An extraordinarily well-timed superhero satire arrives on DVD. Writer-director James Gunn's twisted indie deserves to be seen by anyone who gets their rocks off watching the recent blockbuster deluge of costumed dudes. Rainn Wilson is Frank, whose wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) leaves him for drug dealer Jock (Kevin Bacon). Deranged by grief he becomes The Crimson Bolt, a superhero who uses a monkey wrench to beat drug dealers, muggers and guys who jump the line at the movies. The tone swings strangely from bleak to absurd, but the uncomfortable tar-black humour and brutal violence deftly skewers the superhero genre, taking it to its logical conclusion and leaving smug pretenders like
Kick-Ass in the dust. And in her most unhinged performance since
Hard Candy, Ellen Page absolutely kills as Crimson Bolt's psychopathic kid-sidekick Boltie.