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REVIEW: ‘Choke’ bites off more than it can swallow

By Locke Peterseim

I’m guessing the odds are pretty good you won’t like “Choke.” Let me amend that: the chances are pretty great you won’t even see “Choke.”

A quick plot summary reveals the film’s limited commercial appeal: Victor, a sex addict with abandonment issues who’s employed as a Colonial reenacter, works to save his grifter mother from dying of dementia while going about his own regular con of choking on food in public in order to squeeze cash — and love — from his rescuers. Oh, and he might also be the half-clone Second Coming of Christ.

So right away “Choke”’s audience is limited to the cult of author Chuck Palahniuk, fans of Sam Rockwell and filmgoers who seek out those oddball fall indies that squeak in somewhere between the summer ballyhoo and the start of Oscar Season. Oh, and college students perpetually seeking subversive pop culture to guide their own social rebellion. And fans of Colonial reenactments.

I myself firmly fall into two of those four categories. I’ve been a Rockwell devotee since “Galaxy Quest,” my love for the droopy-eyed, sardonic actor growing with his work in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and “The Assassination of Jesse James.” And I also have a soft spot for these sorts of doomed little indie films that sneak out during the fall festival season (though “Choke” debuted at Sundance last winter).

As for Mr. Palahniuk, I can’t say I’m fan — though as with cats and their owners, it’s not so much that I hate Palahniuk or his novels, but rather that I have little patience for the small but moronically devoted sub-group of fans who slavishly drool over his ironic, romantic nihilism.

To be fair, I liked both the book and the film “Fight Club” well enough, and the film version of “Choke” has been aggressively marketed as the thematic and creative follow-up to “Fight Club.” But while “Fight Club” the film was plenty chaotic, it also packed a visceral (and, thanks to director David Fincher, a visual) punch. It had a dark drive and energy that propelled it past its flaws.

“Choke,” adapted and directed by “That Guy” actor Clark Gregg, is a much softer, mushier affair. First-time director Gregg has plenty of heart and affection for the story and its characters, but he comes up short on cinematic vision or serio-comic impact. To take their titles to silly simplifications, if “Fight Club” throws wild swings that sometimes connect, “Choke” too often seems to be asphyxiating on its own introspection. Taking on 12-step programs, religion, sex, and childhood issues, “Choke” often feels lost and wandering.

Which could be seen as an intentional artistic choice, since that is what amounts to the film’s primary theme: it’s a meandering emotional travelogue for, as Nietzsche called them, “the bungled and the botched.” Or, according the script, “the hopelessly guilty” and “sad and lonely.” A self-described “pervert, failure,” Victor (Rockwell) suffers from a tangible fear of being good, of having hope. He’s metaphorically (and, eventually, literally) blocked, choked off from happiness.

“Choke” is very competently made and with a tangible dollop of heart behind the sex addiction and psych wards. It’s full of clever, symbolic interconnectivity, but like its characters, the film never really feels like it knows where it’s going. Rockwell especially is poorly served by the lack of focus. Always a fairly reactive, befuddled actor, he comes off numb and neutered here, which is true enough to the character of Victor, but not enough to connect with and draw in the viewer. Kelli MacDonald (“No Country for Old Men”) is her usual, beguiling sad-eyed self, but as Victor’s love interest, she’s more plot device than human being. Brad William Henke, another “That Guy” actor, provides some of the film’s only soulful and hopeful moments.

There will be those who seek out “Choke” and end up getting something from it, finding grace and redemption in its darkly comic, neurotic self-loathing. I myself cannot fully shake the suspicion that “Choke” might sneak back up on me days, weeks, or months from now. But despite all of Palahniuk and Gregg’s attempts to be subversive and quirky, the film itself just isn’t cohesive or powerful enough to carry home its point. Whatever it may have been.