RamBoll Rampages On

Rampage
(2009/Canada/Germany)

‘‘We live in a society that dictates must have, not need’’

In an fairly innocuous little pocket of one small town a very big statement is about to be unleashed, and the world will pay attention to the shackled little man as Bill Williamson sets about his devastating Rampage !.
An angst ridden youth desensitised of the mundane trappings of daily routine, that brands us all in one way or another to unilateral conformity, unburdens his pent up frustrations in one violent day of absolute carnage upon his local community.
Twenty three year old Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher) still lives at home with his parents and is stuck in a dead end job at minimum wage, that neither affords him the freedom to live his own life nor enable him to further educate himself to escape the drudgery of small town suburbia. He loathes everything about the avarice of an apathetic society, fuelled by a furnace of ever depressing news and media ridden headlines of recession for the masses, yet more gluttony to those that feed off the same unfortunates who set them upon high.

Just like the flipped out Mr. Joe average, Michael Douglas in Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1993), the scene of snapping occurs in a fast food restaurant. Douglas’ character flipped in a faux burger bar clearly aping McDonalds and here in Rampage Brendan Fletcher’s protagonist clearly overdoses on the secret ingredients of the local equivalent chicken joint. It seems that the finger licking goodness can leave a ‘fowl’ taste and turn one of societies battery fed chickens into a feisty cock of the walk. Fed up of being hen pecked and primed to strut the sidewalks of small town suburbia, decked out in Teflon and armed to the teeth with weapons, like a freaked out version of Elmer Fudd during rabbit season. This sure aint no regular Looney Tune on a Rampage though, as Bill Williamson acts with purposeful intent, his day of requital against the system begins and ends in calculated brevity !.

Director Uwe Boll is on a roll with this style of insular characterisation, fuelled by the oppressive state that we inhabit, wound up and let loose upon the injustices of humanity. A dark laden cinder box, thrown a lit match and allowed to ignite with all the inglorious ramifications of a pent up people thrown upon the scrap heap of a cruel world. Just like Tunnel Rats (2008) and Seed (2007) preceding this, Director Boll shows he has a real ability to deliver a solid movie. Unforgiving in realism and unapologetic in peeling back the skimpy veneer of politically correct propaganda. Revealing a dark reality most are too oblivious to accept or too blind to care about whilst their daily regime of government dictated demographics applies. Conformity is the concessionary sheep that never recognises the wolf never far from the door, until it comes calling one day, and suddenly the flock you believed you were a part of is really just a designer label waiting to drape your carcass upon the ever growing mountain of forgotten fools to feed its insatiable appetite.

Rampage then is an almost documentary styled low budget movie that dares to send a statement of intent to those that will watch and listen to its indelible message. As a young angry man one morning, just after breakfast, calmly sees his mother and father off to work, then sets about his day of hard labour. A day of unabated slaughter, without prejudice, as all who stray into his path are met with a barrage of bullets or the cold blade of a knife.

The sight of a composed, yet focused killer, decked out in a home made mail order body parts protection kit, assembled by this angry young man with a real flair for mechanics, is what sets the movie up on its attention seeking radar. Bill Williamson turns from the innocuous guy next door into a pocket battle wagon of lightweight armour plated, Teflon treated tenacity, in his Kevlar full body suit and head gear that makes for one angry looking storm trooper on a mission of intent !.
Striding through the main street of his small town shopping precinct he unleashes his frustration and anger upon all before him in calculated cold blood. You feel his torment and embrace his turmoil, as many of his victims portray their true vanities and evident shortcomings deserving of a wake up call. This is however the extreme take on one person going too far to make a point, but when those that we entrust to keep order and imbue hope and equality fail to do as they are empowered by the people, for the people, when is enough really enough !?.

A damning indictment on society the world over, this is a poignant slice of pulp picture making that will barely make a ripple upon the cinema scene, but do not at all expect its message to simply blip beneath the ocean of film it swims with, for if it does we may all be lost. Rampage is a powder keg of insightful controversy that entertains at an adults only level but sends a message that perhaps only the youth of today can comprehend, and ultimately do something about.

Producer, writer, Director Boll is currently on his own exciting Rampage, and with this latest competent piece of film making he is the unstoppable Ro‘Boll’Cop.

Movie Rating: 6/10

Review Paul Cooke / Source PAL Region 2 DVD

Rampage (2009)

Director Uwe Boll

With Brendan Fletcher, Shaun Sipos,

Michael Paré, Matt Frewer,

Lynda Boyd & Robert Clarke