Brutal. This Belgium film has been compared to Trainspotting for its depiction of the unruly lives of society’s dregs, but one look at it and you’ll see why it makes the Danny Boyle classic look like West Side Story. Ex Drummer is Trainspotting on a cocktail of cocaine and steroids. It’s savagely violent, explicitly offensive, politically incorrect and boasts humor as black as Satan’s morning coffee.
To say that the four protagonists are misfits would be a crime of neglect, since they are much more dangerous than that. Ex Drummer tells the forming of the ironically named punk band The Feminists, consisting of three handicapped social outcasts who recruit successful writer Dries to be their drummer. Dries agrees out of amusement and boredom, reasoning that his bandmates would provide interesting material for a story. They are certainly not without their sideshow qualities. The singer has a lisp and is a psycho who beats women to a pulp. The bassist has a paralyzed arm from a traumatic masturbation accident and is the gay son of a highly dysfunctional family. The guitarist is deaf and an explosive coke fiend. Despite this, they are musically gifted (one rehearsal scene exhibits a pretty sweet cover of Devo’s “Mongoloid”) and plan to do a one time only performance at a local battle-of-the-band.
At first, the film lulls you into believing that Dries is the “normal” guy who’s supposed to be our window character to this hellhole, but as the film progresses, it’s quite obvious that Dries is the worst monster of all, enjoying the misery of others because he belongs to a higher rung on the social ladder. The film somewhat argues without saying that the public is fascinated by stories of depravity in order to have dregs to pity or look down on. This is perfectly visualized by the mucky locations the characters inhabit, except for Dries’ immaculately clean condo. The writer is the one worth envy—rich and famous, with a beautiful and loyal girlfriend who invites her pretty young friends to join them in bed—able to live atop a happy tower because he manufactures conflict and we eat them up. The film knows that it's not half as interesting without its shocking bits. The irony isn't lost, just amplified. It gleefully mocks you for watching the film as much as it makes a mockery of its subjects.
Director Koen Mortier brings to the film a bottomless bag of cutting style and camera tricks. Quite the essential tool when the world you’re birthing is this demented. It doesn’t try to pass off these extremities as a reflection of the real world—just the funhouse distortion, the one with the good features stripped off. The use of surreal images attract more comparisons to Trainspotting, though this film’s vision of this lifestyle embraces the humor in a more painful manner. A side character from a rival band is revealed to possess a comically large penis the size of an elephant’s, but instead of playing the ridiculous prop just for laughs, they dare use it in the most painful-looking (and graphic) anal sex scene I’ve ever seen on film. Comedy by way of nervous laughter.
Koen Mortier’s next project is an adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel. This film is perhaps the best example of how right he is for that type of material. Ex Drummer is sort of a Belgian cross between Brad Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk, following a cast of morally bankrupt characters to a mosh pit of sin, with added grotesque quirks that are repulsive and hilarious at the same time. It constantly walks the line separating the funny from the disturbing, daring the viewer to spot the joke.
