Rating: C
Dir: Rusty Rehl
Star: Jon Waters, Quinn Aikele, Aaron Henretty, Anthony Hill
I get the feeling Rehl and I have a lot of DVDs in common. Apart from a shared love for Hundreds of Beavers, I suspect his DVD shelves may well contain a number of Coen Brothers films, Shaun of the Dead, and probably a copy of Office Space too. That’s the conclusion I come to, after watching his debut feature. The tagline here is, “Two friends. One heist. And a pack of relentless Mormon gangsters,” so you can see the quirky tone for which this is aiming. The three elements listed, however, do not all manage to achieve a consistent degree of success. Though it’s engaging enough, especially as a first attempt, and on a smaller budget.
The friends are Patrick (Waters) and his pal, Donnie (Aikele), who have a bit of a Shaun vibe about them – perhaps helped by Aikele looking a bit like a tweaker version of Simon Pegg. Patrick is currently living in his car, but is desperate to get back on the property ladder. Through Donnie, he’s put in contact with Mr. Rossi (Henretty), who needs help retrieving something from a former business associate. In exchange, he’ll get the uncreditworthy Patrick set up with a mortgage. Despite qualms, Patrick accepts the deal, and the actual burglary itself goes relatively smoothly. However, it’s not long before the owner is on their trail, and he has some rather unpleasant friends, who are unleashed on Patrick and Donnie to recover the item in question.
OMG, a film starring John Wate… Oh, hang on: no h. My mistake. Once I got over my initial disappointment at that, I liked hanging out with the two leads. They have an easy compatibility, despite their disparate characters. This makes their friendship credible, as well as the annoyance of Donnie’s girlfriend that they spend time together. While they may have the technical skills to pull off the initial heist, much like the Dude in The Big Lebowski, they are singularly unsuited for the subsequent blowback. The issues are more on the other side of the coin, although having Mormon gangsters is an intriguing idea, reminding me of the memorable Amish crime boss Kai Proctor, in the Banshee TV series.
The problem is, the ones here present almost no danger. Ok, not every villain can be Anton Chigurh: the ones here simply fail to present any significant degree of menace. They need to be established as dangerous, and neither the script nor the performances gave me the slightest reason to fear them. Indeed, there seemed to be a palpable drop-off in general, between the leads and the rest of the cast (though two good actors is more than many debut movies manage to acquire!). It felt as if the biggest threat to Patrick was the nail on which he stood during the heist, and “tetanus” is not a great antagonist. There remains promise here, and it seems a case of needing more to like, rather than active problems.