Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, Momentum Pictures (15/03/10)

As the credits roll on director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s visually astonishing and bracingly raw debut feature, Johnny Mad Dog, you may ask yourself the question: “Why?” Not “Why is there such brutality in the world?” – though that would be fair – but “Why bother?”

For all its visual dynamism and brutal immediacy, the film is consistently lacking in purpose, much like its lost child soldiers who rove about a war-torn Liberia, thieving, raping and killing just about everything in their path. The story of Africa’s child soldiers is a story that deserves to be told, but Mr. Sauvaire doesn’t seem to be sure why he’s telling it, aside from having the chance to scatter more well-intentioned but inescapably generic comments on the dehumanising effects of war and the political disarray of Africa throughout a series of beautifully composed shots of innumerable inhumane acts. Without a compelling message or original insight, Johnny Mad Dog rapidly becomes a grinding endurance test for the viewer.

There are glimmers of sly political commentary in the procession of absurd battles and random executions, all of which seem planned and carried out on the strength of half a notion and a sliver of purpose. Who’s in power? Is this a political or a social revolution? Is it a revolution at all? Are they rebels or lost boys? What’s the ultimate goal of all the pillaging and murder?

Money – or at least the assorted spoils of a vague, uncertain victory that is ultimately achieved – seems to be the only answer to the last question. But in the hilariously contradictory “No men, no war” chant that the boys routinely shout before going into battle and the confused, frightened look on the titular lead’s face when he’s told it’s time to give up the “death dealer” business by his self-appointed “general,” it’s painfully clear that there’s no post-war plan for any of this ragged collection’s members.

Coming near the end is one of the film’s best scenes: Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice crackles over a radio slung across a child soldier’s back as he and his unit amble past a graveyard – the inevitable, premature destination of all the film’s characters – hearing the legendary cultural revolutionary describe the continuing plight of African-Americans in the post-slavery age but understanding none of it. A soldier asks who’s speaking, to which a fellow soldier says “the President.” The fact that these irreparably wounded orphans don’t even know who they’re fighting is a sad condemnation, but even more tragic is the devastating legacy of the slave trade, a legacy that seems destined to continue in perpetuity.

These are children and this is a country without a future. It’s a hopeless situation and there’s no suggestion anywhere in the film that hope is something the victims – no matter which side they fight or die on, all involved are victims – have any right to ask for. Mr. Sauvaire’s Liberia is a skipping record, stuck in a repetitive and all-consuming cycle of violence. The closing shot of a civilian girl holding a gun to the head of a child soldier doesn’t suggest the possibility of different paths – eye for an eye vs. acceptance and healing – so much as it simply promises more bloodshed.

There are moments of near brilliance thanks largely to the director’s truly impressive instinct for artistic composition, but Johnny Mad Dog is so utterly bereft of hope and so caught up in its own ability to shock that it forgets to have a purpose.

review: Peter Berg

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