundee to shame, and Therouxs sleazy surgeon has an extremely unpleasant secret. That was the big bump in the script, the latter admits. When I got to that part, I thought, Well, thats dark. It was not, shall we say, the easiest thing to play.
And in one of Mutes smarter moves (and this is spoilery, so beware), the movie also reveals a direct connection to Jones 2009 sci-fi flickMoon, notably via a scene in which you quickly see various Sam Rockwells arguing with each other in a courtroom on TV. Both Rudd and Theroux are huge fans of the cerebral space-madness film; both say its the reason they wanted to work with Jones in the first place. We were filming something on set, Rudd says, and Justin and I walked over to check on Rockwell, who was a few soundstages over. And theres Sam and 50 empty chairs, hes changing into all these different outfits and jumping from seat to seat, going I have to film all of these bits today, guys, Im so tired '
You look miserable, babe,'Theroux says, slipping into his characters lascivious voice and instantly cracking Rudd up.
The longer you listen to these two guys joke with each other, the more you understand why Jones really needed both of them for those parts: Its Rudd and Therouxs second-nature, sentence-finishing bantering that grounds the storys mix-and-match science fiction aspects. Its easy to argue that, in many ways, the movie wouldnt work without them and their particular understanding of each others rhythms though theyre both quick to assign credit where its due. The banter is in the script, Theroux notes. I can imagine, because of some of the comedies Paul and I have done, people think its all just improvised or something. But other than a line here or there in the surgery scenes, its all on the page. As it should be.
Plus what people forget is that improvisation isnt about the joke, Rudd says, It should service the story. And you can tell when people have a script where its like, We know this needs work, but hey, guys
This is where you zhoosh it up! Theroux chimes in.
You guys just do your play-around thing' Rudd continues. And then it never works. Almost never.
It used to drive me crazy when youd write something, Theroux says, where you work really hard on it, and then you go and do press and the actors are going, Yeah, we just showed up and improvised the whole thing, nothin to it! And youre like, hold on a second! I dont think these incredibly taut, well-structured jokes just fell out of your mouth
Theyre conveniently forgetting that out of the 100 improvisations they tried, 99 of them didnt work! Rudd says. People think Anchorman wasnt scripted at all. Clearly, they have never met Adam McKay. That man is so hilarious it should be illegal.
Adam McKay is so hilarious he should do a biopic of Dick Cheney, Theroux jokes, referring to the directors upcoming not-at-all-a-comedy about the former Vice-President.
Itll never work, Rudd mock-sighs.
They can release it straight to Crackle, Theroux says. And then both of them burst into laughter one more time.
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