Low-Budget ‘Bang’ Hits Real and Raw L.A. Nerve

Talk about bad days. A tall, beautiful young Japanese American (Darling Narita) steps out of her L.A. apartment, and her landlord, angrily citing four months unpaid rent, swiftly locks her out, not allowing her to collect any possessions whatsoever.

She has little time to argue, for she’s off to audition for an important role in an upcoming film. Arriving early at a producer’s home in a cul-de-sac below the Hollywood sign, she strikes up a conversation with a young homeless man (Peter Greene). Moments later she’s rushing out of the house, fleeing the producer’s casting couch and obviously distraught. The young man is so upset on her behalf he starts overturning trash cans. A cop (Michael Newland) on a motorcycle soon arrives, the homeless guy flees, and the actress is facing the choice between being arrested and jailed for littering the street with garbage, something she did not do but would be hard-put to prove otherwise, or having sex with the officer.

All this is but a prelude to “Bang,” a fast and furious film that lives up to its title and then some. Written and directed by a young British filmmaker who calls himself Ash, “Bang” is infinitely worthier and more exciting than most films that cost 100 times its $30,000 budget. Comparisons with “Falling Down” will be inevitable, as we follow the never-named actress on her awesome day through L.A., but the tragicomic “Bang” is lots less contrived, lots more spontaneous and therefore far more disturbing. It’s fearlessly venturesome yet manages to be never less than credible.

In a flash the actress has managed to turn the tables on the cop, leaving him only in his briefs and handcuffed to a tree in the wilderness beyond the cul-de-sac. She’s suddenly inspired to don his uniform and take off on his motorcycle.

The instant change of status and perspective is dizzying. Here’s a woman, who’s just experienced eviction and two ugly incidents of sexual coercion, and now is suddenly empowered by a police uniform and a motorcycle. She heads off aimlessly in the direction of East L.A., exulting in her new role and enjoying her new power, but through the course of the film she will learn brutally how all this is illusion.

In posing as a police officer she is swiftly confronted with the terrible paranoia and danger that lurk just beneath the surface of L.A. in a series of harrowing, even heartbreaking encounters, that bring her face to face with the horrors of drug trafficking, gang warfare and homelessness. Amid a lethal atmosphere of mutual distrust the actress experiences some gestures of kindness--and the awful toll they can exact in some instances for those who express concern for others.

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Ash and his wizardly cinematographer Dave Gasperik give “Bang” a tremendous, unflagging sense of immediacy, and Ash works wonders with a large cast. In her film debut Narita carries the film effortlessly in a grueling role. Greene, who starred in another splendid independent film, “Laws of Gravity,” is most affecting as the homeless man, as are Luis Guizar and Art Cruz as two brothers, funny and sweet, as they help out the actress when her motorcycle runs out of gas. Noble James is heart-wrenching as a desperate drug dealer, and Newman and David Allen Graff (as the “producer”) are rightly despicable, in a darkly comic way.

“Bang” is surely never going to be selected as the film for an LAPD benefit screening, yet it is too honest not to suggest how overwhelming and life-threatening everyday work can be for the police.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: It includes considerable violence and strong language.

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‘Bang’

Darling Narita: The Actress

Peter Greene: Adam, the homeless man

Luis Guizar: Jesus

Art Cruz: Juan

A Polygram Filmed Entertainment and Panorama Entertainment presentation of an Eagle Eye Films production. Writer-director Ash. Producers Daniel M. Berger, Ladd Vance. Executive producers Jude Narita, Ziggi Golding, Sean B. Kelly, Tomi E. Drissi. Cinematographer Dave Gasperik. Editors Ash and Berger. Costumes Dana Wood. Music supervisor Spring Aspers. Production designer Berger. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869.