Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden are a pair of directors who have at least a half dozen films under their belt. They broke on the scene with the Ryan Gosling film Half Nelson and haven’t looked back. They’ve had good success with Mississippi Grind starring Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn as well as with Captain Marvel starring Brie Larson. Their latest film has a much bigger cast of actors. It’s also a bigger and bigger story all around. Considering it’s an anthology film. Anthology movies can be a bit tricky, but I think they pulled it off with Freaky Tales.

This anthology film has four chapters each one with its own name, 1:Strength In Numbers, is about a burgeoning romance between two young friends who have found their place among a group of punk rockers, 2:Don’t Fight The Feeling, is about two teenage girls trying to break into rapping which is a mans thing at this point in history, 3:Born To Mack is a about a hitman who lost everything and can’t figure out what to do with himself after the tragic loss he has faced. His work gets in the way of his life choices. Chapter 4:The Legend Of Sleepy Floyd.  NIs about the legendary basketball player Sleepy Floy of the Warriors taking revenge on some bad guys who wronged him. None of these chapter titles will give away any of the plot details, but the title of the film itself should tell you enough about this period piece movie set in the 1980s. There is enough freaky stuff going on here that the audience will definitely be entertained. I’m sure of that. 

This anthology movie is a mix of a bunch of different things, a coming of age story,  An inner city  musical biopic. A hitman’s story redemption. Another aspect is about a dirty police detective and his neo nazi son and a martial arts film featuring an 80s basketball legend. It’s hard to say how all of these things got combined into one film, but they all ended up fitting together quite nicely.  I’ve been a fan of Fleck and Boden before, but this may be the best work of their careers thus far. They blend so many different genres it’s quite honestly mindblowing to fathom all of  them.

The cast is too big for me to talk about everybody, but I’ll mention a handful of the main characters and the actors who play them. The young couple in the first chapter are played by Jack Champion and Ji-young Yoo. They make a good couple and it’s good to see there is a diverse storyline going on with their arc as well as the two female rappers played by Normani and Dominique Thorn. The inner city Oakland scene at this time in history was still a bit contentious with gang violence and skinheads running around causing problems for anybody who looked different than them. Pedro Pascal plays a hitman. This was a different kind of role for this actor who is everywhere these days. Jay Ellis plays Sleepy Floyd, the NBA basketball player. He seemed right at home in this role both as a basketball player and martial artist. He is literally chopping guys heads off. This entire cast was fantastic though and I didn’t even mention the cameos or guest stars.

Tom Hanks has a guest appearance as a video store clerk and he was quite funny for this part. I didn’t expect him to be in here at all so that was cool when he showed up in an interesting role. Angus Cloud (Euphoria) played one of the robbers and it’s sad to see him because we all know he recently passed away. This was probably the last performance of his career.. He will definitely be missed. Ben Mendelsohn plays the guy who is actually a correct Oakland police detective. He has his hands in all kinds of illegal activities and that’s the tip of the type of guy he is. He’s a [pretty nasty character to say the least, Too Short, the rapper, plays a cop and he’s also the narrator telling this crazy story. These were pretty good characters in the story played by some of the best actors of their generation.

Besides everything I’ve mentioned already there is also a supernatural element to this story. Something is in the air in Oakland at this time and it makes things crazy. The something I don’t know, but It added an aspect to the overall story that fascinated me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that this could have been  a fictionalized story. Who knows? Similar to “Ghostbusters” something was in the air and it didn’t feel right. It didn’t affect my enjoyment of this film though. I had an absolute blast watching that transpired happen.

Freaky Tales like the title suggests is a bit freaky. But that doesn’t mean it’s not good, because it is. I like when directors take swings like this. Sometimes it’s a swing and miss and other times it’s a homerun. This time it was a homerun from my humble perspective. The cast was out of this world and the various story arcs fit together very nicely. Mixing real life historical people with fictionalized characters was a nice touch. Using a diversity aspect to the story made sense as well. I love it when I’m surprised by a film and this one was quite a big surprise. I had an absolute blast watching this movie. Fleck and Boden should get more opportunities after this success.

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen