If the Tarantino influence wasn’t obvious early in the anthology action-comedy Freaky Tales, the final vengeance-fueled massacre of neo-Nazis via samurai sword should do the trick. Writer-director duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s pulpy love letter to late-‘80s Oakland intertwines four ultraviolent stories brimming with verve and loquacious characters who weave through cafés, clubs and mansions as readily as the mysterious green energy field that ripples throughout the city between scenes. Heavy on pastiche, Freaky Tales is a wild ride that’s fun in spurts but is also often overwhelming and unfocused.
Skinheads regularly disrupt punk shows at a local teen club that displays inclusive signage, until the punks band together to fight back. Nearby, violence is kept to the lyrical sense in a heated rap battle between Oakland’s Too $hort (DeMario Symba Driver) and an up-and-coming female duo (Dominque Thorne and Normani) — that is, when the ladies aren’t deflecting sleazy advances from a corrupt cop (Ben Mendelsohn, villainous as ever) at their ice cream shop day-job. A thumb-breaking mob enforcer (Pedro Pascal) wants to turn over a new leaf and thinks he’s about to put his vocation of violence behind him with one last job, until his past comes back to haunt him. And after setting an NBA playoff record by scoring 29 points in the fourth quarter of an elimination game comeback win against the “Showtime” Lakers, Golden State Warrior (emphasis on “warrior”) Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis) busts out the samurai sword to avenge wrongful deaths.
That’s an awful lot to cram into 107 minutes, and Freaky Tales’ frenetic pace can be exhilarating at times, though its characters often ring hollow. The exception is Pascal’s conflicted Clint. One gets the sense he’s at the tail end of a yearslong internal evolution, and even when tragedy strikes, he approaches a scenario ripe for retaliation with a nuanced perspective on personal justice. Elsewhere, a love story blossoming between two teens (Jack Champion and Ji-young Yoo) amid the neo-Nazi/punk brawl feels superfluous, and most other characters are equally flimsy. Mendelsohn’s corrupt cop (listed in the credits simply as “the Guy”) oozes menace but lacks complexity, and the film’s overall “neo-Nazis are bad” narrative isn’t a particularly compelling one — even if the brawl, like the basketball game, is inspired by actual events. Likewise, Sleepy Floyd’s rampage may be satisfying in a Kill Bill sort of way, but largely feels like mimicry not only of Tarantino but also of the umpteen violent B-movie influences that he routinely references.
With that in mind, the film’s humor goes a long way in tying all this chaos together. And Boden and Fleck’s love for Oakland is obvious throughout, emphasized by cameos and bit parts given to Oakland natives such as former NFL star Marshawn Lynch as a bus driver and the real Too $hort serving both as narrator and an onscreen role as a cop, as well as the real Sleepy Floyd showing up as a basketball fan. There’s even a surprising appearance by a certain Oakland-grown Hollywood A-lister as a video store owner appropriately named Hank.
This is all fun for those who crave Easter eggs, or for those familiar with Oakland circa 1987, but it’s far less meaningful for the rest of us. Still, Freaky Tales is certainly never boring, and the approach to nonlinear, intertwined stories à la Pulp Fiction keeps the eagle-eyed viewer on the lookout for overlap. The choice to include interludes of green electricity pulsing through the city gives the film a magical ‘80s B-movie sheen but doesn’t vitalize these stories much beyond that, as the less realistic aspects of Freaky Tales — one character quite literally explodes — don’t work as well here as in the better cult films it often apes.
Photo courtesy of Lionsgate Films
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