Don’t Get The “Connected” Boys Mad At You-Viggo Mortensen’s The Two Faces Of January   

 

 

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

The Two Faces Of January, starring Viggo Mortensen, Oscar, Isaac, Kirsten Durst, 2014

 

When I used to hang out in front of the corner store night holding up the wall and seeing what was what in my old hometown the guy who was our leader would always say whenever we thought of some nefarious deed that we should make sure who were hitting, we best not move in on guys who were “connected,” you know the guys who control stuff. Apparently Chester MacFarland (played by Viggo Mortensen last seen here working his magic in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy) in the film under review, The Two Faces Of January, either never got that message sent his way or more probably in his hubris he just blew it off as so much smoke. Of course, in the end, he paid, paid big time with a slug or two to his body and the big step-off for failure to heed the warnings.     

Maybe we better back up to explain the how and why of the late Chester MacFarland lying face down in some back Istanbul street un-mourned and unloved, well, almost un-mourned. See as we catch up with the good-looking, well-dressed, smooth talking heavy cigarette smoking Chester in 1960s Athens along with his wife, Colette (played by fetching Kirsten Durst) they look for all the world like a normal well-fixed American tourist couple. And they are somewhat, they are doing a grand tour of the continent. Trouble is Chester (and Colette as his knowing wife) is a con artist, a swindler, a guy sold plenty of bogus stock to too many clients and then fled the coop. Trouble, no, double trouble is that among the bilked clients were some hard-nosed types who want their money back (the other clients they don’t care about he can keep their money for all they care) and sent a private detective to locate him. The problem is that having run through some of his ill-gotten gains and maybe just on principle he wants to keep the rest of the dough, all of it. And he proves this hard fact by going mano y mano with the detective, killing him in the dispute when the detective pulls a gun.

No question Chester and Collette have to get out of Athens, have to go to parts unknown and seek help from Rydal (played by Oscar Isaac), a small time grifter in his own right who had acted as a tour guide to the couple and more importantly saw the results of Chester’s fight with the detective. Chester on the sly from Colette who does not know the detective is asks him for help, mainly to get passports and for a cover location. Most of the film thereafter deals with moving the MacFarlands to necessary cover since the Athens police are looking for the pair to Crete while the passports are readied. That, and the attraction that Rydal feels for Colette which drives the extremely jealous Chester nuts. That jealousy will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back since Chester tries to get rid of Rydal by knocking him out among the ruins where they are holed up after abandoning the bus they were travelling on when Colette though she had been recognized. In the process Collette got more and more freaked out by Chester’s actions and in a tussle between them over what to do next Collette fell to her death.

Of course Chester hasn’t survived to middle age by being stupid so he sets the situation up to look like Rydal killed Collette and Rydal’s discovery of that fact is what joins the two men to the hip for the rest of the film, and for the rest of Chester’s now shortened life. Rydal catches up to Chester but by means of a switch-up at the airport Chester dodges him and heads to Istanbul and whatever relief that exotic city will bring him. But Rydal wises up in two ways by his lights, he figures out where Chester is and he also in order not to take the fall for all that has happened since the incident in Athens he turned “snitch” and worked with the police to corner Chester. But just like with the money part Chester did not see himself taking some big step off for the killings and fled, fled only in the end to windup face down in that Istanbul back street. No question a classic case of not paying attention to who he was dealing with back in states. Hell, my corner boy leader could have put him straight on that one free of charge.