Hadi Hajaig’s Blue Iguana throws back to more things than an in-form NBA player. Chief among them is the slew of convoluted crime flicks that came in the wake of Reservoir Dogs, from Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead to Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. But it also harkens back further to ’80s video-shop fodder like Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild or Miami Blues. While you can applaud Hajaig for his taste in reference points, it’s hard to admire what he spins out of them: a mish-mash of incomprehensible plotting, tired stylistic tics, poorly handled tonal shifts (he didn’t study Demme closely enough) and tiresome violence, all delivered with second-hand cool.
After a job to pick up a backpack in a shady exchange goes awry, New York ex-cons Eddie (Rockwell) and Paul (Schwartz) get embroiled in a ridiculous plot to lift the titular rare gem to save their bacon, taking on crime kingpin Arkady (Peter Polycarpou) and Begbie-a-like Deacon (Peter Ferdinando), who has a volatile relationship with his sex-mad dishwater blonde mother (Amanda Donohoe in tired Cockernee matriarch mode). So what we get is terrible slow-motion shoot-outs, old posh men talking filth (Simon Callow seems to be having fun) and gallons of blood, gangsters bickering during tense confrontations all scored to the obligatory cult tuneage (B-52’s, Violent Femmes).
If you are wondering why Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell would do this post-Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the answer is the film was shot two years ago (he also acts as a producer). Despite his self-evident charisma, Rockwell can’t breathe dimensions into Eddie, a character defined by his failed attempts to nail an English accent, and Schwartz tries too hard with his scaredy-cat crim. There’s a good gag with a man swearing in a dinosaur suit, gorehounds will enjoy the over-the-top last act set on a zombie film shoot, and for collectors Rockwell does another little dance (to Billy Ray Cyrus’ ‘Achy Breaky Heart’). But that is about your lot.