‘Freaky Tales’ Review: A Scrappy Spirit Masks Narrative Misfires

Freaky Tales
Writers/Directors: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Normani, Dominique Thorne, Jack Champion, Ji-young Yoo, Angus Cloud

There's something immediately endearing about Freaky Tales, even before you dig into the depth of its ensemble cast or the variety of its quartet of intertwined stories. There's a scrappy quality to the latest film from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, their first indie release after moving to blockbusters with Captain Marvel, and it gets you on the film's side early. 

That scrappiness, reflected in the characters and scenarios that make up the four tales inside this anthology release, persists throughout Freaky Tales. When combined with a terrific cast, it's enough to keep you engaged. Where the film struggles, though, is arguably where it counts the most, leaving an uneven journey that often can't find the right tonal balance, and sometimes leaves stories behind just as they're getting interesting.

Set in Oakland in 1987, Freaky Tales uses the real locations of the city, real figures in Oakland culture, and real historical events and threats to buoy its stories, all of which seem to spin out from the same movie theater showing The Lost Boys on a weekend night. In one, a group of progressive punks (including Ji-young Yoo and Keir Gilchrist) fight to save their club from a gang of violent skinheads. In another, a rising rap duo (Normani and Dominique Thorne) face off against Oakland hip-hop legend Too Short in a quest for their big break. Then there's the centerpiece of the whole picture, in which an enforcer and debt collector (Pedro Pascal) tries to escape the pull of a dangerous mob boss (Ben Medelsohn), which all flows into the finale: a scheme to rob the homes of Golden State Warriors players, including the legendary Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis). Presented as a kind of mixtape of the creative, the dangerous, and the liberating elements of the city at the time, the film weaves each of these stories together, sometimes lightly and sometimes more deliberately, in an effort to create what feels like one endless night in a magical time and place. 

And it mostly works, at least on a craft level. Boden and Fleck are clearly having a blast playing in the sandbox they've built, letting their camera linger over the neon and the marquee lights and the overwhelming sense of possibility that comes from being young and alive in a city that's jumpin'. Everything from the costuming to the soundtrack to the way the film's characters flow between each other's stories makes Freaky Tales hold together quite well, even when the narrative isn't quite backing up the sense of wonder looming over the whole thing.

The cast is also spectacular, finding and matching the energy of each of their pieces with uncommon synchronicity. Pascal has the heaviest load to bear as he's asked to carry the darkest emotional arc of the entire film, but he balances that heft out with moments of surprising, vulnerable levity. Mendelsohn, who was born to play unhinged villains, has a blast with his role as a truly bad dude who maybe doesn't have it quite together. Throw in a scene-stealing Tom Hanks as a surly video store clerk and great work from Ellis as a basketball star who has to go on a vengeance quest and it's hard to look away. 

Still, there are moments that make you, if not look away, then at least tune out a little. Freaky Tales is at its best when it's embracing the general, well, freakyness of its quartet of stories, leaning into the bizarre, the violent, and the unexpected. It's fun to watch a group of sensitive punks build homemade weapons to fight Nazis, and to watch a basketball star reveal unexpected proficiency as a swordsman. These things are the lifeblood of the film, and it's clear everyone has a ball making them, but Freaky Tales bridges those moments with often surprisingly subdued bits of character work that, while not bad exactly, don't quite match the rhythms of the set pieces.

For a movie called Freaky Tales, the film spends a surprising amount of time free of freaky things, and that's made starker by the moments when the freaky energy really does get to come out and play. It makes for a film laden with narrative misfires, even when they do ultimately get rescued by the climax of any given story. 

There's a lot to love about Freaky Tales. Its cast, its visuals, and its focus on capturing the energy of a specific time and place all make it a very solid film, and it's just good to see Boden and Fleck working with this kind of indie spirit again. It's hard to avoid thinking about what could have been had things been a little narratively tighter, but if you like indie anthologies with a little unhinged energy to them, or you just like Pedro Pascal, you'll feel right at home.

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