Meeting Evil (2012)

Meeting Evil (2012), starring Samuel L. Jackson and Luke Wilson, directed by Chris Fisher (S. Darko, Cold Case, Person of Interest), has shown great promise! The film is concerned with deep underlying concerns about the endurance and the struggle of Luke Wilson's character John Felton against his arch-foil Samuel L. Jackson's "Richie."
Richie and Felton are both exciting characters developing the story in juxtaposing one another. The conflict is apparent: the reaching the balance between both extremes of good and evil. With almost all his possessions slowly dwindling with even less hope of a swift recovery, or a recovery in time, Felton begins to dig a massive hole in his backyard. Thinking it is something he needs to do for his wife, he continues until Richie confronts him at the front door. Unsure of what to make of it, Felton's good-hearted character begins to offer whatever help can provide. Little does he know that Richie has some ulterior motives.

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John is taken on a murder-fueled ride by a mysterious stranger that transforms the weak-willed, disillusioned husband and father into a desperate hero willing to go to any length to protect his family.

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Meeting Evil (2012), starring Samuel L. Jackson and Luke Wilson, directed by Chris Fisher (S. Darko, Cold Case, Person of Interest), has shown great promise! The film is concerned with deep underlying concerns about the endurance and the struggle of Luke Wilson's character, John Felton, against his arch-foil Samuel L. Jackson's "Richie."
Richie and Felton are both exciting characters developing the story in juxtaposing one another. The conflict is apparent: the reaching the balance between both extremes of good and evil. With almost all his possessions slowly dwindling with even less hope of a swift recovery or a recovery in time, Felton begins to dig a massive hole in his backyard. Thinking it is something he needs to do for his wife, he continues until Richie confronts him at the front door. Unsure of what to make of it, Felton's good-hearted character begins to offer whatever help can provide. Little does he know that Richie has some ulterior motives.

Samuel L. Jackson dominates the screen, leaving little possibility of actors exercising an equivalent level of formidable charm. Samuel fits very easily inside Richie's mind of Richie as he begins to investigate and tear down the illusionary world Felton lives. Richie has intense layers; his motive is not simply killing. With an overwhelmingly nihilistic perspective, Richie attempts to "man up" Felton to reveal a hidden plot and open his mind to greater possibilities than what Felton believes.
Chris Fisher skillfully uses a moderately sophisticated mise en scene relying heavily upon the interplay between dark and light, revealing stark contrasts and polar expressions in Samuel's countenance and Wilson's reverence of him. We learn right away that Richie's countenance is not just a coincidence: he is a character both psychologically and physically disturbed, experiencing fetishistic release and a surge of life after each kill--he is the true countenance of evil, according to Fisher, and thereby casting Samuel L. Jackson in all-too-familiar roles, with an equally familiar countenance. Hollywood has grown to depend on Samuel L. Jackson for his cunning and fearsome expressions, vocal tonality, and pitch to induce both dread and the brutality of humankind.
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In the gallery above, the most traditional lighting and its heavy dependence are immediately recognized: SLJ's face is half covered in darkness, a man of central conflicting ideas but with a sense of honour and preserving dignity. He even states that he loathes those characteristics which he does not possess. Later in the film, SLJ's dark countenance, in his dark suit, takes over the light as he emerges from the recesses of his mind, maybe even the sense of Luke Wilson's character--he cannot believe that someone can be so evil. When he emerges from the light, we know SLJ is as close to the devil as possible. In the two images just below, we immediately know that SLJ was meant to overtake the camera, the mise en scene, as would his have taken over Felton. We see several sequences of SLJ dominating the mise en scene, showing us that SLJ's Richie genuinely controls the film.
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Chris Fisher argues that a meeting with evil will always leave one changed, maybe not to the same extreme as Samuel L. Jackson's Richie, but a change in the overall dependence on the good qualities of existence. Although Felton desperately wishes never to become like Richie, his destiny and experiences throughout the film almost lead him to believe that maybe this is how he must become to win the love and respect of his social circle. With a man who has lost everything he protected dearly against Richie, his character never remains the same. We receive many hints throughout the movie that he is indeed changing. The disrupted light rays reveal uncertainty and tension, penetration of a new expression through beams of light, except the wooden blocks control the morning to ensure his change is occurring.
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One notices that when SLJ emerges from the darkness, he consumes the light. When Luke Wilson approaches the night, the darkness swallows him (see his shadow as he walks toward the corner).