In some respects, I've always felt a little sorry for town mayors in films like "The Deadly Swarm." Ever since Jaws, they've been depicted as greedy Capitalist entrepreneurs that readily ignore the sensible advice of the scientist/cop/journalist/sexy teens who know about the rapidly approaching ferocious monster(s) for the sake of chasing those delicious American dollars. Call it crazy, but I've always felt a twinge of sympathy for them, they are just trying to do their jobs and protects local economic interests at a time of tremendous cultural importance. However, none have tugged at my heart strings quite like the Mayor in this film.
Here is a man who we are supposed to despise, but when we first meet him, he is asking the hero (an insect specialist this time around) how the job of solving the mosquito problem is going. Rather than saying "yeah, I've killed them all with my fancy insect-specialist stuff," the response is more along the lines of: "well, I'm bringing thousands more mosquito's into the neighbouring countryside. Oh, and some bats too." The movie then expects us an audience to condemn the mayor when he makes the logical step of firing the man, enchanting though his eyes may be and telling him to get out of town. All because he's fat, wearing a designer shirt and smoking a cigar. Lousy successful people! How dare they occupy positions of office!
Fast forward about twenty five minutes and the Mayor now has the town's police chief sat before him. When asked whether the previously mentioned insect specialist has been thrown out of town, the sheriff doesn't say: "yes of course mayor, he's well on his way to the border." No, instead, the reply this time is more like: "no, actually I've been hanging out with him for the past few hours and done nothing but blow up the city morgue because it had a bit of a wasp problem." Just like before, we are expected to applaud this decision and cheer on the honest lawman for not giving in to the reasonable demands made of him. But surely shelling out for a can of Raid would do?
Fast forward even more and for the third time in the movie, we are expected to condone the mayor. The reason this time? Simple, a large group of men in military uniforms have turned up with a very polite man and lots of expensive looking equipment, claiming to be from an environmental protection agency. Yet again, the mayor tells the good natured old sheriff to deal with the rugged hero. He's a loose cannon! A wild card! For all we know, he could be siding with the bees! From the tone of the scene, it's quite obvious that we should be shaking our fists with rage at the mayor's foolish decisions but let's be fair now...the only reason he's willing to trust this new group is because they look like professionals, act like professionals, haven't blown up any of the town and haven't said "actually, we're here to carry out an evil plan." Needless to say then, this is not a great movie when it comes to even-handed depictions of public officials. Though to be honest now, films about swarms of killer bees which have remote Guatemalan tribesmen speaking fluent Castellan Spanish probably didn't spend much time on the script. "The Deadly Swarm" is a terrible movie, the only reason I'm giving it two stars is because at one bit, a UFO nut starts firing a shotgun wildly into the swarm while shouting "Nobody's probing my rectum!" Don't even rent this one folks.
