Johnny Mad Dog
As with van Sant's Palme D'Or winning masterpiece, Johnny Mad Dog portrays young teenagers as terrifyingly consummate killers.

I was told prior to the screening of Johnny Mad Dog  “if you enjoy this film, there’s something wrong with you”. By the end, I quite understood what the person meant. Possibly one of the most unrelenting films I’ve seen, this makes the brutal latter half of Gus van Sant’s Elephant seem like child’s play – a bad pun I know, but an apt one. As with van Sant’s Palme D’Or winning masterpiece, Johnny portrays young teenagers as terrifyingly consummate killers.

The film follows a group of teen rebel soldiers in war-torn Liberia over a couple of days – the exact date not specified. The platoon, headed up by the eponymous Johnny “Mad Dog”, march from village to village, town to town, killing, burning, raping, looting: ‘liberating the people’. The incessant succession of such brutal events is utterly exhausting. There are no moments of humour – lighter scenes of human joshing and joking to relieve the tension that our Hollywood pallets might be yearning for, only patches of brief calm while the group plan their next murderous skirmish. This is seriously uncompromising stuff.

Opening scene: erratic hand-held camera accompanies our troupe of juvenile “death-givers” as they vaingloriously tout themselves, through the siege of an innocent village house. Sparse lancets of dusty sunlight penetrate the dark house, dancing playfully upon the sinuous backs of the ferocious boys. Staccato shots of AK butts to faces, piston kicks to ribs and furious barking taunts are inter-cut with one of the rebels delicately and lovingly dressing himself in a pure-white wedding dress – a deeply disquieting juxtaposition. The inhabiting family are dragged outside, a plethora of gun barrels in faces – sporadic jabs in eye, temple or mouth; “Where are the children?” Johnny shrieks; futile protestation and denial aggravate the boys further: butt to the face, Dad. No Good Advice – one of the youngest troops, no older than twelve – drags out a trembling boy maybe five years his minor, mother crying uncontrollably; “he’s not a fighter, he’s a student!”; son is thrust a rifle – half a dozen clicks herald half a dozen barrels at his skull: “shoot your father or we shoot you!”

And this is only the first five minutes. A second narrative thread follows a young girl who encounters Johnny and his boys in a decimated apartment block. Having fled from the oncoming rampaging rebels, she and her younger brother stand in silent terror at the mercy of Johnny. The first flash of hesitation and humility fleetingly touches his rotweiller face; he leaves them and retreats. In what follows, Johnny and the girls’ paths weave and cross culminating in an unbearably tense final scene.

The most troubling thing about this film is the lack of reasoning. Apart from a few vague hints and intimations, we are never even sure if the boys are even sure quite what it is they’re fighting for. And our suspicions are confirmed when towards the end, Johnny reports to his commander only to be told that he now works for the President – the very despised man they were risking their lives to destroy. This almost meaningless defection completely invalidates any of the preceding action. This relationship between the indefatigable ferocity of the violence and utter arbitrariness of its purpose is deeply unsettling. Power through violence is the code they live by. In a country with no social, economic and political stability, a hugely fractured infrastructure, and little or no sense of national unity, this is the only thing these boys can do to feel a sense of control. That the actors playing these boys are themselves former child soldiers makes it even scarier. This raw aggression, relentless machismo, utter disregard for anyone, bound with an almost Hitleran sadism is all drawn from real, firsthand experience.

In essence, this is a horrible film. But every now and again a film like this comes along and we – in the comfortable ignorant duvet of Western safety and ignorance – are forced to see something we do not like. For a day maybe we think, oh god, that’s terrible, and then we have the luxury of forgetting. I think it’s important to feel uncomfortable and guilty every now and again. This film foments our preconceptions, our priorities, our world-views. Perhaps if we look into the causes of current African civil strife we might find blood on our own hands, at the irrevocable ruin and damage British Imperial past has wrought. But then again, who am I to preach.

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