Googling X-Files reviews
Too many X-Files reviews to keep track, so I just concentrated on some of them.
The result is a collage of quotes mentioning CKR or his character, extracted from various X-Files 2 reviews.
My favorite one is probably ”I love Callum Keith Rennie. I just hope he isn't playing Mulder or anything.”
These come from blogs, reviews, forums, order is more or less that of publishing date. Most are short quotes, a few are long extracts. Not many praise the movie, most praise Callum’s acting while some strongly deplore the possible homophobic connotation of the movie. Some again are just quotes about the character he’s playing and others detail the plot.
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=ae197beb-85bb-4191-a19e-a8f9d3ffd7de
Black helicopters, FBI search teams, frozen bodies and underrated Canuck actor Callum Keith Rennie in a villainous role all somehow play into the action. But if a trailer's job is to heighten mystery, this is one to believe in.
http://www.scifitv.com.au/Blog/2008/07/Xfiles-I-Want-To-Believe-Review/
Supporting players are for the most part, excellent, with Billy Connolly providing the platform for one hell of a character and Callum Keith Rennie (who many will recognise as the Cylon Leobon Conoy from Battlestar Galactica) does 'bad guy' very well.
http://sueyeap.com/2008/07/22/the-x-files-i-want-to-believe/
The film has deviated a long way from the early creepiness of the TV show, becoming a cliché-filled action thriller that doesn’t deliver enough of either. Where once there was mystery and the shadows of the unknown, we now have axes, marauding dogs and scarred thugs with eastern bloc accents.
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw19163.html
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, can you talk a little bit about what it's like to be back in these characters after six years?
Duchovny: OK. Well, I had two weeks before Christmas [2007] of basically running around and chasing [co-star] Callum Rennie, who plays the ... running bad guy that I chase all over the place. And that took, like, a good full two weeks of running, even though I know it's only about 10 seconds of the movie.
This article being referred to and commented here:
http://io9.com/5027858/terminator-4-takes-a-turn-for-the-weird
- Although my ardor for the X Files has cooled over the years, I will probably end up seeing the movie...for Callum Keith Rennie. Is that wrong? Cause if it is I don't wanna be right.
- I had the same thought... I love Callum Keith Rennie, but can't stand the X-Files, didn't even like it when it was new.
- Well I've always loved the X-Files and still do but it has to be said, Callum Keith Rennie is one hot piece of ass. Or, to be less ass-related, he fucking rocks. So no, not at all!
http://wirrrn.livejournal.com/527171.html (also in IMDB comments http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443701/usercomments)
As for the lame criminal goings on- Unethical Russian Doctors experimenting with dodgy operations on severed limbs and body parts would have been a *perfect* excuse to reintroduce Alex Krycek to the franchise, but instead we get a tired (and offensive) subplot involving that old cliche, the Gay Killers- here represented by *two* homicidal homos who "got married in Massachussetts".
Admittedly, Callum Keith Rennie does his best to inject some humanity into an cartoon cutout Queer villain- you can understand he's doing what he's doing because he's desperate for his boyfriend to survive- but I suspect in a less capable actor than Callum's hands the role would have been even more offensive than it was. And if he's trying to put his no-lines-at-all boyfriend's head on another person's body, why is he picking young females instead of males?!
Three stars- one each for Duchovny, Rennie and Connolly.
(And a comment to the comment)
- It's not as offensive as it could have been, thanks to Rennie, but it is still offensive. The film itself is just... pointless.
(Another IMDB comment got commented)
X FILES MOVIE 2 is awful. Duchovny, Connolly and Callum Keith Rennie try their best, but there's no paranormal or supernatural incidents at *all* (it's like a CSI movie!) the killers turn out to be Gay Psychopaths and Gillian Anderson is so obviously not caring that it kills the movie. She might as well wear a t-shirt reading "I DO NOT WANT TO BE HERE"...
- (Callum Keith Rennie is) good, even though he plays one half of the evil Queer Team. You know they're evil, because they're Russian and Gay Married each other :sigh: Connolly as the Paedophile Priest and Duchovny as a somewhat refreshed Mulder are also good. But it has Gay Villains, pretty much says that people abused as children turn out worse than their abusers.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080725.FILES25/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Movies/
As for the movie's risible climactic revelation, perhaps the less said the better. Let's just say it involves Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie, looking grizzled and speaking in a non-Canadian accent, and a plot twist that seems to have been inspired by the bottom of the splatter-video movie shelf. Fans of the TV show that prided itself on its intelligence will be left with a new mystery to ponder: The X-Files movie - what happened?
http://www.straight.com/article-155463/the-xfiles-i-want-to-believe
Apart from the ever-present snow, Canadian content is provided by Callum Keith Rennie, who shows up with a suspect Russian accent as the plot about abductions and harvested body parts unfolds. But that underwhelming story line doesn’t lift the film above the realm of one of the X-Files’ more talky and uninspired TV episodes. I want to believe this franchise is finished.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/movies/reviews/article_1419489.php/Movie_Review_X-
There is an old-fashioned feel about the latest offering from the vast X-Files body of work.
A serial killer collects terrified girls and keeps them in boxes. What is this? 1991?
The dark time when TV and film offered endless variations on the helpless girl/keeper theme? It was a rich storyline to mine, but after a decade and overkill, the serial killer took a hike, making way for the superhero and ironic teenager.
X-Files in its umpteenth incarnation, stays close to its own formula while borrowing from the great pantheon of evildoers like Hannibal, Buffalo Bill and their brethren. I Want to Believe is a nostalgia trip on every level. There’s a weird kind of comfort in the familiarity, but the surprises add the drama we crave.
So years après la deluge, the grim ‘he’ is back, this time in the form of fine Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie, as a Russian thug who carries a big lunch chiller everywhere he goes.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/07/xfiles-i-want-believe-believe-me-its-not-good-first-movie
British actor, Callum Keith Rennie (who has done Russian characters before) plays the gay Russian immigrant who kidnaps the victims for transplant purposes. I won't tell you what he's transplanting here. His menice is done very well -- nasty teeth like someone from a country where dental care isn't a priority, scruffy facial hair, good accent, etc. Mitch Pileggi does a cameo as FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. He's the one who has the b--ls to help.
(”who has done Russian characters before”: Uh? Do they mean Polish?)
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=movies&sc2=&sc3=features&id=76636
What is the connection between émigré Janke Dacyshyn, played by Keith Callum Rennie (channeling his Cylon character from "Battlestar Galactica" and giving him a thick Russian accent, and a patient lying in a ramshackle medical lab under the care of Russian surgeons up to some kind of weird science?
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37616
Well, a single FBI agent has gone missing. And a convicted pedophile priest (Billy Connolly) is having psychic visions that lead Xzibit and Peet to various severed body parts buried in the snow. The Bureau wants Mulder to confirm the priest's psychic abilities.
It goes without saying that the case ends up being weirder that everyone expects. It's a goofy mess involving organ trafficking, terrorized women in boxes, gay Russians, the guy who plays Leoben on "Battlestar Galactica," and dogs with extremely silly modifications. It's all happening, if memory serves, in West Virginia, and when you see it, you'll find yourself mildly stunned that Carter thought this was a story worthy of a feature-length comeback attempt.
…/…What's good? …/… 3. Leoben from "Battlestar Galactica" does a nice hambone Russian accent. If you squint, he kind of looks like a greasy Daniel Craig.
http://darya01.livejournal.com/62811.html
Billy Connolly and Callum Keith Rennie (the man apparently has a liking for rather odd characters *lol* Love him for that though! ) did well but they couldn't save the movie either. I'd give the movie a 4.5/10...but that's it.
(”*lol*” indeed)
http://librarinth.net/letterboxed/2008/07/25/july-july-more-or-less/
I will admit that I was totally into it, even though the plot made absolutely no sense, and that I was utterly delighted by the sheer quantity of Callum Keith Rennie in it. Scruffy! Evil! Speaking Russian! He was pure win.
Aside from Callum, it’s strangely off…/… But, big-screen Callum. Yay.
http://eclipsemagazine.com/Movies/6158/movie-review-the-x-files-i-wanted-to-believe/
there are pleasantly surprising performances from newcomers to the X-Files, Xzibit [as a sceptical FBI Agent who seems like a Skinner-in-training, but without the people skills] and Billy Connolly as a psychic pedophile ex-priest. Amanda Peet, as Agent-in-Charge Dakota Whitney, is merely adequate. Callum Keith Rennie, as the primary villain, brings a suitable menace to his performance.
http://io9.com/5029354/in-x+files-2-tmi-is-out-there
Meanwhile the black market henchman (Callum Keith Rennie) is running all over town picking up more body parts for his monster boyfriend and pushing over anyone in his way. Callum's character is simply a menace. There is an attempt at a big reveal when they show his connection to Father Joe, but his character showed so few emotions besides rage that you can't really be bothered to care what happens to him.
http://zed-pm.livejournal.com/84351.html
Callum Keith Rennie did sport a fairly good Russian accent. Russian viewers may have thought otherwise, but I was impressed... Mulder's half dead in the snow (a la the first X-Files movie) and about to be hacked to pieces, right? Then Scully comes in and knocks out, maybe even kills, Callum Keith Rennie, yeah?
http://icepixie.livejournal.com/513217.html
However, the plot.../… was not so good. I think it didn't work as well for me because M&S were in consultant positions to the FBI rather than agents themselves. They weren't at the center of the action until practically at the end, and then the whole Russians-and-Callum-Keith-Rennie-sewing-heads-on-and-mutilating-dogs...thing didn't make much sense at all. The psychic priest was supposed to be creepier than he turned out to be, I think. Oh, well.
http://www.celebritywonder.com/movie/2008_The_X-Files:_I_Want_to_Believe108.html
In fact, the plot-involving a mysterious Russian baddie (a wasted Callum Keith Rennie of Battlestar Galactica)-is easily one of the wackiest in recent memory, roping in gay marriage, Catholic Church pedophilia, and stem cell research to mask what might otherwise be mistaken for a Z-grade horror plot.
http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?showtopic=3111772&st=4635
So now I'm thinking that Callum Keith Rennie's character found two women during the film (after previously getting both genders) mainly because it makes the body switching even creepier and dovetails better with Mulder's sister complex. I still don't understand how CKR's husband was even mobile in the first scenes, but whatever.
http://mikejozic.blogspot.com/2008/07/x-files-i-want-to-believe-reactions.html
Well cast movie. Really. Connelly, Peet and Xzibit were all really good in their roles. Callum Keith Rennie did an equally good job. Hell, it wasn't until the third or fourth time I saw him that I realized it was him.
http://pocky-slash.livejournal.com/1256283.html
I still wasn't thrilled. The whole thing where Callum Keith Rennie was gay-married to that other duded and was trying to get him a lady's body was just... weird. Aren't there any guys with AB blood? Like... wait, what?
…/…The plot... never made much sense. I felt like, after making fans wait this long for something new, they could have actually ironed out some of the plot holes? Or written a story that was pertinent and that we could follow? They don't even bother to really explain what was going on or why Callum Keith Rennie was killing (apparently!) dozens and dozens of people. Why was his boyfriend dude even at the girl lady's house? What was going on? Where did these doctors come from? How was this supernatural, save for the psychic party? What was the point of this movie?
(And a comment to that:)
The whole thing where Callum Keith Rennie was gay-married to that other duded and was trying to get him a lady's body was just... weird
In all seriousness, I was like, "BUT HE WON'T HAVE A PENIS IF YOU GET HIM A WOMAN'S BODY. AND THEN WHAT? WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR SEX LIFE WITH YOUR HUSBAND? Maybe he'll have to get a sex change after getting his new body? Because clearly he won't be happy as a woman if he was a man. Unless he wanted a sex change to begin with, and he's a MTF trangendered person. Which would then make it fine. But--"
Yeah. I thought too much for this movie. XD
http://www.biglight.com/blog/2008/07/homophobia.html
HOMOPHOBIA?
Having been devoted fans of the "X-Files" for many years, we are absolutely horrified and repulsed by 'I Want to Believe's' rampant homophobia and transphobia. The shockingly interwoven chain of associations of pedophilia, gay lovers, gay marriage, transgenderism, misogyny, harvesting women's body parts, and utter evil -- including the most evil gay villain on the screen in many years -- is both infuriating and unforgiveable. We will most definitely encourage our friends, colleagues, students, allies, GLAAD, and the lgbt communities at large to boycott this outrageously offensive film and all "X-Files" products. Perhaps this will sound hyperbolic to you; perhaps you don't care what our communities think. You should know that we constitute a sizeable market, and, moreover, we make formidable opponents.
Randy & David
(The production’s answer:)
"I Want To Believe" is meant to be about faith and love. It would make me very sad if this movie in any way furthers hatred of anyone or anything. While it's true the villains in this story happen to be gay, it was not our intention to suggest that being gay, transgender or a victim of pedophilia is in any way villainous. It should go without saying that nothing could be farther from the truth. The sexual orientation of the villains, their connection to Father Joe, and the motive for their crimes were all intended to deepen the mystery, not to make any kind of moral judgment. In truth, theirs is a love story that is meant to parallel Scully's story (the lengths that both will go to save a loved one, the not-so-coincidental overlap in scientific research, etc.). If we have offended anyone, you have my deepest apology.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92775080
As for thrills and chills, the scariest thing about the movie is a strain of ugly, unexamined homophobia attached to the villains: Psychopathic foreigners lurking in the sticks like slasher-flick bogeymen, they're sexual deviants who prey on the status quo (read: middle-class, heterosexual white women).
Carter maximizes their otherness in every possible way as a thematic contrast to the Mulder-Scully relationship. But he does so in terms so exploitative that he actually uses gay marriage as a trope of the horrific. I want to believe he's better than that.
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080728/ENT03/807280311/1462/ENT
Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben the Cylon from "Battle Star Galactica") is admirably scary as the villain-in-chief. I miss my aliens.
http://mynewplaidpants.blogspot.com/2008/07/one-more-thing.html
The bad guy is played by Callum Keith Rennie! Aka Leoben from Battlestar Galactica.
And not only that, but... he's gay... and an organ thief... who's harvesting female bodies for his husband's (there's a line about them getting married in Mass.) decapitated head.
Um... yes. I just said what I just said.
The plot... well, it's weird and unexplained, which I am fine with. I don't need it all laid bare, that erases the creepy factor. I guess maybe Leoben wasn't gay in the "I like dick" sense, but he fell in love with a man and then wanted his husband's brain attached to a woman's body...?
It's a... bit fuzzy, really. Really. REALLY. Seriously. Anyway, Callum's fine, if underutilized, in the movie. And yes Joseph, I am starting to come around to thinking he's attractive. He gets a little lost amongst the Bambers and Peniketts and Truccos (oh my), but he is a handsome chap indeed.
http://newfilmdimension.com/2008/07/28/x-files-i-want-to-believe-review/
Callum Keith Rennie who you’ll recognize from Battlestar Galactica as Leoben plays the villain in this film. I’m not going to say he did a bad job because he didn’t, he just didn’t have all that much to work with. Rennie’s villain isn’t very compelling as it would be if it was the Cigarette Smoking Man.
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.current-films/browse_thread/thread/3cd8e3939b8b539d/597508a9d35ecf6d?lnk=raot
Anything with Callum Keith Rennie in it deserves a recomendation but as only a casual viewer of the TV series I thought the first X-Files movie was better.
http://emeraldsedai.livejournal.com/173584.html
Then wham, it goes to hell with a ridiculously bad plotline involving evil Russian experiments and evil Callum Keith Rennie with an evil (and not very good) Russian accent and evil blackened teeth so even though he plays his patented straight-seeming gay man, it's not one bit hot at ALL, so, disappointment there.
Plus? Plus, the CKR character, as near as we could figure out, is slowly working to replace his married-in-Massachusetts same-sex spouse with female parts, one by one, which made no sense and I honestly was embarrassed for CKR having to deliver the dumb lines he delivered.
http://reelreviews.blogspot.com/2008/07/x-file-i-want-to-believe.html
Supporting cast includes Amanda Peet (Syriana) and Xzibit (xXx: State of the Union) as a pair of FBI agents. I guess they're supposed to offset Scully and Mulder, but they just come off as lame. Peet has nothing to do, and Xzibit's Agent Drummy is so annoying and incompetent that he adds nothing to the story. Callum Keith Rennie (The Invisible) gives a solid performance as the steely, creepy abductor, and Billy Connolly (Fido) has one of the best roles in the film and he delivers.
http://movies.yahoo.com/mvc/dfrv?mid=1809953361&uid=TIPvhQDqhv0rawpwhXoJbouSJtIR&s=&i=15&spl=
The FBI has been working with a former priest turned convicted pedophile Father something( Callum Keith Rennie)who leads the agents with "visions" he has about body parts.
(”a former priest turned convicted pedophile Father something( Callum Keith Rennie)”: just, sic)
http://www.lesbiangeek.com/xfiles-movie-review-i-wanted-to-believe-in-mulder-scully-carter.html
Callum Keith Rennie - Leoben from Battlestar Galactica - plays Janke Dacyshyn and is a great actor so it’s a shame the role sucked.
http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800043908&rw=true
I see what you mean about the plot- just a bit murky. I get why Callum Keith Rennie was trying to save his significant other and just picked an uber-creepy way of doing it, but my question is this: why was everyone else there going along with it? You had the older Frankenstein doctor and the nurses there- why were they doing it? That's the part I didn't get.
http://buffyaddict13.livejournal.com/156501.html?thread=3106645
CALLUM KEITH RENNIE who i adore. he only has, like, 3 lines in english, but still.
http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2008/07/movie-review-x-files-i-want-to-believe.html
And balanced against the Mulder/Scully relationship is a man (Callum Keith Rennie) -- a villain -- who steadfastly refuses to "give up" on the life of his lover...and goes to extreme (and really, really radical...) means to see that his lover survives. One plot is played against the other, and I found the balance elegant and touching, not cheesy.
http://purpmaro.livejournal.com/1482.html
It turns out that Russians are kidnapping people (including the FBI agent) to keep the head of one of their own men alive. This is based on studies that the Russians did several decades ago where they tried to keep dog heads alive by connecting them to other dog bodies. Now they're doing it with people. The head belongs to the husband (married in Massachusetts) of one of the other Russians (Callum Keith Rennie). If you think any of that's unbelievable, they actually show Dr. Scully using Google to look up information on stem cell therapy when researching potential treatments for her brain-diseased young patient.
http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2008/7/x-files
(This being obviously more than a quote)
Who has the missing FBI agent? Mulder and Scully soon discover that she and another woman have been kidnapped by a Russian bad guy and his effeminate partner-in-crime (played by Callum Keith Rennie and Fagin Woodcock). In fact, they’re a couple - “married in Massachusetts,” one detective says with a touch of derision.
But why is this creepy gay couple kidnapping these women (and men too, apparently, though that happens off-camera)? In one of the most preposterous plot-reveals in movie history, Scully is researching stem-cell research for one of her patients at the hospital and just happens to run across research where Russian scientists have succeeded in transplanting the head of one dog onto the body of another.
Wait! Russia? One of the suspects in this X-Files case is Russian! That’s it! The gay couple, one of whom seems to have some kind of terminal illness, must be kidnapping these women so they can transplant his head onto one of their bodies!
This is all so wrong in so many ways. If they’re really gay, why would they even consider putting his head on the body of a woman? Yes, his AB- blood type is rare, but almost one percent of the population has it, so it wouldn’t that hard to find a male body.
Given the movie’s creepy visuals on the matter, it’s hard not to see this as playing into the stereotype that gay men secretly want to be women. But, uh, wouldn’t sex reassignment surgery be a lot easier? (And unlike secret Russian Frankenstein experiments, it’s even covered by some health plans!)
Or perhaps the movie is saying that he’s “not really gay” - that he’s only been acting that way because of the childhood sexual abuse at the hands of another of the movie’s characters. But again, why would this make him want to be female? It’s another completely fictional movie psychosis - Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs all over again.
What makes this doubly ironic is that the movie is dedicated to Randy Stone, a gay man. MSNBC film critic Alonso Duralde noted in his review of the movie that Stone was The X-Files' original casting director and also co-founded the Trevor Project, a support group for GLBT youth.
The reality is that Hollywood has a long history of using gayness and gender fluidity to create audience discomfort with a movie’s villain. But while Hollywood has given us creepy gay villains galore, until very recently, gay men almost never appeared as sympathetic main characters in major movies. It’s all exhaustively documented in books like The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo.
Chris Carter, the creator of The X-Files series and the writer, producer, and director of this movie, may be unaware of this aspect of cinematic history, but The X-Files: I Want to Believe falls right into this ignoble tradition. What’s surprising is that gay faves David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson didn’t speak up at some point: you know, the couple kidnapping these folks could just as easily be heterosexual, couldn’t they?.../…
(Comments to the above)
- I didn't know that the X-Files film was dedicated to one of the founders of the Trevor Project, which makes its jawdropping stupidity in how it approaches its gay characters all the more surprising.
Given how this movie is struggling at the box office, its an even more lame-brain decision to give us villains that make Silence of the Lamb's Buffalo Bill look like Ennis Del Mar by comparison. …/…The movie has other problems, sure, but I gave it every chance until it hit that "married in Massachussets" line, and then it felt like I was being punched in the face. All my good will went out the window, and then it just got worse and worse as I realized what they were doing. There may not have been any aliens in this one, but they sure did a good job alienating this fan.
I hate it when you're trying to watch a movie and they suddenly throw in a "f*g" joke, but the X-Files goes way farther than that: this isn't a joke, but one of the most grotesque portrayals of gay characters on screen I've seen in a long, long time. Particularly disturbing is that, in a film where there actually aren't a lot of special effects, one of the most prominent effects is the white, distorted vampire-like body of the "diseased" gay man. Seriously, even if you get past the creators of this film being oblivious to how it might look to 1) relate your gay characters' history directly to a pedophile and 2) portray the main gay character as a vicious fiend who punches and abducts women, how in the world could they think that featuring the spectacle of the diseased body of a gay man as your central "monster" image was a wise idea? Oh, gee, a scary diseased gay man. Duh, movie-making Einsteins, what idea might that conjure up?
Chirs Carter, the main force behind this mess, was likely trying to shoe-horn in every social issue he could think of: stem cell research is here, pedophile priests, etc. It's like they didn't know what to write, so they just picked up a newspaper from last year and tried to throw in every hot topic they could find. But tossing in same-sex marriage without thinking about how you deal with your gay characters (particularly without any thought to the history of portrayal of gay characters in cinema) is just gross exploitation. …/…
- Damn, I'm torn. My boyfriend and I will watch Callum Keith Rennie in pretty much anything, but this just sounds distressing.
- Also, I find it highly disingenous that people of the "let's just have characters be gay, good or bad" then turn around and attack a movie because it has a couple of gay characters that are villains. At no point in the film is it ever even suggested that these people are evil because they are gay.
And the reading of derision in the "married in Massachusetts" line is just mistaken.
- Sorry...I hate to be negative on such a great site, but the movie isn't homophobic. First of all...why is it that any movie or tv show that shows a gay character in a less than positive light it is deemed homophobic? Dear lord...straight people could claim the media world in general is heterophobic then.
Second...as a devoted gay x-phile, i was disappointed in the "X-Cops" episode. But this movie (however disappointing in other ways) wasn't homphobic. The gay character in question is trying to save his lover whom he married. There is a scene where he is by his husband's side while the surgery is going on.
Further more...they say that the gay character getting the surgery is dying from terminal lung cancer and has a rare blood type. They've been doing these experiements for a long time now with female bodies and MALE bodies. But they have to have the right blood type.
He doesn't want to be a woman, he wants to live and he is running out of time, which...If you listened while the movie was playing would be more clear. Maybe I am naive but I don't think the X-Files crew is saying gay men want to be woman. They are speaking to the lengths (however absurd...and come on people..this is sci fi) people will go to in order to survive.
As the movie is called "I Want to Believe", all of the characters in the movie are searching for something to believe in, and it isn't homphobia.
- The thing is, these things may be "explained," but what has the most impact? It's the creepy visuals of a this murdering gay couple--one man cradling the disembodied head of another one, or one gay man's attached to the boated, nearly-dead body of a woman (but a woman who still has a feminine hand and bright red fingernail polish). They'd taken a gay couple and made them REALLY, REALLY CREEPY, and in the process, they tapped into longstanding stereotypes: that gay men wnat to be women, that gay men are anti-social killers. It's about the EMOTIONAL reaction to these images. For example, if there was a movie about an African American serial rapist of white women, you could argue, well, there ARE African American serial rapists! But I'd argue you have to that powerful media image into the context of centuries of noxious stereotypes--such powerful imagery would REINFORCE these existing stereotypes. So I'd say, it's wrong, in thid day and age anyway. The point of my review is to point out that Chris Carter seems to be unaware of these stereotypes. And I found it really damning that in nine years of a series, and in two movies, he can't EVER include a positive gay couple...and this couple is the totally icky beyond-creepy villians? I'm sorry, I'm gonna ding him for that.
- I agree with you in general, but not in this context. I think what is important is the impact, and I do not feel that same impact. By looking at the greater scheme of this movie, fatih, belief, and what I feel it is about (mostly the need to believe in something for survival and redemption) I think it plays well into the themes. If we wanted to be accepted in media we need to be accepted as a sum of the parts. I think the villinous gay characters in this movie represent something even greater. Their journey is about how far they will go to survive, what lengths they will go to. And I think its nice that gay characters can be a part of something with a greater meaning.
I would argue Chris Carter may well be aware of sterotypes or not, but regardless he doesn't allow that to factor into his writing. If he had made a bigger deal about them being gay. If he had made them over the top queeny, if he had made them somehow sexually sadistic wearing leather and doing drugs, and then still had them be mass murderers, yes, boo to that. If they suddenly tried to cruise Mulder while stealing body parts, yes I would be offended. But what has the most impact to me is the larger picture. How it fits into the theme of the piece and the theme of the movie. I didn't hate the characters because they were gay, they didn't kill because they were gay, and they didn't choose their victims because they wanted to be women. If Chris Carter was truly being homophobic he would have the characters killed at the end (while one is certainly dead due to the context of his illness, the other is knocked out and left alive to be arrested). He would have strung them up or had them commit suicide as was want to do to gay characters in worse times.
And if I am being really nitpicky, Mulder's journey in the movie is that he is still making up for his sister's abduction all those years ago. If the murderers were kidnapping men then the thematic parallel doesn't work. Which again is an example of looking at the sum of the parts instead of how one aspect paints a picture. Which I know brings up the argument...why not two women then or a man and a women. And then the chicken came first or was it the egg. My point, and maybe I am just more oblivious, it didn't ring of homophobia to me once…/…
http://rhymephile.livejournal.com/252073.html
(A full recap)
So now the race is on to find what Mulder thinks is a serial killer! Except, not.
Long story short, organ courier worker (the organ harvesting thing is a total red herring) Callum Keith Rennie is a Russian in love with a guy (I'll call him Ivan). CKR does a marvelous Russian accent, I must say. Kudos for him. Ivan, however, is dying of cancer. So CKR enlists the aid of a bunch of weirdo Russian doctors to...and here's the kicker...take Ivan's head from his body and transplant it onto another body. Except it seems the new bodies only last a few weeks, so CKR has been working overtime in this tiny little West Virginia town to find bodies. He goes swimming in this pool where he finds two women (the FBi agent and the other one) who are wearing medical ID bracelets.
Perhaps I need to see it again, because I don't think they ever explained what exactly was wrong with these women that they were wearing these bracelets and why exactly CKR singled them out. Women are easy prey of course, but still. Anyway, CKR tranqs these women and brings them back to Little Horror House on the Prairie, where they obviously remove their heads and stick the bodies onto Ivan. Ivan must enjoy the feel of boobs and a hoo-ha, because shit, Mulder finds a huge block of ice filled with lots and lots of body parts!
.../…More long story and convoluted plot points later, XZibit and Amanda Peet find out what organ courier CKR is working for, and want to go talk to him. But he runs away, LOL. Heh, he runs into a building under construction and stupid Amanda Peet falls to her death in a completely lame CGI death fall. Mulder doesn't even blink an eye at her death! Neither did I!
Then, later later on Mulder goes to the feed store to find out who's buying all the animal tranqs. It's CKR! Mulder tries to follow him but I guess he's way out of practice because CKR pushes his (actually Scully's car he's borrowing) car off an embankment (with him in it) with his snowplow. But Mulder climbs out of the ravine, tracks down CKR and the Little Horror House on the Prairie, and promptly gets himself tranqed and punched in the face.
I literally laughed hysterically at that development. Oy.
But, Scully (and Skinner!) to the rescue! Scully bashes CKR in the face with a piece of wood, Skinner cradles Mulder in his arms (really!), Scully saves the other woman about to have her head cut off, and the entire film I'm asking, WTF is going on????
The priest dies at the same time Ivan does, CKR is arrested,
…/….My problem was that they really should have established what exactly it was CKR and the crazy Russians were doing in the middle of the film, because most of it was just creepy operation stuff and crying-captive-woman in a box stuff.
…/…Okay, my questions:
1) Ivan was already "wearing" a replacement body in the beginning. Why was he walking around with no problems but suffering and sickly with the woman's body? Why would CKR bring him a diseased body?
…/…And I disliked the "married in the state of Massachusetts" thing. I realize it was a way to make CKR's desperation apparent, but, I dunno. It bothered me. I'm not eloquent enough to describe why.
http://evadne-noel.livejournal.com/59536.html
(Another recap, with CKR as GRSKHLL)
Callum Keith Rennie (who was occasionally on the TV show because he’s one of the seven Canadian actors who shows up in every show filmed in western Canada ever) plays a Gay, Russian, Serial Killer/Hacker-of-Limbs for Love (henceforth known as GRSKHLL, pronounced Griss-KILL) who abducts an FBI agent and others because they have AB- blood and he needs their organs and various sundry limbs for his husband (they’re married in Massachusetts).
…/…the movie’s biggest problem is that the paranormal aspect is shoehorned in and entirely superfluous. GRSKHLL and the limb grafting is sci-fi, but not entirely beyond average suspension of disbelief. It’s less X-Files and more CSI of the near future. So they add a psychic, pedophilic priest (Father Joe) played by Billy Connolly, but in order for his psychic powers to have any bearing on the plot, they have to make everyone else rock stupid.
For example, Father Joe’s psychic powers lead them to the car of a second abduction victim, who had been forced off the road by GRSKHLL. Except that the car has been sitting in plain sight by the side of the road for about 12 hours. I know it’s supposed to be an insolated area, but you expect me to believe that no one drove past the wreck in all that time? Or if someone did, they thought, “Huh, an obviously forced off the road car crashed into a hay bale. That’s nice,” and kept going? If a missing persons report had been put in for the woman, why had no one investigated the crash until our heroes showed up?
Another example of the uselessness of the psychic powers is the end. Scully uses something Father Joe said to her to track down where GRSKHLL and his surgeons are keeping the abducted women and our damsel in distress, Mulder. However, we recently saw Mulder track down this exact same location without the benefit of psychic help. He found his way there because GRSKHLL’s truck broke down, was stranded in the middle of the road, and we never saw anyone go back for it. Considering that Mulder and Scully started their search for GRSKHLL from the same place, why didn’t Scully also find the stranded truck? I mean, Mulder was searching after a car accident, addled, freezing cold and walking. Did the truck fairy come through and remove all evidence of a trail before Scully could get there?
…/…I also enjoyed the parallel partners of Amanda Peet and Xzibit. These two continued the fine X-Files tradition of having a believer and skeptic paired together (with the sexes reversed this time) so they can debate the merits of paranormal phenomenon and be snippy at each other. It was all going quite well, until Amanda Peet was killed off for no reason other than to prove that GRSKHLL is Pointlessly Evil (he had already lost her and Mulder, so there was no reason for him to sneak up behind her and shove her off a building. I guess chopping people up for love just wasn’t evil enough). Xzibit’s character pretty much disappeared after this, as I don’t think the writers had planned out their characters beyond their interaction with each other.
In general, I think that Chris Carter also handled the movie’s themes fairly well. The parallel stories of how far one can and should go to save another’s life run close enough for there to be ambiguity, but far enough away from each other that the line still exists. It also twisted into the ways Scully and Mulder separately and jointly try to save the world. I honestly felt it was well done.
http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2008/07/31/MOVIEREVIEW-xfiles-0731.aspx
Callum Keith Rennie is one of the villains, Eastern Europeans all. That their dialogue isn't subtitled is a blessing, assuming it's on the same level of arcanery and banality as that of the English-speakers.
http://www.comixtreme.com/forums/showthread.php?p=626570
The supporting characters are just as strong…/… Canadian Actor Callum Keith Rennie just nails his part as the creepiest bad guy ever; his character is the type of man you would cross four lanes of heavy traffic to get away from. And of course seeing Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner again, even if it was far too briefly, is a treat and a half.
http://www.viewauckland.co.nz/review_3789.html
(The Good)…/…Callum Keith Rennie (from Battlestar Galactica) is suitably menacing as the abductor.
http://readerreviews.ign.com/rrview/movies/the_x_files_i_want_to_believe/379767/89219/
So, granted this film had a pretty lame suspense quotient and misused Callum Keith Rennie, who is magnificent in Battlestar Galactica, and just wasn't very exciting here.
http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1582154
I love Callum Keith Rennie. I just hope he isn't playing Mulder or anything
http://questionablycontent.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
A nice addition to the cast is the villian of the film in the form of Callum Keith Rennie, a particularly violent and volatile (not to mention creepy looking) character who seems to have quite the temper. He plays the part compassionately and never fails to be scary when needed.
http://uglyreview.blogspot.com/2008/08/x-files-i-want-to-believe.html
Series creator Chris Carter returns to direct but does so without any real effort. Kudos for a good cast (which included the gorgeous Amanda Peet, rapper turned actor Xzibit and Battlestar Galactica’s Callum Keith Rennie) but to be honest that’s pretty much all this film has going for it.
http://www.dublinks.com/index.cfm/loc/1/pt/0/spid/8D3A396F-B34F-1F3F-15E9A536C3DEC068.htm
This film is too low-key for its own good. Chris Carter directed episodes of the TV show with more visual flair than he displays here. Amanda Peet and Xzibit do their level best with under-written roles as FBI agents. Callum Keith Rennie, a Canadian character actor best known for his Cylon inBattlestar Galactica and undercover cop in Due South, outshines them in lead support as a sinister Russian serial killer/organ-harvester. A suspenseful chase scene involving him is a highlight but such moments are offset by Scully's sub-plot which is insultingly emotionally manipulative.
http://melancholygeek.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/there-and-back-again
Callum Keith Rennie fans probably will go see it anyway (the living proof is just writing these lines). I am transportink organs. OK, that was nice. But in general, take my advice and don’t go see this movie.
http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2008/08/x-files-i-want-to-believe.html
But by far the worst is the treatment of the homosexual villains at the heart of the plot. If the implication that Father Joseph's sexual abuse was what turned the young Tomczeszyn gay wasn't bad enough, Dacyshyn is committing unspeakable and morally repugnant acts to his partner. I'm sure that is entirely coincidental, of course. But then why are they committed to procuring female bodies to graft Tomczeszyn's head on to? Was Dacyshyn questioning his sexuality? Were the script writers trying to "heterosexualise" their relationship? Or worse, is this a nod toward 19th and 20th century discourses that positioned gay men as women in male bodies? Whatever, this kind of juvenile homophobic rubbish has no place in the cinema of 2008.
http://miriad.livejournal.com/86820.html
I know he's the bad guy, but CALLUM KEITH RENNIE. Oh, CKR, how I love thee? And you're doing it all for your bald, gay husband. How can I *not* love you?
http://tuckers-catherinescritiquing.blogspot.com/2008/08/x-files-i-want-to-believe.html
The movie also touches on controversial issues, such as stem cell research, and, through Father Joe and another priest hell-bent on making Scully’s job difficult; the Catholics come off less favourably than the Russian villain, played by Callum Keith Rennie.
http://movieminds.net/?m=200808
I also really enjoyed Callum Keith Rennie turn as a villainous character. Everything he does is performed with cold-blooded ruthlessness, it’s chilling… So there you have it. A potentially great film filled with actors at the top of their game, brought down by a lacklustre story.
In conclusion: bad movie, great acting, Battlestar Galactica, bad teeth, homophobia and Russian accent.
The result is a collage of quotes mentioning CKR or his character, extracted from various X-Files 2 reviews.
My favorite one is probably ”I love Callum Keith Rennie. I just hope he isn't playing Mulder or anything.”
These come from blogs, reviews, forums, order is more or less that of publishing date. Most are short quotes, a few are long extracts. Not many praise the movie, most praise Callum’s acting while some strongly deplore the possible homophobic connotation of the movie. Some again are just quotes about the character he’s playing and others detail the plot.
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=ae197beb-85bb-4191-a19e-a8f9d3ffd7de
Black helicopters, FBI search teams, frozen bodies and underrated Canuck actor Callum Keith Rennie in a villainous role all somehow play into the action. But if a trailer's job is to heighten mystery, this is one to believe in.
http://www.scifitv.com.au/Blog/2008/07/Xfiles-I-Want-To-Believe-Review/
Supporting players are for the most part, excellent, with Billy Connolly providing the platform for one hell of a character and Callum Keith Rennie (who many will recognise as the Cylon Leobon Conoy from Battlestar Galactica) does 'bad guy' very well.
http://sueyeap.com/2008/07/22/the-x-files-i-want-to-believe/
The film has deviated a long way from the early creepiness of the TV show, becoming a cliché-filled action thriller that doesn’t deliver enough of either. Where once there was mystery and the shadows of the unknown, we now have axes, marauding dogs and scarred thugs with eastern bloc accents.
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw19163.html
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, can you talk a little bit about what it's like to be back in these characters after six years?
Duchovny: OK. Well, I had two weeks before Christmas [2007] of basically running around and chasing [co-star] Callum Rennie, who plays the ... running bad guy that I chase all over the place. And that took, like, a good full two weeks of running, even though I know it's only about 10 seconds of the movie.
This article being referred to and commented here:
http://io9.com/5027858/terminator-4-takes-a-turn-for-the-weird
- Although my ardor for the X Files has cooled over the years, I will probably end up seeing the movie...for Callum Keith Rennie. Is that wrong? Cause if it is I don't wanna be right.
- I had the same thought... I love Callum Keith Rennie, but can't stand the X-Files, didn't even like it when it was new.
- Well I've always loved the X-Files and still do but it has to be said, Callum Keith Rennie is one hot piece of ass. Or, to be less ass-related, he fucking rocks. So no, not at all!
http://wirrrn.livejournal.com/527171.html (also in IMDB comments http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443701/usercomments)
As for the lame criminal goings on- Unethical Russian Doctors experimenting with dodgy operations on severed limbs and body parts would have been a *perfect* excuse to reintroduce Alex Krycek to the franchise, but instead we get a tired (and offensive) subplot involving that old cliche, the Gay Killers- here represented by *two* homicidal homos who "got married in Massachussetts".
Admittedly, Callum Keith Rennie does his best to inject some humanity into an cartoon cutout Queer villain- you can understand he's doing what he's doing because he's desperate for his boyfriend to survive- but I suspect in a less capable actor than Callum's hands the role would have been even more offensive than it was. And if he's trying to put his no-lines-at-all boyfriend's head on another person's body, why is he picking young females instead of males?!
Three stars- one each for Duchovny, Rennie and Connolly.
(And a comment to the comment)
- It's not as offensive as it could have been, thanks to Rennie, but it is still offensive. The film itself is just... pointless.
(Another IMDB comment got commented)
X FILES MOVIE 2 is awful. Duchovny, Connolly and Callum Keith Rennie try their best, but there's no paranormal or supernatural incidents at *all* (it's like a CSI movie!) the killers turn out to be Gay Psychopaths and Gillian Anderson is so obviously not caring that it kills the movie. She might as well wear a t-shirt reading "I DO NOT WANT TO BE HERE"...
- (Callum Keith Rennie is) good, even though he plays one half of the evil Queer Team. You know they're evil, because they're Russian and Gay Married each other :sigh: Connolly as the Paedophile Priest and Duchovny as a somewhat refreshed Mulder are also good. But it has Gay Villains, pretty much says that people abused as children turn out worse than their abusers.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080725.FILES25/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Movies/
As for the movie's risible climactic revelation, perhaps the less said the better. Let's just say it involves Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie, looking grizzled and speaking in a non-Canadian accent, and a plot twist that seems to have been inspired by the bottom of the splatter-video movie shelf. Fans of the TV show that prided itself on its intelligence will be left with a new mystery to ponder: The X-Files movie - what happened?
http://www.straight.com/article-155463/the-xfiles-i-want-to-believe
Apart from the ever-present snow, Canadian content is provided by Callum Keith Rennie, who shows up with a suspect Russian accent as the plot about abductions and harvested body parts unfolds. But that underwhelming story line doesn’t lift the film above the realm of one of the X-Files’ more talky and uninspired TV episodes. I want to believe this franchise is finished.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/movies/reviews/article_1419489.php/Movie_Review_X-
There is an old-fashioned feel about the latest offering from the vast X-Files body of work.
A serial killer collects terrified girls and keeps them in boxes. What is this? 1991?
The dark time when TV and film offered endless variations on the helpless girl/keeper theme? It was a rich storyline to mine, but after a decade and overkill, the serial killer took a hike, making way for the superhero and ironic teenager.
X-Files in its umpteenth incarnation, stays close to its own formula while borrowing from the great pantheon of evildoers like Hannibal, Buffalo Bill and their brethren. I Want to Believe is a nostalgia trip on every level. There’s a weird kind of comfort in the familiarity, but the surprises add the drama we crave.
So years après la deluge, the grim ‘he’ is back, this time in the form of fine Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie, as a Russian thug who carries a big lunch chiller everywhere he goes.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/07/xfiles-i-want-believe-believe-me-its-not-good-first-movie
British actor, Callum Keith Rennie (who has done Russian characters before) plays the gay Russian immigrant who kidnaps the victims for transplant purposes. I won't tell you what he's transplanting here. His menice is done very well -- nasty teeth like someone from a country where dental care isn't a priority, scruffy facial hair, good accent, etc. Mitch Pileggi does a cameo as FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. He's the one who has the b--ls to help.
(”who has done Russian characters before”: Uh? Do they mean Polish?)
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=movies&sc2=&sc3=features&id=76636
What is the connection between émigré Janke Dacyshyn, played by Keith Callum Rennie (channeling his Cylon character from "Battlestar Galactica" and giving him a thick Russian accent, and a patient lying in a ramshackle medical lab under the care of Russian surgeons up to some kind of weird science?
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37616
Well, a single FBI agent has gone missing. And a convicted pedophile priest (Billy Connolly) is having psychic visions that lead Xzibit and Peet to various severed body parts buried in the snow. The Bureau wants Mulder to confirm the priest's psychic abilities.
It goes without saying that the case ends up being weirder that everyone expects. It's a goofy mess involving organ trafficking, terrorized women in boxes, gay Russians, the guy who plays Leoben on "Battlestar Galactica," and dogs with extremely silly modifications. It's all happening, if memory serves, in West Virginia, and when you see it, you'll find yourself mildly stunned that Carter thought this was a story worthy of a feature-length comeback attempt.
…/…What's good? …/… 3. Leoben from "Battlestar Galactica" does a nice hambone Russian accent. If you squint, he kind of looks like a greasy Daniel Craig.
http://darya01.livejournal.com/62811.html
Billy Connolly and Callum Keith Rennie (the man apparently has a liking for rather odd characters *lol* Love him for that though! ) did well but they couldn't save the movie either. I'd give the movie a 4.5/10...but that's it.
(”*lol*” indeed)
http://librarinth.net/letterboxed/2008/07/25/july-july-more-or-less/
I will admit that I was totally into it, even though the plot made absolutely no sense, and that I was utterly delighted by the sheer quantity of Callum Keith Rennie in it. Scruffy! Evil! Speaking Russian! He was pure win.
Aside from Callum, it’s strangely off…/… But, big-screen Callum. Yay.
http://eclipsemagazine.com/Movies/6158/movie-review-the-x-files-i-wanted-to-believe/
there are pleasantly surprising performances from newcomers to the X-Files, Xzibit [as a sceptical FBI Agent who seems like a Skinner-in-training, but without the people skills] and Billy Connolly as a psychic pedophile ex-priest. Amanda Peet, as Agent-in-Charge Dakota Whitney, is merely adequate. Callum Keith Rennie, as the primary villain, brings a suitable menace to his performance.
http://io9.com/5029354/in-x+files-2-tmi-is-out-there
Meanwhile the black market henchman (Callum Keith Rennie) is running all over town picking up more body parts for his monster boyfriend and pushing over anyone in his way. Callum's character is simply a menace. There is an attempt at a big reveal when they show his connection to Father Joe, but his character showed so few emotions besides rage that you can't really be bothered to care what happens to him.
http://zed-pm.livejournal.com/84351.html
Callum Keith Rennie did sport a fairly good Russian accent. Russian viewers may have thought otherwise, but I was impressed... Mulder's half dead in the snow (a la the first X-Files movie) and about to be hacked to pieces, right? Then Scully comes in and knocks out, maybe even kills, Callum Keith Rennie, yeah?
http://icepixie.livejournal.com/513217.html
However, the plot.../… was not so good. I think it didn't work as well for me because M&S were in consultant positions to the FBI rather than agents themselves. They weren't at the center of the action until practically at the end, and then the whole Russians-and-Callum-Keith-Rennie-sewing-heads-on-and-mutilating-dogs...thing didn't make much sense at all. The psychic priest was supposed to be creepier than he turned out to be, I think. Oh, well.
http://www.celebritywonder.com/movie/2008_The_X-Files:_I_Want_to_Believe108.html
In fact, the plot-involving a mysterious Russian baddie (a wasted Callum Keith Rennie of Battlestar Galactica)-is easily one of the wackiest in recent memory, roping in gay marriage, Catholic Church pedophilia, and stem cell research to mask what might otherwise be mistaken for a Z-grade horror plot.
http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?showtopic=3111772&st=4635
So now I'm thinking that Callum Keith Rennie's character found two women during the film (after previously getting both genders) mainly because it makes the body switching even creepier and dovetails better with Mulder's sister complex. I still don't understand how CKR's husband was even mobile in the first scenes, but whatever.
http://mikejozic.blogspot.com/2008/07/x-files-i-want-to-believe-reactions.html
Well cast movie. Really. Connelly, Peet and Xzibit were all really good in their roles. Callum Keith Rennie did an equally good job. Hell, it wasn't until the third or fourth time I saw him that I realized it was him.
http://pocky-slash.livejournal.com/1256283.html
I still wasn't thrilled. The whole thing where Callum Keith Rennie was gay-married to that other duded and was trying to get him a lady's body was just... weird. Aren't there any guys with AB blood? Like... wait, what?
…/…The plot... never made much sense. I felt like, after making fans wait this long for something new, they could have actually ironed out some of the plot holes? Or written a story that was pertinent and that we could follow? They don't even bother to really explain what was going on or why Callum Keith Rennie was killing (apparently!) dozens and dozens of people. Why was his boyfriend dude even at the girl lady's house? What was going on? Where did these doctors come from? How was this supernatural, save for the psychic party? What was the point of this movie?
(And a comment to that:)
The whole thing where Callum Keith Rennie was gay-married to that other duded and was trying to get him a lady's body was just... weird
In all seriousness, I was like, "BUT HE WON'T HAVE A PENIS IF YOU GET HIM A WOMAN'S BODY. AND THEN WHAT? WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR SEX LIFE WITH YOUR HUSBAND? Maybe he'll have to get a sex change after getting his new body? Because clearly he won't be happy as a woman if he was a man. Unless he wanted a sex change to begin with, and he's a MTF trangendered person. Which would then make it fine. But--"
Yeah. I thought too much for this movie. XD
http://www.biglight.com/blog/2008/07/homophobia.html
HOMOPHOBIA?
Having been devoted fans of the "X-Files" for many years, we are absolutely horrified and repulsed by 'I Want to Believe's' rampant homophobia and transphobia. The shockingly interwoven chain of associations of pedophilia, gay lovers, gay marriage, transgenderism, misogyny, harvesting women's body parts, and utter evil -- including the most evil gay villain on the screen in many years -- is both infuriating and unforgiveable. We will most definitely encourage our friends, colleagues, students, allies, GLAAD, and the lgbt communities at large to boycott this outrageously offensive film and all "X-Files" products. Perhaps this will sound hyperbolic to you; perhaps you don't care what our communities think. You should know that we constitute a sizeable market, and, moreover, we make formidable opponents.
Randy & David
(The production’s answer:)
"I Want To Believe" is meant to be about faith and love. It would make me very sad if this movie in any way furthers hatred of anyone or anything. While it's true the villains in this story happen to be gay, it was not our intention to suggest that being gay, transgender or a victim of pedophilia is in any way villainous. It should go without saying that nothing could be farther from the truth. The sexual orientation of the villains, their connection to Father Joe, and the motive for their crimes were all intended to deepen the mystery, not to make any kind of moral judgment. In truth, theirs is a love story that is meant to parallel Scully's story (the lengths that both will go to save a loved one, the not-so-coincidental overlap in scientific research, etc.). If we have offended anyone, you have my deepest apology.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92775080
As for thrills and chills, the scariest thing about the movie is a strain of ugly, unexamined homophobia attached to the villains: Psychopathic foreigners lurking in the sticks like slasher-flick bogeymen, they're sexual deviants who prey on the status quo (read: middle-class, heterosexual white women).
Carter maximizes their otherness in every possible way as a thematic contrast to the Mulder-Scully relationship. But he does so in terms so exploitative that he actually uses gay marriage as a trope of the horrific. I want to believe he's better than that.
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080728/ENT03/807280311/1462/ENT
Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben the Cylon from "Battle Star Galactica") is admirably scary as the villain-in-chief. I miss my aliens.
http://mynewplaidpants.blogspot.com/2008/07/one-more-thing.html
The bad guy is played by Callum Keith Rennie! Aka Leoben from Battlestar Galactica.
And not only that, but... he's gay... and an organ thief... who's harvesting female bodies for his husband's (there's a line about them getting married in Mass.) decapitated head.
Um... yes. I just said what I just said.
The plot... well, it's weird and unexplained, which I am fine with. I don't need it all laid bare, that erases the creepy factor. I guess maybe Leoben wasn't gay in the "I like dick" sense, but he fell in love with a man and then wanted his husband's brain attached to a woman's body...?
It's a... bit fuzzy, really. Really. REALLY. Seriously. Anyway, Callum's fine, if underutilized, in the movie. And yes Joseph, I am starting to come around to thinking he's attractive. He gets a little lost amongst the Bambers and Peniketts and Truccos (oh my), but he is a handsome chap indeed.
http://newfilmdimension.com/2008/07/28/x-files-i-want-to-believe-review/
Callum Keith Rennie who you’ll recognize from Battlestar Galactica as Leoben plays the villain in this film. I’m not going to say he did a bad job because he didn’t, he just didn’t have all that much to work with. Rennie’s villain isn’t very compelling as it would be if it was the Cigarette Smoking Man.
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.current-films/browse_thread/thread/3cd8e3939b8b539d/597508a9d35ecf6d?lnk=raot
Anything with Callum Keith Rennie in it deserves a recomendation but as only a casual viewer of the TV series I thought the first X-Files movie was better.
http://emeraldsedai.livejournal.com/173584.html
Then wham, it goes to hell with a ridiculously bad plotline involving evil Russian experiments and evil Callum Keith Rennie with an evil (and not very good) Russian accent and evil blackened teeth so even though he plays his patented straight-seeming gay man, it's not one bit hot at ALL, so, disappointment there.
Plus? Plus, the CKR character, as near as we could figure out, is slowly working to replace his married-in-Massachusetts same-sex spouse with female parts, one by one, which made no sense and I honestly was embarrassed for CKR having to deliver the dumb lines he delivered.
http://reelreviews.blogspot.com/2008/07/x-file-i-want-to-believe.html
Supporting cast includes Amanda Peet (Syriana) and Xzibit (xXx: State of the Union) as a pair of FBI agents. I guess they're supposed to offset Scully and Mulder, but they just come off as lame. Peet has nothing to do, and Xzibit's Agent Drummy is so annoying and incompetent that he adds nothing to the story. Callum Keith Rennie (The Invisible) gives a solid performance as the steely, creepy abductor, and Billy Connolly (Fido) has one of the best roles in the film and he delivers.
http://movies.yahoo.com/mvc/dfrv?mid=1809953361&uid=TIPvhQDqhv0rawpwhXoJbouSJtIR&s=&i=15&spl=
The FBI has been working with a former priest turned convicted pedophile Father something( Callum Keith Rennie)who leads the agents with "visions" he has about body parts.
(”a former priest turned convicted pedophile Father something( Callum Keith Rennie)”: just, sic)
http://www.lesbiangeek.com/xfiles-movie-review-i-wanted-to-believe-in-mulder-scully-carter.html
Callum Keith Rennie - Leoben from Battlestar Galactica - plays Janke Dacyshyn and is a great actor so it’s a shame the role sucked.
http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800043908&rw=true
I see what you mean about the plot- just a bit murky. I get why Callum Keith Rennie was trying to save his significant other and just picked an uber-creepy way of doing it, but my question is this: why was everyone else there going along with it? You had the older Frankenstein doctor and the nurses there- why were they doing it? That's the part I didn't get.
http://buffyaddict13.livejournal.com/156501.html?thread=3106645
CALLUM KEITH RENNIE who i adore. he only has, like, 3 lines in english, but still.
http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2008/07/movie-review-x-files-i-want-to-believe.html
And balanced against the Mulder/Scully relationship is a man (Callum Keith Rennie) -- a villain -- who steadfastly refuses to "give up" on the life of his lover...and goes to extreme (and really, really radical...) means to see that his lover survives. One plot is played against the other, and I found the balance elegant and touching, not cheesy.
http://purpmaro.livejournal.com/1482.html
It turns out that Russians are kidnapping people (including the FBI agent) to keep the head of one of their own men alive. This is based on studies that the Russians did several decades ago where they tried to keep dog heads alive by connecting them to other dog bodies. Now they're doing it with people. The head belongs to the husband (married in Massachusetts) of one of the other Russians (Callum Keith Rennie). If you think any of that's unbelievable, they actually show Dr. Scully using Google to look up information on stem cell therapy when researching potential treatments for her brain-diseased young patient.
http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2008/7/x-files
(This being obviously more than a quote)
Who has the missing FBI agent? Mulder and Scully soon discover that she and another woman have been kidnapped by a Russian bad guy and his effeminate partner-in-crime (played by Callum Keith Rennie and Fagin Woodcock). In fact, they’re a couple - “married in Massachusetts,” one detective says with a touch of derision.
But why is this creepy gay couple kidnapping these women (and men too, apparently, though that happens off-camera)? In one of the most preposterous plot-reveals in movie history, Scully is researching stem-cell research for one of her patients at the hospital and just happens to run across research where Russian scientists have succeeded in transplanting the head of one dog onto the body of another.
Wait! Russia? One of the suspects in this X-Files case is Russian! That’s it! The gay couple, one of whom seems to have some kind of terminal illness, must be kidnapping these women so they can transplant his head onto one of their bodies!
This is all so wrong in so many ways. If they’re really gay, why would they even consider putting his head on the body of a woman? Yes, his AB- blood type is rare, but almost one percent of the population has it, so it wouldn’t that hard to find a male body.
Given the movie’s creepy visuals on the matter, it’s hard not to see this as playing into the stereotype that gay men secretly want to be women. But, uh, wouldn’t sex reassignment surgery be a lot easier? (And unlike secret Russian Frankenstein experiments, it’s even covered by some health plans!)
Or perhaps the movie is saying that he’s “not really gay” - that he’s only been acting that way because of the childhood sexual abuse at the hands of another of the movie’s characters. But again, why would this make him want to be female? It’s another completely fictional movie psychosis - Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs all over again.
What makes this doubly ironic is that the movie is dedicated to Randy Stone, a gay man. MSNBC film critic Alonso Duralde noted in his review of the movie that Stone was The X-Files' original casting director and also co-founded the Trevor Project, a support group for GLBT youth.
The reality is that Hollywood has a long history of using gayness and gender fluidity to create audience discomfort with a movie’s villain. But while Hollywood has given us creepy gay villains galore, until very recently, gay men almost never appeared as sympathetic main characters in major movies. It’s all exhaustively documented in books like The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo.
Chris Carter, the creator of The X-Files series and the writer, producer, and director of this movie, may be unaware of this aspect of cinematic history, but The X-Files: I Want to Believe falls right into this ignoble tradition. What’s surprising is that gay faves David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson didn’t speak up at some point: you know, the couple kidnapping these folks could just as easily be heterosexual, couldn’t they?.../…
(Comments to the above)
- I didn't know that the X-Files film was dedicated to one of the founders of the Trevor Project, which makes its jawdropping stupidity in how it approaches its gay characters all the more surprising.
Given how this movie is struggling at the box office, its an even more lame-brain decision to give us villains that make Silence of the Lamb's Buffalo Bill look like Ennis Del Mar by comparison. …/…The movie has other problems, sure, but I gave it every chance until it hit that "married in Massachussets" line, and then it felt like I was being punched in the face. All my good will went out the window, and then it just got worse and worse as I realized what they were doing. There may not have been any aliens in this one, but they sure did a good job alienating this fan.
I hate it when you're trying to watch a movie and they suddenly throw in a "f*g" joke, but the X-Files goes way farther than that: this isn't a joke, but one of the most grotesque portrayals of gay characters on screen I've seen in a long, long time. Particularly disturbing is that, in a film where there actually aren't a lot of special effects, one of the most prominent effects is the white, distorted vampire-like body of the "diseased" gay man. Seriously, even if you get past the creators of this film being oblivious to how it might look to 1) relate your gay characters' history directly to a pedophile and 2) portray the main gay character as a vicious fiend who punches and abducts women, how in the world could they think that featuring the spectacle of the diseased body of a gay man as your central "monster" image was a wise idea? Oh, gee, a scary diseased gay man. Duh, movie-making Einsteins, what idea might that conjure up?
Chirs Carter, the main force behind this mess, was likely trying to shoe-horn in every social issue he could think of: stem cell research is here, pedophile priests, etc. It's like they didn't know what to write, so they just picked up a newspaper from last year and tried to throw in every hot topic they could find. But tossing in same-sex marriage without thinking about how you deal with your gay characters (particularly without any thought to the history of portrayal of gay characters in cinema) is just gross exploitation. …/…
- Damn, I'm torn. My boyfriend and I will watch Callum Keith Rennie in pretty much anything, but this just sounds distressing.
- Also, I find it highly disingenous that people of the "let's just have characters be gay, good or bad" then turn around and attack a movie because it has a couple of gay characters that are villains. At no point in the film is it ever even suggested that these people are evil because they are gay.
And the reading of derision in the "married in Massachusetts" line is just mistaken.
- Sorry...I hate to be negative on such a great site, but the movie isn't homophobic. First of all...why is it that any movie or tv show that shows a gay character in a less than positive light it is deemed homophobic? Dear lord...straight people could claim the media world in general is heterophobic then.
Second...as a devoted gay x-phile, i was disappointed in the "X-Cops" episode. But this movie (however disappointing in other ways) wasn't homphobic. The gay character in question is trying to save his lover whom he married. There is a scene where he is by his husband's side while the surgery is going on.
Further more...they say that the gay character getting the surgery is dying from terminal lung cancer and has a rare blood type. They've been doing these experiements for a long time now with female bodies and MALE bodies. But they have to have the right blood type.
He doesn't want to be a woman, he wants to live and he is running out of time, which...If you listened while the movie was playing would be more clear. Maybe I am naive but I don't think the X-Files crew is saying gay men want to be woman. They are speaking to the lengths (however absurd...and come on people..this is sci fi) people will go to in order to survive.
As the movie is called "I Want to Believe", all of the characters in the movie are searching for something to believe in, and it isn't homphobia.
- The thing is, these things may be "explained," but what has the most impact? It's the creepy visuals of a this murdering gay couple--one man cradling the disembodied head of another one, or one gay man's attached to the boated, nearly-dead body of a woman (but a woman who still has a feminine hand and bright red fingernail polish). They'd taken a gay couple and made them REALLY, REALLY CREEPY, and in the process, they tapped into longstanding stereotypes: that gay men wnat to be women, that gay men are anti-social killers. It's about the EMOTIONAL reaction to these images. For example, if there was a movie about an African American serial rapist of white women, you could argue, well, there ARE African American serial rapists! But I'd argue you have to that powerful media image into the context of centuries of noxious stereotypes--such powerful imagery would REINFORCE these existing stereotypes. So I'd say, it's wrong, in thid day and age anyway. The point of my review is to point out that Chris Carter seems to be unaware of these stereotypes. And I found it really damning that in nine years of a series, and in two movies, he can't EVER include a positive gay couple...and this couple is the totally icky beyond-creepy villians? I'm sorry, I'm gonna ding him for that.
- I agree with you in general, but not in this context. I think what is important is the impact, and I do not feel that same impact. By looking at the greater scheme of this movie, fatih, belief, and what I feel it is about (mostly the need to believe in something for survival and redemption) I think it plays well into the themes. If we wanted to be accepted in media we need to be accepted as a sum of the parts. I think the villinous gay characters in this movie represent something even greater. Their journey is about how far they will go to survive, what lengths they will go to. And I think its nice that gay characters can be a part of something with a greater meaning.
I would argue Chris Carter may well be aware of sterotypes or not, but regardless he doesn't allow that to factor into his writing. If he had made a bigger deal about them being gay. If he had made them over the top queeny, if he had made them somehow sexually sadistic wearing leather and doing drugs, and then still had them be mass murderers, yes, boo to that. If they suddenly tried to cruise Mulder while stealing body parts, yes I would be offended. But what has the most impact to me is the larger picture. How it fits into the theme of the piece and the theme of the movie. I didn't hate the characters because they were gay, they didn't kill because they were gay, and they didn't choose their victims because they wanted to be women. If Chris Carter was truly being homophobic he would have the characters killed at the end (while one is certainly dead due to the context of his illness, the other is knocked out and left alive to be arrested). He would have strung them up or had them commit suicide as was want to do to gay characters in worse times.
And if I am being really nitpicky, Mulder's journey in the movie is that he is still making up for his sister's abduction all those years ago. If the murderers were kidnapping men then the thematic parallel doesn't work. Which again is an example of looking at the sum of the parts instead of how one aspect paints a picture. Which I know brings up the argument...why not two women then or a man and a women. And then the chicken came first or was it the egg. My point, and maybe I am just more oblivious, it didn't ring of homophobia to me once…/…
http://rhymephile.livejournal.com/252073.html
(A full recap)
So now the race is on to find what Mulder thinks is a serial killer! Except, not.
Long story short, organ courier worker (the organ harvesting thing is a total red herring) Callum Keith Rennie is a Russian in love with a guy (I'll call him Ivan). CKR does a marvelous Russian accent, I must say. Kudos for him. Ivan, however, is dying of cancer. So CKR enlists the aid of a bunch of weirdo Russian doctors to...and here's the kicker...take Ivan's head from his body and transplant it onto another body. Except it seems the new bodies only last a few weeks, so CKR has been working overtime in this tiny little West Virginia town to find bodies. He goes swimming in this pool where he finds two women (the FBi agent and the other one) who are wearing medical ID bracelets.
Perhaps I need to see it again, because I don't think they ever explained what exactly was wrong with these women that they were wearing these bracelets and why exactly CKR singled them out. Women are easy prey of course, but still. Anyway, CKR tranqs these women and brings them back to Little Horror House on the Prairie, where they obviously remove their heads and stick the bodies onto Ivan. Ivan must enjoy the feel of boobs and a hoo-ha, because shit, Mulder finds a huge block of ice filled with lots and lots of body parts!
.../…More long story and convoluted plot points later, XZibit and Amanda Peet find out what organ courier CKR is working for, and want to go talk to him. But he runs away, LOL. Heh, he runs into a building under construction and stupid Amanda Peet falls to her death in a completely lame CGI death fall. Mulder doesn't even blink an eye at her death! Neither did I!
Then, later later on Mulder goes to the feed store to find out who's buying all the animal tranqs. It's CKR! Mulder tries to follow him but I guess he's way out of practice because CKR pushes his (actually Scully's car he's borrowing) car off an embankment (with him in it) with his snowplow. But Mulder climbs out of the ravine, tracks down CKR and the Little Horror House on the Prairie, and promptly gets himself tranqed and punched in the face.
I literally laughed hysterically at that development. Oy.
But, Scully (and Skinner!) to the rescue! Scully bashes CKR in the face with a piece of wood, Skinner cradles Mulder in his arms (really!), Scully saves the other woman about to have her head cut off, and the entire film I'm asking, WTF is going on????
The priest dies at the same time Ivan does, CKR is arrested,
…/….My problem was that they really should have established what exactly it was CKR and the crazy Russians were doing in the middle of the film, because most of it was just creepy operation stuff and crying-captive-woman in a box stuff.
…/…Okay, my questions:
1) Ivan was already "wearing" a replacement body in the beginning. Why was he walking around with no problems but suffering and sickly with the woman's body? Why would CKR bring him a diseased body?
…/…And I disliked the "married in the state of Massachusetts" thing. I realize it was a way to make CKR's desperation apparent, but, I dunno. It bothered me. I'm not eloquent enough to describe why.
http://evadne-noel.livejournal.com/59536.html
(Another recap, with CKR as GRSKHLL)
Callum Keith Rennie (who was occasionally on the TV show because he’s one of the seven Canadian actors who shows up in every show filmed in western Canada ever) plays a Gay, Russian, Serial Killer/Hacker-of-Limbs for Love (henceforth known as GRSKHLL, pronounced Griss-KILL) who abducts an FBI agent and others because they have AB- blood and he needs their organs and various sundry limbs for his husband (they’re married in Massachusetts).
…/…the movie’s biggest problem is that the paranormal aspect is shoehorned in and entirely superfluous. GRSKHLL and the limb grafting is sci-fi, but not entirely beyond average suspension of disbelief. It’s less X-Files and more CSI of the near future. So they add a psychic, pedophilic priest (Father Joe) played by Billy Connolly, but in order for his psychic powers to have any bearing on the plot, they have to make everyone else rock stupid.
For example, Father Joe’s psychic powers lead them to the car of a second abduction victim, who had been forced off the road by GRSKHLL. Except that the car has been sitting in plain sight by the side of the road for about 12 hours. I know it’s supposed to be an insolated area, but you expect me to believe that no one drove past the wreck in all that time? Or if someone did, they thought, “Huh, an obviously forced off the road car crashed into a hay bale. That’s nice,” and kept going? If a missing persons report had been put in for the woman, why had no one investigated the crash until our heroes showed up?
Another example of the uselessness of the psychic powers is the end. Scully uses something Father Joe said to her to track down where GRSKHLL and his surgeons are keeping the abducted women and our damsel in distress, Mulder. However, we recently saw Mulder track down this exact same location without the benefit of psychic help. He found his way there because GRSKHLL’s truck broke down, was stranded in the middle of the road, and we never saw anyone go back for it. Considering that Mulder and Scully started their search for GRSKHLL from the same place, why didn’t Scully also find the stranded truck? I mean, Mulder was searching after a car accident, addled, freezing cold and walking. Did the truck fairy come through and remove all evidence of a trail before Scully could get there?
…/…I also enjoyed the parallel partners of Amanda Peet and Xzibit. These two continued the fine X-Files tradition of having a believer and skeptic paired together (with the sexes reversed this time) so they can debate the merits of paranormal phenomenon and be snippy at each other. It was all going quite well, until Amanda Peet was killed off for no reason other than to prove that GRSKHLL is Pointlessly Evil (he had already lost her and Mulder, so there was no reason for him to sneak up behind her and shove her off a building. I guess chopping people up for love just wasn’t evil enough). Xzibit’s character pretty much disappeared after this, as I don’t think the writers had planned out their characters beyond their interaction with each other.
In general, I think that Chris Carter also handled the movie’s themes fairly well. The parallel stories of how far one can and should go to save another’s life run close enough for there to be ambiguity, but far enough away from each other that the line still exists. It also twisted into the ways Scully and Mulder separately and jointly try to save the world. I honestly felt it was well done.
http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2008/07/31/MOVIEREVIEW-xfiles-0731.aspx
Callum Keith Rennie is one of the villains, Eastern Europeans all. That their dialogue isn't subtitled is a blessing, assuming it's on the same level of arcanery and banality as that of the English-speakers.
http://www.comixtreme.com/forums/showthread.php?p=626570
The supporting characters are just as strong…/… Canadian Actor Callum Keith Rennie just nails his part as the creepiest bad guy ever; his character is the type of man you would cross four lanes of heavy traffic to get away from. And of course seeing Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner again, even if it was far too briefly, is a treat and a half.
http://www.viewauckland.co.nz/review_3789.html
(The Good)…/…Callum Keith Rennie (from Battlestar Galactica) is suitably menacing as the abductor.
http://readerreviews.ign.com/rrview/movies/the_x_files_i_want_to_believe/379767/89219/
So, granted this film had a pretty lame suspense quotient and misused Callum Keith Rennie, who is magnificent in Battlestar Galactica, and just wasn't very exciting here.
http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1582154
I love Callum Keith Rennie. I just hope he isn't playing Mulder or anything
http://questionablycontent.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
A nice addition to the cast is the villian of the film in the form of Callum Keith Rennie, a particularly violent and volatile (not to mention creepy looking) character who seems to have quite the temper. He plays the part compassionately and never fails to be scary when needed.
http://uglyreview.blogspot.com/2008/08/x-files-i-want-to-believe.html
Series creator Chris Carter returns to direct but does so without any real effort. Kudos for a good cast (which included the gorgeous Amanda Peet, rapper turned actor Xzibit and Battlestar Galactica’s Callum Keith Rennie) but to be honest that’s pretty much all this film has going for it.
http://www.dublinks.com/index.cfm/loc/1/pt/0/spid/8D3A396F-B34F-1F3F-15E9A536C3DEC068.htm
This film is too low-key for its own good. Chris Carter directed episodes of the TV show with more visual flair than he displays here. Amanda Peet and Xzibit do their level best with under-written roles as FBI agents. Callum Keith Rennie, a Canadian character actor best known for his Cylon inBattlestar Galactica and undercover cop in Due South, outshines them in lead support as a sinister Russian serial killer/organ-harvester. A suspenseful chase scene involving him is a highlight but such moments are offset by Scully's sub-plot which is insultingly emotionally manipulative.
http://melancholygeek.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/there-and-back-again
Callum Keith Rennie fans probably will go see it anyway (the living proof is just writing these lines). I am transportink organs. OK, that was nice. But in general, take my advice and don’t go see this movie.
http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2008/08/x-files-i-want-to-believe.html
But by far the worst is the treatment of the homosexual villains at the heart of the plot. If the implication that Father Joseph's sexual abuse was what turned the young Tomczeszyn gay wasn't bad enough, Dacyshyn is committing unspeakable and morally repugnant acts to his partner. I'm sure that is entirely coincidental, of course. But then why are they committed to procuring female bodies to graft Tomczeszyn's head on to? Was Dacyshyn questioning his sexuality? Were the script writers trying to "heterosexualise" their relationship? Or worse, is this a nod toward 19th and 20th century discourses that positioned gay men as women in male bodies? Whatever, this kind of juvenile homophobic rubbish has no place in the cinema of 2008.
http://miriad.livejournal.com/86820.html
I know he's the bad guy, but CALLUM KEITH RENNIE. Oh, CKR, how I love thee? And you're doing it all for your bald, gay husband. How can I *not* love you?
http://tuckers-catherinescritiquing.blogspot.com/2008/08/x-files-i-want-to-believe.html
The movie also touches on controversial issues, such as stem cell research, and, through Father Joe and another priest hell-bent on making Scully’s job difficult; the Catholics come off less favourably than the Russian villain, played by Callum Keith Rennie.
http://movieminds.net/?m=200808
I also really enjoyed Callum Keith Rennie turn as a villainous character. Everything he does is performed with cold-blooded ruthlessness, it’s chilling… So there you have it. A potentially great film filled with actors at the top of their game, brought down by a lacklustre story.
In conclusion: bad movie, great acting, Battlestar Galactica, bad teeth, homophobia and Russian accent.
