LOGLINE: In the documentary “Red Fever,” now playing in select theatres, Cree co-director Neil Diamond examines popular culture’s fascination with stereotypical imagery of Indigenous people, cultural appropriation and how Indigenous society shaped the modern world. “There is a deeper story about why the world is fascinated with us,” Neil Diamond says, “and how profoundly we’ve influenced them.”
CAST: Neil Diamond. Co-directed by Catherine Bainbridge.
REVIEW: Broken into segments, “Red Fever” breaks down its story into four chapters, Fashion (Spirit), Sports (Body), Politics (Mind) and Earth (Heart). Within each sequence genial host Neil Diamond acts as a tour guide, travelling across North America and Europe to shine a light on each topic.
A mix of entertainment and education, the jauntily paced doc breaks down colonialism in the fashion world with an eye-opening montage of high-fashion headdresses on New York and Paris runways, and follows the story through to the work of today’s Indigenous creators and designers. It’s the most detailed of the sections, calling out cultural appropriation for what it really is, damaging cultural theft.
The story of legendary Sac and Fox Nation athlete and Olympian Jim Thorpe is the centerpiece of the Sports section, while the Politics sequence is moistly academic talking heads explaining the Iroquois Confederacy’s impact on the US Constitution. The movie wraps with Earth, and an examination of Vancouver Island First Nations’ salmon farming protests.
It covers a lot of ground, and in its totality “Red Fever” is a bit uneven in its execution, but it is educational and entertaining, and paints a vivid portrait of Indigenous resilience.
“Danny Collins” begins with a flashback to 1971. The title character is an up-and-coming folk singer promoting his first album. His Chime Magazine interviewer is clearly a fan, telling the young singer that soon he would he rich, famous and have more women than he’ll know what to do with.
Collins squirms in his seat.
“Why are you staring at me like that information scares you?”
“Because it does,” sputters Collins.
Cut to forty years later. Collins is a sell out, a Neil Diamond sound-a-like superstar who has become comfortable with the money, fame and women while developing a crippling cocaine habit. As a birthday gift his long time manager Frank (Christopher Plummer) gives him a letter from John Lennon, written in 1971 in response to the Chime Magazine interview. Collins never received the handwritten note, but its content regarding the Beatles’s thoughts on fame, fortune and not letting them affect your creativity, rock Collins.
“What would have happened if I got that letter when I was supposed to?” he wonders. “My life would have turned out different.”
Taking the letter to heart, he decides to change his life. The first stop on his recovery tour? New Jersey, to contact a son (Bobby Cannavale) he’s never met.
Appropriately enough, I guess, for a movie about music the story spends a great deal of time plucking at heartstrings. Sentimental and sappy, the only rock-and-roll things here are the John Lennon songs that wallpaper the soundtrack.
As edgy as Collins’s big hit “Baby Doll”—which comes complete with its own dance—the movie doesn’t ever feel authentic, but Pacino is Pacino and brings a certain charm to the main character. One of the film’s running jokes has Danny asking hotel manager Mary (Annette Bening) out for dinner, only to have her reject his offer. He won’t give up, however, and neither does Pacino. His Leonard Cohen-esque singing aside, he commits fully to the role and fills in some of the gaps with sheer strength of will.
Cannavale and Jennifer Garner, as the long-lost son and daughter-in-law and Plummer also bring considerable charm but make no mistake, this is Pacino’s peacock show. Like the character, the film is ridiculous but has a lot of heart and it’s hard to deny the underlying good-vibe on display.
